Postcard From Hollister #1

But if we pursue the heavenly way and live in our kindred star, then we will philosophize, living truly, busied with the most profound and marvellous speculations, beholding the beauty in the soul immutably related to Truth, viewing the rule of the Gods with joy, gaining perpetual delight and additional insight from contemplating, and experiencing pure pleasure absolutely unmingled with any pain or sorrow.

-Iamblichus, The Exhortation to Philosophy

All well and good, but can this happen in a fallen world wracked with original sin?

Is pure contemplation even remotely possible in this life?

One thing I do know: the ancient concept of learning and philosophy as a way of life and not a system is something we must return to somehow. Our sense of allegiance to the Church must organically come out of the doctrine of Christ as a transmission of life and not a list of obligations to a set of propositions.