So a while back, my family decided to do a big Christmas vacation down in Missouri. We got a big AirBNB rental, put up a big Christmas tree and enjoyed some good ciders and beers. You walk in, and there’s plenty of snacks, candies, Christmas cookies, desserts as far as the eye can see! It was a crisp and wonderful day!
Curveball!
Now my mom has a friend in that area of town so she invited her over, since she hadn’t seen her in years. She came in while my brother-in-law and I were enjoying a few drinks, interrupted everything by slamming her keys down on the table and said loudly, “tell me none of y’all voted for Trump!” Now my brother-in-law and I are on opposite sides of just about everything politically, but we just looked at each other with a nod and smile, and then kept drinking. She repeated herself, not reading the room. It was awkward and intense, and the miasma of arrogance was strong with this one.
I turned to her and said, “we can disagree here, but we’re not going to be disagreeable.” She continued in a boisterous way, so my mom repeated what I said to her, but she was socially tone deaf. So I turned to her and said,
“I appreciate you having your views, but before we talk about Politics, which are very important, we must understand where politics come from. Politics, come from one’s Ethics, and Ethics are shaped by one’s Philosophy, and Philosophy is enshrined by Theology, and Theology is birthed from Worldview.” To put it inverse order, your Worldview will dictate your Theology, which will guide your Philosophy, which then marshals your Ethics, which then commands the Political realm, which is the powers of society dispersed among the particulars.
Your Worldview is the biggest category that houses how you view the world. In that box of thought is Theology, which houses Philosophy, which houses Ethics, which houses Politics, which houses the Particulars of a city.
She just looked at me like a deer in the headlights, and the tension immediately died. Everyone else continued milling about, enjoying snacks, desserts and retelling fond memories. I was happy how that situation was diffused but I was hoping she was sincere in wanting to talk about politics. Proverbs says, “a fool only wants to express his opinion, and does not take any delight in understanding.”
Had she really wanted to know the underpinnings of Politics, I would have asked about how to treat a human being! This is called Ethics. In order to understand how to treat a human being, you must define what it means to be human! We had to have come from somewhere! Where we come from is at least in part, where our value is derived. If you want to skip down past the whirlwind of philosophers, meet me at the bottom heading!
A Whirlwind Tour of How We Got To Where We Are Today
Theology
The Atheist for example has a Theology, which dictates what he says about philosophy. Theology simply asks, “who or what is God, and what is he doing?” Theology drives and dictates and defines every aspect of what we think it means to be human, and how we treat someone.
Philosophy
Philosophy seeks to answer four questions: Who am I? What am I here for? What is wrong with the world? How can what is wrong be made right? If someone thinks that humans are somehow inferior, like Hitler thought of the Jewish people, or a doctor applying a scalpel or shredder to the baby in the womb, then who cares if we kill a human being? Who cares if a girl is raped or a child is abducted for the market place? Sickening, isn’t it? So defining a human being is of high importance. Now why does Philosophy and defining what it means to be human, why does it necessarily come from theology? Let me give a famous example.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
One man understood these things and laid out a framework of thought that society today still leads with, Rene Descartes. You might say, “bless you” or “what are you talking about a cart for?” But I assure you, you’ve seen his influence in modern day society. He promulgated his views, though heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, of questioning everything-even to the point of sitting in front of the fire wondering if it was real. You see, he brought back Plato’s dualistic idea that the spirit, life, or consciousness of a man was like a charioteer, and the chariot and horses were the body and emotions. Descartes also believed this and couldn’t think of a reason for his own existence.
He really struggled and struggled with questions until he realized that there must have been an infinite being! He knew this because he was able to think of an infinite being! Descartes was a mathematician so infinity was an extremely important concept to him. For him, 2 + 2 = 4 (which he called self-evident) was a proof that implied a mathmatical framework that must go on forever. A mathematical underpinning had to be in place in order for 2 + 2 = 4–but who on earth could have built such an invisible perfect framework?
The Infinite Initiative
This infinite being must have taken the initiative to reach him first, because it is logically impossible that a finite or limited being could somehow think of an infinite being, who could make a mathematical framework to house 2+2 =4. For example, if there was a horse running on a track, with a long leash; one would assume that horse will not leave that track. But if one day, I see that horse off the leash and enjoying some nice grass in the open range, I can rightly assume someone let it off the leash, or it broke out, either way, it’s not on that loop anymore! So God must have overriden our limited minds and made himself known to us. These were the (oversimplified) underpinnings of Descartes famous phrase, “I think therefore I am!” He was able to know his truest existence because he was indeed thinking, and in thinking, he discovered and confirmed God!
You might say, well he was wanting the most surest of thoughts, and that can only be done by stripping back every assumption and questioning everything assiduously. When Rene did that, he realized that was still thinking. In thinking, he still realized that he was in fact a being. He doggedly held on to the secular beliefs and methods of his day, despite believing in God and being a devout Catholic. He assumed something that was foreign to the Bible, and native to what Plato believed: that matter and the mind/consciousness were somehow split. I need to move on, but in the posts to come, I’ll focus more on Descartes and rationalism.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The next philosopher I want to highlight, among many would be Rousseau. Many totalitarian thinkers and socialists, several branches of the LGBT community have stemmed from this man’s thinking. He was inspired in many ways with Descartes challenge to strip everything back and question what we have assumed to be true. I do plan to devote an entire post on Rousseau, however this is only meant to be a high-level view.
If you have seen the movie Tarzan, or the many varieties of the Ape-Man (Mowgli, The Jungle Book, Tarzan and the Apes…etc), you’ll be at least familiar with Rousseau. He believed that man belongs to the primal and undeveloped stage of existence. Like Adam from the Garden of Eden, Rousseau said that the ideal man was unchained and unstained by developed society, the Noble Savage. He inspired Van Gough’s contemporary Gauguin to take a trip to Tahiti in search of the Noble Savage. He was traumatized by what he actually saw! So horrified by the savagery he saw that when he came back, he attempted suicide. He drew on a large canvas his worldview. Tahitian society, and the jungle on the right side, as your eyes go left, there he drew a young woman, an old man, and a bird. In the upper-left hand corner of the painting he wrote, “whence, whither, what.” His worldview was shattered.
Were we truly meant to be a noble savage? Were we the product of a few cells? The artisans and sensitive thinkers were on one side with existentialism. They held Rousseau’s mind vs matter dualism in favor of the mind and experience. On the other side was the rationalists, the scientists, engineers and the mechanically inclined. They believed in humanism, where man was the center and measure of society.
Immanuel Kant
During this rose Immanuel Kant, who furthered Rousseau’s thoughts, though branching towards his own existentialism. You have to realize there was an intense personal struggle during this time! There was a serious question going on in that day, and it is related to our day, “how can man exist within the machinery of nature?” Rousseau, strongly advocated that we are not part of the machine, but meant to live out some savagery apart from law and society. Kant wasn’t so brazen. He believed, pious as he was, that autonomy and self-imposed morality would somehow win the day. There were two sides of the dualism, consciousness and the machinery of nature, and he ultimately never resolved to bring those two together, but he opened the door wider to the struggle.
Hegel
During this time, philosophers tried in vain to find the University in the Diversity of life, just like the Greeks attempted. Francis Schaeffer gave an illustration of drawing a circle on the beach. One philosopher would draw a circle saying this encompasses all the details! Then another man would come along and cross out that circle, and draw another one. Then another philosopher would come and cross it out, and draw another circle! On and on until Hegel came along. He said, there is no universal truth that encompasses it all! There is only your thesis, and my thesis, but we will have absolute truth, so we will bring our theses together, or syn-thesis. There is no OR just the Both/And!
All of logic before Hegel stood on Antithesis… now thought would be single threaded through the both-and
All of logic before Hegel stood on Antithesis. So you are either outside, or inside. The word “or” is the key” You either are right or your wrong. Hegel however reduced everything to details. Later on, artisans would bring cubism and impressionism, and every bizarre aspect of what they thought was reality. Why? because they thought that life ultimately had no real purpose or meaning or love.
Rousseau inspired Kant, Kant inspired Hegel, Hegel inspired Kierkegaard, who inspired many like Martin Hiedegger in Germany, Albert Camus with Jean-Paul Sarte in France, and Karl Jaspers. All three, though vastly different, were trying to find ultimate confirmation in existence. Heidegger though angst would confirm his existence, poor guy. When he was older, he changed his theory, because he couldn’t live with dread. Camus and Jean-Paul Sarte belived you had to express yourself into existence, irregardless of the expression! Whether you rip up a flower or plant a flower, doesn’t matter! Karl Jaspers taught that one shouldn’t commit suicide because you might not find your big finale, the one event in life that would actuate and confirm your existence!
All of these theories were assuming a dualism between consciousness and matter.
But what if Truth was not split? What there was more to nature than a machine? It is entirely possible and even probable that God himself made the machine of evolution. Regardless of how you view evolution, or the machinery of nature, let the following statement sink down deep:
At every level of thought, is a relationship.
Solomon, led by the Holy Spirit said the Fear of Yahweh is the beginning of Wisdom. The “Fear of Yahweh” was a 3,000 year-old way of saying, a walk with God. It was an old way of saying, have a relationship with God Almighty.
So in your level of Worldview, God loves you, and made every fabric of reality.
In the level of Theology, God is love, and deeply loves you and made you with value.
In Philosophy, who am I? What am I here for? What is wrong with the world and how can what is wrong be made right? God loves you. God made you in his image as a human being, with infinite value. What is wrong in the world is that mankind redefines what God has already defined as right and wrong.
In Ethics, God loves you, and holds everyone accountable who hurt you. He holds you accountable for how you’ve treated others, because God loves them.
In Politics, which is the powers of society distributed among the mechanics of society–God is love, and desires for the City to be mobilized in Justice and Righteousness.
In the Particulars of Society, what your skills are, where you work, where you live, your station in life, and the rest, God loves you. God wants you to improve your self, your family and economy.
Proverbs says that the reward for humility is four things and I’ll close on this:
1.) The Fear of Yahweh, or a covenant loyal-love towards God
2.) Wealth, God wants you to have this power via skill and wisdom
3.) Honor, God wants you to grow in this, and will bestow this upon you if you walk in his ways
4.) Life, both now and eternal life. Solomon isn’t stupid. Life would be utterly meaningless if you had the best life here, and then went to hell. No. God wants life to be lived to the full both in this life, and the eternity afterwards.
God loves you at every level.