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Herbert McCabe

Herbert McCabe Biography

Philosopher

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“The societal and political manifestation of disbelief (of belief that we make ourselves and are only what we make ourselves) is, of course, the world of liberal individualism - the world of isolated individuals asserting their freedom against each other. And, of course, if this is what society is like, you need a state whose job it is to control and limit the freedom of its citizens. The world that believes in the autonomous free individual also has to believe in the bureaucratic state. Society is seen as a perpetual struggle between these two - sometimes emphasizing the individual, sometimes the collective. But all this is the world of disbelief, the world without God.”

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Book:Faith Within Reason
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“The divine life does indeed grow in us even on earth, but we never reach full maturity; we never dispense with faith until we actually see God face to face. Now the question is: what is the relation between this divine life (and divine knowledge that we call faith) and human life (and human knowledge)? Some people have held that they are actually opposed to each other. You know that kind of person who thinks that you can't be a saint unless you're very slightly ill; this sort of person tends also to think that you can't have faith unless what you believe is humanly incredible. They think of faith not as a matter of knowing or of learning, but rather as a matter of courage, a leap into the unknown, a quixotic championing of the absurd. Now faith is certainly a leap into the unknown in the sense that what you believe is something that cannot be known by ordinary human power. But it is a leap which precisely tries to make this known. It is not a rejection of knowledge, it is an effort to know more - to get to know more by trusting in a teacher.”

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Book:Faith Within Reason
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“Think some more about the very young child. First of all, her faith that she is loved is not something that she works out by assessing her world and coming to a conclusion. It is something given, taken for granted (in the literal sense). Indeed, if it is not granted, if she is deprived of the belief that she is loved, she will not even be able to assess her world at all. She will go more or less crazy. The child doesn't arrive at or achieve her belief that she is loved. It is a precious gift which is just there, like the gift of life itself. But it can, of course, be destroyed. It is notoriously possible for adults, and especially parents, to erode a child's faith, to leave the child insecure and uncertain that she is loved, uncertain therefore of her own value, uncertain that she matters. The love of parents, and later of other friends may fail; they may betray us. Indeed, I think we have a whole society (known as the Free World) which is so structured as to destroy belief in love, to eat away at the confidence people have in each other, to replace friendship by competitiveness, generosity by domination and submission, community by national security, love by fear.”

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Book:Faith Within Reason
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“The societal and political manifestation of disbelief (of belief that we make ourselves and are only what we make ourselves) is, of course, the world of liberal individualism - the world of isolated individuals asserting their freedom against each other. And, of course, if this is what society is like, you need a state whose job it is to control and limit the freedom of its citizens. The world that believes in the autonomous free individual also has to believe in the bureaucratic state. Society is seen as a perpetual struggle between these two - sometimes emphasizing the individual, sometimes the collective. But all this is the world of disbelief, the world without God. This is the world from which Jesus came to redeem us, to give us faith in his Father's love so that we do not need to assert ourselves and our innocence and our lightness, so that we can relax and confess the truth about ourselves, so that we stop judging ourselves and others, because we know that it doesn't matter: God loves us anyway, so that we are liberated enough to risk being vulnerable to others - liberated enough to risk loving and being loved by others, liberated enough to know that we belong to each other because we belong to God. In that world we will not cling fanatically to particular formulas and doctrines simply because they are our security, any more than we cling to our own righteousness. We can be relaxed either way. In such a world a belief that we are called to share in divine life, and do already share in it, can go with a clear awareness of our own weakness and inadequacy and sin. And in such a world believing in God's love can go with a critical awareness of the weakness and inadequacy of our ways of expressing it. Our belief can, and indeed must, go with a certain kind of searching and questioning, a certain kind of doubt. Faith will exclude doubt altogether only when it ceases to be faith and becomes the vision of the eternal love which is God.”

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Book:Faith Within Reason
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“People who think they have no belief quite often say they want to pray but they do not know who or what they could be praying to. Aquinas would not say to such people, 'Ah, but you see, if you became a believer, a Christian, we would change all that. You would come to understand to whom you are praying.' Not at all. He would say to such people, 'If you became a Christian you would stop being surprised or ashamed of your condition. You would be happy with it. For faith would assure you that you could not know what God is until he reveals himself to us openly.'”

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Author:Herbert McCabe
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