Compare Dr. Senior's idea of peace as the state of justice to the Augustinian concept of peace as the tranquility of order. Since modern society has largely denied the existence of a transcendent objective order, we cannot truly have peace or justice or order (or democracy, etc.). Instead, we're left with what Chesterton described in Orthodoxy as unhinged virtues: "When a religious scheme is shattered..., it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage." Thus we have mercy unchecked by justice, disdain for the death penalty, war to enforce "democracy," and so forth. Many things that seem paradoxical are probably only so because we've lost the Christian frame of reference.
This is very well said, thank you for commenting, and let us observe the crux of Chesterton's keenly insightful analysis of modern life: the scheme is "shattered," virtues and vices are "let loose" and "wander." This is fragmentation, the precise opposite of the wholeness—personal, social, ideological, religious, cosmic—that characterized medieval society and made order and coherence and interior peace possible, despite the fact that the world was filled with weak, fallible human beings then just as it is now.
Often when I read your posts, I’m reminded of one of your very first posts about the cosmic order. It’s so critical to understanding the Medieval Ages as well as the Christian worldview in general.
Absolutely correct, and in this essay I tried to show how in medieval culture even things like warfare and administration of justice, which are mostly pragmatic in modern society, had roots in the fundamental principles of the cosmos.
Compare Dr. Senior's idea of peace as the state of justice to the Augustinian concept of peace as the tranquility of order. Since modern society has largely denied the existence of a transcendent objective order, we cannot truly have peace or justice or order (or democracy, etc.). Instead, we're left with what Chesterton described in Orthodoxy as unhinged virtues: "When a religious scheme is shattered..., it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage." Thus we have mercy unchecked by justice, disdain for the death penalty, war to enforce "democracy," and so forth. Many things that seem paradoxical are probably only so because we've lost the Christian frame of reference.
This is very well said, thank you for commenting, and let us observe the crux of Chesterton's keenly insightful analysis of modern life: the scheme is "shattered," virtues and vices are "let loose" and "wander." This is fragmentation, the precise opposite of the wholeness—personal, social, ideological, religious, cosmic—that characterized medieval society and made order and coherence and interior peace possible, despite the fact that the world was filled with weak, fallible human beings then just as it is now.
Often when I read your posts, I’m reminded of one of your very first posts about the cosmic order. It’s so critical to understanding the Medieval Ages as well as the Christian worldview in general.
Absolutely correct, and in this essay I tried to show how in medieval culture even things like warfare and administration of justice, which are mostly pragmatic in modern society, had roots in the fundamental principles of the cosmos.
Pragmatic and clearly defined. Everything has a department or bureau or subject that’s isolated and treated apart from everything else.