Sunday, December 05, 2010

Is It "Piety"? Or Is It Echoes?

Tucker offers a few observations on "old" stuff.

...The hubris of modern intellectuals supposes that rationalistic methods can reveal all truth. The idea is that science and study are really the only ways of knowing things, while tradition tells us nothing. Legend is unreliable, in this view; it is just a jumble of superstitions. The evidence of the senses ought to be our only guide for knowing what is true, while truth itself is only a tentative notion that must be constantly subject to revision in light of the latest revelations from evidence.

...But how is a scientist to account for the transmission of a song through popular use in the absence of written manuscripts? Ultimately it cannot. The evidence is long gone. But does that fact alone diminish the validity of the truth? Not at all. It is for this reason that we should not dismiss pious traditions that date song, prayers, and practice to the first millennium to the first millennium and even to the Patristic or Apostolic Age or to the Holy Spirit. None of this can be proven but tradition can embody more truth and wisdom than science itself can reveal no matter how long the investigations continue.

He reminds us that the absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.

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