Introduction
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ideals and our own dignity rather that to follow the seduction of powers, desires, and “gods” that demean the soul. There are many “techniques of degradation,” as Gabriel Marcel once called them, which lurk throughout societies and in our minds and hearts. (^4) The spiritual battle is to counter those
forces of degradation and thereby to respect and enhance the integrity of human and non-human life. The purpose of this to enter into this religious struggle for the sake of the human future.essay, this trial, is, at its deepest,