In his new book, The Way of Heaven and Earth: From Either/Or to the Catholic Both/And (published by Word on Fire, 2025) author Matthew Becklo, publishing director for Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and a Register contributor, makes a case for Catholicism as an antidote to the polarization dividing modern society. 

Drawing on works of philosophy, theology and Scripture, Becklo gives the readers a mini-course on the evolution of thought, from the ancients to the moderns, explaining that humankind‘s afflictions have always been rooted in “heaven-earth dilemmas.”  

The Catholic Church, founded by the incarnate God who became man, naturally sees the good in both earthly and heavenly things. It is “both/and” rather than “either/or,” the author explains. 

“Both/And” is “simply insistence on the Way — an instinct for seeing it and choosing it, for inhabiting the creative tension of paradoxes rather than falling into simplistic solutions,” Becko writes.

The “both/and” of the Catholic Church, should not, however be mistaken for a wishy-washy relativism.

“The Catholic faith is full of paradoxes, but its greatest paradox is this: that all of its both/ands unleash this ultimate either/or, and all of its communion compels this unavoidable decision — this cutting away of either death or life. Either we are with Christ, or we are against him,” Becklo writes.

The Register interviewed Becklo about his new book and its themes, from polarization and the present spiritual crisis to “heaven-earth dilemmas” and the “great balance to Catholic thought.”

Your book addresses the “crisis of polarization.” In what ways does polarization threaten civilization?

This is a book about the history of ideas, but very much with a view to the present — in particular, the present crisis of polarization. Man is a divided animal — what else is new? — but our deepest divisions have clearly entered a dramatic new phase. The internet, the smartphone, social media, artificial intelligence — these tools are seeping into the fabric of human life more and more, and because they’re optimized for attention and profit, leave us in disparate digital worlds. Even just speaking with people from the other political or philosophical “side” — never mind empathizing with them or learning from them — feels insurmountable. 

The question we’re facing now is whether we’ll overcome the crisis or succumb to its destructive potential. The anthropologist René Girard has much to teach us here, because the crisis is deeply mimetic and therefore harbors the very real possibility of explosive violence. Will our spiral into violent speech lead more and more to violent acts? Will paroxysms of violence seize us, the cycles of retribution intensify, the social fabric unravel? This could happen in any number of ways, but the more important question is whether we’ll refuse this outcome and instead harness all these wonderful tools for good. 

 

Can you explain what you mean by the “both/and” of Catholicism replacing contemporary society’s “either/or” ?

This crisis of division, polarization and either/or thinking is certainly bad news, but The Way of Heaven and Earth is a proclamation of good news: the Catholic both/and. The book is organized around three basic ideas: 1) Our greatest dilemmas are heaven-earth dilemmas — tug-of-wars between God and man, God’s place and man’s place, the spiritual and the physical, and the spirit and the flesh; (2) Our heaven-earth dilemmas are only resolved in Christ, the way of heaven and earth, who draws all these polarities together in his very person (Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:20); and 3) The fullness of the way is in the Catholic Church, which is defined by the principle of “both/and” — an instinct for seeing and choosing a communion of heaven and earth instead of their separation and opposition. Where human nature naturally wants to pick one element at the expense of the other—soul or body, order or openness, faith or reason, faith or works, Scripture or Tradition, Christ or Mary — the Catholic Church responds, “Why not both?”

Do you see polarization within the Catholic Church as a threat to its future? How should the Church address divisions within it?

The gates of hell, of course, won’t prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18). At the same time, this crisis absolutely can infect and weaken it. We’ve all experienced Catholic infighting and disunity, especially online. Ultimately, it’s the work of Satan and sin: The devil (diabolos in Greek, from dia-ballein, “to scatter”) wants to rip us apart, and as Origen said, “Where there are sins, there is multiplicity, there are schisms.” The Church is meant to be one (John 17:21) and to be what Pope Leo has called a “leaven of unity” to the wider world; disunity grieves the Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30).

The only way to address it, ultimately, is by looking to Christ and his Body, the Church — Augustine’s Totus Christus. Only by patterning our lives on the whole Christ, by molding our minds and hearts after him, do we have any hope of resisting these dark forces. And we do have hope — not only of resisting division defensively, but of gathering the world to God offensively (i.e., evangelically).

 

What would you hope the reader takes away from this book?

My hope for all readers — whether Catholics, non-Catholic Christians, non-Christian believers in God, or nonbelievers — is that they walk away from the book agreeing with Jordan Peterson: that Catholicism is “as sane as people get.” There’s a great balance to Catholic thought — not the static equilibrium of yin and yang, but as Chesterton portrayed it, the dramatic and perilous advance of a tightrope walker suspended between heaven and earth. This framework for understanding and applying the Catholic balance can help them negotiate the various standoffs between different camps “out there,” but also critique their own biases “in here” — at least, I’ve found both to be the case in my own life. 

At the same time, if people just experience this book as just a set of interesting ideas they can take or leave, I’ll have failed. Because, as Chesterton also argued, this way isn’t a mere theory but a love affair; to know the way as true is to love the way as good and to delight in the way as beautiful. In showing the truth of the way, my hope, ultimately, is that people are drawn into this path of sanity and sanctity — of wholeness and holiness — in the life of the Church, together with the rest of us wayfarers. 

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest, especially among young men, in philosophy, thanks in part to Jordan Peterson and others. Do you think the study of ancient philosophy make people more open to Christianity? Please explain.

My own drift out of the Church in high school and college was, in large part, because of a discovery of philosophy (existentialism in particular) and a sense that it dealt with the same big questions as religion, but in a more serious and less sentimental way — more tough and less tender in its thinking. And my own reversion to the faith the year after was, again, in large part because of a discovery of the deep and rigorous intellectual tradition of the Church.  

So, engaging with the philosophical tradition is, I think, critically important to the success of the New Evangelization. This isn’t to say that matters of the heart — longing, experience, witness, etc. — aren’t important; on the contrary, good evangelists need to speak to both the head and the heart, both of which flow together in the act of faith. But I think truth has the primacy, and our present spiritual crisis is primarily a crisis of confused thinking — including about love and what love means. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, orients us toward truth and, through truth, to the source of all truth — the God who is love. 

The Jordan Peterson phenomenon is part of a broader trend of rediscovering ancient sources of wisdom, and it’s a good case study of how important this engagement is. I can’t tell you how often at Word on Fire we see messages from former agnostics and atheists saying that they stumbled on Peterson, who then led them to Bishop [Robert] Barron, who then drew them into the Catholic Church. And though philosophy has traditionally been dominated by men, and Peterson has largely reached disaffected young males, philosophy remains a vital wellspring for women too, whose thirst for truth is no less real and decisive. Indeed, although Peterson himself hasn’t converted to Catholicism, his wife Tammy has. Male and female he created us in his image, and the Church ought to hold out both fides et ratio to them both.