Rémi Brague (Sorbonne, University of Munich) Cosponsored by the France Chicago Center If the contrary of civilization is barbarism, we have to take seriously the etymology of the latter word, i.e. the inability to engage in a conversation. Conversation presupposes some continuity. First, with the past that may have something to teach us (which is the meaning of “conservatism”), then with nature that is not a mere quarry or pantry, but has something to tell us as well, and finally with God as creator in the Logos.
cosponsored by the Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop and the Early Christian Studies Workshop When modern persons think about assistance for the poor the two major categories that tend to dominate are the motivations of the donor (altruism) and the effects of the donation (social justice). Though both of these attributes were part of classical Christian thinking, they stood on a deeper foundation: a description of the type of world God had made. And so, charity was as much about metaphysics as it was morality.
