As a young Christian philosopher, I wanted to be the confident, heresy-hunting Augustine, vanquishing the pagans with brilliance, fending off the Manichaeans and Pelagians with ironclad arguments. As a middle-aged man, I dream of being Mr. Rogers. When you\u2019re young, it\u2019s easy to confuse strength with dominance; when you\u2019re older, you realize the feat of character it takes to be meek. I used to imagine my calling was to defend the Truth. Now I\u2019m just trying to figure out how to love.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that I\u2019ve given up on truth. It\u2019s just that I\u2019m less confident we\u2019ll think our way out of the morass and malaise in which we find ourselves. Analysis won\u2019t save us. And the truth of the gospel is less a message to be taught than a mystery enacted. Love won\u2019t save us either, of course. But I\u2019ve come to believe that the grace of God that will save us is more powerfully manifest in beloved community than in rational enlightenment. Or, as Hans Urs von Balthasar has put it, \u201cLove alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.\u201d<\/p>\n
What changed my mind?<\/p>\n
In some ways, it was a philosophical appreciation for the limits of philosophy\u2014a rational conclusion about the limits of reason. <\/p>\n