Abstract

The Quest for the Holy Grail is symbolic of man's quest for transcendence. In a postmodern world, this quest is more important than ever, since postmodernity questions the significance of all quests, values, ethics, morality, purpose, personal responsibility, and community, and thus the very essence of what it means to be human. The resulting desert of the soul reflects postmodernity's radical discounting of all human aspirations. Yet the two most basic human passions---the love of freedom and the yearning for salvation---may be reconciled within a larger conceptual framework which seeks to preserve the essence of each in harmony. The recovery of a teleological conception of the human soul or self as purposeful human action informed by the moral imperative could bridge the epistemic gap between liberalism and fundamentalism. The vision of the Holy Grail as a quest for self-transcendence and an encounter with God represents also the fulfillment of the perennial human quest for meaning redemption, and perfection.