Fellowship of St. Benedict

St. Benedict's Blog
(WebLog)

FUAQ
(Frequently Un-Asked Questions)

St. Benedict

"A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead . . . was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. . . . This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another — doubtless quite different — St. Benedict."
— Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd Ed (1984), p. 263

The above is the ringing final paragraph of Alasdair MacIntyre's great book on ethics, After Virtue. The purpose of the Fellowship of St. Benedict is to be a new form of online community dedicated to the restoration of Catholic, Christian culture in the 21st century.

This project of restoration bypasses (or, where necessary, refutes) the so-called "Reformation" and "Enlightenment" in order to directly connect the Catholic Middle Ages with the latest nonlinear discoveries of modern science. (The viewpoint of this restoration might therefore be called neo-traditional, to coin a neologism.)

Three vital themes (or ideas) intertwine in the intellectual part of this project of restoration:

Pope Benedict XVI

1. The concept of group subjectivity (a.k.a. corporate personality) is not a relic of the past, but rather is the key to integrating (but not subsuming) the individual's moral personality into the groups of which he/she is a member.

2. The vast majority of scientifc phenomena are nonlinear and far-from-equilibrium phenomena, since all physical systems that involve three or more parts that interact strongly and persistently are nonlinear. For this reason, both science and (especially) the philosophy of science need to abandon their covert assumption that the physical universe is essentially linear, mechanical, and near-equilibrium.

This is particularly important for the science of biology, where Charles Darwin's failed, linear, statistical theory of evolution urgently needs to be replaced with Robert F. DeHaan's nonlinear, far-from-equilibrium theory of evolution, called macrodevelopment.

3. Human organizations and cultures in "this world" are implicitly founded on sudden, nonlinear, scapegoating violence. (This is René Girard's famous "scapegoat theory of culture".) Deeply accepting (and repenting of) this fact should lead us to a corresponding acceptance of the traditional Catholic, Christian faith.

Contact:

Phillip L. Engle
533 Tremont Avenue
Greensburg PA 15601-4209
phillip.engle@comcast.net

How to become a member of the Fellowship of St. Benedict:

Anyone who agrees with the principles set forth in this website is already a member of the Fellowship of St. Benedict (sort of like J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional Fellowship of the Ring!) There is no registration list of members or dues.