Ideas Have Consequences

"It will not suffice to point out the inventions and processes of our century unless it can be shown that they are something other than a splendid efflorescence of decay" (12)

"The whole tendency of modern thought, one might say its whole moral impulse, is to keep the individual busy with endless induction." (12)

"The unexpressed assumption of empiricism is that experience will tell us what we are experiencing." (13)

"A great material establishment, by its very temptation to luxuriousness, unfits the owner for the labor necessary to maintain it, as has been observed countless times in the histories and of nations." (15)

"Civilization has been an intermittent phenomenon; to this truth we have allowed ourselves to be blinded by the insolence of material success." (17)

This Day in History-The Beginning of Philosophy

Today, May 28 is one of the beginning dates offered for the beginnings of philosophy in Ancient Greece. The reason is quite simple really. A solar eclipse happened, as predicted by Thales of Miletus on this day in 586 BC. This solar eclipse happened to lead to truce between the Lydians and the Medes, a truce that would be in effect until Croesus of Lydia was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 546 BC. But that is another story.
Why would a solar eclipse begin philosophy? Because under the paradigm of Greek mythology, the religion of the Greeks, he should not have been able to do it. Under Greek mythology every event takes place because of the gods. Consider the cause of the plague in Homer's Iliad that is distressing the Greeks as the epic opens. "Apollo, who in anger at the king drove the foul pestilence along the host, and the people perished, since Atreus' son had dishonoured Chryses, priest of Apollo" (Il. i.9-11). Typically, as in Homer, events have an immediate course in the wrath of the gods. Thales usurps the possibility of the gods by predicting something. Prediction implies one of two things for the Greek worldview. Either the gods to not exist or Thales is a prophet with the mind of the gods.
This involves just a just brief foray into causality. In human experience (shut up Hume), causes always precede events. In Greek mythology, all events had supernatural causes with immediate causes. By predicting an event, Thales called into question the immediate supernatural causes of this event, and thus all events. If Thales can predict the effect, the cause is known or knowable. But Greek mythology held that the causes of storms, plagues, even the seasons are known only to the gods. The consequences of Thales prediction are obvious. Either the gods did not really control events like the eclipse Thales predicted or they planned the event do far beforehand that Thales was able to deduce it or discover it. But either of these negates the traditional understanding of causality according to the worldview of the Greek mind.
Thus Thales, by using reason and science, began philosophy by predicting an event that the gods did not cause.

Foucault and Progressive Education

The "expert" phase of Progressive Education is dead, or at least dying. We have come to the end of the rope with regards to the idea that there are professionals out there who can and should do a better job at education than other, less professional folks. Well, there's a lot of double talk, but some of the more academic educators have figured this out even if the court system in California is a little behind. Instead of relying on the idea of a professional expert to show us all what we need to know to become Dewey's "knowledgeable citizens" the educators have shifted gears to Michel Foucault (1926-1984). Foucault was a French social theorist who taught that people learn through self-questioning and other-questioning, which eventually creates power. According to Foucault, "power and knowledge are joined together" because what we consider knowledge is created by those in power. The old "winners write the history books" argument comes into play here.
Foucault was a postmodern thinker who taught that in the realm of truth, there were "regimes of truth" generated by societies. Truth amounted to "the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true." Truth was, of course, relative, and was kept in place by those in power.
In Progressive education the standardized, testable, formal assessment is the only way to determine if anything is being done because the "experts" who wrote the curriculum are not present teaching the curriculum. The teacher is no longer the one who knows, but is instead a stand-in administrator for the all-knowing textbook. Foucault suggested that American education exercises a disciplinary role over children to the tune of a prison. “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” The challenge of Progressive education, in their own minds, is not to teach children anything, but to keep them where they are long enough so they don't leave. School systems regularly pass students from grade to grade, regardless of how they perform, because if students don't pass they will drop out. If a student drops out, the argument goes, the system has failed. So they keep the train moving regardless of the condition of those inside. So this aspect of Progressive education is dying because educators are figuring out that the plethora of tests and administrative controls actually devalue the teaching role. One author has asserted that "standardizing procedures and developing competency tests may actually create more problems than they solve."
So what is the pedagocial answer? Foucault argues that to have power, everyone must accept responsibility for knowledge. The teacher must hand over the seat of authority and become a student in the same idiotic state as the student. Both sit there sharing statements, responses, questions, and replies to enhance or argue the last reply indefinitely. "For Foucault, through these discourses or complex crisscross of thoughts and the social forces that support them, individuals come to know what is true about the world. Drawing on these created truths, they organize and control their lives." (Levitt, 47).
Levitt argues, "To encourage students to critically consider and even challenge their learning, teachers must develop their own self-images as knowledgeable individuals, interacting and learning with others. Educators’ contributions to this discourse are particularly important, as they have as much to offer as to gain."
Modern education is scary folks.

New Van Til books

There are two new books by the man behind presuppositional apologetics coming out. No, this isn't some Protestant reincarnation at work. Rather, two of Cornelius Van Til's most important books have been re-edited and annotated by the folks at P&R. The editions being retrofitted for our weak minds are the Defense of the Faith and the Introduction to Systematic Theology. I found out about them through the Ref21 blog, like I often do. You can also take a look at the table of contents and a sample chapter of the Defense of the Faith here at P&R.
I already have the complete corpus of Van Til through Libronix, but will probably try to get my hands on the new Defense of the Faith to read through and see how the annotations assist me in understanding Van Til's thought.
In my opinion, having not seen these new volumes, the best aid to understanding Van Til is still Dr. Greg Bahsen's last book, Van Til's Apologtic, available here from Amazon. Bahnsen understood Van Til very well and was very adept at putting Van Til's difficult concepts into words even idiots like me can understand.
I can't wait to see how the new volumes fare against Bahnsen's approach.

Idealism and Pragmatism in Animal Farm

If you haven't read Animal Farm recently, pick it up. It only takes about 3 hours to read. I always find out how long a book is on an audio CD recording and tell my students it should take you no longer to read a book than x hours. I know reading is different from comprehension, but I have some slow readers. If a speaker can read a book to someone else in 3 hours, you can read the book in that time too. But I digress.
I was reading Richard Weaver's classic Ideas Have Consequences recently and was reminded of how pragmatic we have become. The realm of the Ideal has no meaning for us anymore. Everything must have real, tangible value for us to even consider it. I noticed this even in Animal Farm. The only reason the animals are roped into Old Major's plan is that he promises them material gain for their effort. They are not idealists. They are materialists. They want their stuff. They want their eggs and milk. They don't want Jones to have it, they want to keep it.
Just a few thoughts from the reading list this week.

The Cross and Classical Education

While the idea of the antithesis makes a Christian education possible, it is really the fact of the cross that makes a classical education meaningful. The content of a classical education is not a Christian phenomenon. It is something that has existed in some form since the 5^th century BC. The Greeks had classical educations in terms of the content that they studied. The Romans and Egyptians had classical educations in the same sense. What makes the content of a classical education meaningful in our lives is the cross.

One of the most important and interesting issues hit dead on by our approach to history and literature is the extent to which we show the complete and total folly of pagan antiquity. We call it a total and complete folly because the civilizations of pagan antiquity like Egypt, Greece, and to some extent Rome, were the only civilizations where it is possible to see a developed worldview completely void of God’s revelation. Peter Leithart says, “Reading Greek and Roman literature … highlights the difference between a world formed by polytheism and a world that worships the One Living God” (Leithart, 20). The best that the world can come up with without Christ and without God is presented for our amusement and instruction in these ancient civilizations. What do we find?

Ultimately we find chaos. Hesiod, the Greek poet of the seventh century before Christ describes the creation of the world in his work, Theogeny, by beginning with the principle of chaos. “Chaos was first of all” sings Hesiod (Hes. Theog.,116). Out of chaos came all the attempts at rationalization that the Greeks could muster. The Sumerians had a similar experience. When we look at the parallel flood narrative of The Epic of Gilgamesh we find that rather than an appeal to justice for sin committed by man, the reason for destroying the world by flood among the Sumerian gods is that “the uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel” (108). We find that everything that comes after is ultimately to be understood in terms of chaos. When the storm blows up on the sea and washes the boats of men away, it must be the result of Poseidon who was angry with someone for something. When the lightning crashes in the night, Zeus must be angry with someone for something. One of the legends preceding the Troy narratives tells that when encamped at Aulis, Agamemnon and his fleet were not allowed to leave. The goddess Artemis desired revenge on Agamemnon because he had hunted in a forest sacred to her and killed a sacred deer. The penalty was the death of his first-born daughter, Iphigenia. How and where Artemis had made the restriction of hunting clear is not expressed and one looks in vain for that kind of revelation in ancient literature. No one really knows what the gods expected or how to gain their favor. They have not revealed their will to anyone.

Beyond this is the character and actions of the gods and goddesses in ancient literature. The gods are not gods in the sense that we think of them. They are not all-powerful beings who can do whatever they want. They are bound in certain areas. For instance, even Zeus cannot transgress the decree of Fate when the wall of the Achaians is penetrated by the Trojans (cf. Hom. Il. xiv.52 – 4). Nor is Zeus free to change the fate of Patroclus in the Iliad (cf. Hom. Il., xvi.250-52). The gods bicker and fight among each other (cf. Hom. Il. xx.54-5), they deceive each other (cf. Hom. Il. xiv.159 – 360), they are petty and arbitrary. There is no sense of justice among them. One day they may say one thing, and the next it is forgotten. Achilles puts the pagan worldview most bluntly when he declares:

Such is the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals,

that we live in unhappiness, but the gods themselves have no sorrows.

There are two urns that stand on the door-sill of Zeus. They are unlike

for the gifts they bestow: an urn of evils, an urn of blessings.

If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them

on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune.

But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure

of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining

earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.

Il. xxiv.525-33

There is never goodness alone from the pagan worldview, only evil or, at best, evil mixed with blessings. This is the worldview of the ancient world. This shows us just a little of what Christ came to change on the cross.

The cross is a marker in history. From that point forward, in time and space, the pagan cultures were no longer held in bondage to Satan and paganism. John expresses this function of the cross in the book of Revelation when he speaks of Satan being bound “so that he should deceive the nations no more” (Rev. 20:3). The cross makes it so that the God of Scripture can no longer be ignored by human history. When Paul is speaking before the philosophers in Athens he tells them that they have been living in “times of ignorance” that God has “overlooked” but “now commands all men everywhere to repent” because of the cross (Acts. 17:30).

Ignorance and superstition must give way to worship of the true God. This is also Paul’s point in Athens. It is as he sees the Greek monuments of worship that he is compelled to address them concerning their paganism and ignorance. He does not deny their religiosity or sincerity in what they conceive to be objects of worship, he merely tells them they are seriously mistaken about the nature of the universe and their place in it. He redirects their pagan conceptions of god and begins to set them aright. “God, who made the world and everything in it … does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he worshipped with men’s hands…. And he has made from one blood every nation of men … so that they should seek the Lord” (Acts. 17:25-27).

The cross points us to God just as the Law points us to Christ. The cross invades our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of the world around us. It forces us to confront our most treasured presuppositions and demands that we justify them by the cross. The cross makes possible classical education because it demands that all history, all facts, all knowledge be seen through the giver and maker of all things. In the ancient world, education was a method of getting ahead, learning a skill that would provide work. In the shadow of the cross education, classical education, is instruction in the proper worship of the living God of creation.

The Civil War and the One and the Many

The philosophical problem of the one and the many is one that is pervasive throughout western thought. Cornelius Van Til and R.J. Rushdoony have both given us excellent ways of resolving this problem within a Christian world and life view. It is interesting to me how often the problem comes up in history and literature. It is as pervasive a problem in real affairs as it is in philosophy classes. Some of my students have heard me speak of the way it affects the Greco-Persian wars of the fifth century before Christ. Recently I became aware of just how important it is in understanding the war between the states (commonly called the Civil War).
One aspect of the causes of the Civil War was the constitutional issue of secession. Could states, once joined to the Union, separate themselves from the Union? Were the states a national union or were they a diversity of independent states? The One (National Union) and the Many (Independent states). The answer to this question, fought over during the Civil War, has been answered by default. A national union was forged in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Ideas have consequences...