Moral Vision

The Christian writer will feel that in the greatest depth of vision, moral judgment will be implicit, and that when we are invited to represent the country according to survey, what we are asked to do is separate mystery from manners and judgment from vision, in order to produce something a little more palatable to the modern reader.

and

In the greatest fiction, the writer’s moral sense coincides with his dramatic sense, and I see no way for it to do this unless his moral judgment is part of the very act of seeing, and he is free to use it. 

Mystery and Manners pp. 30, 31

How we love (or are unaware of) our blinders. Unfortunately, our moral judgment is tainted by survey and surroundings. So to write good fiction—good, not even great—though we strive for that—we must pray the blinders off as we immerse ourselves in the truth. We must not ignore the survey or our “country” as O’Connor calls it, but our moral sense must be wedded with our vision. We must see Christianity and not only culturally. For we are not producing something for the modern reader other than what we produce for God that he might use it to turn the modern reader to the possibility that he is more than a conglomeration of molecules that can be surveyed as though the output of the conglomeration of molecules mattered.