Absolutely. Maybe existentialism should be the next topic we talk about. I didn't mention it directly just because I was trying to be succinct, but you are right.

Cory

Sorry, Chuck, I tried to edit the format of the email you sent but it didn't work.

Cory,

This is great. I enjoyed reading it and will talk with Kevin today
sometime to see when we can set up our iThink group on the new
software at CBC.

I'm wondering if "Existentialism" doesn't fit into your discussion
somewhere. I'm not sure where that would be, but it seems that when
man found he could not legislate morality without God, there was a
movement that said nothing is of higher value than anything else we
just all exist = existentialism. If you see an old woman on the
street corner, stopping to help her cross the street or running her
over has the same moral value. Didn't this lead to nihilism and I
think Neitzschke had something to do with this.

It just seems that a pessimism about standards of living and purpose,
meaning and significance were lost to many souls and that opened the
door to the "God is dead" movement.

Does existentialism fit in the movement from modernism to
post-modernism?

Chuck

Postmodernism

Ok, this discussion of the transition from modernism to postmodernism has taken a while. In the last few hundred years changes in ideas have been fast and furious, so there is a lot to talk about. Another reason is that the transition here is a little difficult to follow. One way to look at it is that postmodernism isn't really a distinct way of thought, it is just the natural outcome of modernism. I think there is a lot of truth in that.

More about that in a bit, but first, let's talk a little about what 'postmodernism' is. Do these characteristics sound familiar?

1. No single world view captures reality. There is no master story or meta-narrative that underlies humanity.

2. Reason is to be distrusted because there is no way of knowing which individual's reason is reliable.

3. There is no such thing as objectivity.

4. There is no 'truth' to appeal to for understanding history and culture.

5. There are no moral absolutes.

6. The West, with it's colonial heritage, deserves ridicule.

7. Texts, whether religious or philosophical or literary or legal, do not have intrinsic meaning.

8. Ideas are cultural creations.

9. Everything is relative.

10. We need to be deeply suspicious of all ideas, given the way ideas are used as tools to oppress and confuse people.

Looks a lot like the culture we live in now, doesn't it? Well, this isn't the first time this has happened. This is the same basic description of the presocratic world. Remember, it is hard to talk about 'what the Greeks thought' because there were Greeks who thought just about everything. Before Socrates there was Protagoras, who was the first to say, "Man is the measure of all things." It was also a very relativistic culture. The sophists (from whom we get the words sophistry and sophisticated) were intellectual guns for hire, who really believed in nothing, but would take any side in a debate. The more skilled at it they were the more money they made. But it was all just a game, a way to coerce as many people as possible. It is no wonder reason was distrusted and truth was viewed as relative.

Then came Socrates. Socrates said, "God is the measure of all things," and stood up for truth. His 'God' was an unknown god to him (see Acts 17), but he made a remarkable stand for a pagan.

Socrates' ideas and those of other Greeks contributed significantly to Judeo-Christian thought. Then the modern thought came along seeking to have "Good without God." Human reason alone was supposed to supply us with all we needed to govern ourselves. The problem there, as we've discussed already, was the 'good' we were trying to demonstrate through reason was largely imported in from the Judeo-Christian ethic. Nietzsche and others showed there was no foundation for right and wrong if the Judeo-Christian God was dead. We tried to be our own gods.

The fruits of that endeavor were clear enough. WWI and WWII, and numerous other atrocities. In short, the bloodiest century in history. Next time someone tries to tell you that all wars are the result of religion, and religion is therefore bad, remind them of the legacy of humanism.

It was obvious that the goal of "Good without God" was untenable. This brings us back to the syllogisms we talked about:

If God does not exist, then morality cannot be justified

But morality can be justified

Therefore, God must exist

(modus tollens)

or

If God does not exist, then morality cannot be justified

God does not exist

Therefore, morality cannot be justified

(modus ponens)

Remember that it was the end of modernism when thinkers started to realize the truth of the first premise. What if they had then gone back to examine if there really could be "Good without God"? Finding the answer to be, no, why didn't they go back and embrace Christianity? Why didn't they realize they were wrong to dismiss Him and run back to Him? If only they had. A few did of course, but the overwhelming response was just to look into the abyss and try to be our own gods.

But what happened is just what we should expect, isn't it? Mankind couldn't resist the temptation to be his own god.

This brings to mind some Chesterton said somewhere (paraphrased): "The doctrine of original sin is the only doctrine of the church that can be empirically proved." The truth of original sin is staring everyone in the face, but no one wants to see it.

While on the subject, here's another quote from Chesterton:

“Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.” - Christendom in Dublin, 1933

Over on the right hand column of the blog I added another link to an article by Doug Groothius. This article is on the Christian Research Institute's website, equip.org. Groothius is (or at least was) a prof at Denver Seminary, and I heard him speak at our Sunday School class once when I was in med school. This article on relativism is short, but speaks to some of the things we've been talking about.

The Christian Research Institute is the home of Hand Hanegraaff, The Bible Answer Man. Another good website to check out is Stand to Reason, www.str.org.

Here's some more about the 'existence' issue Chuck brought up. This link should get you to a forum that discusses some of the points
http://memoriapress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27&highlight=existence

But this paragraph make the main point:

"The reason for this would involve a more complicated discussion of set theory’s acceptance of the possibility of an empty set, but the fundamental reason goes back to the fact that, in traditional logic, predicates refer to concepts (where the nature or essence of a thing is known), whereas in modern logic predicates are sets that are defined by their members. All of which is just another way of saying that traditional logic assumes that words have meaning apart from the actual existence of their objects and modern logic does not."

This ties into several other issues. The modern idea that "words don't really have meaning" is where the idea comes from that the constitution, or the Bible for that matter, doesn't have any meaning apart from the meaning the reader wants to put into it. So things can mean whatever you want them to mean. But more to the point is that the traditional approach assumes that essence precedes existence, whereas the modern approach assumes that existence precedes essence.



This all incredibly brief, but it seems to me the "existence" contention assumes a modern instead of a Judeo-Christian perspective. We know the Bible assumes that our essence precedes our essence. God had us in His mind, and what we were supposed to be, before we were born. God had right and wrong, and meaning and purpose, all figured out before people came along to decide those things.



That seems a long way from the Ontological Argument, but it's all part of the discussion of whether 'existence' is really an attribute.



There have been other rebuttals of the Ontological Argument. One is that the argument is really a tautology. That is to say it is just a redundant statement with the conclusion just restating the premise. But that doesn't refute anything, because tautologies are valid. If the premises are true a tautology is sound. And some people argue that all deductive arguments are tautologies because the conclusion is really contained in the premises. But that is a little convoluted, because it is like complaining that a conclusion really does follow from the premises. The thing about tautologies is that sometimes they are useful to unpack or restate something in a way that shed's more light on the subject, and I think the Ontological Argument clearly does.

Thanks Chuck,

Good question. My short response is that if 'existence' is not an attribute, or quality, or property, then there is no qualitative
difference between a child's imaginary friends and real friends.

Cory

Cory,
 
One struggle I've heard with the ontological argument is that idea of "existence" itself. Is that really an attribute? I'm not sure I understand all this, but it sure was fun to read your blog. I enjoyed it a lot. If I get a chance I'm gonna look into the ontological argument when I get a chance and see what else I can find.
 
Chuck
 

One reason to encourage the teaching of proper reasoning is that properly interpreting the Consititution demands it. Legal reasoning is a little unique, but you have to know how to reason properly to apply the law correctly, and also to defend a strict constructionist view of the constitution. That's why some Catholics are great people to have as judges. If you have ever heard Judge Scalia debate a liberal, it is really impressive. (For the record, the right wing of the Supreme Court is all Catholic, and I include Kennedy here. Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia are all Catholic.)

Chuck, more to your question about logic/reason leading us to a Judeo-Christian ethic, it is interesting that the Chinese have realized they have a problem, in that the Marxist/materialist foundation of their thinking really leaves no room for ethical behavior. In their system it is definitely true that the only reason to follow the rules is because of what happens to you if you get caught. They also realized that as they move to somewhat of a more free market system this will cause a problem, as there will be little incentive to be ethical. It is a misunderstanding of capitalism that it is based on pure selfishness. If the system doesn't have an ethical system much like the Judeo-Christian system, it won't work. Interestingly, at least in some places the way the Chinese have attempted to remedy this problem is to teach the Bible. At least the Bible stories we learned as a kid. They could have chosen just Aesop's fables or some other stories, but they chose Bible stories. It wasn't a wholesale adoption of Christian faith, but they could see that ethical conduct within a capitalist system naturally followed from the Judeo-Christian ethic. Insightful on their part.

As far as reasoning toward faith goes, I disagree with the commonly held belief that idea that you can't prove the existence of God. Now, true faith is more than just rational proof. But the rational proof is there. The modus tollens syllogism I wrote about recently is one example, but here is another one. I fully expect this to cause some dissent, so feel free to argue with me. Rustin and I talked about the ontological argument when we got together a few weeks ago. I'm going to present the syllogism a little differently this time.

It is possible that a being than which no greater being can be conceived exists.
Therefore, a being than which no greater being can be conceived exists.

OK. Let's unpack that a little. This is Anselm's form of the argument. I once heard of a student in a philosophy class writing a little satire of this, proving that he could find a date. Because he could conceive of a date, a date must exist. When I first heard this myself I thought it was absurd. I can conceive of a giant, green slime monster. That doesn't mean a giant, greem slime monster exists.

But the difference between dates and giant, green slime monsters and this being Anselm spoke of is that the idea of 'existence' entails itself in Anselm's being in a way that it doesn't in the other cases. If you can conceive of the greatest possible being, but it doesn't exist, then it isn't the greatest possible being. A being that is just like it but actually exists would be greater.

On the surface this seems almost childish, yet after you have thought about it for a while it is quite elegant. Remember what deductive logic tells you. If an argument has a conclusion that follows from the premises, it is valid. If an argument is valid and has true premises, it is sound. That means the truth of the argument is guaranteed. In this case there is only one premise. The conclusion clearly follows. And the premise is clearly true. There you have it.

Things like this give me a deeper appreciation for God, and a deeper understanding. I don't need this proof for my faith. But does help me understand that God has engrained all of creation, including our rational minds, with clear evidence of Him. To me, the ontological argument for God's existence is just as beautiful as seeing a spectacular sunset and marveling at God's creation.

There is a story that one time Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosophy, was walking down some steps and out into the yard at Cambridge (I'm pretty sure it was Cambridge). He was over heard saying, "Great God in boots! The Ontological Argument is valid!" Apparently he went on his way thinking other things and never pondered that. Our hearts need to follow our minds, and without God stirring our hearts we are blinded and won't come to true faith. But for those of us who have been so stirred, things like sunsets and the Ontological Argument are some of God's little gifts.

Chuck,

More or less, yes. My immediate point was just to point out the irony in avoiding reason in the age of reason. But what you say is more or less true, too. I don't think you can use logic/reason to bring a person to faith, not all the way anyway, but it can be a big part of the process. And if you reason correctly you can hardly avoid it. It takes an amazing spiritual blindness not to see the implications.

But I do think teaching logic/reason is avoided in public education. To some extent this is just by passive neglect, and in some cases it is deliberate. Remember Obama's friend Bill Ayers (I think that is his name) in the education department at the U of Chicago. Some liberals have infiltrated education departments for a reason (pun not intended). And they don't want people learning to think rationally for themselves. At the end of the day they don't believe in right or wrong, only power to control. So they want you to do what you are told, not think for yourself. I know I'm walking on thin ice a little, because there are a lot of good people in public education working hard, some of them doing great work, but most unwittingly going along within the system. And the system isn't designed for free thinkers.

One example of what happens when they try to promote proper thinking in public education is when they try to teach what they call 'critical thinking.' They don't teach proper reasoning, they just take a pet project, like global warming, and make sure the students are all indoctinated and emotionally charged against anyone who doubts it.

A friend of mine who is a retired prof from the U of Ottawa was in a debate with a feminist one time. He trounced her in the debate, and her only response was, "I don't accept your phallo-centric logic." It's the old, "your dead, white man way of thinking doesn't work for me" tactic.

But the bottom line is, if they want you to think what they want you to think about feminism, environmentalism, abortion, oil rigs, global warming, 'undocumented workers', homosexuals/AIDS, socialized medicine, evolution, and on and on, they can't allow you to reason for yourselves.

"Come, let use reason together..." Isaiah 1:18

Cory,

wow! I loved this stuff. I wish I had more time to pursue it.

Do you suggest that we don't teach logic anymore (or emphasize it) because it might lead us back to the judeo-christian ethic? We are thus able to foster upon the people our own codes of conduct and sexual mores, etc?

chuck

This is just a correction. In the last post I called the syllogisms 'categorical syllogisms'. Then I thought about it. Modus ponens and modus tollens are not 'categorical' but just simple syllogisms, and also established rules of inference.

Modernism to Postmodernism

In the article I gave you the link to in the last post, http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/Tortured-Logic.html,
he gives you a couple of syllogisms.

If God does not exist, then morality cannot be justified
But morality can be justified
Therefore God must exist

and

If God does not exist, then morality cannot be justified
God does not exist
Therefore, morality cannot be justified

These are both categorical syllogisms. It is deductive logic, which briefly means that if the premises are true, and the conclusion really does follow from the premises, then the conclusion is 100% guaranteed. In logic there are rules to follow to make sure the conclusion really does follow from the premises. (Incidentally, traditional logic is mostly concerned with proper reasoning from a given set of premises, not necessarily having to do with whether the premises are true.)

The first of the above syllogisms has a form called modus tollens.

If p, then q
Not q
Therefore, not p

The other is modus ponens.

If p, then q
p
Therefore, q

Both of these are examples of proper reasoning, i.e., they are both valid. However, those of us with a Judeo-Christian ethic recognize the first example here of having all true premises. Therefore it is not only valid, but sound. A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises.

The problem the enlightenment thinkers ran into is that they hadn't thought this through. They were trying to show you can have 'Good without God,' and it hadn't quite hit them that, "If there is no God, then everything is permissible," as Ivan Karamzov says in Dostoevsky's book. From about the time of Dostoevsky on people realized, as did Nietzche, that the major premise of the above syllogisms was true. So then one must decide whether the minor premise of the modus tollens or the modus ponens form is true.

If one accepts the modus tollens form, it seems to me one must reject much of what the Enlightenment accepted. Again, I'd be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. (see previous post) Although much of the Enlightenment was mistaken, not all of it. But generally speaking, if the Enlightenment was wrong, it seems prudent to back track and make sure we haven't thrown the baby out with the bath water in rejecting the Judeo-Christian view of reality. Unfortunately, that is what the major thrust of modernism has done.

So, it seems modernism embraced the modus ponens argument. What you end up with is the cognitive dissonance that most people find now. They want to say nothing is right and wrong, all the while telling you you're wrong for being a Christian. There is no right or wrong, only power.

That will lead us into some discussion of postmodernism. But one more quick point. Another name for the Enlightenment, or modernism, is the 'Age of Reason.' Supposedly we rejected Judeo-Christian thought for something more rational, and we are now at least inheritors of the 'age of reason,' if not still in it. Isn't it odd that we don't teach reason, ie logic, in the schools. I think it is that at the end of the day, the rejection of the Judeo-Christian worldview and adoption of modernism wasn't really all that 'logical'. To accept the modernist (and postmodernist) view of things we have to avoid logic, and just accept what we are told. Odd, isn't it.

So, the Ancient and Medievil thinkers embraced logic and reason much more than descendants of the 'age of reason.' It is important to understand that reality is not merely logical or rational. There is more to faith than that. But it is not irrational or illogical. Logic is important. Remember what we have talked about before, John 1:1 could just as well have been translated "In the beginning was the logic (logos), and the logic was with God, and the logic was God."

Modernism

This afternoon I just read an article from the Classical Teacher magazine. It just happens to be apropos. You can read it here http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/Tortured-Logic.html.

To start with, if you look back a ways in the blog I brought up Nietzsche, and how he is so misunderstood. He was an atheist, and he was wrong in the big picture, but there were a lot correctly insightful things in his ideas. He is a complicated character.

But for the moment let me get back to the idea of objectivity. I recently heard someone say that if something is objectively true, that means I can show it to you. If something is subjectively true it is based on my personal opinions and feelings, and I can't necessarily demonstrate it to you. Now, that is probably close to what the dictionary would say. But my point is that is a decidedly modern definition, not a Judeo-Christian definition. Up until the Enlightenment objectivity had to do with something coming from outside of ourselves, verses coming from our own tastes, desires, feelings, and opinions. Take, for example, the Ten Commandments. Are those truths objective or subjective? The Judeo-Christian perspective is that they are objective. They don't change based on our personal preferences, and they are imposed on us from outside us. They aren't a creation of our own.

The modern definition of objectivity is a little different. Things are objective only if they can be demonstrated through the senses. If you can see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, or taste it then it can be shown to be objective (another name for that is empiricism). This presents a problem for anything of a moral or religious nature. This is why at the end of modernity some people have been trying so hard to marginalize Judeo-Christian ideas which put so much stake in objective morality.

But there was a transition period in the early modern period. People like David Hume and Immanuel Kant believed in a 6th sense. It was not the same as the 6th sense in the Bruce Willis movie, but it was more or less the conscience. The conscience was a moral sense of knowing right and wrong, and it was objective in their view.

But here is where Nietzsche comes in with some profound insight. One of the goals of the Enlightenment was to establish good without God (Hume was an atheist, Kant was probably a practical atheist although a practicing Lutheran). If the Enlightenment was to throw off religious superstition they would have to show that they could prove things through reason and/or empiricism alone, without direct reference to God. The problem exposed by Nietzsche was that this 6th sense, or conscience, that was claimed to sense what was right and wrong, was really just a collection of personal tastes and opinions. The reason that people could generally agree early on in the Enlightenment about what the conscience said was because they were still recovering Christians, holding on to the old morality.

He was right. They said they wanted to prove what was 'good' without reference to God, but their ideas of 'good' were really ideas they inherited from their ancestors, who got them from God. Nietzsche realized that if God didn't exist some 'uberman' or 'higher man' would have to come along to show what was really right and wrong, and enforce it. It wasn't that he believed that whatever anyone powerful enough to enforce what he believed was ok. He believed, like the ancient Greco-Romans who he had a lot of respect for, that there was a certain way that lead to a vibrant and flourishing human life. There was some design or purpose, if you will. But it had to lead to a really powerful human life. His quote 'will to power' was kind of a mocking of Schleiermacher's (I think) quote 'will to live'. The 'will to live' was weak and pathetic in itself. Just a desire to live, to get by, was nothing. The 'will to power', to a vibrant and healthy and robust life was what was really needed. (Incidentally, that's partly why Nietzsche didn't like Darwin. 'Survival of the fittest' meant nothing to him. Mere survival, like the 'will to live' was weak.) But Nietzsche himself could not see exactly where to turn to find this Uberman. That's why he ended up speaking of an abyss.

That's about enough about Nietzsche. I just want to add that part of the reason he rejected Christianity was that to him, dying to yourself is weak and could not lead to that robust, vibrant life. Overall, I think Nietzsche was a confused and conflicted man. He knew the Enlightenment had failed, but he was left without anything to really turn to. To back up what I said a little, here's a quote from Dinesh D'Souza, a Christian writer. http://finchesandsparrows.blogspot.com/2009/04/nietzsches-abyss.html

I have more to say about the failure of the Enlightenment and Modernism, but I'll close this post for now. But before I digressed, part of my initial point was that all too often we Christians don't think with a Judeo-Christian mindset, but a modern one. This is dramatically evident in the difference between the Judeo-Christian and Modern definitions of objectivity. When discussing morality and justice, for instance, with non-Christians we don't have to assume the modern view of objectivity and we have every right to claim God's morality as objective and true.

Rustin and I had a really good chat back on the 22nd. I can't really summarize everything we talked about, we didn't follow the book exactly. Hopefully we can get together sometime in Sept. again, and Chuck and Paul, and whoever else, can join us again. Right now between work, Caleb's baseball, and a trip to Colorado (unless Caleb's team makes it to the World Series) I'm not going to have time. But September should open up a little bit.

About the time Rustin and I were leaving the church on the 22nd we were talking about postmodernism. Rustin made a comment that perhaps 'postmodernism' is going to run its course and lead to a 'neomodernism'. I've actually had a lot of thoughts sort of along those lines, but I prefer to call it a return to 'premodernism'.

This is something I've more or less adapted from what I've learned from studying the Christian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. A helpful way to view the history of western thought is to break it down into 3 basic time periods: 1) Judeo-Christian, which includes a significant amount of modified Greco-Roman ideas, up until the 18th century 2) Modern, from the 18th to mid 20th century, and 3) Premodern. Of course this is an over-simplification, but it is useful. And it is understood that you can't throw the baby out with the bath water. Not everything about modern and postmodern thought is wrong. Modern science, for instance, can't just disregarded. That's the thing about heresy; it has a hint of truth in it.

A major concept that defined the Judeo-Christian period was the idea of teleology, or design/purpose. Things were designed for a purpose by a designer. The consequences of this are particularly striking in ethics. If you understand the proper purpose and meaning of man, and that he is created in the image of God, certain ideas of right and wrong will follow. God has established reality such that there is a certain way things ought to go. He has revealed many of these things to us, including the fact that we are created in His image, through the prophets, Christ, the Apostles, and Scripture. And an important point here is that the Judeo-Christian view recognizes the truth that has been revealed to us as objectively true.

The change in the definition of "objectivity" marks an important distinction between the Judeo-Christian and the modern worldviews. In the next couple of days I'll post something more about the modern and postmodern views of things, and about objectivity. In the meantime feel free to post your own thoughts.