What Does God Say? by David Warren

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 13, 2021

David Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist in Canadian newspapers. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

“Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song.”

I have lifted this motto from Josef Pieper, who took it from Joseph de Maistre, and who (songfully) reminds us that there are forms of Reason that bypass reason, and yet are perfectly reasonable and comprehensible.

The reasoning of poetry is something like this, but I am shy of making the unqualified statement, because poetry is often vague and showy, and not “just so.”

De Maistre (who is among my favorite French, or Savoyard, reactionaries, absolutely untroubled by the “spirit of the enlightenment” and other hints of progress) – did not say, and did not mean, “music.” Instead, he referred to a song, which is something else. …

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