This 4 minute video while both humorous and repugnant reveals more
than it intends. Like it or not this is the social trajectory and it is a path
of self destruction. Both dominant secular models that of the Scientific
Materialist relying on sceptical inductive empiricism and that of the
Subjective Individualist resting in existentialism have led the culture to
epistemological chaos and can offer no remedy.
This is relativism run amok and I say that as one who believes
relativism has a place and limited validity in the epistemological scheme. But
it's not just relativism, it's the breakdown of scientific realism. Dawkins and
those of his atheist ilk decry the public's retention of non-scientific
worldviews, the refusal to embrace Materialism which defines matter as the only
reality.
Humanity intuitively knows this isn't true, it doesn't match
experience and it's frankly unlivable and thus unviable as a philosophy. It
strips us of what it is to be human. In fact Materialism cannot even define or
hope to define what 'human' even means.
Materialism is utterly unable to reckon with the nature of
existence. Evolutionist Steven Pinker admits that Materialism cannot account for
consciousness, the self, free will, meaning, knowledge or morality. That's a
rather telling list and Materialism must reckon not just with its failures but
the fact that it is in the end a product of subjective idealism, a creation of
the mind and a system that is not verifiable but one that must be accepted on
the basis of faith. It cannot explain reality because it is a false hypothesis.
In order to make it work many of its foundations are built on a type of faith.
Mankind in seeking these answers and knowing that there is a
coherence to the universe but in rejecting Christ, forms its own coherences,
what we call idolatries.
And yet all attempts to form these coherences or universals
on an objective basis fail. Man is limited by sense experience and even his
ideas are informed by it. Pure reason turns out to be less than pure, is
subject to biases rooted in experience. Experience is corrupted by individual
interpretations, preference and ordering of data. This is true both for the
individual and for whole societies and cultures. Subjectivity seems to reign.
Despite the contradiction and ensuing scepticism, man rather than embracing
Christ the revelatory answer, seeks to keep forming new coherences, new
philosophies and sociologies, new narratives to somehow hold things together.
Since they're false they ultimately fail.
But eventually cultures seem to run out of steam and
degenerate. They turn to total or absolute subjectivity and individualism as a
means and an end. The individual lives for himself, embraces a self-serving
philosophical eclecticism and eventually this degenerates into unmitigated
decadence and rank hedonism.
Even this doesn't satisfy and individuals begin to embrace
nihilism and destructive fantasy. At this point it takes something pretty
radical to rescue the society, a new idea, a new messiah that will forge (often
by force) a new vision. When society reaches this 'low point' it's a dangerous
time indeed.
Western and particularly American culture is on the cusp of
that point. While there are still very strong ideal based movements in the
society there is a growing Nihilistic cancer. Even the idealist camps are
infected by self-destructive ethics and mythological narratives. Violence is
quickly becoming the only solution. Might will make right or so it is believed.
Truth is sought through the point of a sword.
But for many individuals in society there is a sense of
defeat and despair and desire to escape and recreate. And yet this
hyper-individualism leads to a collapse of society, further alienation and
destruction. Relationships, meaning and ethics all evaporate and the religion
of the self is exposed as impoverished and insufficient. People will ultimately
retreat to an isolated world of technology and virtual reality for only in that
milieu will they be able to make their fantasies seem real. And yet that will
quickly fail to satisfy as do addiction to drugs, lust and every other thing.
Many will turn to suicide. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the lost soul in
the video resorts to the same in the end.
When I see a video like this, of course on the one hand I
want to burst out laughing at its absurdity. Apart from being ludicrous it is of
course very wicked. But there's another element about it that is concerning,
even beyond the moral choices of this individual and his rejection of the God
ordained natural order. This total subjectivity when it comes to identity, humanity
and thus gender means the foundations of the social order are collapsing. It's
not a matter of right and wrong anymore but it's now becoming a matter of what
is true and false. There's a slight difference between the two. Right and wrong
as I'm using them here are objective but they are also interpretations of
reality through an ethical lens. As Christians we accept and submit to the
parameters given to us by Divine Revelation and we can be thankful for them
because without them we're caught in a world of epistemological darkness and
metaphysical idolatry.
True and false (as I'm using them here) reference empirical
realities, whether things are real or not--facts as opposed to truth which
implies a larger coherence of facts. As I said, we're not Materialists, we
understand that the real is something more than that which is tangible and
quantifiable. As human beings we are both material and immaterial and yet the
two aspects cannot be completely separated. We cannot separate physical
realities from cognitive desires and/or confusion. Due to sin, idolatry,
judgment and natural limitations we cannot comprehensively know or properly understand
anything apart from revelation enlightening us. Sadly the theology of
Christendom has proven very confused on this point and even while it sought to
build an objective coherence as the basis for understanding the universe it
planted the epistemological seeds of its own destruction. Scholasticism as a
theological movement is not the answer to Enlightenment Philosophy, rather it
is its progenitor.
The so-called Anti-Enlightenment is not so much a response
and rejection of rationality but rather an application and testing of the
Scholastic hypothesis, a demonstration of its failure and self-destruction. It
was found that it couldn't stand and men tried to rescue the nature of thought
by forming a new type of epistemology or more properly re-casting the old
debate that's been around since antiquity, for what was Idealism but another
round of Plato v. Aristotle? Regardless of the school, all man-made
philosophies ultimately disintegrate into scepticism. I would add this is also
true when it comes to so-called Christian philosophies and syncretistic
attempts at forming worldview.
The debate with someone like Dawkins rests in the realm of
prolegomena. We can't agree on basic issues of epistemology, the place and
limitations of logic and the nature of the presuppositions we necessarily and
often unconsciously impose on concepts and data in order to relate them to our
knowledge as a whole. And yet I will grant Dawkins one point, he is absolutely
committed to the real, even those his 'real' ends up being a delusion. The real
is a lot bigger and more complicated than he thinks it is and in fact his
epistemology cannot comprehend it. Yet, he laudably wishes at all costs to
avoid subjectivity and a reality rooted merely in conceived ideas.
The vision of Dawkins which has gained some ground in recent
years is at the same time slipping away. He's trying to build a social
construct rooted in Scientific Materialist-Realism. And yet the society is
going the other direction. What he can't see in the data the society as a whole
seems to detect by intuition. Scientific Materialism cannot explain the nature
of existence.
I continue to wonder why the Scientific Materialist community
won't 'come out' and condemn transgenderism but that's unlikely as the social
consensus has granted psychology the status of a bona fide science which it
clearly is not. Divorcing gender from physical even chromosomal reality is to
embrace subjective fantasy. Subjectivist tendencies in psychology and a host of
sociological factors have completely undermined all forms of objective realism
and have cast down empiricist and scientific epistemologies. Matter over mind
doesn't seem to be working because in the end matter itself has to be
understood by a mind. Dawkins would say mind is matter but is forced to admit
the statement itself is not subject to scientific verification.
As much as man wishes to forge reality on a Realist and
Empirical basis, no matter what he does he falls right back into the subjective
mind-dependent trap.
Subjective Idealism rooted not in a quest for a coherent
account of reality but instead in a hedonistic self-serving fantastical
paradigm can only lead to social breakdown and nihilism.
When society reaches the point of collapse if previous
patterns are precedent a very zealous Right-wing movement will likely take
shape, one in which the society is no longer left to the whim of the
individual. It will be revolutionary but utilise a reactionary narrative. This
is an old story from the collapse of Athens and Rome to Revolutionary France
and Weimar Germany. The messiah proclaims that you have to destroy the
foundations of society in order to save it.
And yet I keep wondering if Scientism won't be the new
paradigm, the new religion that invigorates the empire and gives it a raison d'être.
I'm reminded of a film that came out a few years back called 'Equilibrium' wherein
the society was forced to take drugs to suppress their emotions. It's hard not
to think that the Evolutionary worldview wouldn't view the emotional life as socially
subversive due to its subjective and even fantastical nature. Isn't the
subjective thought-life gratuitous in the evolutionary schema? I know some will
argue that it serves some purpose, whether cathartic or a means of the brain
insulating or defending itself. But these views are hardly scientific as they
are unverifiable and certainly rest in a type of inefficiency. The arguments
along these lines rest on transcendental foundations which are inherently
unscientific. We need transcendental arguments (necessary conditions) in order
to function (a lower order type of faith) but they are invalid in the realm of scientific
thought.
A Scientistic regime would be nightmarish and very evil and
of course would wish to eradicate all religious or idealistic thought.
Only God knows the course of the future and what the end of
the century will look like. I'll be long gone by then as will many reading
this. And of course my prayer is that Christ would return before we see this
present evil age reach its full potential minus the restraining hand of God.
But when I see videos like this, I know our society has
crossed a line.
When I see what's happening in the culture at large and in
the realm of political discourse, I see a society that's charted a course of
self-destruction.
When I see what's happening in the Church, it's hard not to
be somewhat discouraged and yet we can't think that way. We can be grieved but
we must make sure our grief doesn't turn into a lack of faith and confidence in
God's reign and rule. The ascendant apostate Christianity of our day will not stand
in the face of a new order. While many groups claim Sola Scriptura in fact there
are very few that are actually following through and making it the foundation
of their epistemology and hermeneutics. They're building their houses on sand
and when they collapse many will in their confusion believe the problem is Sola
Scriptura itself. I think we're already beginning to see that.
Empires rise and fall and the Church survives. I'm not for a
moment suggesting that it won't but I think the fall of this society will be
particularly ugly and what may arise out of the troubles may be something
unprecedented. Men don't change, that at least is a constant but the new
technology and some of the problems facing the world in terms of resources
etc., mean the situation is probably a bit different this time. The scales of
change and their tempo will operate on a different level and that alone may
radically change the nature of struggle. I have other reasons to hope the end
may be soon, but no one can be sure. It is our calling to persevere in hope and
proclaim the truth to this dying world.