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Peter Kreeft’s
The Journey: A Spiritual Roadmap
for Modern Pilgrims
Who is Peter Kreeft?
Seven “Right” Questions
• 1. Shall I question? Shall I search for truth
at all?
• 2. If I question, is there hope of answers?
Is there objective truth?
• 3. If there is any objective truth, is there
objective truth about the meaning of life?
• 4. If there is objective truth about the
meaning of life, is it that life is
meaningless?
Seven “Right” Questions
• 5. If life has real meaning, is it spiritual and
not merely material?
• 6. If this meaning is spiritual, is it moral as
well? Is there a real (objective) right and
wrong?
• 7. If there is a real right and wrong, is it a
religious meaning? Is there a God?
1) Should we question?
• Why would so many want to stay in the
“cave” contented?
• Is contentment a barrier to happiness?
• What are the perks to not questioning too
much?
• What is Epicurus’ Garden of Delights?
What is commonly found there?
• Why is thinking for your self more difficult
than at first thought?
Should we question?
• Why do you think there was a grinning
skull behind Epicurus’ garden?
• What does Kreeft mean by
‘reindoctrination’?
2: Is there hope of Answers?
• Skepticism? Is there objective truth, or is
all truth subjective?
• Protagoras the Sophist and his “computers
of virtual reality”?
• Consequences of reality of objective truth?
• Our subjective truths may be wrong….
• How is subjectivism and skepticism selfcontradictory?
Review Questions
• How does Kreeft/Socrates refute
skepticism?
• How does Kreeft/Socrates refute
cynicism?
• How does Kreeft/Socrates refute Nihilism?
• How does Kreeft/Socrates refute
Materialism?
• How does Kreeft/Socrates refute
relativism?
Chapter 1: To Question or Not?
• What might the ‘contented cows’ teach us
regarding happiness and truth?
• Ok, sure, question….but, can you question
too much?
• May it wreck your happiness?
• How might you know if you’re on the
“Road to Death”, or the “Road to Life”?
Chapter 2:Skepticism: Is it True
There is no Truth?
• Does subjectivism really refute itself?
– i.e.: To state that all truth, even moral truth, is
subjective, is a version of an objective truth?
• How should we (you) approach objective
MORAL TRUTH? How do you hope to
know, or recognize it?
• So…what does it mean to be a skeptic?
Chap 3: Cynicism: Can we be
cynical about it?
• Do our lives have some kind of objective,
moral meaning? Can we know such ‘nonmaterial things’ such The Good, the
‘Meaning of Life’, etc.?
• Or, is it all random chance and luck, and
whatever happens happens, so “look out
for Number One (yourself)?
Chapter 4: The Nihilist: What if
Life is Meaningless?
• Gorgias’ 3 Maxims?
– Nothing is real?
– If something is real, we can never know
– Even if we can know, can’t communicate it
Can such a personal philosophy be grounded in
experience? How?
Could love be the answer to such empty experience?
Must one always be critical to move closer to Truth? Can
we learn any wisdom from children?
Chapter 5: The Materialist:
Nothing but Matter Matters?
• Are Mind and Spirit limited to ‘grey matter’, i.e.
the brain?
• How persuasive is Kreeft’s analogy of a
materialist philosophy as leaves on a tree,
where neither are right or wrong, true or false,
each simply is?
• Can a material ‘Self’ be morally responsible? If
so, does it refute materialism, since a material
being only acts as it is programmed (instinct)?
• Does any morality imply some non-material
(spiritual) Truth, or morality?
Chap 5 continued
• Three great critics of Religion:
– Darwin: nothing more than clever apes in
latest evolutionary stage?
– Freud: immoral behavior reduced to natural
‘drives’ for sex and aggression?
– Marx: opiate for the masses?: all are pawns
in economic system
• Is ‘Free Will’, or moral responsibility, even
possible under such “materialisms”, or
Determinism?
Chap 6: The Relativist
• So….does objective, universal Truth, or
Goodness, exist beyond our own
experience or fabrications?
• If all morality and truth are relative and
subjective (and empty of any higher
meaning), is morality inevitably reduced to
an exercise of power of the rulers over the
ruled?
Chap 6 continued
• Is such a distinction between relativism
and objective moral truth really the ‘crucial
issue of our times’? Why, why not?
• What are virtues? Why are they
important?
• List your most important virtues