“EVERYWHERE man’s way of life is capable of being guided and informed by the spirit of religious faith. But, however completely a culture may seem to be dominated by religion, there remains a fundamental dualism between the order of culture which is a part of the order of nature and the principle of faith which transcends the natural order and finds its centre outside the world of man.
“It is this conception of the intervention of a transcendent divine principle in the life of man which none the less retains its roots in the earth and in the order of nature that renders the history of Christian culture so difficult to investigate and the ideal of Christian culture so hard to realize. But it is a problem that we cannot afford to ignore. In the past the problem was simplified by the existence of a common religious tradition and a common standard of literary culture which were generally accepted by Christians and educationalists. Today these common traditions have been abandoned by the rulers of the modern State and the planners of modern society, while at the same time the latter have come to exercise a more complete control over the thought and life of the whole population than the most autocratic and authoritarian powers of the past ever possessed. In this situation the work of men like Mr. T. S. Eliot who are able to meet the planners and sociologists on their own ground without losing sight of the real spiritual issues may be of decisive importance for the future of our culture.”
~Christopher Dawson: from “T. S. Eliot on the Meaning of Culture.” (1949)
