Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.

Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.

The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.

To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.

I want to begin with a very short poem by Emily Dickinson.

Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.

Success in circuit lies, too bright for our infirm delight, the truth's superb surprise.

As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind, the truth must dazzle gradually

or every man be blind. It's a really beautiful short poem. Tell the truth, but tell it slants.

Success in presenting the truth in circuit lies,

in direction. Why? Because the truth is too bright for our infirm or weak delight. The truth superb superb surprise, must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind.

I think one of the problems with our current culture, there are many, there are also many hopeful signs, I think, as well.

But one of them is that we have lost this sense of the truth as a surprise. We've lost the sense

of the truth as something that dazzles. And we've lost the sense of presenting the truth slant.

We're hectoring, yelling, preaching, arguing with one another constantly, with very little delight whatsoever, and without any sense

that maybe we ought to back up and think about how we communicate with friends and foes alike

when it comes to the presentation of the truth, and indeed when

it comes to our own apprehension and pursuit of the truth.

In about beauty, as about truth, we suffer from what the contemporary Catholic Canadian philosopher Charles

Taylor calls inarticulacy. We don't have a rich vocabulary, particularly a rich shared public

vocabulary, for thinking about the things that matter to us most, for thinking about death,

for thinking about birth, for thinking about birth, for thinking about joy,

...