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.
Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
God is not distant: he is 'Emmanuel,' God-with-us. He is no stranger: he has a face, the face of Jesus.
The urge to revolt is one of the essential dimensions of human nature.
Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
Aggression only moves in one direction - it creates more aggression.
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