Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["RHONDA MCDONNELL" <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>]

Title: Message

As usual, Jim, I find myself agreeing with what you're proposing.  In this case, however, I can only agree to a point.  You lost me here:

 

 

And isn't this just what the Hiesenberg uncertainty principle teaches  -- that there is abosolute uncertainty at the core of our knowledge of every event.  Isn't that what the modern secular world has learned.  And isn't that what the post modern philosophers are trying to come to grips with.  I think that some from the religious world have mistakenly construed post modernism as a refutation of religious teachings and have over reacted.  But I say scientific truth and philosophical understanding are friends of religon and need not be feared.   

 

 

If, as you say, there is absolute uncertainty at the core of our knowledge of every event, then that includes Christ's incarnation as man and his entrance into time, as well as the covenant made between God and Abraham.  I'm willing to concede that we need to be uncertain of all matters human (including perhaps the manner in which institutional religion is practiced--I'll give the post-modernists that).  However, despite lack of positive scientific proof, I am not uncertain in my knowledge of the two events I've listed -- nor was Percy, despite his love for the elegance of the scientific method, and his concordant belief that "scientific truth and philosophical understanding are friends of religion and need not be feared."

 

Of course, maybe my musings are influenced by my crankiness with students who misread Nietzsche, think they are uber-men, and that their MTV personal "truth" is reason not to listen to anyone else.  So keep explaining this business of "absolute uncertainty" to me, and maybe I'll get it.

 

Rhonda