In an age of relativism, orthodoxy is the only possible rebellion left
Interpretation
The quote suggests that in today's world of diverse beliefs and opinions, adhering to traditional beliefs can be seen as a form of resistance.
Peter Kreeft's quote highlights the idea that in a time where relativism reigns—where truth and morality are often viewed as subjective or dependent on individual perspectives—maintaining traditional beliefs and orthodox views becomes a significant act of rebellion. It implies that to hold fast to established doctrines in such a fluid landscape constitutes a challenge to the prevailing societal norms that embrace diversity and personal interpretation of truth.
In practice
During a lecture on contemporary philosophy, this quote can be used to illustrate the tension between orthodox beliefs and relative truth.
Trusting God's grace means trusting God's love for us rather than our love for God. [...] Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God's love for us rather than trying to rouse God's awareness of our love for him, like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29).
Remembering the facts of death and Heaven gives us an even more pressing reason to learn to pray: We do not have an infinite amount of time. We are one day nearer Home today than we ever were before. I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying; I wish I had watched more TV instead.'
Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons.
The modern mind always tends to reduce the greater to the lesser rather than seeing the lesser as reflecting the greater.
Our soul, like Mary's body, is to receive God Himself if only we, like her, believe, consent and receive; if only we speak her truly magic word fiat, "let it be." It is the creative word, the word God used to create the universe.
Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
Still desiring, we live without hope.
I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.
The majority of philosophers are totally humorless. That's part of their trouble.
Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.
When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.
War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.
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