Inquisitor

Crossed the threshold but going no further

Sometimes I wonder how the past will judge the way we live today. There are times when I wonder if it will be a judgment founded on disappointment or one of approval. In an age where we can discover so much more we shut ourselves off and surrender the power of reasoning and questioning. We do it largely out of fear; fear of an unknown that cannot be tamed possibly being unleashed upon us, upsetting the status quo. Medieval men had more courage and chivalry to face the unknown. To question and understand. To try and fail. To risk the flames of the stake. All because they had more faith. Faith in what they believed in. What do we believe in these days? Most certainly not in humanity. Umberto Eco wrote:

'What contradicts must not be destroyed, because only if we preserve it can it be contradicted in its turn by those who can do so and are so charged, in the ways and times that the Lord Chooses.'

Coming from a man who lost his faith reading Thomas Aquinas, one of the church's greatest theologians, it surely must mean something. Even if one is not religious, one can definitely appreciate the magnanimity and confidence of such writings. Just simply substitute the words 'the Lord' for 'your belief', be it another god or The Beatles.