arts and culture on Paradox

This is the ultimate paradox of the digital age: at the moment in human history when technology allows us to be more connected than ever, we are so very far apart, to the point that our very understan...

There are only two kinds of people: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

Yet despite all of these advancements, we are more discontent than ever. Gregg Easterbrook wrote a book on this very topic entitled The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. ...

In recent years, I (Smith) have been leading a study called the “Science of Generosity Initiative” at the University of Notre Dame, in which I (Davidson) have been deeply involved. In that study, we h...

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

[The decay of Logic results from an] untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not.

A Theological Giant's Final Word Walter Brueggemann’s passing on June 5, 2025 leaves a void in biblical scholarship that will last a very long time. He was still writing books and essays at age 9...

Let us begin with a question. Do you really know how to enjoy the world? Do you know how to enjoy yourself? One of the greatest parables in the New Testament has to do with the search for enjoyment an...

A New York Times story reports on the positive impact school recess has on academic performance. Here’s how it begins: “The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take t...

In a 2009 stand-up special, Chris Rock made a funny, and perhaps true, statement: “All my black friends have a bunch of white friends. And all my white friends have one black friend.” It turns out, R...

In her compelling memoir Still Life , author Gillian Marchenko recounts her struggles with depression. In this excerpt, Marchenko describes one of the many paradoxes that come with depression: how ...

No truth which human beings may articulate can ever be articulated in a culture-transcending way-but that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture.

Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness li...

All great historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice ... the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.

Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong...

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.

The Country is both the Philosopher's Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context.

Unfortunately, the world has taken some of the greatest minds God has given us and locked them up in cages. Most very brilliant or creative people seem strange to ordinary people. Geniuses are almost ...

The Cave One of the most famous passages in Plato's Republic is his "Allegory of the Cave," which is found at the beginning of book seven . Socrates imagines the human condition al...

There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil.

History is always a matter of trying to think into the minds of people who think differently from ourselves.

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

Everybody believes that their reality is the real real reality.

My friend Mike Metzger of the Clapham Institute once used the following example to demonstrate how important frames are if we are to make sense of reality’s puzzle. This may seem like a head scratcher...

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

The defiance of established authority, religious and secular, social and political, as a world-wide phenomenon may well one day be accounted the outstanding event of the last decade.

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was mean...

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.