quote for today

...from an amazing book by an amazing prof at Boston College, Peter Kreeft. I'm sure some things that he writes will bug christians out there, but he's gone a long way toward confronting the academy by debate and imagination, much like C. S. Lewis did in the 1940s and '50s. I really like his Between Heaven and Hell, which is set up as a hypothetical conversation/debate between Lewis, Aldous Huxley--author of Brave New World and a penultimate philosopher of the same time period as Lewis--and JFK, meeting together in Limbo (the stark "Mobil Ave." in Matrix 3) after their deaths within hours of one another on November 22, 1963. This book of his that I'm reading now, Socrates Meets Jesus, is also written in dialogue form. And though I'm not far into the book, it still proves to be challenging and really fun to read. ----- Socrates (S): I don't understand, then. If you admit that [ancient] Athens is more beautiful than [modern Boston], Massachusetts, then why don't you build cities like Athens instead of cities like [Boston]? Have you forgotten the knowledge or lost the skill? Bertha Broadmind (B): No. S: Then why not? B: Because you can't just turn back the clock, Socrates. S: Of course you can. And should if it keeps bad time. As it seems your world is keeping. B: Very clever... S: No, it is not clever. I'm being simple and serious. Why not? It is not a rhetorical question; it was a plea for an answer. B: Because you can't turn back progress, of course. S: Oh yes, I had forgotten. Your juggernaut god is very demanding and very jealous. B: Progress is not a god. It serves us, we don't serve it. S: Is that so? Then has it made you happier? B: I guess...I don't know. S: Do you think you should? B: I guess so. S: Let's see whether we can improve your knowledge from a guess to a certainty by finding a proof. If a master is served by a slave, does the master expect to be made happier in some way by this service? B: Of course, otherwise he wouldn't have a slave. S: And Progress, you say, is your slave rather than your master? B: Yes S: The you must expect it to make you happier. B: That follows. S: The next thing to ask then is whether it has done that for you. Are people in your day happier than they were before Progress came? B: I don't know. S: If you don't know whether it has made you happier or not, then why do you choose it? B: I guess it does make us happier today. But I don't know how you can tell that. How can you compare two different cultures? S: By looking for clues. There seem to be many. For instance, is there less discontent expressed in your literature? Less political unrest and revolution, less restless change in the world? Fewer and smaller wars, fewer people changing their lives, their jobs, their homes, their wives or husbands out of discontent? Less mental disorder? Fewer crimes? Fewer rapes, child abuse, infanticide, abortion? Less fear of death for the individual and for the society? Less uncertainty about whether life is worth living? B: [sighs] No, Socrates, there's more. S: More of what? B: More of all of those things. S: More of ALL of those things? B: yes. S: Every one? B: Yes. S: One thing, then, at least, seems abundantly clear: people in your society are much less happy than people in mine. B: I guess I have to admit that. S: And you nevertheless still believe in Progress? B: Of course I do! S: What strong faith you have in your god! --Peter Kreeft. Socrates Meets Jesus (1987). pp. 24-26.