Tozer was so ahead of his time, so transcendent of his religious context, to be able to appreciate Bernard and various mystical and classic authors. I am curious why he did not take more flack for this in the religious pecking order of his time (or maybe he did). Tozer introduced me to Bernard and other authors as well and I am grateful.

Derek Leman

Since the enlightenment supernatualism has been on the decline.

Cheers!
RichGriese.NET

"Since the enlightenment supernaturalism has been on the decline."

Web Definition: Supernaturalism - A belief in forces beyond ordinary human understanding; the quality of being attributed to power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.

Fact: 2008 Gallup Poll - A large majority of Americans (78%) say they believe in God and 15% say they don't believe in God, but do believe in a higher power; a very high aggregate equivalence of 93% supernaturalism.

Fact: Many of the Enlightenment writers were Deists, which meant that they believed that a great force had fashioned the world.

Perhaps, the statement may be rectified as follows: "Since the enlightenment superstition has been on the decline."

The Intellectual Heritage Program of Temple University in its study affirmed:

"Perhaps the best way to grasp the Enlightenment project clearly is to identify what [the Enlightenment] thinkers were rejecting. They saw their societies as emerging from the darkness of superstition, ignorance, and intolerance - much of that associated with the Medieval Catholic Church and with Feudal monarchy."

But, that was once upon a time.

Pope Benedict XVI in his reflection below not only has brought to light Catholic Church's infusion of new blood into her body but also has implied to her congruence with Enlightenment's top value - A Deep Commitment to Reason.

"The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment. In pursuing them we can see anew that creating Intelligence to whom we owe our own reason. Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature 'there is revealed such superior Reason that everything significant which has arisen out of human thought and arrangement is, in comparison with it, the merest empty reflection.'

"In what is most vast, in the world of heavenly bodies, we see revealed powerful Reason that holds the universe together. And we are penetrating ever deeper into what is smallest, into the cell and into the primordial units of life; here, too, we discover a Reason that astounds us, such that we must say with Saint Bonaventure: 'Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb.'

"God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with vast new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator and which make us realize once again that at the very beginning and foundation of all being there is a creating Intelligence. The universe is not the product of darkness and unreason. It comes from intelligence, freedom, and from the beauty that is identical with love. Seeing this gives us the courage to keep on living, and it empowers us, comforted thereby, to take upon ourselves the adventure of life."