Posted on 12/09/2010 7:56:44 AM PST by spirited irish
By the close of WW II, Richard Weaver and countless other classical liberals apprehensively discerned that the Western civilized nations were on the road to breakdown and totalitarianism. Suffering "progressive disillusionment," Weaver perceived that old cultural restraints had failed to control man's propensity for evil. This led him to ponder the fallacies of modernist ideas that had produced the holocaust of evil visited upon the world from WW I to WW II. By late 1945, Weaver published his conclusions in his book, "Ideas Have Consequences."
The subject of Weaver's book was "the dissolution of the West." Its deterioration was traced by Weaver to the late 14th century when, Weaver argued, Western man had made an "evil decision." Enticed by William of Occam's (d. c. 1349) philosophy of nominalism, Western man abandoned his belief in transcendent "universals" and thus the position that "there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man..." The consequences of this revolution in ideas were catastrophic, for "The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably...the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of 'man is the measure of all things."
Things worsened as the downward spiral continued:
God would be conceptually murdered, Heaven shut-down and Nature itself elevated to the supreme reality. The doctrine of original sin was abandoned and replaced by the "goodness of man." With only the physical world of the senses held to be real, Christianity declined, rationalism arose, and materialist science became the most prestigious way to study man. With knowledge limited to the sensory realm, man's spiritual attributes, that is, the soul, mind, conscience, and free will were soon lost in an endless cycle of reductionism and determinism. Man, created in the spiritual likeness of his supernatural Creator would be lost. In his place would stand the soulless human ape, an accidental emergent product of mindless evolutionary forces.
Weaver dubbed this way of thinking the "spoiled-child psychology" of modern man, who had "not been made to see the relationship between reward and effort." This orgy of mindlessness is traceable to certain terrible-willed modernists who, no longer wanting to be created in the spiritual likeness of their Creator, had failed to achieve an integrated world picture, a "metaphysical dream," said Weaver.
Weaver concluded with an ominous warning:
"the closer man stands to ruin, the duller grows his realization (for) the annihilation of spiritual being precedes the destruction of temple walls." (The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, George H. Nash, pp. 30-33)
What Weaver dubbed a "spoiled-child psychology" can be broken down into a legion of poisonous "isms:"
naturalism, materialism, idealism, empiricism, relativism, positivism, determinism, reductionism, scientism, biological and spiritual evolutionism, Freudianism, progressivism, liberalism, socialism, communism, utopianism, amoralism, and underlying them all....atheism and antitheism.
By 1951, insanity-producing modernism had already contaminated America's Supreme Court. In "Dennis et al. vs. U.S." Chief Justice Fred A. Vinson observed:
"Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes ....all concepts are relative." (ibid, p. 37)
Around that same time, Anthony Harrigan noted that a process of decay was being fostered in America by a "fierce and subtle" modernist orthodoxy. "Modernists are determined," he argued,
"to force the acceptance of pornography as medical science, filth as artistic realism, and abnormality as a mere difference of opinion...Though the life of the country is basically decent, Americans are in the hands of a cultural ruling class which...is conducting us to ruin." The amoral ruling class seeks to raise up a "liberal-bred barbarian" motivated by a destructive impulse" and unchecked by "traditional values and restraints," in order to destroy America from within noted Harrigan. (ibid, pp. 39-40)
That the ruling class of Harrigan's day succeeded in their unholy quest can be seen by Dennis Prager's article, "F — You" from the Music Industry,' wherein Prager succinctly describes today's "liberal-bred barbarians:"
"the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and to profaning that which is held sacred." (http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2010/12/07/f — _you_from_the_music_industry)
The barbarianism described by Prager is not restricted to music industry insiders. No, it is the prevailing attitude of the class of people described by Angelo M. Codevilla as the "Ruling Class..." In his book by that name, Codevilla notes that contemporary America is a kingdom divided against itself. Today there are two distinct classes and they are as different as day from night.
On the one hand there is the Country Class...the little people. Though in general the Country Class holds a disparity of beliefs, it nevertheless remains the repository of America's founding Judao-Christian philosophical worldview. Hence it is the Country Class that maintains the traditional founding belief that all men are created in the spiritual likeness of God the Father and that all men are therefore subject to His laws.
On the other hand there is the Ruling Class....the liberal-bred barbarians This class is comprised of the people we commonly think of as Leftists, that is, Socialists, Communists, Marxists, Liberals, Progressives, and anarchists. But it also includes people identified as rightwing, notes Codevilla. They are certain positivist GOP and Wall Street insiders, global corporatists, and international bankers.
The Ruling Class was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the very ideas described by early Conservatives such as Richard Weaver as evil, by Harrigan as amoral, and summarized by Whittaker Chambers as "Ye shall be as gods." Hence the key to understanding the ruling class says Codevilla, is its first principle, which is "we" are the best and brightest while the rest (the Country Class) are retrograde, racist, backwards, and dysfunctional and must be properly constrained and managed.
Whereas unscientific, unenlightened Country Class bumpkins still believe in God the Father Almighty, ruling class barbarians absolutely know by way of a "Gnostic knowing" that mankind is the emergent product of mindless evolution. Hence the ruling class "know" that they are the "naturally selected" ones possessed of superior intellect while the unevolved masses are human apes who cannot be trusted with reason or science and certainly not with guns, their own children, and private property.
To the ruling class, science is only science in the "right" hands just as consensus among the "right" people is the only standard for truth, notes Codevilla. By identifying science and reason only with themselves, ruling class barbarians have delegitimized the Country Class, thereby freeing themselves to demonize, ridicule, shame, and scorn the "lower class" as superstition-believing fundamentalists, as mentally-ill, as terrorists, haters, bigots, homophobes, and fascists. And though the ruling class has as yet been unsuccessful in destroying the Country Class' faith in God, they have managed to make it as socially unacceptable and embarrassing as smoking — to be done furtively and with a bad social conscience, said Codevilla.
It is as a whole that Ruling Class barbarians "regard social and cultural norms as stifling" and "are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and to profaning that which is held sacred." Early Conservatives knew this, and as previously stated, viewed Liberalism — by any name — as evil:
Forrest Davis, an adviser to Senator Taft asked:
"Is not the prevailing political 'liberalism'...that potpourri of indiscriminate do-goodism trending into statism and Marxism and blending so indistinguishably with treason, that is the deepest enemy of the traditional America and the West?" The Liberal, exclaimed Davis, "has looked upon the face of evil and found it half good." (ibid, p. 95)
William Rusher, publisher of the National Review in 1957 remarked:
"...the Liberal Establishment...shares Communism's materialist principles." (ibid, p. 137)
In summarizing the conservative case, Frank Meyer commented:
"...Liberalism is in agreement with Communism (it sees) the necessity and desirability of socialism...it regards all inherited value — theological, philosophical, political — as without intrinsic value or authority....therefore (there are no) irreconcilable differences...between it and Communism (thus) Liberals are unfit for the leadership of a free society, and intrinsically incapable of offering serious opposition to the Communist offensive." (ibid. p. 137) Or to today's jihadists, it should be noted.
It was Fyodor Dostoevsky's acute spiritual discernment that ultimately revealed the real source of the evil lurking at the bottom of Liberalism's so-called "enlightened" canon of isms. The evil, said Dostoevsky, is the Original Lie: "Ye can be as gods."
In absolute agreement with Dostoevsky's analysis, many years later ex-Communist-atheist-Darwinist Whittaker Chambers noted that the crisis of the 20th century was a crisis of faith. Communism is a religion, "man's second oldest faith," man's "great alternative faith," observed Chambers. Its promise is "Ye shall be as gods." Its vision is "the vision of man without God," of "man's mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world," of "man's liberated mind...redirecting man's destiny." Communism proclaims an inescapable choice between two irreconcilable faiths: "God or Man, Soul or Mind, Freedom or Communism." To Chambers, the "crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God."
Chambers despaired of the West because as the death of God movement that gave rise to the poisonous "isms" broadened and deepened, in the blackness of the shadow it cast, the majority of mankind appeared to Chambers to be spiritually blind to the titanic struggle between these two "irreconcilable faiths." (ibid, p. 92)
Like Whittaker Chambers, Alexander Solzhenitsyn had been a dedicated Darwinist, Communist, and atheist, that is until he was thrown into an earthly Hell called the Gulag. After many long years of unbelievably brutal suffering he emerged one of the 20th century's most powerful Christian prophets. In a message of immense importance to us he said:
"If we surrender to corruption, we do not deserve to be called human. But let us note that the absolutely essential task is not political liberation, but the liberation of our souls from participation in the lie forced upon us...this requires no physical, or revolutionary...measures. No. It requires from each individual a moral step within his or her power....No one who voluntarily runs with hounds of falsehood will ever be able to justify himself to the living..."
Solzhenitsyn is saying that modernist "isms" have corrupted all of us in some fashion. This is because at the heart of them is the Original Lie and all men are naturally attracted to and seduced and tainted by it in some fashion.
Once the Original Lie in its many deceptive guises is institutionalized, it becomes the basis for policy decisions and legislation such as Global Warming, the transnational corridor and highway, redistributive justice, progressive taxation, population control, sustainable development, gay marriage, and Darwinism taught in schools. It likewise becomes the basis for law enforcement, for example, speech codes and hate crimes laws, separation of church and state, and no public nativity scenes. This means that many lies have already been installed as laws, covered by a shroud of other lies and enforced by law. Already in America, to oppose the lie is to be accused of a hate crime.
Solzhenitsyn is also telling us that we must liberate our souls from the power of the Lie. We must become warriors for truth. To fight for truth means defining, exposing, and attacking the lies — Darwinism for example. But isn't Darwinism empirical science? No, absolutely not. At bottom, Darwinism is a Gnostic myth notes Dr. Wolfgang Smith, physicist and mathematics professor at Oregon State University:
"...As a scientific theory, Darwinism would have been jettisoned long ago. The point, however, is that the doctrine of evolution has swept the world, not on the strength of its scientific merits, but precisely in its capacity as a Gnostic myth. It affirms, in effect, that living things created themselves, which is in essence a metaphysical claim....Thus...evolutionism is a metaphysical doctrine decked out in scientific garb....it is a scientistic myth. And the myth is Gnostic, because it implicitly denies the transcendent origin of being; for indeed, only after the living creature has been speculatively reduced to an aggregate of particles does Darwinist transformism become conceivable. Darwinism, therefore, continues the ancient Gnostic practice of deprecating "God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth." It perpetuates...the venerable Gnostic tradition of "Jehovah bashing." (From Old Gnosticism to New Age I, Alan Morrison, SCP Journal Vol. 28:4-29:1, 2005, pp. 30-31)
Darwinism is the Big Lie that allows ruling class barbarians to conceptually dehumanize the Country Class, look down upon them in utter contempt and resentment, and run roughshod over them. Without their realizing it, the Country Class has been reduced to tax slaves to feed the insatiable appetites of the Ruling Class.
To destroy the power of Darwinism is to literally knock the pinnacle out from under ruling class barbarians, thereby casting them down to earth from atop their imagined lofty heights. Suddenly they will be just like the Country Class — fallible, sinful men made in the spiritual likeness of God the Father Almighty and subject to His moral laws. This is the true equality envisioned by the Founders.
However, before we can be effective warriors for truth cautions Solzhenitsyn, we must first cast out our own lies and other sins through confession and repentance. For only with a clean conscience can we be effective warriors for truth.
Resources:
The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It, Angelo M. Codevilla
Defeating the Totalitarian Lie: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America, Hilmar von Campe
Related Reading:
Darwinism: Devilish Gnostic Myth Dressed Up As Science
In the Shadow of Leviathan: America's Arising Fear-Based Society
“Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical (cited above, and directly relating to BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION), new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.” Pope John Paul II
“[I]f the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God…Consequently, theories of evolution which…consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.” Pope John Paul II, obviously talking about the biological evolution of humanity.
The current Pope I have already quoted, here it is again...
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
So how does some sort of “cosmic” evolution enrich our understanding of life?
Obviously in context of the argument between creationism and evolution - he is speaking of biological evolution.
It is generally creationists who seek to humpty dumpty the language to insist that ANY science that contradicts their peculiar theology (Geology, Astronomy, Physics, etc) is “evolutionary” or “evolutionism”. The Pope doesn't seem to share that delusion, and when he speaks of evolution, in context it is obvious to any but the deliberately obtuse that he is speaking of biological evolution.
There is no “faith” in science. Faith is the evidence of things unseen/unobserved. There is either confidence in the model or doubt in the model based upon evidence. Acceptance of the theory or rejection of the theory based upon evidence. There is no such thing as “scientific faith”.
“Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical (cited above, and directly relating to BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION), new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.” Pope John Paul II
“[I]f the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God…Consequently, theories of evolution which…consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.” Pope John Paul II, obviously talking about the biological evolution of humanity.
The current Pope I have already quoted, here it is again...
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
So how does some sort of “cosmic” evolution enrich our understanding of life?
Obviously in context of the argument between creationism and evolution - he is speaking of biological evolution.
It is generally creationists who seek to humpty dumpty the language to insist that ANY science that contradicts their peculiar theology (Geology, Astronomy, Physics, etc) is “evolutionary” or “evolutionism”. The Pope doesn't seem to share that delusion, and when he speaks of evolution, in context it is obvious to any but the deliberately obtuse that he is speaking of biological evolution.
There is no “faith” in science. Faith is the evidence of things unseen/unobserved. There is either confidence in the model or doubt in the model based upon evidence. Acceptance of the theory or rejection of the theory based upon evidence. There is no such thing as “scientific faith”.
Prov 16:33 The dice are cast into the lap, but every result is from the Lord.
We observe dice rolls as random (do you deny this? Deny that the word has ANY meaning?). They are unpredictable from one roll to the next, and yet God knows what the dice will read every time.
Creationists seem to have a big bugaboo about randomness in evolution and anywhere else in science. To many it seems that if I say something is random they think it means I am saying it is out of the control of God and whilly nilly anything can happen nobody is in control. Obviously they need to read their Bible.
"Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with." — Max Planck
The unfortunate logical consequence of such a position is it requires us make conclusions such as that our sins are God's will, regardless of what the Bible has to say on the subject.
Either that, or there is some force above even God, that controls the outcomes that we call "random."
Either way, you're stuck with a God that's different from what Christian theology says He is.
It's probably best to just get comfortable with the fact that this is a mystery.
I don’t see how it follows that God knowing the result of any random event beforehand means the absence of free will.
Sins must be the result of free will, not God’s will.
Christian theology is perfectly consistent with an omnipotent God who can predict the future (re: Revelations, and elsewhere) but also allows humans the capacity to sin via their own volition.
It is like KNOWING that when your kid gets home early from school they are going to watch TV even though it is forbidden to them. They exercised free will, but you (being older and wiser than they, and knowing them from even before their birth) just KNOW they are going to do it, because you know your kids.
Is punishing them now unjust, because you knew beforehand that they would give in to temptation? Or did the little miscreant exercise their free will and thus are responsible for their own actions?
bump
Now hold on a moment. You told us that even randomness (as we perceive it) is controlled by God.
Now you're telling us that there's such a thing as free will, as opposed to God's will: that things can happen outside of God's direct control.
And thus your case against randomness collapses.
God knows the result of our free will decisions beforehand, yet he does not CONTROL them. If he controlled them, they wouldn't be free will.
AARRGGHHHH! You are imputing things to the Pope which he did not say. Actually, several Popes.
WRT your first cite, Pope Pius XII ((2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958) carefully qualifies his remark: "... in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter...." In this he is conditionally [i.e., "in as far as...."] saying that the Church acknowledges that the human body has a physical or material (matter) basis in nature. And this basis must "pre-exist" the human body as its material cause. [Which in terms of classical Aristotelian causal categories omits the other three causes: formal, efficient, and final. The Church tends to set great store by Aristotle.] This "living matter" itself is a creature of God, deriving its existence and persistence from His Living Word in the Beginning, from Alpha to Omega....
Pius' observation to this point pertains only to the level of the matter composing the physical body, a distinction he makes clear with his next statement: "... the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God." That is, God, not matter, is the first and final cause of the soul, even though the incarnated soul is embodied in "matter" (whatever that is — take a look at the stunning, profound insights of quantum theory, and you tell me.... A conversation for a later time perhaps.)
Whatever. That's how I read these lines. I don't see so much as a scrap of Darwinist theory anywhere in the Pope's remarks, let alone any endorsement of it. For where does Darwin say "where souls come from," let alone say they come from God? Of course, the entire point of Darwin's exercise is to expunge God (and souls, not to mention minds) from his description of the biological world, to place it firmly and exclusively on a purely material basis. Such that if there actually were such things as "soul," or "mind" (entities seemingly strenuously denied by Darwinist evolutionary biologists nowadays), they must be understood as epiphenomena of matter....
WRT the two quotes you have from Pope John Paul II, let's start with this from his first: "... new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis." Which theory of evolution? Let's agree he's speaking about biological evolution here. Then the question becomes: Macro- or micro-evolution? It appears there is excellent support from direct observation and evidence that the latter happens; but none at all that the former does.
But Darwin's theory is a macroevolution theory....
The second quote from John Paul II pretty much recapitulates what Pius says in your earlier quote from him. But John Paul's statement is "tougher"; for he says "... theories of evolution which…consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man."
You quote Pope Benedict. "They [they??? I'm guessing: faith and reason] are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
Again, which evolution — "the truth of which enriches our understanding of life and being as such?" Darwin's theory has no clue about the origin of "life and being as such." It has no theory of mind or consciousness. Yet we are supposed to fill up this gaping lacuna by stipulating life, being, mind, and consciousness as either epiphenomena of "matter in its motions," or entities which arise by "random mutation and natural selection" by "dumb" matter boot-strapping itself into higher forms.... (How'd it get so "smart?")
If you want to understand what Popes say, maybe you need to understand their theology better. Most prominent public Darwinists nowadays revile "religion" (especially Christianity). These men do not bother to do that and, to my mind, they end up looking like fools whenever they hold forth on theological issues. Examples: Dawkins; Lewontin; Pinker; Dennett; Hitchens; the "usual suspects"....
Well, just my 2-cents worth, FWIW.
Thanks for writing!
Of course there is! Scientists are not exempt from the human condition. Bottom-line, all human knowledge and action absolutely depends on, or "bottoms out" in faith of some kind. Crudely put, for scientists, typically this is faith in the intelligibility of Nature, or of the universe — de minimus. Otherwise, scientific activity would be pointless.
Thank you so much for your excellent observations, GourmetDan!
Yes; but to be driven to such a conclusion seems mindless to me. For after all, what can the word "random" possibly mean but "we do not know the cause of this phenomenon."
If things are "random," a/k/a "unpredictable," that only means we do not (yet) have the means to predict them. In which case science should not routinely obviate this question, but should ask the next question: Why can we not predict them? Answer: Our knowledge is insufficient. Conclusion: So try harder! Follow truth wherever it leads.
Though I imagine there is a point beyond which the human mind cannot go, vis-à-vis what God knows in His mind. Which is where "mystery" comes into the human picture....
I do not believe that allmendream is aware that his materialist, physicalist, mechanical "picture" of the world — as if the universe were some kind of fantastic, random (mindless) machine inexorably grinding on, rather pointlessly, according to Newton's (and Darwin's) laws — makes God responsible for all the evil in the world.
But I'm very, very glad that you noticed it, dear r9etb!
Thank you so very much for your most insightful essay/post!
They're your words: God created everything, even random events are controlled by God, species evolved and are still evolving.
So.... shall we continue our discussion?
Case in point: math is assumed to be true and universal -- as a matter of faith.
I quite agree!
The theory of evolution is Darwin's theory of natural selection of genetic variation. It is that theory that has gotten confirmation from multiple lines of inquiry as Pope John Paul II stated.
The first statement, that God created the soul of man, is not a confirmation of Darwin's theory, and it is absolutely ridiculous of you to suggest that I was making that argument!
I pointed out what Pius II said to show that it was obviously about HUMAN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION, from pre-living matter.
When you talk your nonsense about ‘micro’ vs ‘macro’, a creationist delusion with no basis in science (evolution and common descent of species which is a consequence of evolution) and nothing the Pope has endorsed, some barrier regarding “Kinds” is the ‘micro’ ‘macro’ quibble, and Pope John Paul obviously rejected that argument utterly when speaking of the multiple lines of evidence that confirm the theory of evolution, and Pope Benedict did the same when speaking of the “scientific proof” in favor of evolution.
I think you need to understand Catholic theology better betty boop, they accept the science of a very old universe and the creation of man from pre-living material via evolution.
The creation of man from pre-living material, the subject of Pius that John Paul took up, is now just acceptance of “micro” evolution? Really? You are really going to make that argument?
My apologies, God can control all random events, but I did not mean to suggest that HE directs/controls every atomic decay and every dice roll, just that HE knows the outcome.
I agree with you that it is a mystery, but I still don’t see how knowing the outcome denies the existence of free will.
But what is obvious is that the Bible says directly that the results of a dice are “from the Lord”. Random events are not out of the control of God, and it doesn’t mean that God is not in control just because we observe events in nature that exhibit randomness.
That was the point I was making. Sorry for the mistake.
Jeepers, allmendream — talk about a "man of faith!" Your faith in this preposterous idea seems to have no bounds, and nothing can disturb it!
And you say "science" has nothing to do with faith!
Guess I'll just go bone up on my Catholic theology now....
Merry Christmas!
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