What is Common Experience?
What is common experience? Some people say generalizations, some say stereotypes (when it has to do with people) — but these words are pejorative.
Yet there are certain realities we all actually know without prior analysis. We can hardly grasp how we know; we can’t explain it; still, we all live our lives based more on common experience than on anything else.
To recover the order of reality — the hierarchy of being and the importance of common experience, something so pervasive that we don’t see it and don’t know how to speak of it — is the pressing challenge of our day. Because most accept the premise of materialism, which in turn flows from the premise of modernism (approaching everything with doubt), we are singularly hampered in even making a start.
Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity: Common Experience, the Hierarchy of Being, and Modern Science (affiliate link) by Daniel Toma is a valuable resource.
Toma explains why we find it hard to articulate a response — and then gives a vastly satisfying one. He had sent me his manuscript a few years ago to read and comment upon. I found his words inspiring and elevating; the book really excited me.
Toma deftly connects his own experiences as a boy becoming aware of the beauty and order of the natural world with the science that he has devoted his life to studying and teaching. Remember this little curriculum I recommended for your middle- or high-school student? Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity is in the same vein, but in the form of a sophisticated and academic volume that directly confronts the entire monolith of scientific materialism, subjecting it to a vigorous check from the cosmological synthesis of ancient and medieval philosophy.
Toma, a behavioral geneticist and professor of biology, offers a book to satisfy other academics, but with readable and accessible prose, drawing the lay person in and sustaining his interest throughout. He manages to get across the scientific and the philosophical arguments to the lay person, and I don’t know that there are many who can do that at this level. (The hardcover version also a handsomely produced book that is a pleasure to hold in one’s hands — I assume the paperback is of high quality as well.)
I would love to see Vestige of Eden be widely known. I have no financial stake in promoting it (other than the small affiliate fee for its purchase on Amazon using my link).
Perhaps you have someone on your gift list who is a little hard to buy for, or who would simply enjoy a wonderful book about science and philosophy written by someone who knows both very well.
Perhaps you have an older student who has been studying science and wants to pursue it. He will need grounding in reason if he is going to be able to withstand the assaults on his faith in this field. And frankly, the sorts of apologetics he’s likely to have encountered in well meaning curricula (mostly from Protestant authors) are not going to do the job (this goes back to the opponent having the “home field” advantage, a baseball argument made with dry humor that I’ll let you enjoy in the first chapter).
This book would be perfect for such a student — an older high schooler or someone already in college, who is a committed reader. I would consider it an educational investment. I am hoping that Dan will produce a video class based on his book, aimed at the college level. It would fulfill a great need we have to grapple with the causes of things.
bits & pieces
I found this new podcast called Freed from Feminism, and suddenly they had me on! It was a blast. Theresa Lane and Beth Langdon are two young women who are determined to get to the bottom of what feminism is and how we can escape its ill effects. I am honored to have been on their show.
And we had a twitter discussion as well — look up the hashtag FreedFromFeminismwithLeila over there!
We’re learning this beautiful Kodaly Veni veni Emmanuel piece in choir — the alto part in the second verse is tricky. This is a rare “modern music” recommendation from me and notable for the fact that I definitely have Kodaly PTSD as a piano study alumna, so take note.
An interview with Stephen Mosher, expert on China’s one child policy, on the current situation with the Catholic Church in China and that country’s persecution of they Uyghers.
From the First Things archives, an older piece by Sally Thomas, on homeschooling and its “greatest efficiency” which “lies in its capacity for a rightly ordered life.” To her list I would add “be interesting parents” and I try to help in that regard. NB: She mentions an interesting book, now out of print: Famous Mathematicians (affiliate link). I’ve already ordered a copy — maybe you have someone who’d be as interested as her son was.
Fr. Scalia’s sermons are always edifying.
Elizabeth Anscombe is a fascinating character and admirable philosopher. I appreciated this essay about her and her thought.
The town that inspired It’s a Wonderful Life, one of the greatest movies ever made.
This really is a lovely commercial! (And incidentally, perhaps inspiration for you to let your own two-year-old do more — maybe even run the store!)
The 11 churches in Ethiopia made by angels.
If you haven’t gotten your copy of Planet Narnia (affiliate link) yet, do! Here’s Michael Ward talking about his book and how it came to be written.
Read this before you shop: The five best toys of all time.
from the archives
Here’s me going on about Planet Narnia.
I thought I had squirreled away a plum pudding in my deep freezer, but it turned out to be a tin of Christmas cookies. (Usually I keep it in the fridge but this year my outdoor fridge had to be replaced long story.) So now I’m eating old cookies and putting this Plum Pudding tutorial right here where I can get to it soon!
liturgical living
Take a peek at next week’s feasts — Advent is full of wonderful commemorations that increase our love for the coming festival of the Nativity. (Two feasts of Our Lady! for the Immaculate Conception, here is a little gem of a piece with some Josquin for you.)
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