In this episode, Kale and I discuss the final pages of The Abolition of Man. In a world allegedly without objective values, what conditions the conditioners? Chesterton’s idea of play and rules providing freedom; the reality that a value-free neutrality does not exist; trans-humanism and post-humanism; the dismembering of nature and disenchantment;  the magician’s bargain: how the last step toward the abolition of man is unlike every prior step; the common ancestry of science and magic; how seeing through everything is the same as not to see.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

Will the Future Be Human? - Yuval Noah Harari

Faustian bargain, Britannica.com

The Freedom of Boundaries in G.K. Chesterton - Zak Schmoll

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 675-676:  "The Church's ultimate trial"

Today, I'm posting a special episode on The Stations of the Cross. 

What follows is a Stations of the Cross text I wrote in 2004, reflecting on the images Mel Gibson provided in his movie The Passion of The Christ. Each mediation also includes a quote from one of my favorite spiritual writers.

In the show notes, you'll find links to learn more about the Stations of the Cross,  sources for the quotes used in the meditations, and a link to learn more about the album Via Crucis by Dick Le Mair. Many thanks to Le Mair for granting me the rights to include his music in this episode.

How Did the Stations of the Cross Begin? - Fr. William Saunders

“For God So Loved”: C.S. Lewis’s Four Loves and the Doctrine of Christ’s Atonement - Adam J. Johnson

The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis

Text of the meditations inspired by The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson

Quotation sources:

I - Into Your Hands, Father - Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen

II, IX, XII - Via Crucis - Saint Josemaría Escrivá

III - De Interpellatione David - Saint Ambrose of Milan

IV - Salt of the Earth - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

V, VIII - Transformation in Christ - Dietrich von Hildebrand

VI - De pauperum - Saint Gregory of Nazianzen

VII - The Jeweler's Shop - Karol Wojtyla

X - Interior Freedom - Fr. Jacques Philippe

XI - The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) - Saint Pope John Paul II

XIII - The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis Splendor) - Saint Pope John Paul II

XIV - The Lord's descent into hell - ancient homily for Holy Saturday

Closing prayer - Meditations on the Stations of the Cross - Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman

Music: Via Crucis by Dick Le Mair

Today, we begin discussing the final chapter of The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. Topics include: slavery and freedom; the conquest of man over man; the flight from the reality of death; the world state as a surrogate for the Tao; eugenics, trans-humanism and post-humanism; man as raw material for the post-human project; the impact of World War I on the thinking of Lewis; and what a positive and humane technical progress could look like.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

Learning in War Time - C.S. Lewis

On Living in an Atomic Age - C.S. Lewis
Reprinted in a collection entitled Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays.

Will the Future Be Human? - Yuval Noah Harari

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

The Space Trilogy - C.S. Lewis

"Standing reserves" - Martin Heidegger

Miracles - C.S. Lewis

"Cover stories for a theft" - Eric Weinstein

C.S. Lewis, “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus,,” God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), pp. 301-303.

Barbara Nicolosi Harrington’s Mystagogy podcast (see mystagogy.net for supporting materials)

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, by Storyhill, from the album Bethlehem

The music in the introduction of this podcast is provided by Dennis Crommett. 

My friend Kale Zelden and I finish discussing the second chapter of The Abolition of Man: “The Way.” We discuss the rebellion of the branch against the tree; whether authority can be interrogated from within or without the Tao; addressing moral relativity before making an apologia for faith; and how the end of this chapter of The Abolition of Man echoes the tower of Babel and The Screwtape Letters.

Click here for the show notes.

My friend Kale Zelden and I begin discussing the second chapter of The Abolition of Man: "The Way." We discuss Innovators and Debunkers, the limits of instinct, and the indispensable role of the Tao.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

Bishop Barron's conversation with evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein

Macbeth  - William Shakespeare

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

My friend Kale Zelden and I complete our conversation about the first chapter of The Abolition of Man: "Men Without Chests." We discuss debunking, the cultivation of just sentiments, the Tao, the poem Dulce et Decorum Est  by Wilfred Owen, and the chest as essential mediator between the head and the belly.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - John Vervaeke

Shadowlands

Theology after Wittgenstein - Fergus Kerr

Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen

My friend Kale Zelden returns to the podcast to discuss with me The Abolition of Man, a collection of lectures on ethics that C.S. Lewis first delivered in 1943 at the University of Durham. Today's episode contains our opening conversation about The Abolition of Man.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

The Stranger - Albert Camus

A Critical Look at The Stranger: The Culpability of Moral Estrangement

That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis

The Inner Ring - C.S. Lewis

Mis, Dis, Malinformation (MDM) - CISA (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency)

Prebunking - August 28, 2021 issue of WIRED magazine

The second season of this podcast will be focused on the theme of humanity: Specifically, the topic of how to ground our humanity within a truly ethical framework. It's something to which C.S. Lewis gave close attention in a book titled The Abolition of Man, first published in 1943. My friend Kale Zelden will return to discuss the book with me, as we have both appreciated the book for a long time and are eager to revisit it.

The Abolition of Man  by C.S. Lewis

After Humanity  by Father Michael Ward

In today's episode, Kale Zelden and I complete our discussion of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical letter on Christian hope. In the last major section of the letter, Benedict XVI speaks of the experience of judgment as a setting for hope. We pick up our reading at paragraph 39.

This episode concludes the first season of the podcast. I'd really appreciate your feedback on the first season of this podcast -- what you liked, what you didn't, what you'd like to see in season two -- by taking a moment to complete a survey. 

Podcast Survey: doxaweb.com/survey

Until next season, be well and God bless.