At the beginning of this academic year we received a list of goals for the university. I suggest others. The purpose of the University is to proclaim the intricate mystery and glory of God, of the cosmos, and of the human mind and spirit opening ever more widely and deeply to the beauty of reality and the celebration of life. And I shall not go beyond the truth, nor make my way with fevered envy, for such a one has no part of wisdom. But the multitude of the wise is the wellness of the world, and the wise ruler is the comfort of her people.
Understanding is empty of self.
Ambition, self-regard vanished, wisdom wells within us spirit swelling, growing globe, breaking through the crusted rind of self. The positive approach I take in this book is largely based on the influence of several of my professors at UC Santa Barbara. Jeffrey B. Russell especially modeled for me the integration of Christianity in the secular classroom. He is now retired from the undergraduate classroom, but you can still see some of the vigor of his thought in his four volumes on the devil. I know of no historian working today who better models rational inquiry into spiritual subjects.