Are You Seeing Reality Wrong? A Catholic Philosopher Explains

In this rich and intellectually vibrant episode of Godsplaining, host Father Bonamitra Chapman welcomes Professor Philip Rosemond, a leading Catholic philosopher and scholar of medieval and contemporary thought, for a deep exploration of how Christian tradition, especially through the lens of liturgy, offers a radically different way of seeing reality. Rosemond argues that modern and postmodern philosophies—ranging from Heidegger and Foucault to Kant and Derrida—can be fruitfully engaged with medieval theology not as rivals, but as complementary languages that illuminate one another. Central to his argument is the concept of the 'liturgical subject,' a person who experiences time and space not as resources to be exploited, but as sacred dimensions shaped by God’s grace. Drawing on the Liturgy of the Hours, the liturgical calendar, and the Psalms, Rosemond shows how the Church’s tradition reorients human existence toward divine reality, countering the modern subject’s obsession with efficiency, utility, and control. He emphasizes that grace does not destroy nature (gratia non tollit naturam), but perfects it—making the ordinary sacred. The conversation culminates in a forward-looking reflection on language itself, as Rosemond’s upcoming book, *Only the Word Saves Language*, explores whether human language can be reclaimed from the instrumentalism of modernity and AI, and restored to its divine origin as the Logos that holds creation together.