Any true conservatism should begin by recognizing and reducing the current supremacy of the natural sciences in our world and promoting a restoration of a complete education in the humanities, including the concomitant of a moral and religious education. Young people spend most of their waking hours in school, six to seven hours per day. The cost of teaching them that moral matters are simply debatable “matters of opinion” with no certainty compared to Boyle’s Law does inestimable harm to the type of society we live in. This is not a question of politics so much of culture. What we read, what we teach, and what we assume about knowledge directly affects the decisions we make, policies under which we live, and the texture of our lives. Moral renewal of any kind depends on rejecting the widely held premise that scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge. ~Chris Roach

Mr. Roach’s post is very insightful, and he points to the gnostic perversions that science is, not surprisingly, prone to have in a way startlingly reminiscent of Eric Voegelin’s essays on the various forms of gnosticism in the modern world. The key to understanding the connection between the two, or more accurately between magic and scientism, is the role anthropocentrism plays in both, as both claim that men are the source of power and meaning rather than recipients of both from the Lord. (Another point from Prof. Lewis was that the practise of magic and the enthusiasm for magic are very modern phenomena.) I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Roach’s call for a renewed emphasis on the humanities and divinity.