-
preface
- University of Notre Dame Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
prefac e The following pages contain the text of the Erasmus Lectures , delivered at the University of Notre Dame during the academic year 2005–2006. For me the meaning of the occasion was enhanced by its occurring at an institute that bears the name of the father of Europe’s spiritual unity, a teacher at my alma mater. Erasmus taught tolerance at a time of intolerance and remains a guide in the religious turmoil of the present. Writing down a previously spoken text proved to be a sobering experience. The expectant faces, probing questions, intellectual challenges , which had made the delivery so exciting, no longer sustained the writing. To compensate for their absence, I have attempted to preserve at least some of the spontaneity of the original setting. Still, as lectures turned into chapters, theses proclaimed with the presumed authority of an invited speaker often assumed a tentative quality . Questions never asked or never answered glaringly appeared through the assertiveness of the spoken words. I became painfully aware of the provisional character of the ideas expressed, especially in the second part of the lectures. I hope to cast them in a more de- finitive form during the next years. As the lectures appear here, they nevertheless recapture for me the stimulating dialogue with an intelligent and generous audience engaged in a common search for the nature of modern culture. They also revived the gratitude I continue to feel toward my wonderful hosts, Robert Sullivan and Dianne Phillips, the director and vii viii Preface associate director of the Erasmus Institute, as well as the joy of reliving the presence of friends long out of sight yet marvelously unchanged , Cyril O’Reagan and Kathy Kaveney. I gratefully recall making the acquaintance of men and women with whom I felt an instant spiritual affinity, especially Dean Mark Roche, Professor Fred Dallmayer, and poet Henry Weinfield. To all of them I dedicate this memoir of a shared experience. Special thanks to Barbara Hanrahan, the director of the Notre Dame Press, and to Rebecca DeBoer, its managing editor, for their gracious kindness and patience. The first three chapters recapitulate much that I have developed in Passage to Modernity (Yale University Press, 1993) and The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Development of Modern Culture (Yale University Press, 2004). Parts of chapter 4 have been published in “On the Intellectual Sources of Modern Atheism,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 45 (1999): 1–11. ...