Christian and Liberalism: Introduction

Bible Believers ^

[Gamecock]

Introduction

The purpose of this book is not to decide the religious issue of the present day, but merely to present the issue as sharply and clearly as possible, in order that the reader may be aided in deciding it for himself. Presenting an issue sharply is indeed by no means a popular business at the present time; there are many who prefer to fight their intellectual battles in what Dr. Francis L. Patton has aptly called a "condition of low visibility."[1] Clear-cut definition of terms in religious matters, bold facing of the logical implications of religious views, is by many persons regarded as an impious proceeding. May it not discourage contribution to mission boards? May it not hinder the progress of consolidation, and produce a poor showing in columns of Church statistics? But with such persons we cannot possibly bring ourselves to agree. Light may seem at times to be an impertinent intruder, but it is always beneficial in the end. The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.

In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. This modern non-redemptive religion is called "modernism" or "liberalism." Both names are unsatisfactory; the latter, in particular, is question-begging. The movement designated as "liberalism" is regarded as "liberal" only by its friends; to its opponents it seems to involve a narrow ignoring of many relevant facts. And indeed the movement is so various in its manifestations that one may almost despair of finding any common name which will apply to all its forms. But manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, the root of the movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted innaturalism--that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity. The word "naturalism" is here used in a sense somewhat different from its philosophical meaning. In this non-philosophical sense it describes with fair accuracy the real root of what is called, by what may turn out to be a degradation of an originally noble word, "liberal" religion.

The rise of this modern naturalistic liberalism has not come by chance, but has been occasioned by important changes which have recently taken place in the conditions of life. The past one hundred years have witnessed the beginning of a new era in human history, which may conceivably be regretted, but certainly cannot be ignored, by the most obstinate conservatism. The change is not something that lies beneath the surface and might be visible only to the discerning eye; on the contrary it forces itself upon the attention of the plain man at a hundred points. Modern inventions and the industrialism that has been built upon them have given us in many respects a new world to live in; we can no more remove ourselves from that world than we can escape from the atmosphere that we breathe.

But such changes in the material conditions of life do not stand alone; they have been produced by mighty changes in the human mind, as in their turn they themselves give rise to further spiritual changes. The industrial world of today has been produced not by blind forces of nature but by the conscious activity of the human spirit; it has been produced by the achievements of science. The outstanding feature of recent history is an enormous widening of human knowledge, which has gone hand in hand with such perfecting of the instrument of investigation that scarcely any limits can be assigned to future progress in the material realm.

The application of modern scientific methods is almost as broad as the universe in which we live. Though the most palpable achievements are in the sphere of physics and chemistry, the sphere of human life cannot be isolated from the rest, and with the other sciences there has appeared, for example, a modern science of history, which, with psychology and sociology and the like, claims, even if it does not deserve, full equality with its sister sciences. No department of knowledge can maintain its isolation from the modern lust of scientific conquest; treaties of inviolability, though hallowed by all the sanctions of age-long tradition, are being flung ruthlessly to the winds.

In such an age, it is obvious that every inheritance from the past must be subject to searching criticism; and as a matter of fact some convictions of the human race have crumbled to pieces in the test. Indeed, dependence of any institution upon the past is now sometimes even regarded as furnishing a presumption, not in favor of it, but against it. So many convictions have had to be abandoned that men have sometimes come to believe that all convictions must go.

If such an attitude be justifiable, then no institution is faced by a stronger hostile presumption than the institution of the Christian religion, for no institution has based itself more squarely upon the authority of a bygone age. We are not now inquiring whether such policy is wise or historically justifiable; in any case the fact itself is plain, that Christianity during many centuries has consistently appealed for the truth of its claims, not merely and not even primarily to current experience, but to certain ancient books the most recent of which was written some nineteen hundred years ago. It is no wonder that that appeal is being criticized today; for the writers of the books in question were no doubt men of their own age, whose outlook upon the material world, judged by modern standards, must have been of the crudest and most elementary kind. Inevitably the question arises whether the opinions of such men can ever be normative for men of the present day; in other words, whether first-century religion can ever stand in company with twentieth-century science.

However the question may be answered, it presents a serious problem to the modern Church. Attempts are indeed sometimes made to make the answer easier than at first sight it appears to be. Religion, it is said, is so entirely separate from science, that the two, rightly defined, cannot possibly come into conflict. This attempt at separation, as it is hoped the following pages may show, is open to objections of the most serious kind. But what must now be observed is that even if the separation is justifiable it cannot be effected without effort; the removal of the problem of religion and science itself constitutes a problem. For, rightly or wrongly, religion during the centuries has as a matter of fact connected itself with a host of convictions, especially in the sphere of history, which may form the subject of scientific investigation; just as scientific investigators, on the other hand, have sometimes attached themselves, again rightly or wrongly, to conclusions which impinge upon the innermost domain of philosophy and of religion. For example, if any simple Christian of one hundred years ago, or even of today, were asked what would become of his religion if history should prove indubitably that no man called Jesus ever lived and died in the first century of our era, he would undoubtedly answer that his religion would fall away. Yet the investigation of events in the first century in Judea, just as much as in Italy or in Greece, belongs to the sphere of scientific history. In other words, our simple Christian, whether rightly or wrongly, whether wisely or unwisely, has as a matter of fact connected his religion, in a way that to him seems indissoluble, with convictions about which science also has a right to speak. If, then, those convictions, ostensibly religious, which belong to the sphere of science, are not really religious at all, the demonstration of that fact is itself no trifling task. Even if the problem of science and religion reduces itself to the problem of disentangling religion from pseudoscientific accretions, the seriousness of the problem is not thereby diminished. From every point of view, therefore, the problem in question is the most serious concern of the Church. What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age?

It is this problem which modern liberalism attempts to solve. Admitting that scientific objections may arise against the particularities of the Christian religion-- against the Christian doctrines of the person of Christ, and of redemption through His death and resurrection--the liberal theologian seeks to rescue certain of the general principles of religion, of which these particularities are thought to be mere temporary symbols, and these general principles he regards as constituting "the essence of Christianity."

It may well be questioned, however, whether this method of defense will really prove to be efficacious; for after the apologist has abandoned his outer defenses to the enemy and withdrawn into some inner citadel, he will probably discover that the enemy pursues him even there. Modern materialism, especially in the realm of psychology, is not content with occupying the lower quarters of the Christian city, but pushes its way into all the higher reaches of life; it is just as much opposed to the philosophical idealism of the liberal preacher as to the Biblical doctrines that the liberal preacher has abandoned in the interests of peace. Mere concessiveness, therefore, will never succeed in avoiding the intellectual conflict. In the intellectual battle of the present day there can be no "peace without victory"; one side or the other must win.

As a matter of fact, however, it may appear that the figure which has just been used is altogether misleading; it may appear that what the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to be long in a distinct category. It may appear further that the fears of the modern man as to Christianity were entirely ungrounded, and that in abandoning the embattled walls of the city of God he has fled in needless panic into the open plains of a vague natural religion only to fall an easy victim to the enemy who ever lies in ambush there.

Two lines of criticism, then, are possible with respect to the liberal attempt at reconciling science and Christianity. Modern liberalism may be criticized (1) on the ground that it is unchristian and (2) on the ground that it is unscientific. We shall concern ourselves here chiefly with the former line of criticism; we shall be interested in showing that despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions. But in showing that the liberal attempt at rescuing Christianity is false we are not showing that there is no way of rescuing Christianity at all; on the contrary, it may appear incidentally, even in the present little book, that it is not the Christianity of the New Testament which is in conflict with science, but the supposed Christianity of the modern liberal Church, and that the real city of God, and that city alone, has defenses which are capable of warding of the assaults of modern unbelief. However, our immediate concern is with the other side of the problem; our principal concern just now is to show that the liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science has really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains is in essentials only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene. In trying to remove from Christianity everything that could possibly be objected to in the name of science, in trying to bribe off the enemy by those concessions which the enemy most desires, the apologist has really abandoned what he started out to defend. Here as in many other departments of life it appears that the things that are sometimes thought to be hardest to defend are also the things that are most worth defending. In maintaining that liberalism in the modern Church represents a return to an unchristian and sub-Christian form of the religious life, we are particularly anxious not to be misunderstood. "Unchristian" in such a connection is sometimes taken as a term of opprobrium. We do not mean it at all as such. Socrates was not a Christian, neither was Goethe; yet we share to the full the respect with which their names are regarded. They tower immeasurably above the common run of men; if he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than they, he is certainly greater not by any inherent superiority, but by virtue of an undeserved privilege which ought to make him humble rather than contemptuous. Such considerations, however, should not be allowed to obscure the vital importance of the question at issue. If a condition could be conceived in which all the preaching of the Church should be controlled by the liberalism which in many quarters has already become preponderant, then, we believe, Christianity would at last have perished from the earth and the gospel would have sounded forth for the last time. If so, it follows that the inquiry with which we are now concerned is immeasurably the most important of all those with which the Church has to deal. Vastly more important than all questions with regard to methods of preaching is the root question as to what it is that shall be preached. Many, no doubt, will turn in impatience from the inquiry--all those, namely, who have settled the question in, such a way that they cannot even conceive of its being reopened. Such, for example, are the pietists, of whom there are still many. "What," they say, "is the need of argument in defense of the Bible? Is it not the Word of God, and does it not carry with it an immediate certitude of its truth which could only be obscured by defense? If science comes into contradiction with the Bible so much the worse for science!" For these persons we have the highest respect, for we believe that they are right in the main point; they have arrived by a direct and easy road at a conviction which for other men is attained only through intellectual struggle. But we cannot reasonably expect them to be interested in what we have to say. Another class of uninterested persons is much more numerous. It consists of those who have definitely settled the question in the opposite way. By them this little book, if it ever comes into their hands, will soon be flung aside as only another attempt at defense of a position already hopelessly lost. There are still individuals, they will say, who believe that the earth is flat; there are also individuals who defend the Christianity of the Church, miracles and atonement and all. In either case, it will be said, the phenomenon is interesting as a curious example of arrested development, but it is nothing more.

Such a closing of the question, however, whether it approve itself finally or no, is in its present form based upon a very imperfect view of the situation; it is based upon a grossly exaggerated estimate of the achievements of modern science. Scientific investigation, as has already been observed, has certainly accomplished much; it has in many respects produced a new world. But there is another aspect of the picture which should not be ignored. The modern world represents in some respects an enormous improvement over the world in which our ancestors lived; but in other respects it exhibits a lamentable decline. The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life, but in the spiritual realm there is a corresponding loss. The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre. Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost, under the influence of a utilitarian education that concerns itself only with the production of physical well-being. The "Outline of History" of Mr. H. G. Wells, with its contemptuous neglect of all the higher ranges of human life, is a thoroughly modern book.

This unprecedented decline in literature and art is only one manifestation of a more far-reaching phenomenon; it is only one instance of that narrowing of the range of personality which has been going on in the modern world. The whole development of modern society has tended mightily toward the limitation of the realm of freedom for the individual man. The tendency is most clearly seen in socialism; a socialistic state would mean the reduction to a minimum of the sphere of individual choice. Labor and recreation, under a socialistic government, would both be prescribed, and individual liberty would be gone. But the same tendency exhibits itself today even in those communities where the name of socialism is most abhorred. When once the majority has determined that a certain regime is beneficial, that regime without further hesitation is forced ruthlessly upon the individual man. It never seems to occur to modern legislatures that although "welfare" is good, forced welfare may be bad. In other words, utilitarianism is being carried out to its logical conclusions; in the interests of physical well-being the great principles of liberty are being thrown ruthlessly to the winds.

The result is an unparalleled impoverishment of human life. Personality can only be developed in the realm of individual choice. And that realm, in the modern state, is being slowly but steadily contracted. The tendency is making itself felt especially in the sphere of education. The object of education, it is now assumed, is the production of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. But the greatest happiness for the greatest number, it is assumed further, can be defined only by the will of the majority. Idiosyncrasies in education, therefore, it is said, must be avoided, and the choice of schools must be taken away from the individual parent and placed in the hands of the state. The state then exercises its authority through the instruments that are ready to hand, and at once, therefore, the child is placed under the control of psychological experts, themselves without the slightest acquaintance with the higher realms of human life, who proceed to prevent any such acquaintance being gained by those who come under their care. Such a result is being slightly delayed in America by the remnants of Anglo-Saxon individualism, but the signs of the times are all contrary to the maintenance of this halfway position; liberty is certainly held by but a precarious tenure when once its underlying principles have been lost. For a time it looked as though the utilitarianism which came into vogue in the middle of the nineteenth century would be a purely academic matter, without influence upon daily life. But such appearances have proved to be deceptive. The dominant tendency, even in a country like America, which formerly prided itself on its freedom from bureaucratic regulation of the details of life, is toward a drab utilitarianism in which all higher aspirations are to be lost.

Manifestations of such a tendency can easily be seen. In the state of Nebraska, for example, a law is now in force according to which no instruction in any school in the state, public or private, is to be given through the medium of a language other than English, and no language other than English is to be studied even as a language until the child has passed an examination before the county superintendent of education showing that the eighth grade has been passed.[2] In other words, no foreign language, apparently not even Latin or Greek, is to be studied until the child is too old to learn it well. It is in this way that modern collectivism deals with a kind of study which is absolutely essential to all genuine mental advance. The minds of the people of Nebraska, and of any other states where similar laws prevail,[3] are to be kept by the power of the state in a permanent condition of arrested development.

It might seem as though with such laws obscurantism had reached its lowest possible depths. But there are depths lower still. In the state of Oregon, on Election Day, 1922, a law was passed by a referendum vote in accordance with which all children in the state are required to attend the public schools. Christian schools and private schools, at least in the all-important lower grades, are thus wiped out of existence. Such laws, which if the present temper of the people prevails will probably soon be extended far beyond the bounds of one state,[4] [which will] mean of course the ultimate destruction of all real education. When one considers what the public schools of America in many places already are--their materialism, their discouragement of any sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement of the dangerous pseudoscientific fads of experimental psychology--one can only be appalled by the thought of a commonwealth in which there is no escape from such a soul-killing system. But the principle of such laws and their ultimate tendency are far worse than the immediate results.[5] A public school system, in itself, is indeed of enormous benefit to the race. But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility of the competition of private schools. A public school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought at least to be free.

The truth is that the materialistic paternalism of the present day, if allowed to go on unchecked, will rapidly make of America one huge "Main Street," where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens. God grant that there may come a reaction, and that the great principles of Anglo-Saxon liberty may be rediscovered before it is too late! But whatever solution be found for the educational and social problems of our own country, a lamentable condition must be detected in the world at large. It cannot be denied that great men are few or nonexistent, and that there has been a general contracting of the area of personal life. Material betterment has gone hand in hand with spiritual decline.

Such a condition of the world ought to cause the choice between modernism and traditionalism, liberalism and conservatism, to be approached without any of the prejudice which is too often displayed. In view of the lamentable defects of modern life, a type of religion certainly should not be commended simply because it is modern or condemned simply because it is old. On the contrary, the condition of mankind is such that one may well ask what it is that made the men of past generations so great and the men of the present generation so small. In the midst of all the material achievements of modern life, one may well ask the question whether in gaining the whole world we have not lost our own soul. Are we forever condemned to live the sordid life of utilitarianism? Or is there some lost secret which if rediscovered will restore to mankind something of the glories of the past?

Such a secret the writer of this little book would discover in the Christian religion. But the Christian religion which is meant is certainly not the religion of the modern liberal Church, but a message of divine grace, almost forgotten now, as it was in the middle ages, but destined to burst forth once more in God's good time, in a new Reformation, and bring light and freedom to mankind. What that message is can be made clear, as is the case with all definition, only by way of exclusion, by way of contrast. In setting forth the current liberalism, now almost dominant in the Church, over against Christianity, we are animated, therefore, by no merely negative or polemic purpose; on the contrary, by showing what Christianity is not we hope to be able to show what Christianity is, in order that men may be led to turn from the weak and beggarly elements and have recourse again to the grace of God.

1. Francis L. Patton, in the introduction to William Hallock Johnson The Christian Faith Under Modern Searchlight, [1916], p. 7.

2. See Laws, Resolutions and Memorials passed by the Legislature of the State of Nebraska at the Thirty-Seventh Session, 1919, Chapter 249, p. 1019.

3. Compare, for example, Legislative Acts of the General Assembly of Ohio, Vol. cviii, 1919, pp. 614f.; and Act, and Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of Iowa, 1919, Chapter 198, p. 219.

4. In Michigan, a bill similar to the one now passed in Oregon recently received an enormous vote at a referendum, and an agitation looking at least in the same general direction is said to be continuing.

5. The evil principle is seen with special clearness in the so-called "Lusk Laws" in the state of New York. One of these refers to teachers in the public schools. The other provides that "No person, firm, corporation or society shall conduct, maintain or operate any school, institute, class or course of instruction in any subjects whatever without making application for and being granted a license from the university of the state of New York to so conduct, maintain or operate such institute, school, class or course." It is further provided that "A school, institute, class or course licensed as provided In this section shall be subject to visitation by officers and employees of the university of the state of New York." See Laws of the State of New York, 1921, Vol. III, Chapter 667, pp. 2049-2051. This law is so broadly worded that it could not possibly be enforced, even by the whole German army in its pre-war efficiency or by all the espionage system of the Czar. The exact measure of enforcement is left to the discretion of officials, and the citizens are placed in constant danger of that intolerable interference with private life which real enforcement of the provision about "courses of instruction in any subjects whatever" would mean. One of the exemptions is in principle particularly bad. "Nor shall such license he required:' the law provides. "By schools now or hereafter established and maintained by a religious denomination or sect well recognized as such at the time this section takes effect." One can certainly rejoice that the existing churches are freed, for the time being, from the menace involved in the law. But in principle the limitation of the exemption to the existing churches really runs counter to the fundamental idea Of religious liberty; for it sets up a distinction between established religions and those that are not established. There was always tolerance for established religious bodies, even in the Roman Empire; but religious liberty consists in equal rights for religious bodies that are new. The other exemptions do not remove in the slightest the oppressive character of the law. Bad as the law must be in its Immediate effects, it is far more alarming in what it reveals about the temper of the people. A people which tolerates such preposterous legislation upon the statute books is a people that has wandered far away from the principles of American liberty. True patriotism will not conceal the menace, but will rather seek to recall the citizens to those great principles for which our fathers, in America and In England, were willing to bleed and die. There are some encouraging indications that the Lusk Laws may soon be repealed. If they are repealed, they will still serve as A warning that only by constant watchfulness can liberty be preserved.

---

[Gamecock]

This book, first published in 1923, is a classic treatment of the age old controversy between Orthodox Christianity and Liberalism. Machen contrasts the errors of liberalism with the basic foundational truths of Biblical Christianity such as: Doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Christ, Salvation, and the Church. Machen's book is scriptural, thought-provoking, well-reasoned, and relevant today. Your faith in the Bible and its basic doctrines will be strengthened. It is worth your time to read this important book. This book is in the public domain according to ccel.org

[Gamecock]

GRPL PING

"J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), was a Presbyterian theologian, born at Baltimore, Maryland, studied at John Hopkins, Princeton University, and the universities of Marburg and Gottingen, Germany.... Taught New Testament literature and exegesis in Princeton Theological Seminary (1906-1929).... An outstanding conservative apologist and theologian at Princeton, he left the school because of Modernism. Offered the presidency of several schools; but refused each offer. In 1929 founded Westminster Theological Seminary and became president and professor of New Testament from 1929 to 1937. Protesting against the liberalism of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, established an independent mission board. Charged with insubordination, tried, found guilty, and suspended from the Presbyterian ministry. Group of sixteen other clergymen and laymen with Dr. Machen withdrew in 1936 to found the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.... Died of pneumonia on a preaching engagement." (From "The Wycliffe Biographical Dictionary of the Church," page 257, Elgin S. Moyer, 1982, ©Moody Press, Chicago, IL)

[weegee]

Liberalism seeks to redefine sin. Liberals want to end all moral judgement over a person’s actions (a state goal of the Sex Positive Agenda is to end all moral judgements over sexual pairings of ANY kind). A sinner’s actions may not condemn them for eternity (we all are saved by grace) but to a liberal, things that were formerly universally agreed upon as immoral are now CELEBRATED (see homosexuality and abortion).

[Lee N. Field]

Chris Roseborough of Extreme Theology dot com has it as a pdf on his site.

Get it, read it.

[Gamecock]

It is indeed a great read, very prophetic.

[isaiah55version11_0]

bttt

[Dr. Eckleburg]

the Christian religion which is meant is certainly not the religion of the modern liberal Church, but a message of divine grace, almost forgotten now, as it was in the middle ages, but destined to burst forth once more in God's good time, in a new Reformation, and bring light and freedom to mankind. What that message is can be made clear, as is the case with all definition, only by way of exclusion, by way of contrast. In setting forth the current liberalism, now almost dominant in the Church, over against Christianity, we are animated, therefore, by no merely negative or polemic purpose; on the contrary, by showing what Christianity is not we hope to be able to show what Christianity is, in order that men may be led to turn from the weak and beggarly elements and have recourse again to the grace of God.

AMEN! Machen is great.

"Guard the antithesis against destructive error" -- Greg Bahnsen

[Diamond]

Since you two Freepers authored a very fine book about the relation of science and Christianity I thought you might like a ping to this.

Cordially,

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[betty boop]

The movement designated as “liberalism” is regarded as “liberal” only by its friends; to its opponents it seems to involve a narrow ignoring of many relevant facts. And indeed the movement is so various in its manifestations that one may almost despair of finding any common name which will apply to all its forms. But manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, the root of the movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism — that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature)….

Hi Diamond! Thank you so much for the ping, and for the kind words about our book, Timothy. My co-author Alamo-Girl and I see no fatal contradiction between religion and natural science. To us, God’s four great revelations (Scripture, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and “the Book of Creation” — i.e., the natural world as it actually exists) are not contradicted by science at all.

Indeed, the scientific method (methodological naturalism) is a very limited tool for disclosing the nature of Reality. Science works on the surface appearance of things. That’s because science is based on direct observation — that is, on whatever can be perceived by our five senses. Perception is limited to surface appearance; direct perception never sees the substance of things (their hidden internal structure, in their full spatiotemporal extension rather than just the finite, discrete event that is the object of scientific observation and experiment), “in the round” so to speak, as they are in themselves, in their full context, natural and (we believe) spiritual.

As observers, we tend to operate at the event or pattern level; internal structure is rarely examined as a source of problems. Indeed, the internal structure of events is superfluous for many scientists today, who are basically happy to discover “what works,” and could care less about what it means. “Structure” is all the forces at play in a system; mental models are a key but hidden part of the structure. (QM tells us that the observer is part of the very same system that is being observed. He does not stand apart from it.) Thus direct observation by means of sense perception is a more limited tool than we are accustomed to think. Science may give reliable results, but only at the cost of ignoring the properties of objects that are extraneous to its purposes; it sees the part, but not the whole of which the part is a constituent.

We apprehend reality only through our five senses. There is no other way for us to gain access to the world external to us but via these five “filters.” A filter is something that screens out parts of an object. How, then, do we know that what we experience actually corresponds to the fullness of reality itself, since we ineluctably “reduce” reality in the process of observing it?

Immanuel Kant, the great transcendental idealist philosopher, maintained that we do not and cannot know on the basis of direct observation that our experience and reality actually do correspond. We simply take it for granted that they do; but this is a rough, “common sense” assumption whose basis in actual fact cannot be directly demonstrated.

Kant observed that what we experience via the five senses are the phenomenal aspects of the external world as they impinge on our sensory equipment. What we can never do is experience the “thing in itself,” the noumenon, or the essential, undivided reality of existent being of which we know nothing via sensory means.

By this Kant did not intend to disparage the value of science per se: After all, he was a highly regarded scientist and mathematician in his own day. He simply saw science — methodological naturalism — as restricted by its method (direct observation, replicability of experiments, etc.) to the phenomenal world only. The non-phenomenal dimensions of reality simply cannot be accessed by this method.

Or to use philosophical terminology, science is restricted to the “accidents” of entia (existent things); not to their “substance” (the thing-in-itself).

But unlike the increasingly fashionable view of our own time, Kant’s insight did not mean that the universe can be reduced to “accidents,” to the phenomenal aspect exclusively; he did not mean that anything that is not directly observable does not exist; that everything that exists “reduces” to matter and mechanics — which can be directly observed and measured. Rather he thought the noumenal aspects of reality would give reality’s fullest, or “complete” description, were it possible to access them. Which we cannot do via sense experience. Yet actually, thinking human beings reasonably can gain some idea of noumenal reality; just not via the scientific method. [See below for an example.]

Since we cannot directly validate the assumption that our sense experience exactly correlates with the thing-in-itself, the next best thing we can do is to try to validate our human equipment — sense perception (experience) and reason — for these are the only tools which we as thinkers have to work with in gaining reliable knowledge of the world.

As Dinesh D’Souza notes (in his new book, What's So Great About Christianity?, 2007), “our knowledge of external reality comes to us from two sources: the external object and our internal apparatus of perception. Reality does not come directly to us but is ‘filtered’ through a lens that we ourselves provide.” Thus we are brought to “the astounding realization that human knowledge is limited not merely by how much reality there is out there, but also by the limited sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality.”

Thus: “Reason,” he says, “in order to be reasonable, must investigate its own parameters.” This was the mission of the School at Athens, whose maxim was “Know thyself.” This self-knowledge is gained by means of study and analysis of our experience and the operations of our own minds, not by direct perception of the external world, but through a wholly internal process known as introspection. It is through this process that reason finds its true foundation in our minds.

Earlier I promised an example of an idea of noumenal reality that we can access from purely internal sources, based on reason and “feeling.” According to Antonio Rosmini, “Feeling” includes several basic meanings: (1) direct sense perception; (2) subjective awareness of our inner psychic state; (3) subjective awareness of our identity as a stable, substantial, persistent self or “I”; and (4) emotion — “qualia.” As we have maintained, direct sense perception can give us no contact with noumenal reality, the “substance” of things as they are in themselves. So in the following example, feeling, experience, and reason must carry the burden.

Of course, I picked the biggest, most spectacular example I could find. This is from the above-mentioned Antonio Rosmini, (1797–1855), Italian priest, philosopher, theologian, and patriot. [On November 18, 2007, Rosmini was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church — meaning that he is on-track to become a Saint and, presumably in his case, a Doctor of the Church.]

First, the preliminaries:

“…[N]othing is given to human beings by nature except feeling and the intuition of being. All cognitions are only the development of these two principles, which themselves are the materials making up the edifice of what is knowable. What is not contained in these principles cannot be developed from them. They contain in germ all human cognitions without exception and indistinctly. Reasoning distinguishes them, seemingly creating them before the eyes of the mind. Being, therefore, as object of the mind, and feeling are the two rudiments of all human cognitions without exception…. [Psychology, Durham [U.K.]: Rosmini House, 1999; p. 20]

“‘I intuit being; I do not deduce it. I feel; feeling is not the consequence of any reasoning, nor indeed of any cognition.’

“It is in these final two rudiments of all human information, therefore, that we have to seek the justification and certainty of what we know. If these primal data are certain, other information found in them through reasoning is also certain because the very principles of reasoning are contained in the idea. We have shown the certainty of all the rest of what is humanly knowable from the certainty of its two unshakeable foundations. We have shown that in them no error is possible; that man, relative to them, is infallible because they do not depend on his will, but on his nature”…. [Ibid., p. 21]

Now for the example:

“As an example of cognition that our feeling cannot reach, let us take the teaching about God, which we can have through reason.

“We know of God’s subsistence by means of ontological relationships with that which we know through feeling. These are relationships with the world. We realize that the world must have a cause because it is, and would not be if it had no cause. Being known to us through nature tells us all this; it is to being that we refer the world given us by feeling.

“In the same way, infinity, necessity, simplicity and so on are ontological relationships pertaining to the cause of the world. The cause of the world subsists, but it could not subsist without these determinations. Therefore it has them. We know that it could not subsist, that is, could not in these circumstances be ens precisely because we know what ens is and hence what is needed for it to be ens, and to be this kind of ens.”

[NOTE: “Ens” (plural: entia) refers to an existent or finite entity — not to being itself, which subsists a se eternally (as the great American pragmatist philosopher and psychologist William James describes it, in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), from the perspective of the Catholic scholastic tradition of which Rosmini himself is representative). The finite ens is a participation in infinite being. If it were not, the ens would not exist. Still, all we humans can know from feeling, from direct experience, is ens, not being itself. We therefore take “ens” as our model, and ask the following question:]

“What kind of concept is the concept of an infinite ens? There is no doubt that it must have all degrees of being; it must not be dead, but have feeling and intelligence to the highest degree. But how do we know the essence of feeling and intelligence? We know it through experience of what happens in ourselves, through our own proper feeling. How then can we know the feeling and intelligence of God? Only through analogy between what must be present in him and the feeling and intelligence which are present in us.

“Likewise we understand, through analogy between the supreme being and all entia seen in the light of being known to us through nature, that the supreme being cannot lack reality, ideality, or morality.

“But we understand (knowing being) that it would not be absolute being unless it were being itself in its three forms [reality, ideality, morality]. Thus the concept of infinite, absolute being — already illustrated by means of the analogies we have mentioned and referred to the idea of being we have through nature — is transformed for us into the very being which subsists undivided in the three forms. This seems to me to be the highest concept that human intelligence can make for itself about God without reference to revelation.” [Ibid., p. 25f]

I have noticed that many Christians feel pretty beaten down these days by the skepticism of modern-day scientists with regard to certain tenets of the Christian faith such as, for instance, miracles. Scientists say that miracles cannot exist because they appear to defy the physical laws of nature. But when they say this, please note: They see only the surface presentation of the miracle. Beyond that, they really don't know a single thing about it; nor do they really have any method to “falsify” it.

Yet one cannot account for the authenticity of a miracle on the basis of its visible aspect; for as we have already shown, the deeper, noumenal reality of the miracle, just as in the case of any ordinary object, is beyond the means of detection by the physical sciences.

For all the foregoing reasons, I do not believe the world can be accounted for on the basis of materialist doctrine. Reality is composed not just of matter (mass/energy), but of spirit as well. This well accords analogically with the ancient classical and Christian understanding of man as comprised of spirit — soul — and body, with soul understood as the eternal FORM of the body. At death, the FORM is abstracted; and thus the body has no organizing principle by means of which it can continue to exist. Thus the body becomes susceptible to the tender mercies of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: It decomposes into its constituting elements (i.e., it returns to “dust”).

In short, neither mind nor soul are “epiphenomena” of bodily existence. On the Christian understanding, it would be more correct to say the body is the epiphenomenon of the soul….

Must leave things here for now, since I’ve run on so long already. Just to conclude, I believe that it is foolish to try to justify religious belief by means of science. It would make more sense to me to justify science by the Logos of God, which He lays out for us in the Holy Scriptures, and makes manifest in the revelation of Creation.

Thank you ever so much for writing, Diamond!

[MHGinTN]

What, you mean those two old birds?... :^)

[Coyoteman]

I was quietly minding my own business, but you pinged me, so:

It is argued that much of philosophy is rational speculation. Philosophical postulates and theses may be rational and logically consistent but they are not necessarily true. Metaphysics has created a great deal of confusion in human thought and the metaphysical concepts in relation to God, religion, spirituality, soul, etc., are quite arbitrary, subjective, and meaningless. They are essentially ostentatious, and philosophically so dense that they are inane. A common person without any philosophical orientation will likely become quite confused regarding such concepts and formulations.

Recently, I came across this slogan on a T-shirt: "Fear is your only God." Could it be the old God of Abraham or new God of the new millennium? Who Knows? A whole new metaphysics can however be developed around this slogan.

Religion offers little help in such matters because it demands unquestioning belief. The backbone of religion is blind faith in the holy books that are regarded as the word of God by their respective believers. Many of the divinely revealed truths embodied in these holy books are contradictory, logically inconsistent, obsolete, or just plain wrong.

Any knowledge that is trustworthy is empirical and scientific. Science deals with material problems only and has nothing to offer on metaphysical issues. However, metaphysical problems have always remained important, spiritually, for human beings. So man has either to be content with partial but reliable knowledge, or he can also use metaphysical and divine "knowledge," knowledge which is not certain, being fully aware that his metaphysical knowledge is as good or as defective as that of any other person. Source

[betty boop]

Metaphysics has created a great deal of confusion in human thought and the metaphysical concepts in relation to God, religion, spirituality, soul, etc., are quite arbitrary, subjective, and meaningless.

Don't you see that this is all "in the eye of the beholder" Coyoteman? It is a purely subjective opinion. And it happens to be a deeply misinformed, one would say ignorant opinion. For the person whose opinion it is obviously knows nothing about the subject matter at hand.

[MHGinTN]

Forgive me, but may I humbly add something here: "We apprehend reality only through our five senses. There is no other way for us to gain access to the world external to us but via these five 'filters'." I would add to that foundation the phenomenon many/most Christians have experience through the spirit alive within them when comforting a fellow Christian who is experiencing sorrow and loss of a loved one. There is a spiritual resonance which is real and I have experienced it. Because we are seeking to extend love, agape, to the one in sorrow, we sense a spiritual glow associated with that fellow Christian as His Peace within their spirit flows Love into their soul and it resonates with the love our spirit is extending to them.

Anecdotally, on one occasion, with a beloved cousin who had her very younger daughter die suddenly in a tragic accident, the presence of God's Peace/Love was so intense with her that even a few months after the tragedy when I saw her at a family gathering she had a spiritual glow still about her! On another occasion, my first wife's saintly maiden aunt Gertie lost her Mother with whom Gertie had lived all her life. The loss was crushing to Gertie until she had a vision of her Mother smiling at her from 'beyond the veil'. Seeing her mother smiling where she was convinced Gertie that her mother was in the presence of love more powerful and precious than her own toward her mother. It ended the mourning immediately. The experience so transformed Gertie that she took on a spiritual glow which I would almost swear made her have a faint glow in the dark! [:-) I never had the chance to see Gertie in the dark at that time, so I cannot verify that suspicion.]

[betty boop]

There is a spiritual resonance which is real and I have experienced it.

I have too, MHGinTN. Which is why I can credit Rosmini's observation that every cognition a human being can have boils down to feeling and the intuition of being as given to us by nature (nature in the double sense of the created world and [created] human nature) -- which is resonant spiritually through and through and certainly not something we can access through sense perception.

The five filters refer only to sense perception. We know a very great deal through our "internal resources." And if we live in the Holy Spirit, these internal resources are if anything magnified.

Gee. I wish you could have seen Aunt Gertie in the dark! I wouldn't be the least surprised if you detected a change in her "aura" (electromagnetic field?) as a result of her epiphany of the spirit of her departed loved one....

[MrB]

Libs take it even further than ending all _moral_ judgement for behavior.

Some behaviors tend to have natural consequences, such as AIDS, poverty, out of wedlock births.

Look at almost ANY lib agenda item, and it is centered around alleviating even these natural, non-human imposed, consequences.

This is why AIDS is such a pet cause. It is obviously a direct result of behavior choices, and they can’t find a cure, no matter how much they scream and yell and demand others pay to find one.

[betty boop]

The backbone of religion is blind faith in the holy books that are regarded as the word of God by their respective believers.

Faith is not "blind." It sees, not with the physical eye, but with the eye of the soul.

Any knowledge that is trustworthy is empirical and scientific. Science deals with material problems only and has nothing to offer on metaphysical issues.

Religious experience is definitely empirical for it involves phenomenal and temporal processes as experienced by the subject. Therefore, by your own criteria, it must be "trustworthy" (because it's empirical!). Further, religious experience is empirical in the historical sense. We have records, writings, art, etc., etc., going back several millennia that testify to the reality of religious experience, to its universal importance to mankind. Certainly I agree with you that it's not "scientific."

The second italicized statement immediately above is indubitably true; which is why I point to the limitations of science.

[Kevmo]

Thanks for the ping. I’m no philosopher. Nor do I like religion, which looks like a bunch of philosophers going on endlessly about some religious aspect or other. I consider myself a rationalist.

I have found that a critical and straightforward approach to the historicity of the evidence behind christianity will lead a rational person to accept that Jesus Christ is and was who He claimed to be: God Himself. It is historically verifiable that He was put to death for that claim to be equal with God. Of course, the average atheist/agnostic immediately points out that that doesn’t PROVE that He was God, as if that somehow negates the claim that needs to be wrestled with.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904271/posts?page=131#131

Historicity. When I am called “psychotic” for relying upon the historicity of the best attested event in ALL OF HISTORY, that is a data point for me on how much respect the evo crowd has for the science behind history. They strain at a gnat in historicity but swallow any camel that furthers the abiogenesis worldview. The insult belongs outside of the triangle, and the historicity evidence belongs inside.

Not long ago I was called “psychotic” for relying upon the historicity of the best attested event in history: the crucifixion of Christ.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1898447/posts?page=229#229

My primary instrument is still the physical eye. Here’s an example:

Romans 16:23
...
Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.

There is an archaeological find where an inscription says:
“Erastus, commissioner of public works [aedile], laid this pavement at his own expense.”

http://www.facingthechallenge.org/erastus.php

One can go and physically touch that piece of evidence and examine it with his own eye. The same is true of dozens of other pieces of new testament evidence. The historicity behind the documents in the new testament is very solid. When they say things that are non-controversial, they get the facts right. That’s an indicator that the documents are historically accurate.

When even enemies acknowledge the facts, that’s when you know you’re on solid ground. Jesus’s enemies, friends, indifferent souls, all agree that Jesus was put to death for blasphemy before the Sanhedrin, claiming equality with God. No miracle here, just pure history.

I have come to a rational conclusion that Jesus was telling the truth when he was under oath. Antichristian bigots often try to paint our viewpoint as irrational, but that doesn’t jibe with the facts that even the enemies at the time admit.

I have seen unbelievers deny the historicity of Julius Caesar, Christopher Columbus, John Adams being 2nd president of the U.S. and several other historically accepted personages, all in their quest to deny Christ. Now, THAT’s irrational.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1898447/posts?page=185#185

[betty boop]

They strain at a gnat in historicity but swallow any camel that furthers the abiogenesis worldview.

Indeed. They begin with a conclusion, and then insist that the "evidence" support it. If the evidence doesn't, it is disqualified from consideration. That way the preconceived conclusion always turns out to be "correct."

Is that any way to run a railroad?

I believe you are absolutely correct to say that the trial, scourging, crucifixion, and death of Jesus Christ on the cross is "the best attested event in ALL OF HISTORY." It is also well attested that He was seen by many people after His resurrection. I really wonder why so many deny what has been so well documented in the historical record. But then, "some motives are beyond the reach of argument."

Thank you for writing Kevmo!