Correspondence:
ZICKLIN, ROBERT & STEINFELS, GABRIELLE & BROWN, SYDNEY THOMSON & JOHNSON, LESLIE MARIA & ROSSI, VINCENT & Mullarkey, Maureen
Correspondence Egg on our face New York, N.Y. To the Editors: Politicians are used to being misquoted but, as you do in your editorial, "Life After Reagan," [Nov. 21], to attribute to the...
...I hope Commonweal is not slipping in literary matters...
...A genuine cosmology, which Christianity once possessed, describes the universe according to a living symbolism...
...21], I failed as a writer...
...GABRIELLE STEINFELS Oh, well...
...Illustrations: Cover and p. 11, Karsh...
...THE EDITORS A rare experience Palo Alto, Cal...
...1:17) that will not change with fickle science, but that will always illuminate...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mi...
...Why is it so hard to see the reason for the affinity of the new science and psychology with "Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies and psychologies...
...However, I felt in some ways Toolan's analysis did not always sustain his original insight...
...The "broken link between the West's contemplative tradition and academic knowledge'' must be reforged by Christians first, not by transpersonal psychology...
...As any of my high-school friends could point out, it was not the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland but Humpty Dumpty in Alice Through the Looking Glass who claimed that words mean what we say they mean...
...p. 17, Paul Spina, LNS...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...Hinduism retained its cosmology intact...
...I disagree with Toolan's implication that when psychology and science have dug deep enough in the "mine shafts of oriental religion," they will miraculously come to their senses and return to their Western roots...
...The opening quote from Owen Barfield carried a shock-the shock of simple truth, an epiphany, if you will, that re-presented itself time and again during my rereading of the article...
...To the Editors:- If my description of the impact of the evening of Puerto Rican music and dancing at the Theology in the Americas Conference came across to Peter Steinfels as naive or sentimental ["Exchange of Views, Nov...
...Western religion was not so fortunate...
...10] was excellent, timely and insightful...
...What passes for cosmology today is more a ' 'cosmography" than a true cosmology, which always has spiritual elements that point to the immanent and transcendent Presence of God...
...They are mistaken, but it is not entirely their fault...
...14 and 15, Bas., Tachydromos.p...
...Christian theology must not stand around like a temporarily abandoned bride waiting for her charms to be rediscovered by a temporarily faithless suitor...
...As the Red Queen says (Through the Looking Glass, Chapter IX): "It's too late to correct it...
...There is no Christian cosmology today that is genuinely distinct from the world view of modem science which presents a soulless cosmos of Cartesian extension and "the dispiriting logic of cog-psyches caught in the cosmic machine," as Toolan puts it...
...All the elements of a truly cosmic Christianity are already present in the tradition, in Aquinas and Bonaventure, as Toolan mentions, in the Fathers, in Pseudo-Dionysius, and many others...
...SYDNEY THOMSON BROWN Our own cosmology San Francisco, Cal...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...At most other conferences where I've been, such divisions and hostilities remain unmitigated...
...p. 5, Ulushak, Edmonton Journal...
...VINCENT ROSSI Director General Holy Order of MANS (Continued on page 28) Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...16, LNS...
...Oriental religion, unlike Western religion, did not (as Toolan rightly points out) surrender its world view to the seemingly victorious Weltanschauung of modern sci-entism...
...It seems a shame that Christian theology has such an inferiority complex in regard to Western science that it has to wait for the traditional insights of Christianity to be "validated" by secular authorities before it will boldly proclaim their timeless truth...
...when you' ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences...
...48106...
...The conference at that time was rife with hostility, mistrust, and anger on all levels-race, politics, sex...
...The experience itself was no such thing...
...To the Editors: There appears to be a serious error in the recent editorial "Life After Reagan" [Nov...
...21], to attribute to the Caterpillar the words of the Egg (Humpty Dumpty) cannot go uncorrected...
...ROBERT ZICKLIN New York, N.Y...
...This may sound trivial and trite...
...p. 17, Paul Spina, LNS...
...Now that the new physics is beginning to undermine the entire Cartesian-Newtonian edifice, Christian theology, which surrendered its traditional cosmology in the attempt to be' 'up to date," is in the embarrassing position of holding a bag whose epistemological and cosmological contents are largely incomplete and obsolete, discarded by the very science to which theology has surrendered her mind, if not her soul...
...When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.'" (Chapter VI...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...They have already looked to Christianity and found nothing to support their new discoveries...
...Only symbolism and analogy can take account of the invisible spiritual qualities of the real cosmos, which can never be reduced to numbers or formulae...
...To the Editors: David Toolan's article depicting psychology's theological quantum jump [Oct...
...Copyright© 1981 Commonweal Publishing Co...
...As an experience for me it was not...
...It was a rare experience for me to be in that place with its music and dance, and find myself becoming able to see some of those that I most mistrusted ideologically, as human beings and friends again...
...A genuinely Christian cosmology must be restored and upheld with vigor- a powerful vision of the Logos by whom "all things consist" (Col...
Vol. 108 • January 1981 • No. 1
