52 in 25: #7 - Early Christian Writings

 

Still working on a novel (it’s a long one), but in the meantime I finished my book for spiritual reading: Penguin Classics Early Christian Writings.  This is part of my own ressourcement, in a way.  I was inspired to go back to some of the Church Fathers last year with the feast of St. Clement (November 23).

 

Texts include “The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,” “The Epistles of Ignatius,” “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” “The Martyrdom of Polycarp,” “The Epistle of Diognetus,” “The Epistle of Barnabas,” and “The Didache.”  Some of these I have read, in whole or in part, but even those I had were good to return to.  Some of them I had also used in my thesis for seminary, particular pertaining to the Eucharistic language in martyrdom accounts.

 

These were good for reflection and for my Holy Hours.  It is especially interesting to see common areas of concern, like unity, which we still need to remember today.  And, of course, the beauty of dying for the faith.  They are inspirational, no doubt.  The one criticism I had with this particular version is that some of the translation was a bit different, but the general idea remains.  I also probably should have chosen a bit more comprehensive collection, but it’s a good starter.

52 in 25: #6 - The Abolition of Man

Due to my homily last week where I quoted The Chronicles of Narnia, I decided to read a little C.S. Lewis.  In this case, it really is a “little” C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man.  It’s short, but it packs a punch.

 

In essence, Lewis is contradicting some of the philosophy that was prevalent in his time (1943) which, indeed, continues to this day.  Although he never uses the term, he is condemning moral relativism, the scourge of modern philosophy that many popes have labeled the worst evil that we face today.  Moral relativism, of course, states that there are no moral absolutes.  Today, we hear this as “my truth vs. your truth.”

 

It's not an easy read, I would say it’s probably the most difficult Lewis that I have come across, but in the end, you get the point.  Moral relativism eats itself and creates “men without chests.”  In other words, if we continue down that road, the many will be controlled by the few who rule “rationally” based on whims.  One part that stood out to me was when he said that the Conditioners (the rulers) will say they are using logic, but instead it is just impulses, rather than actual reason.  Thus “their extreme rationalism, by ‘seeing through’ all ‘rational’ motives, leaves them creatures of wholly irrational behavior.”  If that doesn’t sound like current progressives, I don’t know what does.

 

As usual, C.S. Lewis was ahead of his time.  Or, our time has not learned from the problems of his time.  Either way, if you can wade through the sometimes thick philosophical language, The Abolition of Man remains a classic that we need to heed.

52 in 25: #5 - Ancient DNA: The Making of a Celebrity Science

This is a tough one for me.  A little backstory.  Back in graduate school, we at Auburn hosted SoHoST – the Southern History of Science and Technology conference.  I met a number of other graduate students from the South there, but one that stood out was a student who was studying the history of paleontology.  I was kind of jealous, “why didn’t I think of that?”  All these years later, her book was published in 2022 and I knew I would have to read it.

 

It's been sitting on my shelf for a little bit, but with my nephew reading Jurassic Park for the first time, I final decided to pick up Ancient DNA: The Making of a Celebrity Science by Elizabeth D. Jones.  I’ll try to be nice but honest.  It was a struggle for me to read, perhaps because I am no longer in the field.  It was well written, but it seemed very “surface level” to me.  One of the more frustrating things is that it brought up a few very interesting, in my eyes, moral questions, but they were not really dealt with.

 

As the title says, the book if focused on the development of the “ancient DNA” wing of science, which was highly influence by Jurassic Park, but in reality deals with any species that has become extinct.  Once I realized that the consensus is that DNA cannot survive more than 1 million years, meaning dinosaur DNA cannot survive, I kind of checked out.  But again, there were some moral questions that could be discussed more.  She outlines how this is a “celebrity science,” meaning it has gained traction largely because it is something that can be sold to the media and the public (we can resurrect the woolly mammoth! Or dinosaurs!).  The problem that is brought up is that it tends to lead at least some scientists to focus on areas that they can “sell.”  Is that really a good thing?  Too much of science today is focused on what “sells” rather than what is worthy to be studied or even true (“I can be published if I say that we have found dinosaur DNA, even if it’s not true and can never be true.” – and don’t get me started in other areas of science *cough* environment *cough*).  The good news is that at least some scientists are questioning this.

 

Another major moral question, again being questioned by scientists but needing further study outside of what is given here, just because we can do something does that mean that we should (paraphrasing Ian Malcolm)?  Say we could de-extinct a woolly mammoth (there’s a strong argument that we can’t), should we?  Even more importantly, if a scientist could impregnate a woman with a neanderthal fetus (again, it probably can’t actually happen), should they?  I understand those questions aren’t necessarily the scope of this book, and I’m doing the old “this is the book that you should have written,” which isn’t fair, but I still would have liked a little more in-depth discussion on these moral questions.