Our Quiet Lord

The wise men of our day have been busy inverting our commonsense perception of things. They tell us, with the hair-tossing flippancy of a sophomore, that a thing is nothing but the aggregate of matter that composes it. I illustrate for my students the madness of that instance of the compositional fallacy by scratching my arm. There go fifty thousand cells. "I'm not the man I used to be," I say. So determined are the wise men to deny God, they will gladly deny also the existence of perduring things, and even of real personal identity.

They can squint for quarks if they like, but we Christians can rout them on their own microscopic ground. For we look to the God who is not only infinitely beyond all things. We look to the God who is infinitely within all things. Even if a quark were nothing but a nondimensional point, our God would fill it with his fullness. Smaller even than the quark, infinitely smaller, dwells the boundless freedom of God, who gives to things and to persons both their determinate limits and their liberty. And the Person of the Trinity through whom this truth is most sweetly perceived is the Holy Spirit.

THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:

Anthony Esolen is the author of over thirty books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House). He and his wife Debra publish a web magazine, Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com), on poetry, hymnody, language, classic films, and music. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!

personal subscriptions

Purchase Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

RENEW your print/online
subscription

Purchase
Online Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

RENEW your online subscription

gift subscriptions

GIVE Print &
Online Subscription

Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!

RENEW your gift subscription

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

kindle subscription

OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)

Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.

more on imagination from the online archives

19.10—December 2006

Enchanting Children

Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination by David Mills

11.5—September/October 1998

Speaking the Truths Only the Imagination May Grasp

An Essay on Myth & 'Real Life' by Stratford Caldecott

10.4—Fall 1997

Lessons from the Nursery

The Catholic Imagination Encounters Bambi by James L. Sauer