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The Secular Challenge

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 12, 2015 Fr. Alexander Schmemann held that secularism was the single greatest challenge of the modern era. I took up this understanding and made it the heart of my book, Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe. It is at the heart of every serious challenge the Church faces in our time. The news is not so good. A recent article by Damian Thompson in the British publication, The Spectator, estimates that at the

The Problem of Goodness

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 9, 2015  Though many struggle with the so-called “Problem of Evil,” the greater moral problem is that of goodness. How do we account for goodness in the world – particularly self-sacrificing heroic goodness? It is not uncommon for a person in a dangerous situation to place their own life at risk in order to save the life of another. It is by no means universal (some act first to save

THE FALL OF THE NOUS OF MAN BEFORE AND AFTER CHRIST (Part I)

The ability of the nous of man to see God is not only its principal and higher ability, but it is also its central aim for which it was created by God. This, say the holy Fathers, was exactly the blessedness of Adam and Eve in Paradise: to see the Omniscient, Delightful, and Most Longed-for Face of their Visible and Invisible, their Approachable and Unapproachable Creator. God Himself is not only the invisible and inaccessible