Since it’s an
issue that is heavy on my heart I will use abortion as a test case. I have shown how we’ve taken the sacred out
of public life as a culture, and how this is extra-biblical in practice. Government always legislates on moral
authority, otherwise it couldn’t declare murder illegal. God judges nations and people in this life as
well for their sins. Society benefits
when Christians act as Christians. That
said to the issue itself.
The 6thcommandment tells us life is important, taking of it outside of war or penalty
is murder. Moreover the Law in the OT treats it as murder and commands the death penalty for anybody who kills a child in Utero.
This issue is
culturally ingrained and we are largely ignorant of the scope and horror let
alone inconsistency of abortion (abortion clock). 60
million infants have been slaughtered in the name of “choice” which really
amounts to self-determination to avoid responsibility. All authority has been given to Christ, we
must honor him in this issue. For the
sake of 60 million murdered infants you have to take a stand. Even secularly, it makes little sense. The argumentation for it is wholly weak and arbitrary.
Even secularly the issues are incredibly numerous and the reasoning disjointed at best in support of abortion.
For a Christian, we can make several points.
The 6th
commandment tells us life is important, taking of it outside of war or penalty
is murder.
At what point
was Mary’s pregnancy an incarnation?
From the very beginning, otherwise that stage of human development would
not be redeemed, and hypothetically she could have aborted the child for more
reason than that God willed it to become a life. At the moment of conception the infant is genetically distinct, taking
in sustenance and growing capable of feeling pain. If that isn’t life, then life doesn’t
exist. Designating a point as the start of life after this
would become arbitrary.
Abortion also elevates the woman over the life of the unborn, or the rights of
the father. I have had discussion where the person disagreeing with me asserted that the males rights end when he climaxes. Ever wonder whey men
have to pay child support if it's not their body and they have no say? He is held responsible for what his body did but the woman is no longer after birth. These distinctions seem sense but are founded on nothing but baseless assumption. There exists the question essentially
at what point does it become your body not your mothers? My answer is it is
foremost a possession of God, and the moment of conception a new life begins. You are in her body, not her body itself. The infant is distinct from the moment of conception and both parents bare responsibility equally. Having divided the family and sex from marriage, we've lost this cohesion and that's why men lose rights but must pay and women are in their position.
Murder of
children was biblically condemned; both this and abortion were common practices in ancient Rome. A child could be slain until the right of
passage into adulthood by the parents (among other horrifying practices). It
is no surprise that in a post Christian culture these practices returned. Children, the weak have become
commodities. They have value only if
wanted, and that accessorizing of children (and the weak) is a huge part of the issue we aren't talking about.
Abortion has
led to horrific practices, it’s a business and the practice is inexcusable.
It results inphysical and mental health issues. A
miscarriage does too, so this should be no surprise since bioligically they are much the same, an abortion is more invasive and violent.
To say that
abortion is fine in cases of rape and incest misses the question, the issue is the
sanctity of life. If the child is alive,
it's murder regardless. People who were
conceived in rape are rare but exist and their lives aren't valued only if they were wanted.
You'd have to say their life was a liability and therefore their humanity less. I have seen pro-abortion activists be
consistent on this, and say "prove your life was worth it" to rape
babies. In fact many woman in such a situation want their babies, a thought that seems to be lost on abortion advocates. It would actually compound the tragedy.
This can be turned right back at them, how do they know their lives were worth
anything? And by what standard? It's utilitarianism, demeaning, degrading of
human life and thoroughly disgusting.
Ultimately it makes life and the value of a human individual contingent
on whether the strong want it. It favors
the strong, and I’ll say that repeatedly.
To bring up
the issue of “who will take care of the child” is to make an emotional and
special pleading fallacy. This doesn't
address the logic of my argument.
Further it makes the child's life and value contingent. Which
consistently, does so for yours and mine. A fetus is distinct genetically from the
mother. Further the unborn cannot be
claimed to not be alive. Something not alive does not grow or require
sustenance. If the fetus is a distinct
human being then simply put abortion is murder. To the Christian who says they
can't legislate it I must ask. If the
child was outside of the mother would you do all you can to stop the murder of
that Child?
The issue of legislating morality is often claimed but government by it's nature is exercising moral authority. You have to
legislate from morality, otherwise you can't make murder illegal. It's simple, and biblical this is why God
gives the moral law in the ten commandments first. Everything else he gives is founded on them,
and he cites them frequently in the books of the law for that reason.
Abortion is the literal killing of the future. When we
practice abortion we live an empty world behind us. If you are fine with that
or feel like Christ should be left out of this you have told God where he can't go and what lives he has given are actually valuable. So if you
believe it's murder, that a fetus is a human life how can you be fine with
that or with living in a society where people don't try to prevent murder
because they don't want to impose their religious beliefs?
Because the culture has imposed it's secular humanist religious beliefs on you.
Voddie Baucham: A biblical view of abortion and adoption
It is an
attack on God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. Frankly, it’s legalized murder and it’s satanic
as it gets.
Whatever happened to the human race episode 1
Scripture says
to value life and God is King over all of creation, your culture says it’s not
life and to keep it to yourself. Which
will you listen to?
This one will likely be
very short but it’s worth noting. There
is OT precedence for God judging those outside the covenant community by the
same morality in this life.
The introduction
section of v 1-4 contains a command to not do as the nations surrounding
Israel, sins for which they’ve been judged
Incidentally, they are
sexual, and the laws which Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 5-6(1 Corinthians 5-6) concerning the man sleeping with his mother
in law. The same moral law is assumed
even demanded today for believers, but also is the standard the unbeliever is
held up to. The word is the term for
sexual sins against OT law ( the judgment discussion is about church discipline not a command to
not witness to or influence the world around you).
Moses concludes in
24-30 Saying God mad the land “vomit out its inhabitants” for committing these
very sins. It should be no surprise our
society is collapsing today, though we’ve suffered the penalty for all our sins
in the body. Ultimately the collapse of
civilizations comes when through idolatry.
God holds nations to the same moral standard, you do them no favor in
refusing to influence the culture
Follow me on this, I
will lay out my objections and then what I think you're intending
When you say Christians
can't expect the unbeliever to live a Christian life so we ought not tell them
to live morally, you are saying Christ has no authority over their lives. Intended
or not you are saying he has no place in the public sphere and is not their
king. they are judged by the same standard as we are and can benefit from
honoring God, moreover Christ is God not just in the church or over it's people
but over all sphere's of life and over all people. Essentially without meaning to you are caving
to the culture's definition and narrative.
God is not in the public sphere, self-autonomy is everything and leave
us to do what we want. It's the assumption of freedom of religion as simply
freedom of worship,yet that's the problem. All of our lives and all of creation
is to worship God in honoring him always in all things. Saying otherwise or
placing a limit on how Christian's can influence society in their witness to
honor God (short of engineering perfection) which transforms the culture is not
honoring to God as the arbiter of all truth and the lord of all Creation.
That surrender has led to the death of Christendom
and the society's decline. We are called
to be the salt of the earth. Don't
engineer perfection, you can't. Do what you're
called, and honor God with your voice in all areas of life, saying we can't
tell others to honor God is really abbhorent.
In worrying about making us look bad, you leave people in their sin and leave
soceity to suffer. In trying to be kind,
you leave people without a witness and society without a restraint. You can’t watch someone in their depravity
and throw your hands up “oh well, let them go” anymore than you can see a loved
one digging a knife into their wrists and leave them be because “they don’t
think their life is important.
What are you reacting
out against? Is this you're objection to
the turn or burn mentalityAmerican Christianity? It need not be so. The Prophets of the Old Testament certainly
did not, and neither did Christ or the Early Church. We can't conflate poor
evangelism that degrades without pointing to God's grace with what is really a
Godly influence on soceity and part of God's
call on us to be the salt of the earth.
Take even Jonah in the OT for example who spoke out to a pagan empire,
and the other prophets who certainly spoke concerning them.
Where we agree and
where the solution is: Evangelism is to be in relationship without neglecting the
Grace of God. This does not negate the
duty of Christians to influence society or mean Godly influence isn’t
evangelism.
Central tenets to think on
1.God is the
source of all authority and moral law
2.the Government
has moral authority and is instituted by God
3.Therefore Civil
Authority must honor God in it's law or practice, or be judged accordingly.
4.People saved or
unsaved live under God's law and face consequences in this life and the next.
5.You have
influence you can use to the end of increasing the honoring of his authority by
the government and private individuals
6.do it.
From those of seen, and
this may not fit you I’ve noticed two things.
You are confusing
persons with opinions when you make it personal, this is postmodernism
Or
You are saying the
culture can expect or make us act like secular humanists and can do what you
are telling us not to while we can’t ask them to live according to Christian
moral principles.
Christian’s aren’t
somehow the bullies, moreover we are even the minority now. Applying a double standard like those
mentioned is anything but helpful.
The culture has a
consensus by which is legislates, ours is secular humanism. You are not acting
as a Christian when you tell Christians to stop advocating social causes or
telling nonbelievers not to sin. You are
acting as a secular humanist and absorbing the sinful character of our culture.
The Church always spoke out politically.
Everytime they said Jesus is lord not Caesar, or when they refused and
discouraged worship of idols. Rome was
only concerned with politically unity, and Gods were considered local. To refuse to worship the God’s where you were
was considered treason since the God’s were so identified with the state. Rome saw refusal to worship the God’s as “atheism”,
a political charge of treason. It was
believed this failure on the part of Christians would cause the wrath of the God’s
to fall on them. So evangelizing in and
of itself was politically charged.
So if you refuse to vote or speak out your Christianity to the culture, you
aren’t living as a Christian. You are
living as a secular humanist.
Abraham Kuyper spoke well on the issue. There are different spheres (in one sense) But "There is not one square inch in the whole domain of Human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all does not cry out MINE!"
Think of it as an interlocking puzzle. Without Christ in all as lord of all you are missing a piece and unable to see the full picture.
While we struggle to make sense of how to live out our faith there are really only five positions you will see regarding
Christ and culture.
1.Christ in culture (transformer of
culture)
a.Focus
is on influencing not engineering.
Christians endeavor to convert and redeem all man’s cultural life for
the glory of God. Focus is on influencing.
b.Man’s
cultural pursuits are a good but infected by sin. Needs restoration and redemption.
Model is about living out the Gospel, permeating it through changed lives and
living out the Gospel in all aspects of life
2.Christ away from culture, living in
paradox
a.Christians
live in the world but are oblivious to it, resting on tradition and waiting for
God’s kingdom. Appears to have a premillennial
tint in some respects.
3.Christ over culture/above culture
a.Very
puritanical, battling culture
b.An
attempt to live in both realms bringing them together asserting Christ’s
dominance.
c.Ends
in trusting human means and even government, frequently theocratic in
expression
d.In
the Erastian form where Government runs the church and appoints it’s officers it can shackle the church.
e.often
leaves little room for the church to speak prophetically to the culture
confusing institutions
4.Christ away from/against culture
a.Antithesis/protecting
b.Christian’s
must break from their culture radically
c.Anabaptists
such as the Mennonites. Out of the world
but not in it in the least. Does not
allow to be the salt of the earth or light of the world.
5.Culture of Christ, Christ of Culture
a.Equates
and assimilates. Christians find in
Christ the high ideals for their cultural life and values. The moral example, whatever that example may
be.
b.Typical
among theological liberalism. God is
perpetually speaking of his changing/continued revelation through the culture’s
observation (this word often is key).
With scripture, views it as observations or thoughts on God absent of
God’s revelation of himself, he is outside of and not in the text.
Every
Legal system assumes and even demands a moral framework upon which it is
founded. Moral frameworks are inherently
religious and philosophical because they define themselves answering several
basic questions. They have an assumption
about the nature of man, the nature of God and the conduct that is demanded of
man. The Torah in Judaism, Confucius and
Buddha in China, Hinduism influences India and most telling to us today the
Quran stands as perhaps the biggest example that comes to our minds. Whereas Jesus gave the moral law of the Old Testament the Quran
gives a legal one as well and it was intrinsically political which is why Islam
is in the turmoil it is today and has produced militant interpretations such as
Daesh (ISIS). Those countries that have
a concept of “human rights” have directly or indirectly borrowed the concept from
a Christian framework which is why the West is so concerned with it and why its
former colonies claim the same.
The
bible understands this framework as a given. The injunction to Adam and eve was
a moral and legal demand to obey God and not eat of the forbidden fruit. The legal penalty was death. Nothing has changed. All are subject to God’s laws, hence all
suffer the penalty of sin.
When
God brought Israel into the wilderness he followed this understanding. The first thing God did wasn’t give the in
depth legal law code that would form Israel as a political entity. He instead gave a moral law, the 10
commandments upon which to base what would come after. He reiterates this process again and again,
after telling Israel “I am the Lord your God.”
The unbeliever is found
guilty by God because they are still under his dominion and under his laws, we
need to remember this while still understanding they aren’t saved.
Our
culture today has an agreed upon postmodern ethic that demands we not bring religion
into our politics, and I’m hearing this from Christians. Submitting to this we are really letting
ourselves have an authority other than Christ.
We are allowing a pagan ethic to dictate our public interaction in the
public sphere. In short we are telling
Christ his power and dominion ends at the ballot box or with public
debate. How are we to be the salt of the
earth? Furthermore, won’t society
benefit from the Gospel being applied to their laws?
The Psalmist tells the governing
officials to “Fear the Lord’ and to rule
justly.You cannot honor the lord
without consenting to him as God, and without keeping his law.The magistrates serve as models for God to
his people and agents placed to serve him. The Government and rulers are judged if they
fail, and they're people with them.
He came to fulfill the law for us, but doesn’t
abolish them for the Moral law reflects God's character. Paul clarifies this.
Romans
3 describes the law as showing us what sin is, it is still a good instruction on how to live while showing us our own moral failings. As we grow Romans 6 shows us we follow the law of righteousness (morally) more and more. The Law student's question and Christ's answer is a summation of the laws of God in Matthew 22:34-40, and the giving of them to us affirms the OT.
The
Ceremonial laws are gone, but the moral law still abides. This ties to the Gospel going out to all the
nations. We are a Holy Kingdom, but
there is no longer one national identity that God’s people must be conformed
to. Now the Germans can be Germans, the
English English, the Chinese Chinese and all God’s one holy people without having
to become Israelite. The only laws that
are rescinded are the ceremonial such as circumcision at the Council of
Jerusalem, no such rulings or declarations are made concerning moral conduct
like murder, theft or any of the sexual ethics given in scripture. It needs to be said as well that such issues assume the sexual revolutions definition of what it means to be human, not that given in scripture of which reflects the created order. It is a perfect test case for showing how every legal system has moral assumptions, even religious ones (secular in this case).
The bible is one body of work, the moral law is a
consistent command and reflection of God’s character throughout. The 10 commandments and the moral laws that
came from it were foundation for God’s people in the Old Testament, they are
still valid today for the Israel in the New covenant.
God’s
law is incredibly centered on Shalom, the fullness and peace of God’s created
order. Sin is a break in shalom, as is natural disaster. This is why any deviation, even a “victimless
crime” from God’s design for the world is a break in Shalom. In the book of Jeremiah he warns the king for
failing to keep the shalom “peace peace, there is no peace”, the word is
Shalom.
The passage gets pretty rough describing the penalty
for the wisemen of Israel misleading the people.
As Christians we work towards the healing of the
nations, a re-conquering shalom of God.
Our definition of Freedom and liberty for all as Christian’s comes from
this understanding. The law guides us
into seeing what is a break in this shalom, and in ways to mitigate it in a
fallen world.
Government exists to punish crime and restrain evil,
and are naturally then subject and responsible to God.
This understanding is tied by Christ himself to the
great commission. Matthew 28:18-20 We know Christ will succeed, for Christ has all authority on Heaven and on Earth. Knowing that he stands behind his commission with authority over all things we can make disciples and teach them to follow Christ's commands. For centuries Christian monarchs possessed "sovereigns orbs" with the cross upon them signifying their authority and fealty to Christ as king. Their responsibility to him to rule justly included making laws and policies that honored him. Revelation 1:4-5 Matthew 25:31-33 Revelation 3:20-22
Charlemagne and Elizabeth holding their "sovereign's orb's" or "globus Cruciger"
This is also the biggest issue Rome had with the Christians. We forget that the early Christians were very active in civil disobedience. To Rome calling anybody but Caesar lord was treasonous. Those in Ephesus faced this most harshly as Ephesus was the seat of Emperor worship in Asia. They were commended for resisting "where Satan's throne is." The power behind bad governments and systems that oppose the Gospel is always clear, the devil himself. Christians claimed a different lord and it was for this they were persecuted. The early Christians were faithful in their politics to death and we should be too. Our culture has it's own secular shibboleths which we must stand against. They will hate us for it, but we are called to stay faithful. I appreciate the difficulty and know that we must look to all scripture and the history of God's people.
So
how do the five models tie into this?
You may think I’m going for Christ over culture, but this ends in
confusing the Church with the State, and potentially the Gospel for social
causes and programs. It makes the
government the savior. Ironically so
does Christ under culture, which makes the Gospel all about human progress and
cultural perfection over the salvation of the culture. It forgets its own cause
making a fruit of the Gospel the Gospel itself.
Christ
away from leaves no ability to be the salt of the earth and forgets Christ is
already king in the now and not yet that is the church age. We can easily leave God out of politics, but
more importantly he becomes blocked off. The kingdom will come in fullness, but it is
very real even now.
Likewise
Christ against culture is escapist altogether and leads to saving nobody but
simply separating.
Christ
in culture understands perfectly being in and not of the world. Being the salt of the earth and the light of
the world requires both. Civilizations
transform one person at a time, from the inside out. A Christian culture will simply make Christian laws by it's own nature. The early Church built Christendom by being
faithful and saving sinners who then lived faithfully speaking prophetically to
the culture around them to repent. We ought to do the same.
The
breakdown in civil discussion today is due to the underlying thread of our
culture being taken away. No longer is
there a Christian consensus in the West.
Different as we were we were arguing from the same book. The regional and demographic issues stem from
those consenting to Christianity and those not, whether they really believe it
or not.
Regardless
all told today with our sectioning of off all things whether liberal or
conservative. Faith from “Science,” Religion from politics, individuals from
society as society natural comes undone. The Church (as the believers) is to be
an active agent, and we have largely outsourced this and told God at the door
of our homes and churches “come no further, you must stay inside.” As a Christian we are commanded to honor God in all things, and therefore it is imperative we act in the public whether politics or otherwise as Christ would have us and take a stand for the things of God.
Next
I will plan to show you the history of God’s people acting as a prophetic voice
to the culture. The church failed to act
as a prophetic voice to our culture, and in many cases caved and embraced
secularism. Many took the Christ
of/under culture approach, and ceased to become salty.
Before
I get into any real detail I realize I will need to start with an apologetic
and explain how we arrived at our current culture’s understanding, which is
neither typical nor historical normative even here. I won’t recommend social engineering, but
social transformation. To do so I will
start with a broad view of where we are at today, and why the church has
largely failed focusing on saving souls not lives.
To
say “I shouldn’t legislate morality/my morality according to my faith” is
parroting the culture’s understanding and is indefensible biblically. This runs contrary to the Gospel and Christ’s
command to be salt and light to the earth and to honor him in all things.
Culture
is religion in action as it is religion. I will define religion as the foundational belief/trusted
structure of the culture for understanding the world and our place in it. Religion forms the
framework for how the culture makes sense of and acts in the world. God and scripture assume this is historically
the case. I will develop this later but the bible is clear giving the great commission in Matthew 28 to make disciples and Christ’s claim that
“All power has been given to me.”Christ is called “our Lord and savior” and there are frequent exhortations in the Psalms (Psalm 2, kiss the son lest be become angry)
to the kings and people to honor God as king.
Today
we as a culture hold the former statement on morality not the latter biblical
focus. Keep your religion to yourself,
be tolerant, don’t bring God into it are all new and in some ways bizarre
frameworks. Have we become somehow
irreligious? On the contrary, we have
adopted a deformed religion known as secularism.
The west has inherited the end fruits of the less
than humble era titled “the enlightenment” itself a regression from early
humanism. Our contemporary religion is
“Secular Humanism” and it arose with the mantra “man is the measure of all
things. This was accompanied by a blind
faith claim that mankind is developing/evolving towards a perfect state, led to
by science and the gradual phasing out of “superstitious” religion.
A perfect
example of the modernist mindset that arose from this, as well as the vestigial
Christianity of it's time. We were then becoming more consistent to the point of abandoning Christianityt
as we have today
Broken,
sinful and fallen as we are we not only make ourselves the center but fail to
unite the created order together in our thinking. Dichotomies have long been the norm, a divide
between the spiritual and the physical.
Plato held that the Spirit was good, matter was evil and less real. This thinking invaded the church in the form
of Gnosticism, Docetism and still does today.
The Catholic concept of the Donum Superadditum, where Adam needed extra
Grace in the garden of Eden which he lost before he sinned is likewise guilty
of this error as it makes the material deficient. Aristotle was more focused on this world with
potentiality and actuality. Everything
is a potential something else, a nut is a potential tree that actualizes into a
tree. So he focused on particulars where Plato focused on ideas/absolutes. Yet he would shudder at how far
we’ve taken naturalism. For the majority of history it was the spiritual world
that was more real or superior, however in the last 500 years Aristotle has been
misunderstood and kicking Plato’s tuckus as the material world has become
treated as the real. Our contemporary embrace of dichotomies had a negative effect on gender relations as I previously detailed here discussing the family model.
The medieval world
struggled with this too, yet when John Calvin comes on the scene he affirms the
goodness and unity of all creation. Calvin
affirmed Adam was sufficient in himself, the material body as much a part of
him as his soul or spirit. God was lord
over all creation, uniting both physical and spiritual and redeeming it all to
himself. This explains the physical
resurrection as well as the eternality of the spirit. Yet this (sadly) did not
take hold in an increasingly irrational “rationalistic” world where the mind of
the finite creature man measured all things.
In
the context of the reformation secularism as a philosophy of government began
to take root. Starting with the
Anabaptist separation of church and state, Europe began to suffer the Wars of
Religion which furthered the spread of this kind of secularism.
Originally this was about institutions, there would be no state churches
in secular societies. Many Countries in
Europe didn’t follow suit and still don’t in some sense as some still possess
state churches (Denmark or England for instance) though functionally they’ve
taken on secularism to a tee. The early
form of secularism didn’t keep God out of the government, but politicians out
of church offices and pastors out of government. The idea of keeping God out of anything was
still absurd and the word atheist only came into existence in the Elizabethan
age. Rather Secularism originally rose
in and for a Christian context for a Christian pluralism, one where the
consensus of society was still the same religion in different flavors.
As
we began to explain the material workings it didn’t explain away God but we
acted as though it did. Society gained a means to excuse ourselves from needing
him to explain the natural world. With
increased knowledge came an increase in the arsenal of depravity. We could now make excuses.
Enter
David Hume, the avowed and oft misunderstood Scottish Atheist. Hume is known for denying miracles and
supposedly succeeding in more than committing numerous logical fallacies. Alas his success was all the latter. His points concerning miracles are summed up as
1.Scepticism: We
need to be skeptical of a witness to a miracle in regards to their education,
intelligence, integrity or reputation and if they are lacking in any safely
disregard them.
a.This extensive
list and endless qualifications means almost anybody can be excluded, an ad
hominem to say the least. Further he
disregards evidence from the discussion whatsoever
2.Exaggeration:
People are drawn to exaggeration, therefore they will gullibly believe a
miracle claim.
a.This is a
non-sequitor it won’t make their claims or belief false and I would add it is
quite presumptive.
3.Ignorance: Most
are just ignorant barbarians and gullible in this way.
a.Again, an Ad
homiem fallacy and a non-sequitor not addressing the logic of the discussion at
all. Also, people know more or less how
they world they live in works, give them some credit.
4.Diversity: Religions Competing claims means they all
cancel each other out, none are true/can be known to be true.
a.This is
supposedly his strongest, but again is a non-sequitor. Two people can claim an object is one color
and disagree, but that doesn’t mean both are wrong or that it’s unknowable. The issue is the perceivers not the thing perceived. Variety of claims doesn’t make a truth unknown
or unknowable, it merely provides the observation of different positions.
You
can see the vitriol today among the New Atheists grounded in this, as Richard
Dawkins who said when asked how to address theists “mock them” likewise calling
them “stupid.” Likewise the assertion
that a miracle goes against the laws of nature even Hume couldn’t say for
certain. Rather he asserted the laws may
change, but we haven’t seen a miracle yet (blind faith, a claim he assumes to be true and doesn't substantiate). To counter him further, if there is a divine
agent it is not a break of the natural order, neither would it be if I moved an
object that otherwise would remain at rest.
So
what does this have to do with anything?
Hume’s arguments won popularity, and now the spiritual wasn’t just less
important but altogether unknowable and an intrusion into the natural world. In the age of Deism now it really seemed as
if the spiritual was beyond reach or any import. Enter Immanuel Kant and his Kantradictions. Incidentally his book was published 5 years
after the start of the American Revolution, and at another time I will detail
for you just how differently the founding fathers thought.
Kant
essentially divides reality into the Neumonal (the world as it is “Der ding an
sich” or thing in itself, where God is and his knowledge, metaphysical) and the
Phenomenal world (the way we perceive it to be and which is observable, the
physical). The Neumonal is akin to Plato's metaphysical, absolute truth and the Phenomenal aligns greatly with Aristotle and his physical/particular focus. Kant assumes Hume is correct
and the spiritual is unknowable, since the mind of man allegedly can’t discover
it. Hence there is an unbridgeable chasm between the two He then tries to
correct this by acknowledging we perceive the world and cross from the world we
perceive to God in the Neumonal by “faith”, blind unthinking faith not the
faith of your grandpa mind you. Of
course he tells us to live as if we live with as if knowledge, and claims to
know with certainty by his reason something about the Neumonal world. General Revelation for Kant and Hume is
altogether impossible, and Special Revelation even less so.
I
find it sadly ironic that his name means “God with us” and yet he believed God
was unknowable and unable to approach us.
Both Kant and Hume neglect that the general knowledge of God and general
revelation exist and point to God. Such
a sense of the divine would be cruel and unexplainable in any other
framework. Furthermore, God is an acting
party revealing himself in his creation and in his word.
The mistakes of Hume
and Kant were followed by logical positivism, the philosophical expression of
naturalism and secularism. Simply put “If
you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”.
1.Analytic: True
insofar as math, self-evident and needs no proof. If you can’t measure an object it doesn’t
exist (number of chairs)
2.Synthetic:
Descriptive of nature and perceptions (the color of a chair for example)
3.Metaphysical:
The immaterial denied. And is nonsense
Since
God and the spiritual couldn’t be measured, it was concluded they don’t
exist. Of course Logical positivism
can’t be measured but consistency is a difficult thing to live when man is the
measure of all things.
So
religion became grounds for morality not truth, and increasingly not even that
as it loses all authority as secularism does to religion. Religious belief became values, “science”
became the realm of facts. Therefore to
bring “God into this” suddenly became an absurdity. Religious truth was unknowable in an
increasingly individualistic society where it became about personal peace and
affluence as Francis Schaeffer notes.
Faith
is now viewed derisively, as unthinking and feeling based. As simple values for personal fulfilment it
is demanded they be kept out of the public sphere. It is little wonder then we have consumer
religion today, and where people don’t vote as Christians but as Secular
humanists as we are told to “keep it to yourself.”
With
this materialism came the rise of scientism wherein science is the facts. Statistics and studies became Holy Scripture,
the scientist our clergy in the field of “reason.” The fact that they change all the time is
altogether ignored. It’s the “Hard Sciences” and their narrative that guide due to the mind of man being the
center of reason in this schema. Man’s
failure to find consensus on the true religion brought society to the
conclusion that there isn’t one and modernity with its neglect or even denial of the
metaphysical took root.
Darwin’s
popularizing of evolution (his grandfather posited the theory, as did an
ancient Greek atheist named Anaximander who Plato thought was stupid) led to
the doubt in the bible, since man was already the ultimate authority and this
theory in the enlightened realm of science couldn’t be wrong in any way. Further every mind must have evolved
differently, with no intended design and simply being chemical in makeup. Relativism then naturally followed as each
individual became truly an island.
Increasingly we’re
seeing an imposed morality of relativism become enforced due naturalism’s
assumptions that
1.Reality=nature
2.man is an
animal,
3.truth is
therefore relative (which negates the other two, but again consistency is best
left out of this if you want to indulge your depravity)
Therefore
it is bigoted to impose your views on others, but this is exactly what the
culture and its natural secular humanism does to you and me. You will vote your beliefs, you can’t avoid
it it’s simply a matter of what and in whom will you believe. The consensus is the postmodern ethic, and it’s bored
its way into our culture and into Christians who are swimming in this ocean but
don’t notice it.
This
decay and relativism is why Abortion is a big issue, and gender identity. A video not long ago showed a man asking
college students if they were fine with him identifying as a 6”5” Chinese
woman, many were.
Of course how do you
define what a 6 foot 5 Chinese woman is with no absolutes? It borrows from a concrete reality because it
has to. So far it’s brushed off as not
affecting others, but that’s naïve and we can simply wait for the day when
someone can identify as someone else’s spouse/parents. The death of moral facts has become real, and
with it is going all truth at all as all relativism has left us with is being
“our true self”.
This explains today our
division of “Church and State” as we understand it today. Church is private, State is Public and God
only belongs in the former. This is the
culture’s consensus and the morality and religion it enforces on us, make no
mistake about it. Every legal system is
founded on a morality and morality on religion, we’ve simply capitulated to
that of secularism.
Albert Mohler on the dissapearance of God from the culture.
Essentially
though these thoughts didn’t begin in the enlightenment, that’s only where they
took root. It began in the Garden of
Eden when Adam and Eve were told by the Serpent “you shall be as God’s.” The
culture is coming apart, un-tethered due to its loss of God or even the concept
of truth as the center as everyman becomes a morality unto himself. I expect the book of judges to become current
events. Indeed Friedrich Nietzsche acknowledged the implications, claiming after modernity a universal madness would breakout in the 20th century, and all truth would come unhinged with the death of the concept of God. Having bought into this humanist and secular system,
Christians have only hastened its effects and made Nietzsche's predictions true.
Next week I will dive into the biblical and Christian model, and detail
how we are to transform not engineer society acting as a prophetic and
influencing voice while winning souls to Christ.
And I leave you with the prophetic words of Francis Schaeffer on Humanism looking to what I will cover later.
