Posted on 09/13/2022 6:25:41 AM PDT by Heartlander
All moral philosophy, including religious philosophy, has at its core one tragic dilemma: the human heart longs for justice, but the world is unjust. The innocent suffer, worthy endeavors fail, the evil rise and the good die young. Often there is no one to blame and nothing to be done. How then shall we live?
It is a simplification but not an untruth to say that Western moral philosophy has developed three basic responses to this question. One of them is Biblical. The other two—one Nietzschean, one Marxist—are materialist.
It’s those materialist responses that, taken to their extremes, bathed the 20th century in blood. Today, in more moderate forms, they nonetheless threaten to tear our republic apart.
Friedrich Nietzsche understood that in a world without God, humanity’s moral instincts are all up for question. Why then choose a Judeo-Christian morality that coddles life’s losers? We should trust instead the greatest winner, the Superman, to create a new morality of his own. Defenders of Nietzsche claim he would not have approved the Nazis who admired him. But I think fascism is, indeed, the natural end of his philosophy.
Karl Marx reasoned this way: if man’s heart seeks justice and the world is unjust, let man humanize the world, beginning with the “ruthless criticism of all that exists.” Though Communism was only a “special expression” of this humanizing project, the Marxist certainty that history had a benign humanist direction gives Communism—and today’s Marx-inspired Critical Theory—the license to censor, bully, banish or crush anyone who opposes its grand re-designs of the moral universe.
Both men put their faith in the human heart. Marx believed it could and would wrestle the world into conformity with its own sense of fairness; Nietzsche believed it could create a man who would lead us beyond that sense to something better. To understand why these two philosophies destroy so many lives while making the world not better but worse, we have to turn to the religion that Nietzsche buried and Marx dismissed.
The Judeo-Christian analysis of humanity’s tragic dilemma begins with this: something has gone wrong. The world was created good but is broken by sin. This sin so divides the human heart that each of us must repent of it and follow the promptings God implanted in our hearts when he made us in his image. We can’t unbreak the world, but with God we can begin to overcome the world within ourselves.
This wise distrust of human devices and desires outdoes the philosophers in realism. Where fascism seeks an Übermensch to refashion our morality, scripture advises us: “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save.” Where leftism fantasizes some benevolent state that makes all things fair, 1 Samuel 8 reminds us the “state” is just humans with power, and will therefore make us slaves.
History confirms the religious approach. Materialist fascism and Communism slaughtered more people in a single generation than all the crusades, pogroms, and inquisitions since the year zero. But logic too is on scripture’s side. As Genesis repeatedly intimates, the human quest to seize the moral high ground from God—to force the advent of our imagined utopias—brings us constantly into conflict with the good life we so desperately desire. Those who put their faith in princes inevitably end up rationalizing and imitating the ugly actions of their idols. And as for Marx’s “ruthless criticism of all that exists,” note how Critical Theory always starts out identifying a problem—racism, misogyny, power imbalance—and ends up becoming what it beheld—racist, misogynistic, power hungry. It is a rat caught in the circular maze of reality.
Because, painfully enough, it is precisely in the vital and ever-present tension between the imago dei and the broken world that human life moves toward fruition. The imbalances between men and women may lead to abuses, but they are also the source of beauty, romance, and children. Genetic gifts of health, intelligence and talent, alongside historical legacies of privilege, give some of those children unfair advantages over others. But they also create the civilizations that lift us all to new heights. Cultural competition between those civilizations means there will be losers and winners, but it is also what drives mankind to greater levels of invention and success.
In short, you cannot wholly solve the problems of humanity without eliminating what is best in humanity. Judeo-Christianity does not stand complacent in the face of injustice. God commands us to treat each person equally and charitably, and to set all people free. But injustice will remain. So whether rich or poor, free or slave, whether in safety or facing the crosses of tyrants or the state, we are commanded always toward love, forgiveness, and rejoicing.
These are the only righteous responses to the broken creation of a good God.
Life is unfair.
Deal with it............................
Life sucks, then you die.
Bottom line: Strive to be good yourself instead of forcing your neighbor to be good.
“All moral philosophy, including religious philosophy, has at its core one tragic dilemma: the human heart longs for justice, but the world is unjust.”
Only if you define “just” as “equal”.
If you define “just” as getting what you merit (deserve) based on your contribution, then the world is not that unjust. And the free market (capitalism) is probably the most just system because it does exactly that.
Equality at an extreme is lack of freedom.
You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
“The year was 2081 and everyone was finally equal.”
https://tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
A short story by Kurt Vonnegut about where this insane obsession with equality (”equity”) will inescapably lead us to.
2081 isn’t that far away...
The error that Kurt Vonnegut made in that story was to assume the left would make everyone equal through amendments to the constitution, instead of outright ignoring it.
“” You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.”
What you merit (deserve) is determined by the free (uncoerced) negotiations between two parties.
In other words, negotiating is the MEANS for determining what you merit (”earn” would be another word) . One is the means the other is the end.
I’ve heard it said, that capitalism and free markets have provided the greatest good to the greatest number of people.
Those who push socialism and communism just don’t seem to understand the concepts involved. But then when confronted about the tragic effects of communism, those same people say that the theories of Marx and Engels were just never properly implemented.
So then, we are led to believe that Lenin, Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao, Castro, et.al., just weren’t good enough communists, in their attempts to create worker’s paradises in their countries.
Yep.
The difference between the Nazis and Communists is that nobody every says, “Nazism/fascism hasn’t failed, we just haven’t had the right people in charge.”
Some suggest if only the Nazis hadn’t targeted the Jews, it was a great system. There were a lot of fans of National Socialism in the 1930s.
Ain’t it funny how Antifa/BLM say they despise Nazis and Fascists’ yet employ every tactic used by Hitler’s Brown Shirts.
Dfwgator Rule #1 - Someone who identifies as an “Anti-something” is always as bad as the thing they are “Anti”.
“The innocent suffer, worthy endeavors fail, the evil rise and the good die young. Often there is no one to blame and nothing to be done.”
I offer a differing perspective at this juncture.
ALL suffering, failure, evil, and death arises out of sin.
EVEN IF it must be traced to the resonating repercussions of Adam and Eve’s sin still shaking this mortal sphere.
So, CORRECTION #1
There is ALWAYS someone — not to blame, but there is ALWAYS someone RESPONSIBLE for the sin.
And CORRECTION #2
There IS something to be done: YOU MUST FORGIVE THEM.
You must forgive them NOT to let them off the hook, NOT to excuse their sin and dismiss with a flippant wave the devastating consequences...
No. Not at all.
You must forgive them BECAUSE the Blood of Christ was ENOUGH for God to forgive them, and your standard is nowhere near that high.
You must forgive them WHETHER OR NOT THEY REPENT, because God forgave you long before you were ever repentant.
[::NOTE:: Forgiveness DOES NOT MEAN you don’t set healthy relational boundaries to keep unrepentant people from hurting you again.]
You must forgive them otherwise YOU CANNOT BE HEALED of the damage their sin has done to you.
YOUR forgiveness of THEM doesn’t free THEM; it frees YOU so that you may begin to HEAL.
And THE ORIGIN of ALL FORGIVENESS is The Cross of Christ.
And THE ORIGIN of ALL HEALING is Christ, Himself; Your Great Physician, The Lover of Your Soul, for He was wounded for your transgression, He was bruised for your iniquity, the chastisement that brought your peace was upon Him, and by His stripes you were healed. For it was the will of God to crush him, to put Him to grief.
For the FULL PAYMENT of the Divine Judicial Penalty of YOUR sin God chose to execute His Only Begotten Son in your place.
Behold, The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the World. Behold, and see if there be ANY sorrow like unto His sorrow!
YOUR penalty was PAID IN FULL, at INCONCEIVABLE cost.
WILL YOU NOT REPENT in the face of such immense kindness?
WILL YOU NOT BOW before and embrace your Redeeming King, and with overflowing thanksgiving for His all-sufficient sacrifice declare Him your LORD, your only True King, your God, and walk forgiven, and being forgiving, in faith and newness of LIFE?
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