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Christopher Dawson

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“The Oxford Movement, however, brought a new element into the religious life of the nineteenth century. It stood above all for the preservation of the spiritual identity of Christianity, and represents an attempt to restore the Catholic conception of an objective supernatural order and the Catholic idea of divine authority within the boundaries of the Established Church of Protestant England. It was by Newman that these principles were most clearly realized, and through him that they received their full intellectual formulation, but in spite of the differences of character and mentality between the leaders of the Movement, Newman, Keble, Froude and Pusey were all in complete agreement on this fundamental issue. They all stood for Authority and Tradition against Liberalism, for Supematuralism against Rationalism and Naturalism. The fundamental note of the Oxford Movement was its anti-modernism. It is true that they began on the political ground — in a protest against the secularization of the modem State and its claim to interfere with the rights of the Church. But almost at once the conflict became an internal one between the opposing forces in the Church of England — not, however, between High Church and Low Church, between Catholic and Evangelical, but between religious Traditionalism and religious Liberalism. In fact, the first great battle that the Tractarians fought — that against Dr. Hampden — was one in which they had the support of the Evangelicals.”

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Book:The spirit of the Oxford movement,
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“Algunas veces se ha dicho que el acentuar el carácter cristiano de la cultura occidental nos vuelve ciegos a los valores de otras civilizaciones. Por mi parte, considero que sucede todo lo contrario. En efecto, mientras más entendamos el cristianismo, mejor entenderemos el Islam, y mientras más subestimemos el elemento religioso en nuestra propia cultura, menos apreciaremos las culturas del mundo no europeo.”

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Author:Christopher Dawson
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“The moment that the state came into conflict with the higher power, the moment that it set itself up as an end in itself, it became identified with Augustine's earthly city and lost all claims to a higher sanction than the law of force and self-interest. Without justice, what is a great kingdom but a great robbery, magnum latrocinium?”

EndsSelfStatesMomentsLawLostForceInterestJusticeCitiesHigherConflictClaimsKingdomsSelf InterestSanctionsHigher PowerRobberyAugustine
Book:The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity
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“Faith transcends reason because divine truth is not only higher, but also wider than the human mind, and the rationalist in his haste for premature simplification always tends to shut his eyes to one aspect of the truth and to seek a false harmony of thought by the sacrifice of an essential element of reality.”

MindHumansReasonRealityEyeSacrificeDivineHigherTruth IsEssentialsElementsAspectHarmonyHis EyesHuman MindHastePrematureSimplification
Author:Christopher Dawson
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“It is impossible for us to understand the Church if we regard her as subject to the limitations of human culture. For she is essentially a supernatural organism which transcends human cultures and transforms them to her own ends.”

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Book:Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)
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“The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.”

EnoughSpiritLiteratureStrongNationsUnitedEnlightenmentLeagueNationalismAggressiveIdealismUnited NationsStrong EnoughCharterDynamismLeague Of Nations
Book:The Crisis of Western Education (The Works of Christopher Dawson)
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“Moreover, behind this vague tendency to treat religion as a side issue in modern life, there exists a strong body of opinion that is actively hostile to Christianity and that regards the destruction of positive religion as absolutely necessary to the advance of modern culture”

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Book:Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)
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“You can give men food and leisure and amusements and good conditions of work, and still they will remain unsatisfied. You can deny them all these things, and they will not complain so long as they feel that they have something to die for”

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Book:Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)
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“No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion”

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Book:The Crisis of Western Education (The Works of Christopher Dawson)
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“And so, today, if the state can no longer appeal to the old moral principles that belong to the Christian tradition, it will be forced to create a new official faith and new moral principles which will be binding on its citizens.”

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Book:Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)
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“As I have pointed out, it is the Christian tradition that is the most fundamental element in Western culture. It lies at the base not only of Western religion, but also of Western morals and Western social idealism.”

ChristianLyingCultureLiteratureSocialMoralElementsTraditionFundamentalsWesternIdealismWestern CultureIdealism And Realism
Book:Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)
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“Every great movement in the history of Western civilization from the Carolingian age to the nineteenth century has been an international movement which owed its existence and its development to the cooperation of many different peoples.”

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Book:The Crisis of Western Education
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“Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces.”

IfsLastsSpiritualFallLiteratureCommonMoralPrinciplesPiecesMembersIdealsLoyaltyRecognitionAppealsResorts
Book:Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)
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“We have entered a new phase of culture - we may call it the Age of the Cinema - in which the most amazing perfection of scientific technique is being devoted to purely ephemeral objects, without any consideration of their ultimate justification. It seems as though a new society was arising which will acknowledge no hierarchy of values, no intellectual authority, and no social or religious tradition, but which will live for the moment in a chaos of pure sensation.”

MayMomentsSeemsAgeValuesCultureSocialReligiousObjectsPureAuthorityIntellectualTraditionPerfectionUltimateChaosTechniqueAcknowledgeCinemaClassicConsiderationSensationsJustificationDevotedPhasesLive In The MomentHierarchyEphemeralMost AmazingReligious Traditions
Book:Progress and Religion: An Historical Inquiry (The Works of Christopher Dawson)
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“No civilisation, not even that of ancient Greece, has ever undergone such a continuous and profound process of change as Western Europe has done during the last 900 years. It is impossible to explain this fact in purely economic terms by a materialistic interpretation of history. The principle of change has been a spiritual one and the progress of Western civilisation is intimately related to the dynamic ethos of Western Christianity, which has gradually made Western man conscious of his moral responsibility and his duty to change the world.”

MenWorldYearsHas BeensMadeDoneFactsLastsSpiritualProcessTermResponsibilityMoralChristianityPrinciplesProgressImpossibleEconomicDutyConsciousEuropeProfoundWesternAncientClassicRelatedChanging The WorldInterpretationGreeceCivilisationMaterialisticEthosWorld ClassMoral ResponsibilityAncient GreeceWestern EuropeProcess Of Change
Author:Christopher Dawson
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“The true makes of history are the spiritual men whom the world knew not, the unregarded agents of the creative action of the Spirit. The supreme instance of this-the key to the Christian understanding of history-is to be found in the Incarnation- the presence of the maker of the world in the world unknown to the world. ... The Incarnation is itself in a sense the divine fruit of history-of the fullness of time-and it finds its extension and completion in the historic life of the Church.”

MenWorldActionChristianSpiritualSpiritFoundUnderstandingChurchCreativeVirtueDivineKeysFruitSupremeInstanceAgentsMakersExtensionsHistoricFullnessIncarnationPietyCompletion
Author:Christopher Dawson
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