Truth Or Death: The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative TraditionIn the tradition of James Frazer, Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, Thierry Hentsch retells, with new urgency and a keen critical eye, "the story of the West" that shapes our perception of the world. Yet, "the story of the West" does not exist. Only a reading of its most seminal texts--from Ulysses to Hamlet, from the Torah to the Gospels, from Plato to Descartes--can bring it alive. His tale turns on a startling discovery: The Christian message of immortality is conditional. To overcome death--the touchstone of the human condition--the believer must accept the Truth of salvation. Western civilization, by replacing God with technoscience, offers the universal promise that salvation may now be gained on earth. Yet, as a condition, it would impose its own absolute morality on the world. Truth or Death: the Biblical injunction is ours as well. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 77
... remains whole , intact . Though transparent to God , Augustine's soul remains in part obscure to itself ; its quest leads not to knowledge but to belief . There is , of course , " knowledge " of God in the joy of his presence , but ...
... remains unknowable . Here Descartes confounds two distinct levels : he extrapolates a metaphysical reality from an existential sentiment , that of emptiness , which can be experienced quite well without metaphysics . His second ...
... remains only its negation and its destructive impact . And what remains of Descartes in our collective imagination is nothing more than the sad caricature of a utilitarian rationality whose sources and measure — absent the texts — we ...
Contents
A Word to the Reader | 11 |
Of Truth and Stories | 21 |
Ulysses or the Happiness of Mortals | 45 |
Copyright | |
14 other sections not shown