"The problem of this dissertartion is to compare and evaluate the conceptions of God in the thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman". So begins Martin Luther King's PhD dissertation.
MLK's grounding in philosophy and religion informed his public policy perspective.
"Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, ...but I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also".
Gibran's knowledge of the human condition transcends conventional wisdom.
"There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings ".
So begins Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the book which changed our consciousness.
"There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture and it will change the political structure only as its final act".
Charles Reich may finally be redeemed.
"The shortcomings of economics are not original error, but uncorrected obsolescence".
Galbraith redeemed after 50 years.
Scientific and mathematical developments in recent years have confirmed elements of the metaphysics of quality as articulated by Robert Pirsig in Zen and Lila.
"...the laws of physics and logic...the number system...they are ghosts...The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton."
Two decades later, Michio Kaku wrote in Hyperspace, "The purpose of science is to peel back the layer of the appearance of objects to reveal their underlying nature...the laws of nature become simpler and more elegant when expressed in higher dimensions...In the hyperspace theory...everything we see...are nothing but vibrations in hyperspace...".
So, from MLK's PhD thesis to hyperspace, we see an underlying theme...unity...holism...harmony...and hope.
Lee
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