| Author Quoted | Ernst Benz |
| Title Quoted | Evolution and Christian hope : man's concept of the future from the early Fathers to Teilhard de Chardin / Ernst Benz ; transl. from the German by Heinz G. Frank |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1967/06/04 |
| Imprint | Garden City. NJ : Doubleday, 1966 |
| Quotation | What really prompted me to write you today: I am reading a curious book called Evolution and Christian Hope by one Ernst Benz. Curious is not the word for parts of it. He has a chapter which justifies technological progress by the Bible and by ideas like God the potter framing his creatures on a potter's wheel. And he finds in Catholic medieval tradition (where the Victorines for instance speak of the "arts" in terms like Marco Pallis) warrant for the idea that "technology is a means of overcoming original sin." I thought that gem of modern thought should be shared with you. Fantastic, isn't it? Really, you are so very right. That is what we are facing now. I do not suggest that you read this book, it would shock you. But that particular chapter is so funny, in its own bizarre way, that you might dip into it there if the book ever comes your way. But I do not suppose it will, and do not encourage you to go looking for it. |
| Quotation Source | Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis.; Selected and edited by William H. Shannon. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1994, p. 319 |
| Letter to | Lord Northbourne |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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