The Ephemeral Man
by Anthony Esolen
Sometimes the grace of God comes through unlikely and even unseemly channels. When I was an undergraduate at Princeton, surrounded by disaffected materialists, and as yet almost entirely innocent of the Christian intellectual heritage, I happened upon Father Hans Küng's book, Does God Exist? I have it still, though I have not opened it in thirty years, nor have I found a need to do so. Küng decided the question in the affirmative, but in doing so he took the reader through a Grand Tour of the question, visiting, usually with a real desire to find what was true or good in each author, anyone important who had taken it up.
His book was therefore my introduction to other authors who would be far more important to me than Küng himself was—Pascal, most notably. For this, and for some intellectual ammunition when I most needed it, I owe him a debt of gratitude. But Küng, unlike the far more original Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, seems to have been a proud man, conscious of his clerical celebrity, and unwilling to be corrected. His liberal political opinions became predictable, and his ecclesiological opinions became indistinguishable from them. He was a Catholic dissident to the end. His day has passed. May God have mercy on his soul.
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!
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!
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!
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 from the online archives
30.3—May/June 2017
C. S. Lewis Assesses the Religion of Mohammed by Jacob Fareed Imam
24.6—Nov/Dec 2011
Liberty, Conscience & Autonomy
How the Culture War of the Roaring Twenties Set the Stage for Today’s Catholic & Evangelical Alliance by Barry Hankins
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
