Gabriel Marcel demonstrated that one can be an honest heir to the post-Kantian tradition of critical philosophy and still be a convinced theist.
I tried to read him without success in high school, then in college, then in graduate school. One would have thought him a natural resource for someone who cut his intellectual teeth on Kierkegaard and other so-called "Existentialists." I will confess that his conversion to Catholicism around age 40 made me uneasy; perhaps some residual Protestant distrust of Catholic intellectuals has deprived me of his stimulating companionship through the decades. This is just a guess; an attempt at humility and candor.
Nowadays I find reading him as bracing as reading Pascal and more satisfying since, in his major works at least, he appears to have avoided the apologia that often muddles the Pensees.
Marcel was a Christian humanist in the grand Erasmian manner. I am thankful to have finally found my way to his simple, cheerful, and gracious table.
No comments:
Post a Comment