Immanence, subjectivity, reason, science, natural law, human rights, moral autonomy, political freedom, artistic expression — this constellation of ascending ideas virtually defines our modern world. But we who live in an ascending era should not undervalue the theistic dimension of Western thought. The suggestively ambiguous way in which the God of the Bible, a God who is all-powerful but all-loving, a God who reveals himself but hides himself, a God who is inscrutable but yet faithful, has shaped a quite extraordinary and complex sensibility. The opposite poles represented by the descending and ascending principles create a powerful magnetic field, where the tension is overwhelming, and sometimes unbearable. The distinctions between transcendence and immanence, the supernatural and the natural, Church and State, theology and science were incubated in the West and stimulated amazing creativity in all fields of human endeavour — art, philosophy, science, politics. But this creativity, like Western culture itself, is a fragile thing. For centuries Western culture languished and sank into scholastic barrenness when only the descending principle seemed to count for anything. But when we go to the other extreme — when we appear to attribute integrity exclusively to the ascending side of the equation — that is to say, only to immanence, to nature, to the state, to science — the question is worth asking whether we are not once again in danger of succumbing to the moral and political impoverishment which is the inevitable consequence of permitting a blanket of intellectual sterility to suffocate our culture.