Back to Virtue, by Peter Kreeft
Some while back I reviewed C.S. Lewis‘ The Abolition of Man, an outstanding book on the decay of a common sense of morality in our culture and the effect it was likely to have on society. Peter Kreeft’s Back to Virtue reads like a companion to Lewis’ work–except that by the time Kreeft wrote it in the late 1980’s, the problems Lewis foresaw were already here. And they are still with us today. I was fascinated to read the following passage:
We have lost objective moral law for the first time in history. The philosophies of moral positivism (that morality is posited or made by man), moral relativism, and subjectivism have become for the first time not a heresy for rebels but the reigning orthodoxy of the intellectual establishment. University faculty and media personnel overwhelmingly reject belief in the notion of any universal and objective morality.
Yet our civilization, especially the two groups just mentioned, talks a good game of ethics. Ethical discussion has grown into the gap left by a dying ethical vision. It is the kind of discussion Saint Paul described as “ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth.” (Perhaps he had a prophetic vision of our modern TV talk shows!) It is intellectual ping-pong, “sharing views” rather than seeking truth. For how can we seek something we do not believe in? The notions that there is objective truth in the realm of morality and that an open mind is therefore not an end in itself but a means to the end of finding truth are labeled “simplistic” by the intellectual establishment when, in fact, they are simple sanity and common sense.
As I read this, written twenty years ago, I had a vision of virtually all of the progressive Episcopalian rhetoric I’ve read over the last three or four years. Kreeft nailed it; he absolutely nailed it. I could quote more; I was constantly reading bits of it to Jane as I went through it.
As the father of four children, I want my kids to grow up knowing right from wrong; and I want them to be able to articulate their knowledge. This book is going to help me do that, because it’s going to help me do it for myself. I’ve read it once, and I think I’m going to re-reading it fairly often for a while; there’s a wealth of information and practical advice that I can definitely use. If you’re concerned about where society’s going–and what you personally can do about it–you should read this book. I recommend it highly.