This line, the imposition of belief, reminds me of a talk I heard the other day about how the Christian gospel is both attractive and repulsive at the same time.
It offers redemption, hope, and salvation.
But it also laughs at good works, requires total dependence, and calls out sin.
I think most people can’t swallow calling something a sin – if you want to know the truth. (But this area is swimming with misunderstanding too.)
People get hung up on little things that cloud their judgment about everything – but don’t we all.
In Weil’s view, we should not fail to see how the early modern era ushered in a great spiritual decline; but we should assign the causes more accurately, and see that nonreligious, or antireligious, humanism was a genuine attempt, however misguided and doomed to failure, to seek spiritual freedom from the oppression imposed by the “imposition of belief” of the Gothic era. “Today, in the grip of affliction, we feel a loathing for the process which has led to the present situation.
-Alan Jacobs, The Year Of Our Lord 1943 (Amazon)