{"title":"Yes, the Universe Is on Our Side","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Lonergan’s question is for all of us, including religious believers. The process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead renders the yes plausible, allowing us to understand the universe as more than dead matter and blind forces. There is no possibility of a final proof in answering Lonergan’s question, but there is knowledge. Kronman is not only the culmination of the no, he is the commencement of the yes. Accepting mortality engenders all human possibilities, including tenderness. The universe is emergent and creative. In its processes, the universe moves in the direction of life, complexity, intelligence, and morality. The stability and universality of the laws of nature support a friendly universe. The Earth maintains conditions for life. Quantum physics demonstrates our connection to matter. History is not circular but directional. Human life is purposeful. None of this is accidental.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"104 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114225221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Age of Evasion","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"America is now in the Age of Evasion. Our public events are scripted and phony. Our political rhetoric is filled with lies. Our symbols are fake. Our proposals are unreal. Virtue signaling has replaced reflection. We avoid deep questions, such as, in the abortion controversy, when life begins. Cancel culture has drowned rational debate. Politics are narrow and frozen. We long for more in our public life but feel that it is out of reach. We evade out of fear of the consequences of the Death of God. We do not want to acknowledge how alone we feel. We need a new story.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134421657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is the Universe on Our Side?","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"America cannot go on this way without risking the end of constitutional democracy. We have already entered post-liberalism. But there is something to be done. We can launch a new story, and thus begin to recover normal public life, by asking the ultimate question bequeathed to us by Bernard Lonergan: Is the universe on our side? Asking an ultimate question restores faith in questioning itself. That kind of questioning ends the Age of Evasion. We ask Lonergan’s question through a loose cultural entity he called “cosmopolis.” As long as we agree to live by our answer to this question, even a no can contribute to the healing of American public life.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133192199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Breakdown in American Public Life","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"There is a breakdown in American public life. Our divisions today go well beyond usual partisan differences. Despite the many aspects of American life that are going quite well, including finally reckoning with our national heritage of racial oppression, we are filled with frustration and distrust. Americans suffer from destructive partisanship amounting to political deadlock. Our system cannot work when the political parties refuse to work together. Both sides believe their political opponents want to destroy them. We cannot even agree on the simplest and most obvious facts or turn to common sources of information. We call this the death of truth. These overlapping conditions contribute to widespread anger and despair.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132746150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Restored Public Life","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"When we live in the yes, public life in America will be rescued from despair. We know from the Hispanic community’s example that religious knowledge of our place in the universe is healthy. The yes functions similarly. At the personal level, the reader who answers Lonergan’s question with a yes will encounter celebration, gratitude, and, because we have not lived up to the direction of the universe, confession. The universe now offers correction that must be taken seriously, though not coercively or institutionally. The yes spreads through the cultural entity of cosmopolis, which will confront our nihilism. The disciplines and the university will be renewed by a new understanding of the unity of all subject matters. Each course of study, though different, is always of a universe that is on our side. Policy debates will consider the common good. Politics will be filled with meaning and be more generous.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124200161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Spiritual Dimension of the Breakdown","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"The usual explanations of the breakdown in American public life fail to account for our current condition. They do, however, point to an underlying national spiritual crisis. The economy has not actually performed that badly. Big money is not that influential. The pathologies of social media are symptoms of our problems, not sources. Even racism is only a part of our national distress. Both sides claim the unreasonableness of the other side is the problem. These opponents have weakened the institutions of government. Some observers have given up trying to explain our condition, pointing to human nature, when human nature should be constant, or to historical cycles that simply occur. Our crisis is part of the failure of the Enlightenment and capitalism to sustain meaningful human life in secular society. The problem is the Death of God.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116904265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does This Bring Us Back to God?","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"The book returns to the question of God within the world of the yes. The reader is given tools to continue the investigation, but no final conclusion is reached on the question of God. David Griffin’s process thought is naturalistic and panentheistic. This view of God shares attributes of traditional theism. But in process thought, God does not create ex nihilo, does not coerce, and remains within the causal structure of nature. Griffin argues that God is a necessary feature of process thought and its endorsement of enduring meaning. Donald Sherburne offers a different view, called “Whitehead Without God.” The book concludes that process thought without God can still renew public life. It remains for us in the future to investigate the mystery of holiness in the universe.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123186568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"No, the Universe Is Not on Our Side","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"In the 1990 “pale blue dot” photograph that Carl Sagan asked NASA to take, we see the potential of a negative answer to Bernard Lonergan’s question to renew American public life. For Sagan, the isolation of the Earth in the cosmic vastness “underscores our responsibility to deal kindly with each other” and preserve our planet. The conclusion that the universe is not on our side is supported by numerous features of reality: lifeless matter, knowledge limited to the senses, death, decline, the vagaries of history, entropy of the universe, and more. We can accept living in this no. The universe is not hostile, merely neutral. Several thinkers show the way forward, especially John Gray. We can practice Simon Critchley’s faith of the faithless. The instrumental thought of Randy Barnett demonstrates how to construct healthy institutions. Anthony Kronman reminds us that our lives are meaningful only because of our mortality.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115744776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Arrival of the Death of God","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"While there are many sincere religious believers, this culture no longer believes in God. That is why the Covid-19 pandemic did not raise serious issues of theodicy publicly. Friedrich Nietzsche’s Madman announcing the Death of God in 1882 concluded that he had come too early. His time is now. The Death of God unfolded through the disenchantment described by Max Weber and arrived with full force with the New Atheists in the early part of this century. Sam Harris announced the end of faith, which turned out to mean, in its denial of binding authority and objective justification, the death of truth. Now we each judge everything ourselves. The New Atheists also undermined human solidarity in politics. The breakdown in public life is the final flowering of the Death of God.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"276 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132506194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Faithless American Public Life","authors":"Bruce S. Ledewitz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563939.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"The crisis in American public life is our own doing. The underlying power of truth is unaffected. The manifestations of the crisis are that Americans now lack faith in everything. We feel the universe does not care about our purposes, so we lose confidence in purpose itself. We cannot justify being good without God. We do not trust expertise. We lack faith in the future. We lack faith in the disciplines. In law, Arthur Leff’s writing shows the depth of our lack of faith. Even religion and science are undermined. Our lack of faith is both internal—participants in these endeavors have lost faith in them—and external—the public has lost faith in these endeavors.","PeriodicalId":352738,"journal":{"name":"The Universe Is on Our Side","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122381673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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