We Are Not Gods

The NEH-funded Jefferson Lecturer this year (2012) was the great American writer Wendell E. Berry. In his lecture, entitled "It All Turns On Affection", he says the following:

"The problem that ought to concern us first is the fairly recent dismantling of our old understanding and acceptance of human limits. For a long time we knew that we were not, and could never be, 'as gods.' We knew, or retained the capacity to learn, that our intelligence could get us into trouble that it could not get us out of. We were intelligent enough to know that our