This article was adapted by the author from a talk titled “God’s Gone: A Guided Tour of Transcendence in Western Culture” that he gave at Gutenberg’s 2017 Summer Institute, “Meaning and Flourishing in a Secular Age.” The author cites one of the Institute readings, The New Demons by philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912-1994). ---------- On the surface, the idea that science is sacred makes no sense. We associate the sacred with God and religion. We have sacred scriptures and sacred shrouds that are squarely in the realm of the divine. But we tend to view science as having replaced the divine in many ways. So then, how can science be sacred? I would argue that science plays the same role in our society as the sacred has played in the past. Although science is not sacred in the sense that it is related to the divine, it fits the bill in all other senses, especially as science is part of a much larger phenomenon that Jacques Ellul refers to as “technique.” Technique, in Ellul’s sense, is “the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” It is the impulse to find the “best way” in every activity. One of the hallmarks of technique is the desire to achieve an impersonal goal over the desire to serve the real needs of the people involved. Taken as a whole, technique defines not just a particular method, but an attitude toward the use of method. Ellul is not critiquing technology per se, but rather the spirit of “techniqueism.” Technique, as Ellul means it, is rampant in our society. We can see it everywhere. Politically active organizations carefully research and test their use of symbols and speech to maximally increase votes rather than serving the real needs of their constituents. Advertisers study psychology and cultural norms to craft the most effective message to sell a product. Employers hire consultants in human resources to help them craft policies and workplace methods to maximally enhance productivity instead of considering employees as human beings. Big data firms mine Google searches for information they can sell to companies. In all these examples, efficiency in the “means” is elevated over the ends of serving people. The problem inherent in technique is not that carefully designed “means” are used, but that these means are prioritized over the individuals involved. If the politicians, employers, and advertisers use constituents, employees, and buyers to achieve their own goals, then that is technique. It would be foolish not to create good methods in whatever endeavor we pursue. For instance, when crafting an article, I want to use the best method of writing so that my article is clear and understandable. But that is not necessarily technique. It becomes technique if I use rhetorical methods that try to manipulate readers into an action I desire by bypassing their reason and playing on desires or fears. To prioritize method over man is madness. Now that I have clarified the nature of technique I would like to look at the various senses in which something can be thought of as sacred. In New Demons (Seabury Press; January 1975), Ellul defines the sacred as that which helps to provide order and meaning in the incoherent and incomprehensible world. Man sees the sacred as the means by which he can solve what he believes to be his most important problem. Thus, man submits himself to the sacred as a solution and finds in it power, mystery, and existential danger. The sacred can determine his destiny and is wholly beyond influence or question. The sacred must exist for man to find any meaning. Two examples of the sacred can be found in past eras: when polytheism dominated the world and in the early Christian era up through the Middle Ages. Polytheists, such as the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks, held nature as sacred. Man’s most important problem was how to survive. Survival was uncertain because it depended on natural occurrences outside his control. Man could not control the annual flooding or the rainfall for agriculture. He could not control the wild beasts or crop-eating insects. Childbirth was dangerous, and storms at sea sank ships. The ancient polytheists saw the chaotic actions of nature as resulting from the chaotic decisions of the gods, who either were nature or were in nature. Nature had other characteristics of the sacred as well: it was mysterious, powerful, and could both give and take life. Polytheists of the time feared and revered the gods of nature and sacrificed to them in an attempt to be spared from the gods’ destructive whims. Nature was sacred. In the early Christian era up through the middle ages, sacraments were sacred. In the West, man’s problem was how to gain eternal salvation. Christianity had turned the focus from survival in this world to survival in the next. Part of that transition included desacralizing nature. Christians rejected nature gods and brought all of nature under the dominion of God, who is wholly distinct from nature. Nature was no longer sacred. Instead, the sacraments were sacred because the solution to man’s problem—needing to be saved—was to partake of the sacraments. Holy baptism, communion, confession, and last rites were all central aspects of gaining eternal salvation. The punishment reserved for heretics was excommunication, which suspended the right to take the sacraments. An early Christian understood the order and structure of heaven and earth and the role the sacraments played in that structure. The sacraments held power, mystery, and existential fear. They held the power of salvation and at the same time the fear of eternal damnation. And a great deal of mystery was bound up in the sacraments, for instance, in transubstantiation during communion. The sacraments were not debated but assumed as part of early church practice. Thus, the sacraments fulfilled the role of the sacred. Given these examples of how the sacred functions in a culture, let us now look at the role technique plays today. In a sense, technique has robbed nature and the sacraments of their sacredness; it has desacralized them. Science has conquered, in a sense, the unpredictability of nature. Science has “explained away” the supernatural and thus life after death, rendering the sacraments as mere ritual. Most importantly, man’s “problem” has largely shifted—from physical survival and eternal salvation to the problem of comfort and security. We are mostly buffered from death and no longer overly worried by it. Clearly, we all die, but survival does not drive our actions and thoughts like it did for the polytheists. Thus, we are not motivated by the fear of death. Similarly, for the most part, our culture is not motivated by the desire for salvation and eternal life. The fear of damnation is not in the forefront of our minds like it was for the early Christians. Today, we are overwhelmed by a desire to live comfortable and secure lives. This is what gets us going in the morning and focuses our attention. Students are educated to get a good career because a career provides comfort and security. Adults work toward a satisfying income. Those people who do not contribute to the cause of comfort, such as stay-at-home parents, may feel unproductive and useless. Vacation and entertainment demand a great deal of our attention as a part of comfort. People buy lottery tickets in droves because of the promise of comfort and security. The two main goals of government have become increasing wealth and enhancing security from danger, both foreign and domestic. Universal health care, for example, is born out of the need for security because we fear the discomfort of bad health and large medical bills. These things point to our culture’s current interests. Man’s solution to this problem is technique. Today, technique is sacred. All sectors of society have decided that there is a best and most efficient way to increase comfort and security. We battle endlessly over what that most efficient way is, but we do not question whether we should pursue the best way with all of our resources. In the pursuit of the best way, we lose track of what a human is and what a human needs. Technique holds all the power, mystery, and existential danger in our lives. Technique has power over our economic and personal well-being, both privately and publicly. Technique is used by economists in the Federal Reserve and by the government to improve national comfort and security. Technique is used by businesses and non-profit organizations that provide us with jobs, and thus technique has power over our livelihoods. Technique controls how we communicate on our phones and computers. It provides us with food, shelter, and entertainment. Technique has the power that we once attributed to gods and sacraments. Technique is also feared and revered. We revere the politician (if he is on our side!) who can find the most efficient and powerful way to accomplish our political goals. Followers of Ayn Rand see the most powerful practitioners of technique, the CEOs, as the saviors of society. We also rely on all sorts of complex computer, financial, energy, and transportation infrastructure. In a sense, we take them for granted, but we fear any interruption of that infrastructure. We are afraid of failures like Y2K or the 2008 housing crisis or the 1973 oil embargo. Because our comfort and security depend on the smooth operation of technique, we fear it. Lastly, technique is a source of mystery. Technique is not an occult, magical mystery, but it is a mystery nevertheless. Who knows how a cell phone really works and how excessive pollution in China may affect our retirement funds? In fact, no one person can penetrate fully any of the complex mysteries of our world because expertise and knowledge are so distributed. So, although technique (and science as part of technique) does not reference any gods or supernatural beings, it does perform the function of the sacred. A culture must have a structure and some sort of promise that there is a solution to its great problems. There must be sacred practices, principles, and objects to provide some order and hope. The alternative is despair, which is intolerable. As in other times and places, there is always a resistance and rejection of the sacred. Today, a variety of movements reject technology, corporatism, government, and media. For instance, some wish to save the environment from the ravages of technique-driven corporate and government power. Others wish to find alternatives to technique-driven industrial educational models. Still others wish to avoid the technique-driven food industry. These are worthy goals based on good insights. But we should keep in mind that while individuals may find some success here, it is not clear that we will have much success as a culture. On a large scale, when one technique goes awry, another, better technique is hailed as a solution. Changes in education over the last few decades have swapped one technique for another, but the goals have continued to drift toward job training for comfort and security. Those who use “organic” to capitalize on market trends are simply adapting techniques to the times. Efforts to save the environment are rife with political, judicial, scientific, and advertising techniques. This analysis of our situation is nothing new. Ellul was writing about it fifty years ago, and others were writing about it before him. The harder problem is to know what to do about it. There are innumerable viable responses to our situation. Some emphasize a return to small communities where we can love, care for, and support each other in our walk of faith. Others emphasize the use of natural foods, which are more in keeping with the way God made us. Many encourage supporting small business where owners can have a relationship with both employees and customers, treating them as valuable humans rather than as means to profit. There are hundreds of different ways that we can refocus on treating people well and prioritizing them over our comfort and security. But it is not easy. We must encourage each other in that effort and remind ourselves of the truth. For a Christian, technique should not be sacred. Our hope should be placed in God’s kingdom, not the comfort and security of this world. We cannot serve two masters. Because skills, interests, and personalities vary, there are as many practical ways to pursue God on this earth as there are people. But the ultimate and best rejection of sacred technique is to seek to know and understand the things of God and to live our lives in accordance with that understanding.

If you are like me, some miracles in the Bible are hard to believe. On the one hand, ample evidence shows the Bible is true and inspired. On the other hand, making sense of some miracles in the context of our understanding of the physical world is not easy. Miracles create a tension in our belief system that is not easy to resolve in many cases. For instance, figuring out what it means in Joshua 10:13 for the sun to have stopped in its course is a bit mind-boggling. One approach to addressing the tension is to pursue the well trodden paths of assessing the two sides of the tension through careful analysis of both the Bible and our scientific understanding. This requires a sensitive reading of the Bible, an exploration of the reliability of the text, an understanding of the person of Jesus (who believed in the truth of the Scriptures), and an understanding of the intention of the authors. It also requires a nuanced understanding of science, the nature of scientific claims, and the limits of scientific knowledge. Over the years, talented people have produced an enormous amount of work regarding these questions, some of which is extremely cogent and clear. Ultimately, the best resolution and understanding come from these sorts of analyses and pursuits. But such pursuits are difficult and time consuming. Few have the ability, inclination, or skills to thoroughly explore the ins and outs of the questions. The sheer number of questions is daunting, and for many people, they are not burning issues. Most people will decide based on other sources. In this article, I want to explore some of the non-analytical factors that direct most people’s thinking about miracles. To do so, I want to look at one of the primary historical arguments against miracles and how it fared in Western culture. But first we need some background. Prior to the Renaissance, there was little if any question about miracles. It was not difficult to believe in miracles; everybody did. The disciple Thomas may have doubted that Christ rose from the dead, but I do not think the reason was because he had a hard time believing miracles were possible. After all, he had spent years witnessing Jesus perform miracles. In the medieval period, miracles and the supernatural permeated life in Western society. Lewis writes in the Discarded Image that the model people accepted of the world was full of supernatural beings and activity. Ghosts, angels, and demons walked and worked in the world. The motions of the heavenly bodies influenced our fates and characters. Further, people accepted that relics, pilgrimages, and papal bulls could affect one’s soul and spiritual condition. Bread and wine turned into the blood and body of Christ every day. Thus, when a medieval person heard that Moses parted the Red Sea or that the sun stood still, there was little cause to doubt. There was no reason to question the possibility that such things could and did happen. Background presuppositions supported a view in which supernatural activity was accepted, even expected. The medieval response to the sun standing still was WOW, not how. Our culture no longer holds these assumptions. Why is that, and how did it happen? The common explanation goes something like this: As modern science began to develop, people began to see that previously held beliefs were no longer supportable. The earth is not the center of the solar system. The planets move according to impersonal Newtonian principles. Magic does not work. The body acts in many ways like a complex machine without a “vital source.” When society had no scientific explanations, many things were explained by supernatural or non-mechanical causes. But since we now have science—so the story goes—we no longer accept the supernatural. While this explanation does give part of the picture, it does not fully account for the shift from a world where miracles were expected to a world where miracles are hard to swallow. To see why this is the case, it will be helpful to look now at a specific argument against miracles put forward during the period of the Enlightenment by Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). Hume made a strong and influential argument against the likelihood of miracles, which he published in 1748 as part of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding . The essence of his argument was that we should assign probabilities to events in accordance with the amount of empirical evidence that supports them. He reasoned that there was an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence for the existence of natural laws; we see such evidence every day. The evidence for miracles, on the other hand, was minimal and relied not on empirical observation but on testimony. He expanded on his theme at some length, but the core of the argument relied on an appeal to the experience of our senses—that is, cold hard data. The argument is a good one if, and only if, you accept his premises—namely, that we must judge based purely on the amount of empirical evidence. Miracles are believable only if we have a large quantity of miracle observations. He presupposes that other sorts of judgments, analyses, and sources of evidence are invalid. For instance, Hume attacks the validity of apostolic testimony and disregards the internal coherence of biblical and historical evidence. If one assumes that all that exists is what we observe, then that which we cannot observe cannot exist. Hume’s argument, then, is flawed because it assumes what was to be shown. Nevertheless, the argument took hold in the culture’s imagination. It was, and still is, persuasive to many and continues to be discussed and widely debated. If this argument had been written a hundred years earlier, however, it would have been either ignored or (perhaps more likely) censored. What was the appeal of Hume’s argument? Why did it gain traction? Was it the cogency of the argument or something else? I would argue that people saw Hume’s argument against miracles in a favorable light because of their desire for morality. On the face of it, such a claim seems like an outright contradiction. If people were interested in morality, why turn from the truth of the Bible? Why reject the goodness of God and the resurrection of Jesus for the sake of morality? The answer lies in the cultural context of Hume’s time. When Hume published his treatise on miracles in 1748, Scotland had experienced two Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745. The Jacobites, whose name came from a Latin form of “James,” sought to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James VII of Scotland (James II of England and Ireland) and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The famous battle of Culloden in 1746 resulted in a final loss for the Jacobites at the hands of the British. It signaled the end of the attempts to put James’s son Charles Stuart, a.k.a. Bonnie Prince Charlie, on the British throne. These uprisings were, in a sense, the culmination of over a century of civil war and religious persecution in the British Isles. In the early 1600s, several non-Anglican protestant churches were growing: Puritans, Quakers, and Congregationalists. Catholicism, on the other hand, was severely repressed and restricted. Catholics could not hold any positions of power and were often persecuted. The animosity between Protestant England and Catholic France tended to make those tensions worse. In the 1640s and 1650s, Cromwell, a Puritan, successfully led a civil war against King Charles I who was perceived to be too friendly to Catholics. Cromwell was successful for a time, but eventually the monarchy was restored. After the restoration in 1660, the new king, Charles II, took steps to outlaw all religions except the Anglican Church. Later in 1685, after the death of Charles II, James II (Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father) ascended to the British throne. He was, as it turns out, a Catholic. He began to overturn all the statutes against Catholics and appoint Catholics to positions of power. For many this was anathema, and he was deposed three years later in the so-called “Glorious Revolution.” He avoided the usurpers and made his escape to France. The Jacobite rebellions of the 1700s were the trailing edge of these struggles. Although these wars, rebellions, and uprisings were political in nature, they also had a strong religious aspect. One’s fortunes as a Puritan, Catholic, or Anglican depended a great deal on who was in power. Persecution was common. Catholic priests could be tortured. Religious intolerance was often extreme. The result of all these struggles was not primarily the growth of religious tolerance, although that did begin to grow. Instead, the late 1700s saw the growth of religious indifference. People were no longer zealous for their perspective. Dogmatism was out. I certainly cannot claim to know the hearts of those living in the late 1700s, but I cannot help but make some guesses about their frame of mind. The people of the British Isles must have looked back on the sins of the previous generations in disgust. They called for a new and different way, a moral way without all the animosity. They desired to distance themselves from the bloody feuds and intolerance of the past. Each generation rejects the moral failures of the past, and Enlightenment rationality must have seemed like a powerful alternative. According to Enlightenment thinkers, a just society could be established by using reason and science. Appeals to the Bible and to God were potentially divisive. For instance, John Locke proffered Reason as a solution to political differences. Newton used Reason to understand the solar system. Francis Bacon claimed scientific induction held the key to understanding the natural world. Immanuel Kant, in his essay “What is Enlightenment,” claimed, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity”—that immaturity being to appeal to authority rather than to think for oneself. He aimed squarely at leaders who promoted a religious, authoritative intolerance. This was the context of Hume’s argument against miracles. He did not need to have a flawless and elegant argument to sway the men of Reason. He needed simply to appeal to the sensibility of the culture. He needed to appeal to the possibility for a better way, a more “moral” approach to solving differences. History shows that any attempt to take Hume’s argument seriously and show its failures was a pointless exercise. During Hume’s life, Thomas Reid did exactly that. He clearly and cogently exposed the vacuousness of Hume’s whole philosophy. And for a while Reid was widely adopted. But in the end, he fell into disrepute and obscurity. According to most philosophers and authors, Reid was backward looking; he stood for the past, for Aristotle, and for Christianity. Hume’s argument against miracles still exists in various forms in the psyche of our culture. The amount of scholarship, even recently, on Hume’s argument is enormous. For many, Hume’s argument has overwhelming persuasive power. The power of the argument and its many forms, however, resides not in the elegance of the logic or the obviousness of the premises. I believe its power resides in a perception that conformity to the Bible will lead to bad things. To a lesser extent, the same scenario that played out in Hume’s day is being repeated today. Our cultural elite are attempting to paint a picture that associates immorality and injustice with strong religious conviction. Of course, the “sins” of such convictions are fantastically tame in comparison to the religious intolerance and wars of the 1600s. Nevertheless, those “sins” are broadcast widely and loudly. Religious confidence and conviction, we are told, lead to intolerance and bigotry and dogmatism and oppression. For those who accept this story, who wouldn’t want to find a better, more moral way? We all want something better than intolerance and bigotry. Most want a path in which morality can flourish. In such a cultural context, people give credence to any argument that questions perspectives seen as dogmatic or unscientific. In the end, the supernatural view of the world has passed us by. We are in a secular world where anything that smacks of the supernatural starts on the back foot, taking a defensive posture. Clearly, part of that secularist view derives from the materialistic perspective on nature that has grown out of Enlightenment and scientific thinking. But I suggest that a significant source of that secular materialist view comes not from science but from a desire for a better cultural path, as did Hume’s case against miracles. I realize I have not addressed the issues I first raised about miracles. I did not intend to delve into an argument for or against miracles. What I hope to have done instead is to step back and examine beliefs and how they are formed. As much as I would love for it to not be true, it seems as if many of our cherished beliefs (and I include my own) are held based on our desires and assumptions, not based on careful and thoughtful examination. Naturally, some of those desires are selfish, related to our baser instincts. We try to fight those. Other desires, though, are noble. Many people desire some sort of morality. Because those desires are good, we feel justified and satisfied in pursuing them. To the extent that our culture wants morality (although I think many probably are not interested in such things), it should be applauded. There is a common ground upon which to dialog. However, simply wanting morality is not enough. The desire needs to be coupled with a sober-minded examination of what constitutes morality. We should look at the source of intolerance and what it looks like in all its different forms. Without careful examination, a desire for a better way, as honorable as it may seem, can lead us down dark paths. The Enlightenment may have delivered us from religious wars, but it also led directly to the bloody French Revolution. Good intentions, indeed, pave roads, but not all are good.

I suspect we all have reacted at some time or another to our culture’s obsession with bodily appetites: sex, food, drink, pleasure, and so forth. I know I have. That reaction got me thinking about the role of appetites and temperance. Lady Temperance has been given a bad rap. We think she’s old-fashioned, passé. We picture a severe, turn-of-the-twentieth-century farmer’s wife or a prohibitionist, one of those muddle-headed, do-gooding zealots who in their ignorance did more harm than good. If those images were the extent of our negative feelings toward poor old Temperance, we might just pat her on the head and leave her be. But we no longer smile patiently on Temperance as if she were a senile relative whom we’re fond of but don’t take seriously. Rather, Lady Temperance has become the antithesis of personal freedom and self-expression, and we no longer tolerate her. We must stamp her out, obliterate her. She no longer stands on the sidelines; she is enemy number one. Because she has been relegated to the dust bin of history, perhaps it would be useful to remind ourselves of who she is. Lady Temperance is the champion of moderation in the satisfaction of the physical appetites. She does not forbid the satisfaction of those appetites. She does not label them as foul, evil, or sinful. She recognizes them as a part of our humanity, a part that, in the proper context, can be used for the noble and the good. Temperance does not demean bodily appetites, but she does encourage us to weigh those appetites against other important values and activities. Temperance encourages us most of all to exercise self-control and to prioritize the importance of the physical against the social, mental, and spiritual. Seen in this light, Lady Temperance appears reasonable, even noble. Surely our culture has not spurned her. After all, we still try to teach our children self-control. Temperance may not be venerated anymore, but is she not still respected? Where might we look in our culture to find evidence that our venerable guide still has something to say to us? Let us look first to her much maligned but traditional role as a leader of the prohibition movement. Our culture still calls on us to avoid drunkenness. But is Lady Temperance the reason for abstaining from alcohol or drinking in moderation? Do we, as a culture, emphasize internal self-control and restraint? Not really. Or not much, anyway. We have MADD and Alcoholics Anonymous. We have large universities trying to curb alcohol-related assault. Drunk driving, alcohol addiction, and date rape are social behaviors that lead to negative consequences , and so the culture fights against drunkenness. It is good and right for the culture to attempt to mitigate the negative consequences, but the path that our culture follows is to control external factors. Stiffer penalties might solve drunk driving. Zero tolerance policies on campus might get through to thick-headed frat boys. Self-esteem building in school might prevent kids from turning to alcohol. What is missing in the rhetoric? Our Lady Temperance. It’s just not cool to tell people that self-control is a key aspect to being good and doing right, or that the practice of self-discipline should be honored over self-indulgence. We don’t just ignore Temperance; we don’t even invite her to the table. Are there other areas where we employ Temperance as our guide? Another natural passion in which Temperance has traditionally encouraged restraint is sexual appetite. One might think that Temperance is behind our culture declaiming against sexual misconduct such as rape, adultery, and pedophilia or, even more reprehensible, sex trafficking. It appears as if Temperance is alive and well and doing her job by holding the line in these areas. The culture may have shifted the line beyond where Temperance would approve, but at least it seems as if she has kept us from the worst excesses. In this area, though, Temperance has even less of an influence on the culture than she does with regard to alcohol. Sexuality and sensuality are not areas in which our culture encourages us to exercise self-control; rather sexuality is lauded as the pinnacle of human experience. One cannot live life to the fullest without having had amazing sex with an attractive partner. It is almost considered one of our civil rights. For example, if a partner in a marriage or relationship does not sexually satisfy the other, then a break-up is justified or even praised. We are encouraged to explore new and more exciting tastes, so long as no one gets hurt, of course. Our culture resists the idea of personal restraint in this realm and focuses instead on the negative social consequences. We focus on the external repercussions rather than the internal character of the wrongdoer. We praise sexual satisfaction and open doors to it socially. It is tragically ironic that we vilify those who succumb to behaviors we as a society glorify. Also striking to note is where we place blame when it comes to some forms of sexual misconduct. Sex traffickers and pornographers are objects of disgust, and rightly so. What one rarely hears about is the guilt of the purchasers. The culture turns a blind eye to the “peccadilloes” of those who frequent prostitutes or pornography sites. We implicitly assume that expecting men to exert self-control is simply asking too much. The solution is always to look without, at the providers, never within, at the users, as Temperance would invite us to do. Our attitude toward drug use is nearly identical to that of alcohol and sexuality. Poor Lady Temperance never had a chance with this extreme version of self-gratification with its intense physical sensation and chemical addiction. With the help of science, we have figured out how to maximally enhance physical pleasure with drugs like methamphetamines. What chance does Temperance have? When legalization of marijuana was being debated in Oregon, the most common argument for legalization was that marijuana is less addictive and damaging than alcohol, which is legal. What was not part of the conversation was whether or not we want to encourage people to engage in an activity whose primary goal is to gain pleasure through modifying their experience of reality and, in the process, lose some control over movement, memory, and the ability to think. Essentially we were prioritizing bodily appetite over and above control of one’s mind and body, a prioritization Lady Temperance would undoubtedly bewail. As with sex and alcohol, the source of the problem with drugs is misidentified. In dealing with the inevitable fallout of drugs, society is happy to wage a war on the providers such as drug cartels in Columbia and Mexico but less inclined to encourage us to look inward, to encourage potential users to exercise self-control. To the extent that we allow or condone drug use as a society, we should admit a share of the blame for the carnage in Mexico. Alcohol, sex, and drugs, are perhaps the three most prominent fronts where Lady Temperance has lost ground recently. But in a society of wealth and leisure, she has been challenged along many other lines as well. Traditionally, food has been within Temperance’s purview. Lady Temperance has always supported eating, and it is obvious that the physical satisfaction associated with food is important to insure we eat. Where she would raise an eyebrow is at our culture’s tendency to over-indulge in food while disregarding other factors such as health or financial responsibility. I realize that there are many complicated reasons for the surge in weight gain in America, but the intemperate desire for satisfying our bodily appetite perhaps plays a role. The emotional thrill provided by the entertainment industry is also an area where our appetites are constantly aroused. The appetites here are not directly physical, but work through feelings we obtain from emotional stimulation. Whether it be feelings of love, fear, happiness, or sadness, we are invited to indulge ourselves on a regular basis. The source of that emotional thrill is not limited to TV and movies but also extends to video games, sporting events, and, increasingly, news. So given our culture’s current state, why should dowdy old Temperance regain our allegiance? What does she have to offer that could possibly outshine the newfound freedoms of our overindulgent ethos? I suggest that what Temperance wants for us—indeed, what she offers us—is the very freedom that her demise has presumably secured. We rarely ask this question regarding freedom: What do we want to be free from? Some possibilities include freedom from authority, freedom from restriction, freedom from coercion, or freedom from pain. Anything that we see as negative, restricting, or bad is something that we want to be free from. But these particular freedoms need to be carefully examined for two reasons. First, freedom from restriction regarding a particular bodily appetite often sets us on a path of slavery to our bodily desires. Second, what we need most is freedom from that which robs us of our humanity and goodness and salvation—namely, sin. Lady Temperance was clearly a common visitor at the hearth of the Apostle Paul. Paul speaks eloquently and at length about our need to be free from our slavery to sin. Some of the sins he was referring to were overindulging and wrongly prioritizing our bodily appetites. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:16-23) In addition to the authority of the Bible, we have our own experience to teach us about slavery to sin. We are a culture of various addictions: TV, internet, social media, video games, shopping, exercise, new technology, watching sports, porn, alcohol, drugs, and even work. We are enslaved to these activities, and our enslavement takes away time, energy, and desire from our pursuit of what is good and truly valuable. We believe that indulging these appetites will satisfy us because doing so feels so good. But we all know, at least intellectually, that those feelings are not ultimately satisfying. In fact, often the exact opposite is true; indulging these appetites actually causes both ourselves and those around us significant pain. An untold number of lives and marriages are ravaged every year by alcohol, drugs, and pornography, for example. Slaves are not their own masters. They have given up their ability to seek after what is truly satisfying. They are forced to succumb to the lies of an uncaring, unholy master. Slaves are not free, and the tragic irony is this: our culture tells us that by enslaving ourselves we are expressing the greatest of all freedoms. Lady Temperance prizes self-control. She encourages us to judge and value rightly. She does not deny the bodily appetites but asks us to put them in perspective and weigh them against other priorities. Thus, Lady Temperance is not a cruel, exacting, down-in-the-mouth disciplinarian. She is soft-hearted. She yearns for us not to be caught up in the lies and snares of the slave master, Sin. She mourns for those who have found themselves enslaved. She calls to us to live freely and morally, to achieve what we were created for. The lies of the Enemy have tarnished her image and recast her as the enemy. But she is not the enemy; she is a friend in time of need. And we are in need. Let us call on her and restore her to her rightful place.

This article is adapted from a longer paper titled “ How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall: A Skill-Based Life ,” presented on February 21, 2014, by Gutenberg tutor Chris Swanson at the Gutenberg education conference, “ Mastery Not Factory: How We Learn What Matters .” *** We all recognize that wisdom is a desirable prize. We admire those who are wise. The Bible praises the wise and chides the foolish. What is less clear, however, is how wisdom is gained. Perhaps it is a gift of God; perhaps the intelligent are wise; perhaps it is the blessing of age. These all touch upon gaining wisdom, but I propose that, in its essence, wisdom (and thus wise living) is a skill that must be learned and developed. Like other skills, it must be gained through a sort of apprenticeship. It is not something that can be memorized or learned from a book. In order to make my case, I need to talk about skills in general—their nature and how they are imparted. How Skills are Developed Consider the skill of handwriting. In first grade, writing letters was a difficult task. I recall that my lines never seemed to go in just the right place. At first, I did not even know where to put the pencil down to start a letter. As I practiced and compared my letters to the accepted letters, I improved. I got faster. I became more skilled. Now consider the skill of playing soccer, which, like any other sport, takes a lot of practice to be able to play well. I have played soccer since I was quite young, but in the last five years I have thought more about how to develop skill at soccer and the best approaches to achieve success. I have identified the following three essentials: mastery of fundamentals, training, and self-evaluation. While these may seem like obvious aspects of learning soccer, they are also common to developing all skills, not just soccer. Before discussing these three aspects of skill development, however, I must mention a prior factor essential to developing any skill: the desire to improve. The importance of desire, or will, cannot be underestimated. No one can be forced to become skilled. Whether the skill is handwriting, soccer, or some other more important skill, like wisdom, each learner must decide to take on the training. At some point when I was learning to handwrite, for example, I quit improving; I was more interested in getting the words down quickly than legibly. In short, I did not desire to improve. Teachers or coaches can give incentives, both carrots and sticks. They can model the skill. They can provide powerful arguments for the benefits of developing the skill. But they cannot force someone to take on the task of developing a skill—including wisdom. But assuming a person has the desire to improve, mastery of fundamentals, training, and self-evaluation will enable him to do so. Mastery of Fundamentals. In all skills, fundamentals must become mastered and ingrained. In soccer, these fundamentals are the acts of stopping and controlling a ball and passing. Being able to do these things without thinking is one of the keys to playing well. The best players are not great because they are concentrating on ball control more than others. In fact, they seem to be concentrating less. Their muscles know what to do from long training. Like learning letters, ball-control actions need to develop to the point where attention can be focused on something else. When I am practicing ball control, I am self-conscious about it, trying to improve. But in a game, I can focus my attention elsewhere because the skill has become ingrained. The fact that the skill is ingrained in me and does not require my focus is a feature of all skills. Training. Practicing a lot is not sufficient; one must practice in the right ways. Simply making a thousand passes does not necessarily make me a good passer if my technique is poor; poor technique results in poor passing. In my early years, I developed some bad habits in my game. To retrain myself, I have had to self-consciously practice the better technique. To the extent that I have not thoroughly trained myself out of the bad habits, they come back. I tell myself over and over, “Don’t do that,” but I do it. If I have learned to do something poorly, that poor practice will become ingrained, just as a good technique becomes ingrained. I always unconsciously act in accordance with how I have trained. In most cases, this sort of training occurs in an apprentice-style relationship. An individual will rarely just happen upon good techniques and good methods of practice. It is much better to find a good coach who has learned the best methods and best training. Under the tutelage of a good coach, players learn only good techniques. That way they do not need retraining later. The other key feature of coaching is the constant correction. A coach can watch and see problems in my technique and correct them before they become ingrained. The more complex the skill, the longer the apprenticeship must last. Self-Evaluation. Finding others to coach me, however, is not enough. If I want to improve, I must become my own coach to correct mistakes. During training, every time I stop the ball or make a pass, I am judging my performance. I am making adjustments to what I am doing, trying to get a good result. I cannot rely solely on someone else to tell me what to do because ultimately I have to make the skill my own. No one can do it for me. Those who desire to excel tend to achieve success because they are constantly self-evaluating. Thus gaining skill in soccer requires (1) developing and practicing good habits, (2) getting input from a good coach, and (3) constant self-evaluation. And although I have been talking about soccer, these same aspects of skill development are true for other skills. Intellectual Skills. Most of what I have been discussing so far has been related to developing physical motor skills, specifically those necessary for playing soccer. But because soccer is complex, an intellectual aspect is important to the game as well. Let me explain. If you have ever watched kindergarteners or first graders playing soccer, you will have seen them move around as a great clump of bodies: herd ball. They are all just trying to kick the ball toward their opponents’ goal. To them, that seems to be the obvious thing to do no matter what their coach may be telling them to the contrary. As the kids age, more tactical issues come into play, mostly because the kids now have the necessary fundamentals to actually control the ball and pass successfully. Nevertheless, young or inexperienced players are still tempted to make poor decisions on the field. This skill of making good decisions on the field is a skill just like the motor skills of ball control. A player must be able to take into account a broad range of information and judge what is the best move. A player with a poor understanding of successful strategy, tactics, and the layout of the players on the field will not make good judgments. Like ball control skills, the intellectual side of the game can be learned through practice and training. It must become ingrained in the thinking of the player through long exposure. Head knowledge is insufficient since no one has time to pause and recollect diagrams the coach drew before the game. Proper training by a knowledgeable coach is required as well. Even the professional players improve substantially under the leadership of a great coach. Finally, the players need to self-correct their mistakes. Consider the player who always tries to dribble around defenders. If the player does not recognize, or worse, is unwilling to recognize the deficiency of this move, he will not improve. So then, mastery of fundamentals, training, and self-evaluation are important to developing both motor and mental skills. Let me give another example of a purely intellectual skill—speaking—which will help us to see more clearly the way in which wisdom is a skill. By “speaking,” I am not referring to public oratory or some other specialized, professional speech but rather to the act of talking that we all learn as toddlers. I have watched all three of my children learn to talk. I myself learned to talk as a child. However, the process of learning language is, at least to me, a bit mysterious. I don’t recall giving my children much instruction, but they still learned how to talk. We did not have our toddlers attend “Baby Language Acquisition 101.” There was no formal training at all. Learning to speak was an informal, organic part of growing up. How do kids acquire language? I would suggest that learning language is a skill acquired in much the same way as other skills are acquired—through practice (mastery of fundamentals), coaching (training), and self-correction (self-evaluation). Babies and children certainly get lots of practice. They want to communicate and are constantly figuring out how to do that. As they continue to practice, they improve. As they improve, their words are internalized. The words are no longer sounds used by others that need to be mastered; they become tools through which the children communicate and think. Speech is so much a part of children, so ingrained, that they are unconscious of their use of it. They have achieved mastery. Children also have live-in coaches who are able to properly train the child. And usually the training is just the right kind for skill acquisition. It is corrective, but there are no memory cards or quizzes. Parents are modeling the proper use of words and the proper pronunciation. If a child makes a mistake, typically a parent will say back the correct word. Eventually it sinks in. I believed that long skinny noodles were called “pasketti” for many years until my siblings got on my case. But parents are not the only ones correcting. The child self-corrects. Most babies say “mik” instead of “milk.” I have yet to hear an adult call it that. Learning to speak is a subtle, long process. Without that self-evaluation, children would never improve. Speaking, then, is a skill acquired in the same manner as other skills. How We “Know” Skills An important feature about skills has thus far been implied but not made explicit. It is not about how skills are gained but about the way in which we “know” skills. Skills cannot be articulated; they are known tacitly. Allow me to elaborate. By “articulated knowledge” I mean knowledge that I can explain and describe to another person or that I can write down in a book. I am making an attempt to articulate my ideas about skills right now. “Tacit” or “ingrained” knowledge is knowledge that I cannot explain or describe, but it directs our actions and thoughts. A nice example of the difference between the two is the knowledge you have about directions to your house. Most of us have both articulated knowledge and tacit knowledge of how to get to our house. You have articulated knowledge if you can give directions to a friend: go down such and such street and turn right, etc. However, when you go home, you do not replay those directions in your head. You just know where to turn. You use lots of little hints: a bush here, a store there, a sense that you have driven the right distance. Lots of times kids will have tacit knowledge of directions home but not articulated knowledge. They have never been asked to articulate their tacit knowledge. They know how to get home but would be hard-pressed to explain to someone else how they do it. Skills are all tacitly known. I cannot give you information that will enable you to handwrite or control a soccer ball. I cannot describe to you how to choose the right words to use when you speak. I just “know” these things. They are tacit knowledge. The Skill of Wisdom I have now laid out what I see to be the features common to all skills, so it is time to turn the discussion to wisdom. How is wisdom—which I will assume is understanding and living in accordance with the truth—a skill? Consider first the nature of wisdom. An understanding of the truth about God, about ourselves, and about the world around us is not something we can pick up in a textbook. How many children have been raised in Christian homes and gone to Sunday school or catechism, only later to reject the faith? How many people may be able to give academically satisfactory answers to various moral, personal, or theological questions but do not make those ideas a part of their deepest beliefs and instincts? The understanding necessary for wisdom is the tacit knowledge that becomes ingrained in us, the sort of understanding that we do not have to think about or ponder in our day-to-day lives. Whether we are wise or not wise is based on an understanding deeply ingrained in our psyche. The next step in our process is to consider how wisdom is acquired. I think it must be gained much like any skill, mastering an understanding of truth through practice under the tutelage of a coach, or coaches, with a healthy dose of self-evaluation until it becomes ingrained in us. In the case of wisdom, the type of “practice” needed is not like soccer or handwriting practice where a student focuses on a skill for a set amount of time. The practice of wisdom is more like the way a baby learns language. It is part of the routine of our life, something we spend our entire lives practicing and honing—but especially during our youth. An example of practicing wisdom would be a young adult trying to come to an understanding of the truth about sinful human nature. Consider a young man who has been instructed and nurtured to seek goodness and kindness. As he matures, he begins to become conscious of the fact that he is not always kind and good. His actions are not in keeping with his understanding of what he believes about himself. He begins the process of self-evaluation. These realizations are then brought to bear on his beliefs about what people in general are like. His beliefs are most likely going to come from the culture around him. There will be differing perspectives, some explicit and others implied. He may choose one doctrine over another. Or he may simply imbibe the culturally popular outlook. But how that plays out in his life will depend on whether that doctrine or outlook becomes ingrained. He will continue to have experiences and receive teaching about his nature. If he is fortunate, he will have good coaches and teachers to guide him toward what is true instead of what is false. If he begins to take on beliefs which are wide of the mark, then those beliefs will be hard to reverse, much like poor technique on the soccer field. Perhaps most important of all, the young adult needs to constantly self-evaluate. If he comes to a conclusion and dogmatizes it, he has little chance of making improvements in his understanding. To self-evaluate, he needs to develop other important skills to allow his evaluation to be accurate and just. He needs to be able to weigh the information he receives from his teachers and from his culture. He needs to begin to build a coherent view of himself that explains not only his own experience but also the experiences of others, whether those others are from his present or from the past. He needs to develop critical thinking skills to compare differing claims to each other and to experience. In short, he needs to develop the tools of learning. To the extent that the young adult understands in his heart what is true about himself, he will gain wisdom. As he lives and grows, God, the best of all coaches, continues to show him his shortcomings and failings, and he will become even more wise. I hope you can see how this example can be applied to other aspects of understanding the truth about the world around us. We learn to understand how God looks at us and what He values. We gain an understanding of compassion and mercy. We understand better what drives other people in their choices and what satisfies us. This is the wisdom that the Bible refers to. But the same process is true about more mundane wisdom, wisdom about the truth of nature and society. We can gain an understanding of plants and animals as well as the media or bureaucracy. We can take classes and read books on these things, but a more personal understanding must come from interaction with these things over time. The more we understand them, the more that understanding becomes ingrained in our thinking; the more that understanding is a part of our everyday responses to life, the wiser we become. This sort of understanding is not something that can be taught in a book. It is a skill. Clearly, everyone’s path to wisdom will be different. For some, the process is more difficult and painful. Some have had horrific coaches that have taught them terrible habits. Some may have been injured either intellectually or emotionally, thus putting another stumbling block in their path. Some have more or less talent in the development of wisdom, just as some are more or less athletically or intellectually talented. Most often these obstacles are not from our own choices; they are foisted upon us. Coming to grips with them may even play a role in our developing wisdom. I mention these obstacles because I do not wish to downplay the difficulty of the task. In the end, we must trust that God is merciful and loving and will grant us the wisdom we desire. But working to develop the skill of wisdom is a worthy task, one to which we are called and one we can improve on our whole lives. It is certainly a worthy goal of education.

Since I teach and talk about mathematics I often get a chance to interact with people about the word “proof.” It is a commonly used word which carries a lot of authority. If some proposition is “proved,” we would say, then all debate ceases; the proposition is true, period. Other claims which have not been proved are open to question or criticism. We tend to think it intellectually dishonest to question something which has been proved, especially with regard to mathematics. Let me give you an example. Suppose I were to ask some random passersby if it is possible that our existence is not what it seems, that we are subject to some grand delusion similar to that portrayed in the movie Matrix or the Harry Potter books. I suspect that many would agree that such a thing is possible. If I were to ask the same passersby if it is possible that a mathematical truth like 1000 + 1000 = 2000 is false, I suspect the vast majority would say no. Why the difference? Why would people be more willing to accept a mathematical truth than a truth about the validity of our everyday experience? Most of us, if pressed, would probably say something like this: mathematical conclusions have been proved by mathematicians while the reality of our experience has not. Not that we have actually done any mathematical proofs, but that is what we have been told. But what, one may ask, is a proof? One answer is that a proof is a deduction using valid logic from a set of first principles. This is the most common notion of proof which implies that the conclusion of a proof is undeniable. However, by this definition, the proof is only as good as its first principles. If the first principles upon which the proof is built are questionable, then so is the proof, and first principles have a long history of being called into question. To avoid this difficulty we might try to find proofs for our first principles. But clearly this is impossible, since to do so, we must use other, prior principles upon which to base the proof, and these principles would suffer the same criticism. Thus we must assume the truth of the first principles, leaving this definition of proof with a bit of a gaping hole, at least with regard to undeniability. Thus a proof is only as good as its first principles. Another answer to the question of what is a proof was suggested to me by a math professor when I was taking an advanced mathematics class as an undergrad: a proof is a convincing argument. At the time, I was taken aback. What if I am convinced of something that is incorrect? Proofs are supposed to be certain, not merely convincing. On the other hand, who but a mathematics professor should know the answer to this question? As I have further explored the issue, I have come to agree with this position: a proof is a convincing argument. Whichever of these notions of proof is adopted, let us return to our original question and ask why people would be more willing to accept a mathematical truth than a truth about the validity of our everyday experience? Are mathematical arguments more convincing? Let us approach this question using both notions of proof. We will start with the first notion of proof. Suppose mathematical proofs are more convincing because they are built upon a solid base of true mathematical first principles, whereas the reality of our experience is just something we believe without an argument from first principles. Now, there has been a great deal of debate about which first principles one should adopt when building a mathematical structure such as arithmetic or geometry. Rather than look at this debate, let us simply choose some basic principle that most mathematicians would accept as one of their first principles, the principle of non-contradiction: a statement cannot be both true and not true at the same time. Seems pretty obvious. If it were wrong, we could not really make arguments at all. No wonder mathematics has such a high level of authority; first principles like this seem pretty strong. With regard to the reality of our experience, are there some foundational principles which could be used to prove we are not deluded? I would suggest, no. Instead, belief in the reality of our experience is a first principle. Why, I would ask, does the truth of the principle of non-contradiction have any greater authority than the reality of our experience? If a person denies either, there is no real recourse to argument. A person may claim to deny either, but the claim goes nowhere. A person can only claim the principle of non-contradiction is false if the principle of non-contradiction is true. Further, if the reality of our experience is a big, undetectable delusion, how do we know if anything we believe is true? Thus for the first notion of proof, it is not clear to me why the first principles of mathematics are to be preferred over the reality of our experience, and thus mathematics has no special standing. Let us next consider the second notion of proof: a proof is a convincing argument. From this perspective, are mathematical arguments more convincing than the reality of our experience? To address this question, let us first consider some possible reasons for believing that 1000 + 1000 = 2000: Education. We all were taught how to add. We were told over and over again that the procedure that we use for addition is the right one. Everyone does it, and no one ever questions it. Thus the overwhelmingly consistent application of this procedure of adding is agreed upon by all. It works. Our knowledge of addition is applied all the time. We apply it; engineers and scientists apply it. One would expect that if there were a problem with addition, it would have shown up. Intuitive obviousness. We have an immediate and clear perception that when one thing is put together with another we get two things. Further, it is intuitively obvious that groups of things add in the same way individual things add; how could they not? Putting these perceptions together, we do not really need much education to realize that the addition statement is true. The culture. Our culture indicates in many ways that mathematics is very sure. It is one of the only disciplines where conclusions are undeniable; to even question mathematics is seen as odd. Our culture tells us that all of these mathematical conclusions have been proven to be true. There is not any culturally plausible scenario where mathematics is not right. Now consider our belief in the validity of everyday experience—that is, the rejection of something like the Matrix as possible. Here are some reasons that might be given for that belief: Education. In this case, the education does not start formally in school but informally at birth. We are taught by our experiences, by our parents, by our peers, and by our teachers. Those around us are teaching us through their words and actions that we must take the physical world around us as existing the way we experience it. It works. We all live our lives every day assuming the reality of our experience is no delusion. In a delusion, usually there is some sort of clue that something is not right. But the physical world is consistent in its operation. We may not understand all of the laws and principles, but every expectation of physical behavior is met in practice. We do not drop a ball and watch it go up. You would think someone would have noticed that things are not what they seemed. Intuitive obviousness. Even if we did not have a lifetime of experiences, it is obvious to our senses and minds that the physical world around us is not a delusion. Our minds are set up to believe the truth of our senses. We can’t help it. Try for even a short while to disbelieve your senses, and you will find it impossible. It is with regard to the fourth reason, culture, that a difference between mathematical arguments and the belief in the reality of our experience appears. On the whole, our culture overwhelmingly supports the validity of experience. However, there are a few culturally ingrained doubts. There have been philosophers who have gained some degree of fame and influence who have questioned the validity of our experience and cast doubt on even the most obvious things. There is a general belief that governments, corporations, aliens, or magical people will go to any end to delude the populace for their dastardly plans. There are lots of science fiction and fantasy stories which make such a possibility plausible. Thus I would suggest to you that the difference between the character of our belief in mathematical conclusions and the character of our belief in the validity of our experience is not because one has been proved in the first sense of proof. Proof doesn’t have anything to do with it since none of us has ever proved either conclusion. Ultimately the basis for belief in both is the same—namely, education, consistency, intuitive obviousness, and culture. However, with regard to culture, there is no support for disbelieving mathematics while there is support for disbelieving the validity of our experience. For the vast majority, cultural influence is the deciding difference, not the strength of the evidence or proof. Nevertheless, you may say, there must be some reason why there is no cultural support for disbelieving mathematics. Mathematics really is sure and certain even if we do not exactly know why. Cultural beliefs are rational, are they not? Undeniably, there is some reason. The question is whether that reason is a good one. To answer such a question would require an in-depth analysis of the nature of mathematics, the nature of knowledge, first principles, the reliability of our senses, and our mental faculties. This question has been hotly debated for thousands of years, and our general cultural beliefs stem directly from this conversation. Such a question is well beyond the scope of this short discussion. My take, however, is that the issue is not cut-and-dried. The fact that my mathematics professor claimed that a proof is a convincing argument supports this. He recognized that the common notion of proof is not tenable. Further, I believe that the common notion of proof is a result of a mistaken set of philosophical ideas developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Whatever the case may be, I think we can safely conclude that for most of us, our belief in the certainty in mathematics is based on general cultural trends and not on the first, more common notion of proof. And if I may be so bold, if you are convinced by my argument, then I have proved it! While a mistaken common notion of proof is not something of great significance, I think it illustrates the power that culture has on our ideas. Many ideas weave their way into our thoughts due to cultural influence. To recognize them is a very difficult task, and to weigh them judiciously is even harder. Despite the difficulty, it is worthwhile to stop and ask, on occasion, why do I believe “that” after all.

I recently had the privilege to lead discussions on two vastly different works. The first was the Federalist Papers , a series of articles written in the 1780s by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay designed to convince the voters of New York to approve the proposed Constitution of the United States. The second work, “ A World Split Apart ,” is the transcript of a 1978 commencement address given at Harvard University by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn was famous for writing about the abuses in Soviet Russia during the Stalinist era, but this address did not critique Eastern failings; it critiqued the failings of the West. Read together, the two works give an interesting perspective on how our culture has changed over the last two centuries. The meaning and intention of some of the most noble sentiments of the Constitution have been reinterpreted in a way that they have become dangerous to our faith. These ideas are freedom of speech, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, and the pursuit of happiness. My intention in this series of four posts is not to write about politics. I am not offering political solutions or critiquing political problems. I am discussing social and cultural beliefs, beliefs that have become so ingrained in our cultural psyche that we cannot see them for what they are. This subtle infiltration into our consciousness is what makes them dangerous to our faith. Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech In the first amendment to the Constitution, we are guaranteed the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The intention of this amendment was to prevent the government from clamping down on political dissention and criticism. It was assumed that the press, for instance, would act as a watchdog on corrupt or bad behavior on the part of the government. The press was also to be a source of information through which the electorate could make informed decisions. But the goal of maintaining an informed electorate by insuring a free press has not been accomplished. Instead the press reports only on what is fashionable. This change has occurred largely due to the economic nature of public discourse. The press and the entertainment industry are subject to the economic pressure of financial success. Thus they do not write or show anything that their base subscribers or viewers dislike. If they alienate those subscribers, then the subscribers will stop watching, and revenues will go down. Thus public discourse is subject to fashion. It can inform the electorate only of what the electorate wants to hear. Unfashionable scandals are not scandals at all. An example of the impact of fashion can be found in the news items selected by NPR. Most of the stories, except those dealing with breaking news, fall into an “oppressor vs. oppressed” narrative: some powerful, bad person or organization is causing harm to some powerless, good person or organization. We like to hear these stories because we feel for the underdog and the oppressed. These stories stir our moral outrage and draw us into action. But the world is not like that. Sure, there are powerful entities in the world that abuse their status and should be exposed. But are there not many more of the powerless and disenfranchised who do horrible things? We all know Walmart is supposed to be evil, but how many stories do you hear about people who shoplift from Walmart? I believe that such a story would not be well received. No one wants to hear about that. A powerful man who is racist is news. But a poor person who cheats on his taxes is not. Why do we care about the racist remark but not the tax evasion? I would suggest it is due to the fashion of the times. The censorship provided by such a scheme is much more complete and pervasive than any governmental restriction of speech could ever create. It works on our ideas from the bottom up, not on our words from the top down. Granted, there are voices that can and do offer critiques and alternative views. The impact of these voices on the culture at large, however, is minimal. On the one hand, if the views offered are completely out of fashion, then only a very small sector of the population can or will be willing to listen. Thus the effect will be marginal on society as a whole. On the other hand, some alternative views may be embraced by a large segment of the population, but these represent only a competing fashion. They will only offer debate and dissent on issues over which there is competition, which is of course healthy, but it masks the underlying similarity of opinion on other issues. We feel as if there is free discourse because of the difference of opinion, but we forget that much more is not being discussed because it is not a subject of ideological competition. The left and the right are at each other’s throats, but they both seduce their supporters into accepting ideas on which they agree. How often, for instance, does the press report on the bias of its own economic orientation? How often do you see stories questioning whether higher education is primarily for job preparation? Where are the in-depth stories examining whether high tech helps or hurts society? There is little to no debate on these issues between the left and the right. The development of a fashion in the media blinds us into thinking that we are bravely taking on the most important issues of our times. But instead, our horizons are narrowed to the most fashionable issues of our times. Our ability as a culture to interact in successful ways is limited to those sorts of solutions fashion allows. More importantly, the fashion of our media envelopes us as individuals to such an extent that it is far more difficult to discern God’s view of good and evil. An issue related to the freedom of the press is freedom of speech. Here the danger is even greater since the impact is more pervasive. As with freedom of the press, freedom of speech was designed to ensure political freedom. But the types of speech now included under the rubric of free speech has expanded well beyond freedom of political speech on issues of public concern. Freedom of speech has been reinterpreted as a ticket to spew abuse and verbally manipulate any statement without repercussion. Freedom of speech is now freedom from just about any and all restraint in speech. As a result of our “free for all” speech, modern publications, radio, and video cater to many of our basest human desires in order to continue to titillate and excite the emotions. The strategy is to have the widest possible appeal and to keep the maximum number of readers and watchers engaged. All sorts of damaging ideas and images are thus thrust mercilessly on us, especially on our youth who are least able to resist. But if anyone tries to restrict this onslaught, “freedom of speech” is invoked to silence the naysayers. Not only does free speech degrade our moral sensibilities, it also promotes a base form of legalism. The media, in recognizing the economic advantage of engaging our passions, constantly pushes the limits of the law in that direction. It has substituted internal restraints of goodness with external restraints of legality. Our culture now believes that it is morally acceptable to engage in character assassination, spreading of rumor, distortion of meaning, damaging innuendo, sexual exploitation, and misrepresentation—so long as it does not exceed the legal limits of such behavior. And if those people damaged by such behavior push back, the media reverts to the sacred dictum of the freedom of the press. The danger here comes from the way the culture has demeaned kindness and decency. In the name of political freedom, we have allowed ourselves to believe that evil is OK. We have normalized unkindness in our speech. To the extent that we adopt these perspectives, we have debased ourselves and lost our way. Separation of Church and State The separation of church and state is also established in the first amendment to the Constitution. It grew out of the colonists’ experience with state-run churches. In Europe, the political rulers had authority over the church. Only one church organization was allowed, and people who dissented were subject to legal persecution. Thus the Constitution included the separation-of-church-and-state clause to avoid this sort of heavy handed political repression of religious freedom. Since that time, however, the separation of church and state has been reinterpreted as a separation of religion and state. This has since devolved into a prohibition against any acknowledgement of the spiritual in any governmental entity. Clearly this was not the intention of the original founders. If that were the case, then there would be no mention of God in the founding documents. Appeals to God were, in fact, common in the founding of this country. This change is primarily a response to the growth of a politically powerful atheistic segment in society. The growth of this segment is the result of the slow but steady increase in materialistic and naturalistic philosophy in the West—basically a denial of spiritual realities. Many of the touch points where this battle is being fought are, for the most part, not particularly significant: for example, debates on who can pray in school and when; debates on what sorts of documents can be publicly displayed; and so on. How these particular issues play out do not seem to be too significant for our cultural life, but the general trend and the drive behind the battles are very damaging. Effectively, separation of church and state has restricted the kinds of issues that can be raised in public discourse. Only issues that deal with worldly material needs are allowed. We constantly harangue over taxes and budgets. We debate about fair labor laws and immigration. National security is contrasted with civil liberties. All of these aspects of our public life deal with our mundane interests and needs. Missing is any discussion of the fact that man is not just a material being. Instead, that man is purely material is assumed without debate in the public sphere. The assumption tacitly implies that the things of importance are material: the types of problems that we have are purely material; solutions to problems are to be accomplished through purely material means. The idea that our deepest and most profound problems are spiritual is not even on the table. I am not suggesting that material needs are not in the purview of public life. Nor am I advocating a “Christian political agenda” as a solution to our problems. Instead, I am pointing out how the trends in our culture have devalued and marginalized many of the most important aspects of public discourse. This is perhaps dangerous to our society. But more importantly, to our great loss, it encourages us to devalue the significance of our spiritual nature. One of the main ways that this reinterpretation of church and state has affected our culture is in education. Our goal in education is to pass on the ideas, values, and skills that will help our children live the best lives they can. Spiritual questions—such as right and wrong, what it means to be a human, and whether there is a supreme being—are central to this task. But in the current system, to raise these questions is, in fact, illegal! This sort of restriction on education surely never darkened the worst nightmares of the writers of the Constitution. Another important consequence of this reinterpretation of church and state has to do with how society approaches social services. Federal and state social services can only consider the material well being of those in need. All analyses and researches into our social problems are purposely blind to our most important problems, spiritual problems. Such an approach is bound to lessen the success of these services. The need for the spiritual in social services can be seen in Alcoholics Anonymous. My understanding is that AA promotes the idea of a higher being in its treatment. If AA were restricted from encouraging the attendees to consider a higher power, the program would be significantly less effective, both socially and individually. Man is a spiritual being, and everyone recognizes this whether or not they admit to it. All feel the need for purpose. All feel the need for connection and love. All feel the call to the transcendent. The idea that we should eliminate this aspect of our lives from the public sphere is self-defeating at best and malicious at worst. Rule of Law The United States was founded on a written Constitution. The fact that this document was designed to be the highest law of the land was extremely significant. It put into place the rules by which the country was to be governed, and it restricted the means by which those with power could abuse that power. What the people were responding to was the nature of law in Europe. In most European countries, the decree of the monarch was the law. Granted, the monarchs were severely limited by traditions, representative bodies, and social structures; but in principle, no law could hold the King responsible for his actions. In the United States, it was important to have the laws clearly spelled out and inviolable. No one was above the law. Everyone was subject to it. The system of checks and balances was included specifically to prescribe the laws for the people at the top. But every set of laws, no matter how well written, is incomplete. It cannot take into consideration every method by which people can take advantage of others. For every new law enacted to clamp down on damaging or deceitful activity, other new ways can be invented. The laws of the United States relied heavily on the character of the people. The laws specified the minimum standards of behavior, not the expectations of how people will behave outside of the law. Over the last two centuries, the internal constraints on bad behavior have eroded. Social pressure and expectations had been the primary means to maintain decency. But we have slowly freed ourselves from those norms, and in their stead has come an increasingly bloated set of laws. What has developed is a kind of Phariseeism. We have come to think more and more that whatever is legal is right. The rule of law then becomes a game. Instead of a fixture designed to prevent the injustice of the crown or the aristocracy, the rule of law has become a game in which winners and losers are chosen not according to justice but according to cleverness and availability of resources. Clearly, there have always been those who will manipulate and steer the law to their will. But the prevalence of that attitude has increased. This trend can easily be seen in the business world. As an example, there was a practice in Wall Street in which traders had figured out how to intercept “buy and sell” orders milliseconds prior to an exchange. Because of their physical proximity and the superior speed of their internet connection, traders could place an order microseconds prior to the intercepted transaction. By this means, they were able to legally skim profits off all transactions they intercepted. This was clearly a fraudulent activity. However, since the practice was new and undetected, it was not yet illegal and thus considered fair game. Another obvious example of legalism is in the press, as I mentioned in a part one of this series. The press has a great deal of freedom to publish as it desires. Because of the nature of the laws, outrageous injustices can and are perpetrated by the press, all within a strictly legal framework. Individuals lacking internal constraints feel justified in their actions, especially if it brings greater income or prestige. The legal system itself is a perfect example of the legalism that has developed. I am not directly involved with the law system, so my observations are perhaps not the most accurate. However, it sure seems as if justice takes second place to technical considerations. For instance, if a suspect confesses without the Miranda rights being first administered, the suspect can be acquitted of the charge. The cumulative effect of legalism is to discourage internal moral constraint. To the extent that the law is seen as the criterion for right and wrong, immoral but legal behavior becomes normalized, accepted. This sort of cultural attitude is toxic to our souls. We need to encourage each other to take morality seriously. We need to have standards other than just the law. The rule of law is good, so long as it does not replace a morality based on a transcendent reality. Pursuit of Happiness In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson writes that we are endowed by our Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Of these three, the last one may seem out of place as being rather less high minded. We might see life and liberty as unalienable, but the pursuit of happiness seems a little self absorbed. However, the word happiness when Jefferson used it did not have the same connotations that it has today. The idea of happiness has had a long history. Aristotle, for instance, thought of happiness as the fulfillment of a human being’s goal in life. He distinguished man from all other creatures in the world by man’s rationality and social life. Since these qualities make man unique, then his goal or purpose must be wrapped up in these qualities. Aristotle equated happiness with outstanding moral and intellectual activity in the affairs of the city state. Thomas Aquinas took a similar view, except that for him the goal of human life differed. Aquinas saw the ultimate goal of existence in eternal life. Life on earth, then, could never bring complete happiness (i.e., completion of one’s goal as a human), only partial. These ideas framed the concepts of John Locke. He wrote, The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action… (Essay Concerning Human Understanding) Here Locke seems to relate happiness with the “highest perfection of the intellectual nature” and “our greatest good.” This idea is clearly reminiscent of Aristotle and Aquinas. What Locke does not mean is that the pursuit of happiness is the license to please our worldly desires. Jefferson, who immortalized the words “pursuit of happiness,” was drawing directly from Locke. In this context, then, it is obvious that the pursuit of happiness belongs with life and liberty in significance. Today the pursuit of happiness has been reinterpreted to mean the right to go after worldly benefits. We have demeaned the original intent so much that it has become diabolical. The idea that God has somehow granted us the inalienable right to obtain worldly goods is about as antithetical to the biblical picture as you can get. One cannot serve both God and mammon. And yet if a person, organization, or government places restrictions on our ability to pursue our base desires, we feel our rights have been trampled on. How dare anyone prevent us from polluting our minds with pornography! This demeaned view of happiness is fraught with danger. We live in a culture that has imbibed this view; it is all around us, and it is difficult not to conform to it. This view of happiness is particularly heinous in that it invites us to see that which is evil as noble. We are taught that rights are good and that infringements of rights are bad. Then we are taught that we have the right to follow our base desires. It is not stated in such stark terms because we would reject it. But it is subtly implied in all that we do and hear and see. An example of this is the battle over sex and nudity in broadcast television. The perception is that the TV censors are infringing on our rights to watch what we want. The freedom to take mind-altering drugs is also becoming a right; it makes us happy . We have a right to health care because health is a part of our pursuit of happiness. The list could go on and on. The pursuit of happiness as it was originally conceived is noble. We should strive to become the best human beings that we can. What makes us human is bound up with our moral and intellectual gifts. To debase this excellent sentiment by making it a pursuit of money, fame, and physical gratification is a tragedy—and dangerous to our souls. Series Conclusion Culture is a powerful force. I think we all recognize that at some level. But knowing we are affected and recognizing how we are affected are very different things. I think the juxtaposition of cultures side by side can sometimes help to open our eyes. It is instructive to have an insightful outsider like Solzhenitsyn look into our failings as a society. It is instructive to compare the thinking of the writers of the Federalist Papers with current thought. Even so, we can never escape the danger of an intensely seductive culture. We live in it; we breath it. We conform to this world despite the warnings of Paul. And it is at this exact spot where the danger lies. We are frogs in a pot of water in need of a thermometer. Ultimately, it is the juxtaposition of our culture with God’s values expressed in the Bible that provides the thermometer. But unlike frogs, we cannot jump out of the pot. We must find a path in the midst of the hot water. We must pray, as Jesus did, that God will sanctify us in the truth of His word (John 17:17)

Skepticism permeates modern culture. The most consistent and popular application of skepticism is religious skepticism. “We cannot prove God exists” is the common refrain. In fact, of the many unwritten social codes enforced by our culture, one of the strongest is the impropriety of claiming that Christianity is objectively true. Such a claim is an affront: a social faux pas at best and a mean spirited attack at worst. After all, agnosticism is cool; truth is not. The pervasiveness of skepticism cannot help but discourage us from truth-seeking at some level. What is the point of working hard to know the truth if we believe our efforts will be rewarded by uncertainty and confusion? Thus the battle is lost before it is even fought. We throw up our hands and leave the task to others; after all, time is short. My purpose here is not to guilt people into becoming scholars. Nor do I want to explore the sources of this malaise (although it is a very fascinating exploration). Instead I would like to propose that contrary to the savants, and contrary to the “cool” agnostics, we are born as truth-detectors, and we are very good at it. The fact that we are good at determining the truth has been obscured by centuries of intellectual criticism. At the heart of these criticisms lies the “apparently” unbridgeable gap between the experiences of our senses on the one hand and the concepts and ideas that we use to understand those experiences on the other. Our concepts and ideas, it is supposed, come only from sense experience, and there is no “guarantee” that those ideas accurately reflect reality. To explore this gap, let us consider the relationship between our experience and our ideas. When we are faced with a new experience (some image or color patterns impinging on our eyes, for instance) we generate an explanatory structure to make sense of that idea or experience. The structure answers for us questions of what and why. What am I experiencing right now, and why am I experiencing it? This explanatory structure can have many different names depending on the context. For simple experiences, the structure is simply a name (with all the meaning associated with that name) that we attach to the object of our vision. In other, more complicated scenarios, we may create an explanatory structure for a broad range of related but complicated experiences, thoughts, and memories. Such a structure may be called a story or a theory or a belief or an idea. But no matter the name, our natural tendency is to generate some sort of explanatory structure, and that process uses the same basic mental faculties in every case. As an example, suppose I am jogging outside and I feel a sensation of coldness on my face. I immediately think “wind.” I quickly justify my conclusion by noting that I am sweating and that the moisture is enhancing the sensation of the wind on my face. I have created an explanatory structure to explain my experience. A different example might have to do with a comment from a friend on Facebook. Suppose I post a picture and my friend subsequently posts “lol.” I am going to recall that these letters represent “laugh out loud” and conclude that my friend was amused by my picture. In this case, it is not so much a physical sensation that I am explaining (although it is true that my eyes are registering a sensation of marks on a screen) but a concept or idea. I am providing an explanatory structure for the word “lol” appearing as it did and when it did on Facebook. With each new experience or set of experiences that we are faced with, we typically make a quick assessment of the truth of our hastily assembled explanatory structure. That assessment depends on whether that structure is consistent with the assumptions we already believe to be true and whether it accurately fits all of the experiences that are available to us. The stronger the consistency and fit, the more confidence we have that the explanatory structure is true. I would argue that we humans are master craftsmen at creating and assessing explanatory structures. Although what I have proposed may seem rather simple and straightforward, there are a few sticky issues that are worth considering. The first such issue is the impression that we are not “creating an explanatory structure” at all but simply experiencing some phenomenon directly. According to this perspective, I do not create the idea of wind to explain a sensation I am having on my face; I just “feel the wind.” I am more of a passive accepter of knowledge rather than a mentally active participant. Some experiences seem so basic that we do not need to engage our brains to know what is happening. However, I do not think this is right. We are fooled by our own lightning fast ability to skillfully create explanations. We are so experienced and talented in making identifications, in coming to snap decisions, that the process is hidden from us. But it is entirely possible either not to engage our minds or to engage them erroneously. If I am concentrating on the ache in my legs or on the car swerving dangerously ahead of me, I will not engage my mind on the feeling on my face and the sensation will not be explained. I will not know that there is wind on my face. If afterwards someone were to ask if there was a cool wind on my face, I would not be able to answer from experience (although I may make a judgment about the question based on other knowledge). Similarly, it is possible, though not probable, that I may create an incorrect explanatory structure; for instance, when I feel a sensation of coldness on my face, I may think the nerves in my cheek are going numb. The point is that with every experience or thought, our judgments and explanations are due to our active mental faculties becoming engaged. A second issue regards whether or not we can clearly articulate the reasons why we have adopted a particular explanatory structure. In some cases, we do not articulate those reasons to ourselves. For instance, with regard to the wind, I am not likely to self-consciously scan through all the reasons why I think there is a cold wind on my face. Maybe I can see leaves flapping on a bush or tree, or I saw something like that earlier and have come to the conclusion it is a windy day. I have a belief that my motion through the air will generate a wind relative to my face. I believe that wind passing my face creates evaporation of moisture that has a cooling effect. I have a backlog of many similar experiences in which I have come to a similar conclusion. Further, I have often interacted with people who have claimed that joggers feel coolness on their face due to wind. That is a lot to think about for a single insignificant experience of feeling wind on my face, and I have probably missed other reasons. Nevertheless, those thoughts or some subset of them must zip through my brain very quickly without any words to bring them to my attention. The knowledge I have gained is no less valuable and true. It is simply unexamined. In other instances, we do articulate the reasons why we believe a particular explanatory structure. These situations arise when there is some question about the veracity of our explanation. Perhaps there are other experiences or assumptions which do not fit with our explanation. In some cases, others have offered a criticism of our explanation. Often we find ourselves juggling many different kinds of evidence and weighing their relevance and truth. Such situations quickly become complex. Whatever the case, we typically will try to explore whether we have made a mistake. To do so means we must do the work of providing reasons for our belief—if not to others, at least to ourselves. Generally, we are pretty good at providing reasons and examining them. Consider the “lol” example from above. If a friend is reading over my shoulder and claims that the “lol” is short for “lollipop,” I can come back quickly and decisively. “You’re nuts,” I would reply, “Ask anyone, and they will tell you that you are wrong. Or even better, Google “lol” and see how many lollipop hits you get!” My reason is that the consensus view of the meaning of “lol” is clearly established and that that view can easily be checked. Sometimes, however, the reasons are more subtle and difficult to come by and require a more nuanced approach. Many questions of great interest do not yield easily to investigation. In these difficult cases, two aspects of knowledge-seeking become increasingly important: skill and will . Skill in the art of knowing is one of the primary goals of education. In school we learn the use of language to understand the thoughts of others and clearly express our own. We learn how to organize those thoughts and craft arguments. We learn how to calculate to find and prove quantitative results. And we learn facts about our world and culture that help to provide a context in which to understand each other. Each of these things hones our skill of discerning the true from the false. This skill allows us to craft more complex, more accurate, and more detailed explanatory structures. Like other skills, the skill of knowing fades into the background of our consciousness if we use it consistently. A dancer, for instance, when first learning how to dance must concentrate on each and every movement. Slowly the dancer learns the moves and no longer needs to concentrate on them. They become part of the dancer’s skill set upon which to build further, more difficult movements. So it is with the skill of knowing. A skilled reader does not need to recall the rules of grammar to understand a paragraph. Those rules are part of the reader’s skill set and are applied unconsciously. Nor does a mathematician need to think about the rules of algebra to use them; they can be called up without effort. For better or for worse, the same process applies to our use of assumptions. The intellectual frameworks that we assume, after they have been vetted and tested by experience and thought, fade into the background of our consciousness. They become part of our skill set that allows us to seek truth. Without such assumptions we could not function. For instance, we all have a framework that tells us about how cars behave on the road. We use this framework constantly as we drive. We do not think about how to respond to a red light, a yellow line, or an oncoming car. Our framework of traffic laws and rules of thumb is instantly available to provide answers. Driving becomes second nature, but that framework, while firmly established in our minds, is not something of which we are conscious. As our assumptions fade into the background, they are rarely brought out into the light for examination. They work well, and we become committed to them. The greater the level of commitment, the less likely we are to abandon them. In many cases, the assumptions also carry along with them personal or emotional content. It is here that will comes into play. “Will” in the art of knowing is the other primary goal of education. A good education focuses not only on intellectual skills, but also on the training of our youth to value what is good and despise what is bad. We are creatures of will, and our will cannot be removed from our thoughts and actions. Thus in the process of judging the validity of an explanatory structure, our commitments, desires, and wants play a huge role. A desire to see our commitments justified influences our ability to judge fairly. A desire to pursue pleasure may turn our eyes from a true understanding of our actions. A fear of a negative outcome can drive us to deny clear evidence. Education should help students to recognize the role of those desires and encourage students toward those which are good in the eyes of God. Driving, doing algebra, interpreting “lol,” and realizing that a wind is blowing on my face are rather simple examples of determining the truth. Many other questions are more difficult, as, for example, those pursued on the forefronts of science. They may be difficult, but the process is the same. Difficult questions are not just the purview of scientists, however. One such question, to which I alluded at the beginning of this article, is whether to follow the God of the Bible. The biblical worldview, and its counterpart unbelief, are complex but important explanatory structures. They are not a result of a single experience but of a multitude of experiences. Those experiences may be events in our lives, conversations, or simply listening to the various voices in our culture. Young people faced with the question consider the beliefs of parents, peers, and teachers. They consider also how parents, peers, and teachers have acted toward them; are they friends or foes? A young person may consider the arguments and claims that are made. To sort it all out, he must make a multitude of judgments, which takes a great deal of skill. Are parents and peers wise, and do their choices on this issue impact them for the good? Are the claims and arguments compelling? Of particular importance when a person faces this question is the role of the will: he must decide whether he wants to live a life subject to God or whether he wants to pursue the enticements of the world. After coming to a tentative conclusion about the question, then, such a person weighs and tests his conclusion to see if it fits with other experience and other beliefs held to be true. He can also examine his conclusion for consistency: Does this developing explanatory structure lead to contradictory conclusions? These difficulties are daunting. No doubt, they can lead to despair of ever finding the truth. But for those who desire to know, the information is available. It is possible to develop the types of skills necessary to decipher this information. It may take time, even a lifetime, but the question is the most important one we face. What is striking about this particular question—whether to follow the God of the Bible—is that everyone does decide. Even the agnostic decides, though he may deny it. For the agnostic lives, and it is impossible to live in a way that both denies and accepts God. Skepticism is, in this important case, not even a possible alternative. We are not allowed to claim ignorance. In fact, I am convinced that the rise of skepticism in our culture is a symptom of the will to unbelief. People do not want to be subject to God; they want autonomy to create their own reality. What better justification for denying one’s dependence on God than to claim that it is impossible to know if the Bible is true? Skepticism is an inadequate general outlook on knowledge. It denies our God-given abilities. It denies our daily experience. No doubt there are some questions that cannot be answered, and there are some questions that are not worth the effort to answer. Everyone acknowledges this. However, the skepticism that has pervaded our culture goes beyond this. It is often used as an excuse for not having to deal with the truth. We Christians, though, desire the truth, and thus we should struggle to resist the pessimism of skepticism.

The ancient Greeks, like other polytheistic cultures around them, looked at the natural world and saw chaos. Nearly everything most critical to their survival was out of their control. Whether it was marauding hordes, fickle weather, elusive game, insect plagues, or just the unpredictability of those in charge, the average Greek lived at the mercy of wild and untamable forces. It is no great wonder, then, that the gods to whom the Greeks attributed these forces were seen as powerful, willful, chaotic beings who created disorder. However, the Greeks were also unique among their polytheistic neighbors because somehow a segment of their population shifted from a perspective of chaos to one of order. These new Greeks looked around them and saw structure. There was a pattern and a purpose to the cosmos. Eternal unchanging principles existed that were not subject to whim and desire. And most importantly, this order was accessible to humanity through the use of our minds. This optimistic attitude and the perceived power that it entailed have resonated with Western thinkers in varying degrees ever since. Optimism has waxed and waned, faced numerous and varied challenges, but a steady underlying belief in order has remained. One of the primary causes of its staying power, I believe, has been the wide adoption of Christianity and thus a worldview based on the Bible, which presents a universe created by a good, purposeful, and orderly God. One of the main cultural consequences of this optimistic attitude has been an attempt to bring the uncontrollable aspects of our life under control. If there is an order to the cosmos, then we have assumed that we can uncover it and use it to our benefit. So, for instance, we have attempted to bring political and economic uncertainty under control through democratic government and economic systems. Scientists and engineers have attempted to bring the uncertainties of the natural world under control through formulas and theories. To some extent we have succeeded; for instance, agricultural and medical technology has overcome many problems. Nevertheless, despite the herculean effort given to the task and our apparent progress, the attitude of the twenty-first-century person seems to be shifting back to the chaotic worldview of the ancient Greeks. As in Greek times, we see forces that are completely out of our control. These forces are impersonal rather than personal, and, as a result, they are even more remote than the polytheistic gods. For us, the impersonal government is a behemoth both in terms of its inertia and its power. The economy seems radically unstable. Our cars and computers break down, and we are powerless to fix them ourselves. Even our health seems to be subject to an infinite variety of dangers from known and unknown sources. The man on the street has been brought up with the expectation that he can control his destiny, but more and more he finds that he cannot. The shift back to an expectation of chaos is not without roots. The philosophical movements of the early twentieth century all promoted this view. In the postmodernism of Foucault and Wittgenstein, order was seen as arbitrary, imposed through language and culture. Their perspective was embraced by the intellectual culture and has slowly trickled into our collective consciousness. One might think, however, that at least in science the optimism and expectation of order is alive and well. And this is true to an extent. Scientists spend their lives looking for patterns and principles to make sense of the myriad of experiences. Yet on a deeper, more philosophical level, scientists see even that order as merely apparent and not real. Let me explain. Modern philosophy suggests that the patterns we see in science are actually just random outgrowths of deeper principles that give rise to those patterns. And those deeper principles are simply the result of other principles that underlie them, and so on. All of the upper principles and patterns are not exact and true; they are approximations of the lower explanatory level. This perspective, often referred to as ‘reductionism’, is so pervasive that even to imagine an alternative is practically impossible for us. But the alternative is staring us in the face. It is the way science is practiced. It is the way science is taught. And it is the way scientists probably think about the world if they are not thinking about philosophy. I will call the view to which I am referring the ‘hierarchical view’. In the hierarchical view, there exists a variety of areas of expertise, or spheres of inquiry, each of which has its own set of concepts, relationships, and standard examples that make sense of a wide range of similar phenomena and experiences. Examples of spheres might be cellular biology, electromagnetism, organic chemistry, atmospheric science, or thermal physics—in which scientists study extensively a range of phenomena to understand a piece of reality. Each of these spheres is, in one sense, independent of the others and, in another sense, intimately connected to them. The independence stems from the fact that any particular sphere examines a particular set of phenomena that are for the most part independent of factors outside the sphere. Thus in the study of cellular biology, electromagnetism is not pertinent. On the other hand, each sphere has borders that abut other spheres of inquiry, and the phenomena studied in one sphere may be subtly influenced by activity in abutting spheres. Thus while the cellular biologist typically does not make reference to, say, molecular biology, the structures of the molecules do have an effect on the cell. Similarly, the structures of the molecules are not entirely independent of their role in a cell. The two spheres, cellular biology and molecular biology, are intertwined along their borders but otherwise studied separately. Consider another example. Within physics, in the sub-sphere of Newtonian mechanics, scientists study the motion of objects such as rockets, baseballs, and pendulums. Generally this motion can be completely described by Newton’s principles, or laws, of motion. However, when objects are moving at speeds approaching the speed of light (as for instance in the particle accelerator searching for the “God particle”), a different set of laws, the relativistic laws of motion, are used. Under these circumstances scientists are operating in the sphere of relativistic mechanics. However, each set of laws, which generally are used in different scientific spheres, applies to a range of speeds that overlap, and so in the border between the two spheres, relativistic laws and Newton’s laws give similar answers. Physicists generally consider the laws of relativistic mechanics more exact, and any calculation using Newtonian mechanics is subject to relativistic corrections. However, these corrections are so minute for motions at ordinary speeds that they can be ignored. In such cases, the much simpler and more intuitive Newtonian laws are used. Thus we see in these two cases, and in innumerable others, that the various spheres of science are essentially self contained but only within certain limits. No sphere promises a perfect description of its phenomena since bordering spheres may have small (sometimes immeasurable) effects. The response of the reductionist at this juncture is clear. He sees each sphere as an approximation of a lower, more fundamental sphere. Thus Newton’s laws, which are associated with the less exact sphere of Newtonian physics, are just handy approximations to the ‘more true’ reality described by the laws of relativity used in the sphere of relativistic physics. Similarly, relativistic laws are only approximations to laws of “general relativity,” used in the sphere of cosmology. The reductionist says that a perfect description of any phenomena can only occur at the very lowest, most fundamental level. All other scientific spheres will then contain handy approximations to this most fundamental level. Ecology reduces to biology, which reduces to biochemistry, which reduces to chemistry, which reduces to quantum physics, which reduces to relativistic field theory, and so on. However, the reductionist perspective fails to account for two important aspects of science: practice and the meaningfulness of definitions. First of all, scientific practice treats the various spheres of inquiry as useful and their findings as true. Each particular sphere arose as a response to specific experiences and problems because each gave a good account of the experience and/or problem. Furthermore, the principles applied within each sphere and the patterns or discoveries each sphere describes are taught to students as if they were true. Thus on a practical day-to-day basis, each sphere, together with the ‘laws’ it employs, is considered as containing some insight into our natural world. Secondly, the reductionist view renders definitions of scientific concepts meaningless. For example, we might believe something is true and meaningful about Newton’s concept of ‘mass’—the concept corresponds to our experience, and it makes sense of that experience—but according to the reductionist, this concept seems illusory. The reductionist would point to relativistic theory, according to which mass is not a fundamental property of matter; it is simply a form of energy. Thus the reductionist redefines mass. The same holds true with many, if not all, of the concepts we employ in the various scientific spheres. Our understanding of the objects and relations in the “upper” spheres are either annihilated or, at best, reinterpreted. In the reductionist view, none of the spheres tells us about reality; the patterns they discover and the principles they employ are simply convenient fictions. But I believe the definitions in each sphere are meaningful. People may err in their understanding of nature, but for the most part scientists are putting their fingers on concepts that are more than illusion. It makes no sense to act, on the one hand, as if these concepts correspond to reality and, on the other hand, to deny their reality due to our philosophy. What has all this to do with order? Whether we accept the reductionist or hierarchical view has huge implications for our belief in the orderliness of the cosmos. To the reductionist, the order of the world is only accidental—the fortuitous result of some fundamental principles that somehow give rise to the findings of a broad range of different spheres of science. The findings of these spheres are intelligible and accessible to us (lucky us!), but they are, in a sense, ultimately illusory. The hierarchical view, on the other hand, is highly compatible with an orderly designer. The findings of the various spheres of inquiry, the patterns they describe, are not the fortuitous result of fundamental principles; rather, they describe a piece of an intended, real structure built into the fabric of the material world. When we look out at the world and see relationships and discover concepts, we are not imposing order but finding it. The fact that so much order exists, that all of these spheres are separate and yet intertwined, is for me a great source of awe. I am amazed at the complexity of creation. I am reminded of how small and finite I am in comparison to a God who can pull off such a feat. It appears that the ancient polytheists’ spirit of chaos is again rising in our cultural consciousness. In fact, it has seeped into our thinking even in science, which should by all accounts be most resistant to it. This spirit of chaos not only promotes hopelessness and despair, but, most importantly, it prevents us from seeing the beauty and awe in the creativity of God. If this is where our culture is going, then I for one am not interested. I cannot help but be impressed by the order in our world and in ourselves. I cannot help but attempt to put my experiences into some sort of order and structure. Humans are order seekers, and we should not let a despairing philosophy darken our search.

Great thinkers are often great by being gadflies to their culture. They see deeply into the problems of the time. Of course, a large number of not-so-great thinkers are also busy identifying problems. Come to think of it, young children are problem spotters too, as any parent who has pronounced an inconsistent judgment can attest. It seems as if the skill of finding problems is not limited to the great thinkers at all; we are all aware at some level or other when things are not "right." While some of the many problems of humanity may be said to be solved, many others continue to plague us. For every proposed solution, later thinkers uncover some aspect of the solution that has been overlooked or misrepresented. One intractable problem that many of the great thinkers of the past have addressed is this: What role should rational analysis play in our lives? While the topic of rational analysis may not be in the forefront of most people's thoughts, the age-old debate over it has profoundly affected all our lives. And the debate rages on. Before describing the debate, however, let me define the term. By "rational analysis," I mean the process of using rational and logical means to break down questions into their parts, to find the causes or underlying structure. As often as not, rational analysis attempts to find principles that serve as the basis for a systematic treatment of some discipline. Rational analysis is often associated with philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. It has been used with great success to discover truths about ourselves and the world in which we live. One of the most celebrated uses of rational analysis was that of Isaac Newton. Newton examined a variety of natural phenomena, both terrestrial and astronomical. He examined the conclusions of previous scientists, both the good and the bad. His great contribution was to select from a myriad of concepts, rules, and phenomena the foundational principles of motion. From those basic principles, he was able to reason in a direct mathematical way to a fairly complete solution to an age-old problem. His solution, the law of gravity, has been one of the most significant findings in the history of science. If rational analysis has been used with such great success, what then fuels the debate over its use? One side argues that rational analysis is the most reliable tool we have for gaining knowledge and that without it we become gullible. But the other side argues back that rational analysis is empty of any meaning ; it may answer "how" but not "why," and, therefore, it is a useless tool. Consider some examples. The Enlightenment of the 1700s was a period of optimism. Rational analysis, such as Newton used, promised great things. New vistas of knowledge were opening up, and scientific achievement was praised. The intellectual heritage of the Middle Ages was seen as flawed, authoritarian, and limited. The Enlightenment movement was an attempt to overcome the intellectual errors of the past. But the success of the Enlightenment was not without costs. In medicine, for instance, researchers were gaining new understanding of how the human body functions, but man was seen as a machine. In economics, the structure and processes of modern economy were being worked out, but a man was "labor" rather than a person. In physics, the secrets of the solar system came to light, but the system was seen as a mechanical clock rather than the creation of an involved, loving God. One response to the sterility of the Enlightenment was Romanticism, which emphasized the individual, expressions of feeling, the beauty of nature, and the imagination. The Romantics of the 1800s explored these themes in their artmaking, trying to capture the natural side of humanity. They saw science not as a solution to our problems but as a potential danger. Another response to Enlightenment thinking can be seen in the clash between Christianity and science in early twentieth-century America. A growing rejection of religion pervaded the universities; religion was "unbelievable" to rational modern sensibilities. One school of thought even believed that empirical evidence was the only reliable source of knowledge, thus denying all so-called metaphysical conclusions. Any non-scientific academic pursuit was discouraged, and thus the social "sciences" emerged during this period. Some religious leaders, rightly recognizing the problem with Enlightenment thinking, responded by retreating into cultural isolation. Rather than engaging academia on its terms, they took refuge in faith over reason. They rejected university learning and affirmed certain fundamentals of Christianity, thus giving rise to Christian fundamentalism. Both those who reject and those who embrace rational analysis recognize legitimate problems with the opposite position. Both sides of the debate make good arguments for their position. On the one hand, those who distrust the rational analytical stream of thought have good reasons to distrust it. It promises solutions to our problems and fails to deliver; technology creates cars, but it also creates bombs. Rational analysis is often complex and convoluted, hidden in technical jargon. Thus its conclusions are not easily accessible or easily judged. Furthermore, some of those who use rational analysis seem more interested in impressing men than finding truth. They wow us with their subtle thinking and impressive arguments that claim to prove preposterous sounding things. Their goal is to make a splash, not understand truth. For them, rational analysis is a game. Take "string theory" as an example. It purports that the universe is made up of some ten or more dimensions. If this is true, then it is beyond our ability to imagine and, for that matter, beyond our ability to verify experimentally. According to one well respected critic in the physics community (Lee Smolin author of The Trouble with Physics ), string theory's popularity is largely based on the many careers tied to its success. He claims that string theory has been a detriment to progress in fundamental theory. And lastly and most importantly, rational analysis tends to ignore meaning. For instance, rational analysis of astronomical data may provide conclusive evidence that other stars have planetary systems. But what does this mean? Why is it important? What does it say about life in the universe and about God's activity there? The answers to these questions depend mostly on our philosophical presuppositions. Technology, political science, and economic analysis presuppose rather than propose answers about what is valuable and meaningful; they do not, and in a sense cannot, address questions of meaning, which are philosophical. On the other hand, those who embrace rational analysis and distrust the romantic stream of thought have good reasons to distrust it. Without rational analysis, how are we to protect ourselves from "false prophets," savvy advertisers, and propagandists? How are we to live in a world that we do not understand? We may pursue an economic policy because it seems fair and just when, in the end, it simply exacerbates injustice. We may believe passionately in a particular doctrine that ends up being antithetical to the biblical message. We may trust the words of an earnest and sincere friend that seem good but are not. When open, rational inquiry is discouraged, our tools for discernment are impaired. So then, where do we now stand in this age-old debate? Is rational analysis so flawed as to be untrustworthy? In many ways, our culture has answered that question with a resounding "yes" and abandoned rational analysis. For instance, our culture has largely abandoned rational dialog in American public life; instead, rhetorical techniques more effectively persuade people and achieve a specific goal. Further, our culture no longer sees finding the truth as an attainable end; rather, all "truths" are the shared, but arbitrary, choices of the culture. Distrust and pessimism have encroached upon our collective consciousness, so that even the most hallowed disciplines are called into question. Philosophy, for example, once seen as the pinnacle of human thought, is today commonly ridiculed or scorned. Lastly, the rational scientific program begun early in the twentieth century has failed; suffering and injustice are rampant. Science and rational analysis have failed to deliver, and for this reason rational analysis has been found wanting. The court of culture has not judiciously weighed each side of the debate over rational analysis, but instead has just proclaimed rational analysis defunct. Consequently, our culture—in keeping with the Romantics who rejected Enlightenment thinking—has elevated the role of personal experience and "connection" in decision making. The younger generation, in particular, trusts what they themselves have seen, heard, or felt. Some people may still pursue rational analysis, but it no longer has the authority in our culture that it once had. The obvious problem with abandoning rational analysis, however, is this: an unexamined experience is subject to powerful new techniques of persuasion. For example, some people believe that the Apollo missions to the moon were faked for political reasons. These sorts of beliefs are born in communities where word-of-mouth and "sincerity" are powerful influences, but where careful analyses of the implications of such beliefs is lacking. We always view personal experience through the "filters" of our beliefs and desires, yet these filters are affected by many subtle cultural messages, messages that tend to discourage rational inquiry. Carefully examining our filters, our beliefs, through the process of rational analysis can help us sort out what is and is not true. We must, of course, recognize the limitations of rational analysis. Not every belief can be proven. For a variety of reasons—some obvious, others not—we cannot restrict our conclusions to those that have been scientifically verified or mathematically deduced. First, we are finite. The sheer volume of our beliefs and conclusions precludes our examining and testing every idea we have. And many of these beliefs are so obviously true that analyzing them would be a foolish and pointless use of time. Why, for instance, should we join those who doubt that our senses are reliable or that Jesus existed? Second, we are prone to error. The best and most trained minds make mistakes in their thinking all of the time. While effort and reflection can often weed out mistakes, mistakes are always potentially present. Lastly and most importantly, rational analysis is necessarily founded upon a set of assumptions. A person never begins from a blank slate, even in logic or mathematics. Yet, we rarely recognize or critically question our assumptions; often, we just absorb them from the culture in which we grow up and live, and consequently, our assumptions are subject to the beliefs and prejudices of that culture. Some of the greatest, most logical thinkers of the past have been the least critical of their culturally adopted foundational assumptions. Einstein, for example, made radical new proposals in physics, but philosophically he adopted many of the prevailing views of his contemporaries. We all desire to align ourselves with what is true about reality. We do not seek to live a life of delusion. But God has placed us in a condition of uncertainty. He has called us to choose our course without being able to prove unassailably that we are right. We do not have the luxury of choosing whether we will or will not "believe"; we can only choose whether we will believe well or poorly. How, then, should we think about rational analysis? What role, if any, should it play in our lives? Can it aid us in forming our beliefs and understanding our experience? Is there value in sorting out why we believe what we believe and putting those beliefs on a firmer footing? And is rational analysis only for more "scientific" questions and pursuits? Perhaps I am tipping my hand, but I end with an invitation: I invite you to analyze the question further for yourself.

In Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, the main character Anne is advised by a trusted advisor to turn down a proposal of marriage to Wentworth, the man she loves. As the story unfolds, Anne comes to see that the advice she took was poor advice. When Wentworth reappears on the scene years later, she is urged yet again to follow money and status rather than her heart. This time she is older and wiser and has the wherewithal to make up her own mind. She makes her own judgment and rejects the advice of the once trusted advisor. The choices Anne makes encapsulate for me two important aspects of persuasion: trust and evidence. In her youth, Anne trusted her advisor, Lady Russell, who had taken an interest in Anne and had served in some ways as the mother that Anne had lost. Anne had no reasons not to trust Lady Russell and every reason to trust her. The difficulty arose when Anne's feelings ran counter to Lady Russell's advice. How now should she decide? As Anne matured, she had the chance to observe many people and many marriages. Her observations lead her to see those who pursued wealth and social status as shallow and foolish. Marriages based on mutual respect and love, on the other hand, were joyous and stable. Thus when she was again faced with a choice between the suitor with status and the suitor with whom she shared love and respect, she chose the latter. It was not a difficult decision. Now let me be clear that I am not trying to suggest that trusting is foolishness or poor judgment. Nor is trust opposed to evidence; our trust is built upon the evidence of another's repeated trustworthiness and character. On the contrary, I think that trusting others is one of the most reasonable and necessary things that we do as human beings. To not trust precludes the possibility of deep relationships. To trust and be trusted is central to loving and being loved. In fact, God commands us to trust Him for our needs. Yes, trust is a good thing. But all good things can be perverted: the greater the good, the more devastating the perversion. Marriage, for instance, is based upon the trust spouses have for each other. When that trust is broken, the pain and damage is correspondingly deep. Among trusted friends, we are occasionally confronted with passionate convictions. If the friend is mistaken, then placing our trust in him can lead us to becoming deceived, however unintentional that deception might have been. On a larger societal level, trust can be abused in the form of propaganda. Seemingly trustworthy experts use "truths" in a way that steers us inexorably to their desired conclusion. Trust on its own is subject to error and deception. How, then, stands evidence? Is it not also subject to error and deception? Certainly it is, and we must, as in the case with trust, use skill and judgment when evaluating evidence. Nevertheless, evidence is an extremely valuable tool in our search for truth. Well-meaning people have differences of opinion, and it is by weighing the evidence that we can come to a decision. Evidence is particularly important in public debate when strong interests and motives are at work. However, it is the relationship between trust and evidence that I find most interesting. In particular, it seems to me that each is dependent on the other. As much as we would like to think otherwise, a very rational argument using sound evidence will rarely persuade a listener who does not trust the arguer. While the argument appears to the listener to have no flaws, yet he thinks some subtlety may have been overlooked. Perhaps a mistake exists in the reasoning or the assumptions. To examine the argument and all its assumptions and evidence takes a great deal of work; it takes skill and desire and is not always worth the trouble. Thus if we do not trust the arguer, we are predisposed to disbelieve. In my youthful evangelical zeal, for example, I engaged in a number of conversations with fellow physics graduate students about Christianity. These students were masters of the use of evidence and argument. Surely if anyone could be persuaded by the evidence for Christianity, it would be them. I mustered not one argument, but four cogent arguments for the existence of God. Needless to say, I had no conversions to report. Prior to these conversations, I had not gained their trust as someone worth listening to. They had already decided the issue, and my attempts were wasting their time, not prompting them to further reflection. On the other hand, when we trust the arguer, we are predisposed to believe. In this case, we are less likely to pick apart the arguer's words. The evidence can stand on its own and be evaluated. But here the opposite error is common. Rather than denying the evidence without weighing it, we accept the evidence without weighing it. No pastor was ever censured while "preaching to the choir." Thus it seems that evidence depends on trust. But it is also the case that trust depends on evidence, as I mentioned above. We trust a particular person or group because we have evidence that the person or group is worthy of our trust. Our experience provides that evidence, and without it, we are less likely to grant that trust. One of the best examples of the intertwined nature of trust and evidence is our belief in Jesus. If we do not trust God, no amount of evidence is sufficient to bring us to trust Him and the evidence He has provided concerning Jesus. If we do trust God, then we are in a place where we can examine the evidence pointing to Jesus and deepen our trust both in God and Jesus. Yet, God does not want us to trust Him without evidence. His trustworthiness is a central feature of the Bible. He has provided ample evidence to the Hebrews and to the gentiles that He is and that He is trustworthy. Despite the necessary link between trust and evidence, I am concerned that the link is eroding. Our culture is one where evidence is becoming less and less, well, trusted. My purpose here is not to discuss this trend in detail but rather to note some of its features. For example, society now sees arguments strictly as techniques used by those trying to obtain a desired end. The ends may be diverse—for example, convincing the public to accept particular governmental policies or to reject ideas that do not conform to the current scientific paradigm or to buy certain products and not others—but the means are the same. For those who use arguments as techniques, arguments which achieve the end are good arguments and those which do not achieve the end are bad arguments. Society at large thus sees evidence and argument as aspects of manipulation, and no one wants to be manipulated. Couple this view with a growing belief in the near impossibility of determining the truth in any particular situation, and evidence no longer has any great value. So, as evidence is devalued, we are left with trust. But while I maintain that trust is good and necessary, trust without evidence can be dangerous. More and more, however, our culture is accepting trust itself as evidence. If a trusted source has vouched for a plausible belief, we are inclined, out of respect or friendship, to accept that belief. If the trusted source's belief is aligned with my preconceived ideas, so much the better. We trust our friends and mentors, as we should, but friends and mentors are not infallible, and no true friend or mentor would want us to forsake our own pursuit of truth. Persuasion, then, requires both trust and evidence. Without trust, evidence often falls upon ears that will not hear. Without evidence, trust is blind and leaves us at the mercy of our culture. Jane Austen's character Anne shows great growth and maturity. She gained valuable evidence that allowed her to judge what was important. She did not stop trusting, but she learned to do so wisely. Our lot in life is to persuade others and to be persuaded; that is part of our search for what is true. Thus the question is not whether we will persuade (or be persuaded), but whether we will do so wisely or poorly.

The debate over evolution in schools has raged for decades. Since the Scopes trial, public educational policy has increasingly favored evolution to the point that now evolution is the explanation of origins taught in a vast majority of our schools. Recently, however, the tide has begun to shift ever so slightly away from a strictly evolutionary hegemony. In August, for example, President Bush stated he favored teaching evolution's problems alongside the theory. His entry into the debate prompted three days of front-page coverage in the New York Times . We are clearly in the midst of a renewed debate over evolution. The new rallying point of the anti-evolution camp is the theory of intelligent design (ID). The primary idea behind ID is that life on earth is too complex to be the result of random, impersonal natural processes. Instead, the most rational and scientific explanation of the presence of life and the diversity of species is the existence of an intelligent designer. The majority of practicing scientists have vigorously rejected ID on the grounds that it is not scientific. Science, according to them, seeks only natural explanations; any non-naturalistic explanation of a natural phenomenon is by definition not science. Consequently, they have focused their argument against intelligent design on its nonscientific character rather than its specific claims. One of the clearest public forums for this debate has occurred at the Kansas State Board of Education. The ruckus began in 1999 when the board decided to change the science-teaching standards to allow alternatives to evolution. The reaction against this move was so strong that at the next election the majority of the school-board seats went to evolution supporters; and again, evolution became the only biological theory taught. More recently, another election shifted the majority back to the conservative faction. As a result, the board began further hearings on science education, and another debate ensued. This time around the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think-tank that promotes intelligent design, came to argue against evolution. They presented evidence from numerous credentialed scientists indicating that the theory of evolution has serious problems and that these problems are a matter of current scholarly research. Based on this evidence, Discovery Institute argued that the problems of evolutionary theory should be taught alongside its successes so that students would be better able to decide for themselves what is true and what is not. So how did the evolutionary scientists respond to this evidence? They didn't. They didn't show up. The Kansas science community boycotted the event. The school board, wanting to hear both sides, went national by requesting a representative from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (publisher of the prestigious Science magazine) to give expert witness regarding evolution. But in a letter to the Kansas State Department of Education, AAAS chief executive officer Alan Leshner upheld the boycott, stating, "After much consideration, AAAS respectfully declines to participate in this hearing out of concern that rather than contribute to science education, it will most likely serve to confuse the public about the nature of the scientific enterprise." He went on to say that the concept of evolution is so well established that no debate is called for and, furthermore, that the AAAS sees "no purpose in debating interpretations of Genesis and `intelligent design' which are a matter of faith, not facts." 1 In effect, Leshner said that evolution is science and intelligent design is not . He affirmed this belief in another, widely quoted statement: "In order to live in this science-dominated world, you have to be able to discriminate between science and non-science. They want to rewrite the rules of science." 2 Therefore, not wanting to confuse the public into thinking that a debate about intelligent design is scientific, Leshner and the other scientists refused to participate in the Kansas State Board of Education hearings. This sort of response by the scientists in the renewed debate over evolution has been most interesting—and most telling. Rather than show the superiority of their own position, scientists have simply demoted ID to non-science. Furthermore, they have questioned the motives and intellectual respectability of their adversaries. They have attacked their opponents by claiming both that ID is an attempt by the radical religious right to foist their religious beliefs on the public politically and that ID is unscientific and, by implication, intellectually untenable. The following two examples illustrate this response. "The movement [ID] is a veneer over a certain theological message. Every one of these groups is now actively engaged in trying to undercut sound science education by criticizing evolution," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "It is all based on their religious ideology. Even the people who don't specifically mention religion are hard-pressed with a straight face to say who the intelligent designer is if it's not God." 3 According to [Eugenie] Scott [director of the Oakland, California-based National Center for Science Education], any scientific views presented by the intelligent-design community have the same chance as any other scientific idea of landing in the classroom, but they first must be accepted as viable by the scientific community. High school teachers, she said, are limited to teaching the consensus view of their subjects. "What you'll find is ID [intelligent design] has not gone anywhere in the science community," she said. "The scientists have looked at ID and said, Hmmm, not ready for prime time." 4 So what are we to make of these recent events and opinions? Why have scientists responded as they have? They have, I think, because they recognize that more is at stake than the conclusions of a school board. At stake is the definition of science and the authority of the scientific community. At stake, ultimately, is how we determine what is true. Scientists would like to say that truth about the natural world can be found through science and only through science. They want to retain their authority in our culture as the keepers of knowledge. They believe that scientific truth is a completely separate kind of truth from religious truth. Not only do science and religion concern themselves with different subject matter, but also scientific knowledge is more reliable than other knowledge—although scientists are astute enough not to say this publicly. Given this perspective, the intelligent-design movement is a serious threat. For a group outside the mainstream scientific community to critique the firmly held beliefs within the community brings into question the reliability and authority of that community. Clearly, the scientific community recognizes this and has developed a strategy to fight the political battle. Unfortunately for them, however, their approach of attacking intelligent design as religiously motivated non-science is deeply flawed. And though the flaw is painfully obvious to those who question evolutionary theory, it is invisible to the advocates of evolution themselves because it lies at the level of their philosophical presuppositions, or worldview—that is, their most basic, taken-for-granted assumptions. The scientific establishment's critique against ID is based on assumptions about the nature of science that seem unassailable to them. Those who do not hold the same assumptions, however, are not predisposed to reject intelligent design out-of-hand; to them, the validity of intelligent design can be legitimately considered and debated. What, then, are those assumptions? Let us look at the two most crucial to the issue at hand. First, the scientific establishment assumes the truth of naturalistic materialism —that is, the belief that the world is the result of purposeless, random events with no guidance or direction given by God. And second, the scientific establishment often equates "naturalistic materialism" with "science." Thus, to advocates of evolution who assume naturalistic materialism, it is painfully obvious that intelligent design is not science because it calls for a non-natural explanation of our world. But to those who do not equate science with naturalistic materialism and for whom, therefore, the definition of science is an open question, it is equally obvious that the scientists are not entering the debate because they have assumed the answer. I would maintain that "science" and "naturalistic materialism" are not synonymous. Naturalistic materialism is a worldview, an overarching perspective through which people interpret ideas and experiences. We can better see it as a worldview by comparing and contrasting it to the Christian worldview. Both perspectives provide answers to the most important of life's questions. Both provide a framework whereby we understand our purpose, our ethics, and our place in the universe. In that sense they are the same. They are diametrically opposed, however, with regard to the answers they provide. So, the perspectives of naturalistic materialism and Christianity differ not in the questions, but in the answers. Yet another insight into the role of naturalistic materialism can be found by examining its history. Science as it is practiced today was born during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through the efforts of such notables as Galileo and Newton. During the same period, skeptical thinkers leveled serious critiques at traditional "metaphysics"—that is, the study of things that are not known through sense experience. As a result, by the mid-nineteenth century, science had become intellectually respectable, while metaphysics had lost favor in many intellectual circles. In most disciplines, efforts were undertaken to remove any metaphysical grounding to knowledge. Darwin's theory of evolution came on the scene during this period and was greeted enthusiastically. Many saw God as the extreme metaphysical excess. A theory of origins from a strictly materialistic perspective fit beautifully into the spirit of the age. Christians who wished to be seen as intellectually respectable tended to separate their "personal faith" from the intellectual sphere. Although the anti-metaphysical bias has significantly lessened in our time, its legacy remains in the form of the worldview of naturalistic materialism. Given their close connection over the last few hundred years, then, it is easy to understand why "naturalistic materialism" and "science" are often seen as synonymous. But though people can use science to support or refute various worldviews, science itself is not a worldview. Rather, science requires a worldview: scientific data must be interpreted, and it is interpreted through the "lens" of a worldview. In the case of the mainstream scientific establishment, that worldview is naturalistic materialism. The flaw, then, in the scientific community's approach to intelligent design—namely, arguing that ID is religiously motivated non-science—is that they are criticizing the philosophical assumptions of their opponents by trying to make the public take the scientific community's own philosophical assumptions for granted. Having defined science based on the assumptions inherent in the worldview of naturalistic materialism, the scientific community is assuming (and inviting us to assume) the answer to the very question that needs to be resolved: What is science, and how do we come to true conclusions about the natural world? But this question about the nature and scope of science, which mankind has vigorously pursued for the past 2500 years, cannot be settled scientifically. Furthermore, the scientific community's criticism that adherents of ID are religiously motivated is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Most probably the scientific community is correct in its assessment of the motivations of those advocating intelligent design. But I think it fair to say that those who hold the materialistic view are also motivated by their commitments to convince the public that evolution is correct. An incident reported in the Wall Street Journal aptly illustrates this. 5 The report describes how the publication of a scientific article on intelligent design in a peer-reviewed scientific journal resulted in the journal's editor suffering a significant setback in his scientific career. The scientific establishment had little to say to the author of the article. Instead, scientists were upset at the journal's editor, who was supposed to "know better" than to allow the publication of such nonscientific "garbage." They did not reject the paper because it contained flawed arguments; they rejected it because it was on the wrong topic. The message was clear: editors should not accept nonscientific articles into a scientific journal. The irony is palpable. Evolutionists had argued for years that ID was not scientific because no papers about ID had been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. But we see that the reason for this is that the presumably unbiased "peers" rule out ID on philosophical grounds. For them, the discussion is over before it has begun. Most scientists are largely unaware of how deeply their philosophical commitments affect them, which is why they are so unable to see the flaw in their arguments. This is not true of all scientists, however; some more philosophically sophisticated proponents of evolution do understand. One such is Harvard professor Richard Lewontin, author of a number of books about evolution and genetics. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. 6 At first blush, Lewontin's statement may seem outrageously pretentious and close-minded. Upon reflection, however, I think it shows a certain amount of intellectual integrity. We all hold our core assumptions dear. For instance, it would take very powerful and persuasive evidence to convince me that the Bible is not God's true revelation of His purposes. Lewontin's recognition that many of his conclusions stem from his core commitments is refreshingly honest. His error lies in an unwillingness to examine those commitments. In the end, the scientific community is beginning to recognize the depth of the "threat" intelligent design presents. On the surface, it appears to threaten their belief in naturalistic materialism, but the convictions of most scientists are firmly established, so this threat is not very serious. The scientific community's real concern regards the beliefs of the public at large. This is why school curriculums are so significant. Yes, scientists are concerned that students might reject the perspective of naturalistic materialism, but far more importantly, they are concerned that their authority as the keepers of the truth will be called into question in the public sphere. Such an event could have a paradigm-changing effect on the scientific establishment, and, significantly, their funding. For us, the most important thing to keep in mind is that science, like other fields of knowledge, is built upon a framework of beliefs. In the debate between evolution and ID, we must examine that framework—as much as we examine the detailed arguments—in our attempts to understand which theory is more likely to be correct. Sources: (Internet addresses were accurate in November 2005.) (1) 11 April 2005. http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2005/0412kansas.pdf . ( Back to text ) (2) Hanna, John. "Kansas debate focuses on defining science." Associated Press 16 May 2005. http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/05/15 / kan_debate_challenges_science_itself/ . ( Back to text ) (3) Slevin, Peter. "Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens." Washington Post , 14 March 2005. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32444-2005Mar13.html . ( Back to text ) (4) Roach, John. "Does `Intelligent Design' Threaten the Definition of Science?" National Geographic News 27 April 2005. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04 / 0427_050427_intelligent_design.html . ( Back to text ) (5) Klinghoffer, David. "The Branding of a Heretic: Are religious scientists unwelcome at the Smithsonian?" 28 January 2005. http://opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006220 . ( Back to text ) (6) . Lewontin, Richard. "Billions and Billions of Demons." Rev. of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan. New York Review of Books 9 January 1997. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mayesgr/Lewontin1.htm . ( Back to text )

Chris Swanson, Author at Gutenberg College

The Lie of Authenticity

Argues that our culture over emphasizes individual freedom and self-expression.

By Chris Swanson|February 17th, 2019|Article, Living|

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