The One & The Many and Our Cultural Moment

For Christianity the cosmos was orderly because the Christian God is a God of order. In God’s creation the parts and the whole served one another in a diversity in unity and unity in diversity symphony — neither the particular nor the universal having dominion over the other. The universals recognized the need for the particulars and the particulars understood the need of the universals.

However, with the rebellion against God in favor of a time plus chance plus circumstance cosmos there is no longer an inherent given coherence to reality. With the abandonment of the eternal One and Many, the temporal one and many loses its way and where there previously been harmony between the temporal one and many there is now a conflict of interest between the temporal one and many.

What this looks like in the social order is a contest between tyranny and anarchy. Having thrown off God in favor of chaos, tyranny seeks to impose itself as a universal before which all particulars must bow. The tyrannical triumph of the temporal one over the temporal many means all things are defined in terms of the temporal one. Diversity is eclipsed in favor of unity. Social order and culture becomes a machine in which undistinguishable men and women and men from women works as universal cogs to support the Universal tyrannical one.

This social order and cultural unitarianism does not allow for mediating cultural institutions. All must serve and exist as derivative of the Tyrannical One (often the State). Everything is for state and nothing is outside the state. Individuality is lost in favor the Mao suit, the Phrygian cap… the comrade and the citoyen. Men become chameleons who all fade into the background provided by the tyrannical state.

On the other hand the triumph of the many is likewise a tyranny but it is a tyranny of the particular (many) over the one. In a anarchistic tyranny the unity (temporal One) is found in hyper-disunity (temporal Many). Each man does what is right in his own eyes. There is no harmony of interest because there is no Universal wherein one can find a harmony. Ironically enough, this leads right back to a beleaguered sameness that is found in the tyranny of the One, although instead of a unitarian motif found in dull sameness one gets the unitarian motif found in the dull sameness one finds in a garbage truck or scow. Precisely because there is no harmony the harmony is found in the lack of harmony, just as garbage in a garbage truck by having no relation to the sundry garbage there is a unity that is found in the negation of unity.

In cultures and social orders who have raised its fist to God the consequence is that often one will find both the anarchistic and the tyrannical temporal one and many operating in the social order and/or culture. In these kind of instances the tyrannical and the anarchistic serve as limiting concepts for one another in their ongoing attempt to have the pre-eminence with the result that there is a fluctuating dialectic that exists between the temporal godless one and the temporal godless many.

We see this phenomenon in our own social order culture. We see the temporal chaotic anarchistic many in the pursuit of much of the citizenry to be completely independent of any unifying social norms or mores. In that anarchistic pursuit away from social conventions people look increasingly the same with their slovenly dress, their tatted up appearance, and their guttural music. They have found a anarchistic unity of meaning in the embrace that there is no meaning.

At the same time we have the State here constantly seeking to provide a temporal tyrannical unitarian/uniformitarian meaning. From the continued increase of the surveillance state to the desire to have operate as a top down control mechanism (think pursuit of social credit arrangements, 15 minute cities, electric cars that can be remotely turned off, Artificial Intelligence, etc.) the Temporal One is seeking a tyrannical arrangement wherein all the anarchy is controlled so as to serve the tyrannical state.

The church likewise is caught in this push me – pull you with its embrace of alienism. By its refusal to understand the temporal one and many in light of the eternal one and many much of the Church today is embracing a unitarian/uniformitarian understanding of race/ethnicity so that the temporal many is swallowed up by the temporal one. The refusal to understand that there can be races in the context of the human race — races that are to be recognized and honored as unique — the Church in the West is currently joining in with the rebellion of the larger culture by denying the impact of the understanding of the temporal one and many in light of the eternal one and many. The Church is in lockstep with the culture insisting that diversity in unity and unity in diversity can not be allowed to exist.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane