Publication
New York : Penguin Books, 2003.
Call number
WP / Weil
ISBN
0142002674 / 9780142002674
Collections
Physical description
85 p.; 20 cm
Description
Hailed by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our times', Simone Weil was one of great essayists and activists of the twentieth century. Her writings on the nature of religious faith and spirituality have inspired many subsequent thinkers. Wrestling with the moral dilemmas entailed by commitment to the Catholic Church, Letter to a Priest is a brilliant meditation on the perennial battle between faith and doubt and resonates today as much as when it was first written. This edition also includes one of her most inspiring and celebrated essays, 'Human Personality', where Weil offers a moving and unorthodox account of the preciousness of human beings. With a new foreword by Raimond Gaita.
Language
Original language
French
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LibraryThing member stillatim
It's hard not to like a book that starts with the idea of a "painful spiritual state" that the author "would like to make... not less painful, only clearer. Any pain whatsoever is acceptable where there is clarity." It is hard to like a book filled with such history-of-religion cliches as the cruel
Her good will works better when she makes the arguments that the 'saved' must be those who are truly charitable, not those who believe the right things; that dogmas should not be affirmed, but meditated upon; that 'miracle' should be applied only to morality, not to physical oddities; that "The idea of God going in quest of man is something unfathomably beautiful and profound. Decadence is shown as soon as it is replaced by the idea of man going in quest of God."
Unfortunately, the letter ends with ridiculous conspiracy-theorising based on historical nonsense. But, of course, it wasn't necessarily meant to be published.
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God of Israel, the idolatry of the Jews, and the (usually praiseworthy) wish to compare religions that aren't really comparable at all; Weill compares Christianity, which she sees as centered on beliefs, to other religions, which are arguably centered on practices instead, and finds all kinds of parallels to Christian doctrine that are no such thing. This is particularly silly when combined with Weil's philohellenism, leading to claims like "Christ... recognized himself in the proportional mean of Greek geometry" and "Heraclitus recognized a Trinity." Weil searches hard for similarities in religions, with the best of intentions, and unfortunately is smart enough to find similarities everywhere. Her good will works better when she makes the arguments that the 'saved' must be those who are truly charitable, not those who believe the right things; that dogmas should not be affirmed, but meditated upon; that 'miracle' should be applied only to morality, not to physical oddities; that "The idea of God going in quest of man is something unfathomably beautiful and profound. Decadence is shown as soon as it is replaced by the idea of man going in quest of God."
Unfortunately, the letter ends with ridiculous conspiracy-theorising based on historical nonsense. But, of course, it wasn't necessarily meant to be published.
Show Less