Dear Intelligentsia,Our collective betrayal of civilisation is bone-deep, and often shows itself in an arrogant, cynical hyperskepticism that rejects and dismisses warranted but inconvenient truth, right, duty, insight and wisdom. Ironically, that cynicism pretends to be well founded, that arrogance pretends to be humility before facts of diversity of opinion and error, that hyperskepticism projects to the other ill-founded accusations or insinuations of arrogance (or other base motives) and ill-founded certitude. The result is a Dawkins style universal acid of cancerous absurdity that eats away at wisdom, putting in its place a voyage of folly heading for Ac 27 shipwreck. So, again, how can we find a way of escape, before it is too late?
Perhaps, it is already too late, and certainly, it is only with great difficulty (backed by much penitent prayer for rescue) that just possibly, perhaps, we may find a way of escape.
Such fools are we, given what we have had as inheritance and have so recklessly despised and discarded. (And no, this is not merely me or someone else saying, if you disagree with me, you are wrong. See, how cynically corrosive what we are dealing with is?)
I am pointing, instead, to humility before warrant and wisdom, what Ezra -- I think he wrote the preface to the Proverbs -- meant when he penned Prov 1: 7, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction."
In our education, systematically, we have been led away from fearing and trusting the inherently good and utterly wise creator God, turning our backs on Solomon's sobering counsel in Prov 3:5 - 8,
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD,
and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
How, then, can we escape catastrophe? (If, escape is now possible.)
First, let us ponder the advice of a man who has the strange distinction to have a reputation worse than that of Satan himself (cf. "the Devil is Machiavellian") . . . Machiavelli:
(i) to see the potential cliff well ahead of time,
(ii) to understand that such an edge is ever prone to sudden crumbling and collapse underfoot, then
(iii) to turn back to safer, saner ground in good time to avert needless disaster. Where, yes, worse,
(iv) SLIPPERY SLOPES ARE REAL, too . . . it is not a "fallacy" to observe that there can be forces at work that can cause us to slip and slide ever more and more towards the fatal edge. And yes too,
(v) "a stitch in time, saves nine."
It is not for nothing, that Churchill -- looking back with sorrow and pain at the path of the 1930's -- summed up that seldom was a great war so easily averted, had there but been willingness to act prudently and decisively in good time.
Churchill began to warn soon after Hitler's slimy rise to power and cynical use of the Reichstag fire incident to trick the German parliament into giving him dictatorial powers (on excuse that others intended to seize power and had burned the German house of assembly in that cause). Churchill was marginalised, disregarded, dismissed by people recoiling in horror from the just past Great War. Despite, more and more signs of rising danger of a round two. Until, the fire-breathing dragon was at the door.
And of course, we can point to Acts 27 and to Plato's Parable of the Ship of State.
Enough of mere illustrations and examples.
Why am I pointing to "hyperskeptical cynicism," and to rejection of objective first principles and duties to truth, right reason, warrant and wider prudence (so too, sound conscience, fairness, soundness, wisdom)?
Obviously, because strong signs are evident, signs that it may already be too late to heed. (But which, may help us recover, even as our civilisation lies broken, bleeding and with much reduced power to act, at the foot of the cliff . . . as once Britain turned at bay and stood, shocked, shaken, battered, desperate but resolute and alone in the long, hard Blitz summer of 1940).
Let me lay out some preliminary points of soundness, for reference:
I: Cynical Nihilism fails: First, foremost, wisdom, policy, knowledge and right reason are not reducible to cynical, ruthless, nihilistic "might makes right" power games. (If you hear an echo here of Marxism's key errors, yes it is there, alongside those of the much broader snide hyperskepticism and simple disregard for legitimate, responsible but unwelcome authority.) As a new classic case in point,
II: Radical relativism also fails: Like unto that, truth exists as "that which says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not," where in many key cases we can use right reason and linked right first facts and first principles to credibly, reliably know the -- often unpopular -- truth, in good time. That is, objective, knowable, powerful, timely truth, duty, honour and right are real too.
III: Eat your first principles veggies: Some yardstick first truths, first facts, first principles and first duties are self evident, thus warrantedly certain. While these never suffice to build a whole worldview and cultural/policy agenda, they are plumb-lines that are built-in universal standards that we should heed. For simple but telling example, it is undeniably so, that E: error exists; as trying to deny it, ~E implies that E is . . . an error. Similarly, ponder the Ciceronian First Principles, First Duties and First Law, that founds the reality of a core, universally binding natural law that we must learn to respect:
IV: There are valid first principles of right reason: Yes, we can identify some canons of reasoning that we had better heed and acquire a taste for:
These, then extend to other cases, aspects and applications of reasoning, e.g. to reason or communicate at all requires distinct identity and its corollaries (non contradiction and excluded middle), e.g. Paul's use of a Rhetoric 101 analogical example and implied "how much more" comparison in 1 Cor 14:7: "If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played?"
V: Evolutionary Materialistic Scientism ( = "Naturalism") fails: No, big-S Science is not the pillar and ground of all truth or warrant, and, Haldane is right that evolutionary materialism is self-defeating and thus irretrievably self-falsified:
It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
Sadly, this bears repetition at all points, as many have been overly impressed that Science utterly dominates knowledge. No, philosophy can deliver sound knowledge. So can Mathematics (which is not an empirical/inductive experiment- and/or- observation driven science but instead the -- mainly deductive and axioms-based -- study of the logic of structure and quantity). So can history (which mainly rests on testimony and credible record). So can theology, so can ethics, or even basic common sense (as Thomas Reid pointed out), etc.
VI: Dallas Willard was right: Yes, we need to re-think on what knowledge is and learn to respect it wherever it is found:
To have knowledge . . . is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”) [--> compare, "warranted, credibly true (and so, reliable) belief"] This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life [--> knowledge belongs to the people], and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric . . . .
[K]nowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with. Knowledge involves
assured[--> I substitute here, warranted, credible] truth . . . [pp. 4, 19 & 20: Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge| Taylor& Francis Group, 2018.]
VII: "Religion" is not a Dirty Word: Yes, it has been abused (like just about everything else), but respect for -- and a servant's heart towards -- the good God and others is pro-civilisation and responsible. In particular, it is time to take a serious second look at the gospel, the scriptures and the call to sound discipleship. (As a start, try here.)
Once we are willing to be as the proverbial little child, we will then be able to learn and to reform our civilisation. Whether, we can save it from a fall over the looming cliff, is -- sadly -- another matter. END
