Filling In Lessing’s Ditch

Lessing’s ditch is a term used to describe a view of Gotthold Lessing (1729 – 1781) which argues that there is a ‘ditch’ between history and eternal truths that cannot be crossed. As a result, revelation in history is not possible, for historical truth cannot be demonstrated. Furthermore, he drew a distinction between the accidental truths of history and the necessary truths of reason. This view “grew out of his conviction that rationalism could be the only universally acceptable mode of understanding the world,” and thus he was “convinced that the bible could not be trusted as a source of description of any truth, let alone the truth of God.”

Theopedia


Lessing outlined the concept of the religious “Proof of Power”: How can miracles continue to be used, Lessing asked, as a base for Christianity when we have no proof of miracles? Historical truths which are in doubt cannot be used to prove metaphysical truths (such as God’s existence).

1.) Lessing is denying that one can reach eternal truths. However, by affirming this Lessing has contradicted himself by reaching his necessary one eternal truth that allows him to insist that no one else can reach eternal truths.

2.) If there is a impassible ditch between history and eternal truths that cannot be crossed how does Lessing know that there are eternal truths that one might try to cross over to? Lessing’s statement presupposes the existence of something that he himself suggests can’t be known. If eternal truths can’t be known than it can’t be known that they might exist to know. What we can’t say we can’t say, and we can’t whistle it either.

3.) We do have the best of proof of miracles because God’s Word says that Miracles happened. There is no need for more proof. There can be no greater or better proof. Lessing, presupposes his own autonomous word as being legislative. By Lessing’s autonomous word God’s Word is ruled out a-priori. However, God’s Word is authoritatively self-attesting and so if God’s Word says it is Revelation and if God’s Word records Miracles then Miracles have all the proof they need to be accepted and Revelation in history is indeed, not only possible, but certain. There is no ditch.

4.) In order for Lessing’s ditch to be impassible one has to presuppose anti-Christianity in order to prove anti-Christianity. If one presupposes that God’s Word is not authoritative, and if one presupposes that God cannot speak in time and space history, then it is indeed the case that Lessing’s non-God God can’t cross over Lessing’s ditch. Lessing, by locking God out of His universe, proves that God is locked out of His universe. That is an analytic statement wrapped inside a tautology, and accomplished under the canvas of alleged neutrality.

5.) Scripture teaches that by Christ all things consist.



 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.

Scripture teaches that Christ as God’s creative and sustaining Word is the point of integration for all reality. If Scripture is accurate than no ditch can exist between history and eternal truths as both find their point of integration and existence in Christ. To suggest that their is a ditch between the accidental truths of history, and eternal truths that exist would be, by necessity, to deny both Scripture and the person of Christ as the point of integration of all reality.

6.) What can a “accidental truth of history” even mean if that accidental truth is cut off from eternal truth? Anything cut off from eternal truth can have no weight of truth about it unless one is using the word truth in a totally specious manner. Indeed, without eternal truths giving gravitas to accidental truths of history all those accidental truths are, in the words of Henry Ford, “just one damn thing after another,” which anyone can shape to their pleasing.

7.) Lessing’s ditch presupposes a God who is so transcendent He has lost contact with His creation. This kind of transcendence is not the transcendence of Biblical Christianity, instead it is the transcendence of Islam’s God, Allah. It is also the transcendence of neo-orthodoxy. Biblical Christianity posits a God whose immanence does not negate His transcendence. He is a God nearby by coming near to us in Christ. If God were transcendent the way Allah is or the way the God of Barthianism is Lessing would have a ditch he could not cross. However, the transcendence of Christianity allows for no ditches because of the doctrine of God’s immanence.

God is One … So is His Truth

“Now by the nature of things, a Worldview is always ‘unified.’ As long as we have not understood, however, all the realms and spheres of creation as parts of a whole, our worldview is not rounded out and complete. Of course, the question here is not whether we have already brought our worldview to that point or ever shall do so, there can be no essentially different worldview in religion and in philosophy, for the common people and for the learned, for the academy and for life. If religion contains a worldview in seed form, and philosophy, in searching for the final ground of all things, always seeks after God, then it follows naturally, that they, in all their distinctions, have to conform inwardly to the essence of the matter and cannot compete with each other.

Only the Christian Worldview can fulfill this demand, because it makes known to us one God, the living and true God, and cuts the root of all polytheism.”

Herman Bavinck — Christian Worldview – p. 53-54



This quote teaches us again that Theology remains the Queen of the Sciences as well as Queen of the Humanities. To deny that the God of the Bible gives a unified meaning to all disciplines because He is the author of all disciplines is to embrace, by necessity, a polytheistic religion.
And with the casting off of the truth that theology is the Queen of the Sciences what we have at the same time accomplished is to embrace an “Enlightened Polytheism.”

This is evidenced by the fact that our Universities no longer have a “Uni” in their “Versity.” Instead now what we really have are Multi-versities where there is no unity wherein all the various disciplines can congeal and cohere. This is evidenced by the fact that our secondary schools by way of a sort of un-named catechism teach students to compartmentalize their thinking. There is zero search in our schools (or our churches for that matter) for a unifying motif in all learning. This is evidenced by the fact that it is a commonality to engage with people who reason by way of contradiction, and that quite without even knowing that they have contradictions littered throughout their noetic engagements. This is evidenced by our separating fact from value, logic from implication, and history from metaphysics (Lessing’s Ditch). This is evidenced by the fact that a theology that yet remains in the ascendancy in many quarters goes by the sobriquet “theology by contradiction.” One can only conclude that we are the most anti-Worldview social order which has ever existed.

And yet, this all is to be fully expected in a social order that has been given over to the enemy. Mephistopheles, is, after all, the author of confusion and the architect of chaos. It is impossible to not have dis-order in thought and life where Beelzebub has the whip hand.

Primary and Proximate Causation … and the Myth of Scientism

“In former times, Aristotle’s distinction was normally granted, that science consisted in the knowledge of the thing through the proximate cause, while wisdom, on the other hand, stretched toward ‘the knowledge of the thing through the primary cause.'”

Herman Bavinck
Christian Worldview — 48

Bavinck goes on to say that because of the aprioristic speculation found in the philosophy of Hegel there was a counter-reaction that found primary causation being given the heave ho in favor of the proximate cause as the basis of all knowledge.

Behold the entry of Scientism.

However the problem with depending on the proximate cause alone for true truth is that all proximate causes are, by necessity, dependent on some primary cause for their being and definition. One can not have a proximate cause that exists without first finding its meaning in some primary cause.

And so Scientism must always fail because Science is a proximate cause that is only as good as the primary cause that produces the Science it produces.

Science that doesn’t presuppose the God of the Bible is a science that can justify Ilya Ivanov, String theory, and punctuated equilibrium found in modern Evolutionary theory. Science cut loose from its proper primary cause will be a science that isn’t very scientific.

Reno & McAtee on the Return of the Strong Gods


“We continue to define ourselves as ‘anti-totalitarian,’ ‘anti-fascist,’ ‘anti-racist,’ and ‘anti-nationalist.’ I call the atmosphere of opinion that sustains these ‘anti’ imperatives the ‘post-war consensus.'”

R. R. Reno
Return of the Strong Gods; Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West — p. xi


I don’t agree with Reno that the post-war consensus was EVER anti-totalitarian. We have lived, in this country, with creeping Totalitarianism ever since 1916. If there was anti-totalitarianism it was only anti-totalitarian against any whiff of Fascist Totalitarianism. Communist totalitarianism has been perfectly acceptable. We don’t recognize what we have lived under as creeping Communist totalitarianism since we have ourselves become increasingly Communist with each passing generation.

On the rest of these I do agree that the post wars powers did identify as anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-nationalist but only as those words were defined in a Communist Internationalist Cosmopolitanistic paradigm. This definitional stranglehold has insured that we would become increasing totalitarian in our politics and culture.

And now as some of us seek to loosen the grip of the post-war consensus those who have regulated themselves to the post-war anti-Christ consensus delight in labeling us as “Anti-Christ.”

However, as sure as water runs downhill the post-war consensus cannot last. What is labeled as fascist will be set free again to be seen as the patriotism it always was. What is labeled as “racist” will be set free again to be seen as the love of kith and kin it always was. What is labeled as “Nationalist” will be set free again to be seen as the love of place that it always was.

The post-war consensus is dying and if it will not die peacefully it will die with all the violence it was birthed with.

Recurring Themes in Spiderman and Shazam; Committing the Sin of Noticing

Recently released Shazam film.

1.) White Mothers abandon their toddlers leaving them homeless.

2.) Homeless toddlers find the real meaning of family by being adopted into a mixed race family by mixed race adoptive parents where real family love is found, unlike the cruel mean white mother who abandoned him and the cruel mean father who was a jailbird.

3.) Shazam’s adopted siblings are black, Asian, white crippled, south sea pacific, white female

4.) The chief wise man who gives Billy his Shazam powers is black.

5.) The chief villain who absorbs the seven deadly sin demons is white

6.) The wise social worker who puts Billy into a loving home is black.

7.) Shazam as a white kid cannot defeat the villain until he turns all his mixed race and crippled siblings into super-heroes like himself. Once he turns them all into super-heroes the villain white guy is defeated.

8.) The villain’s father and big brother twisted the villain when he was a child by being mean to them. This again shows how dysfunction white families are.

9.) The bullies in school who pick on and abuse the crippled adopted brother are both white.

Not to worry though … I am sure this is all just cohencidence.




Above I did something similar with the Film, “Shazam.” I have also done this same thing with the Films, “Yesterday,” “The Magnificent Seven” (2016) and the “Color of Water.” These are all the same movies. The distinct plot in each of them is irrelevant. The differing genres are irrelevant. Below is the meaning the film-goer is supposed to take away from each of these films.

_____________

Recently released Spider-man movie, “Far From Home.”

1.) Peter Parker’s love interest (MJ) is now black.

2.) Peter Parker’s best friend is a rotund Filipino

3.) Peter Parker’s rotund Filipino best friend takes to himself as his girlfriend the white over achiever female.

4.) The villain (Mysterio) is white

5.) Nick Fury, Peter Parker’s boss is Black

6.) There are two school teachers who are the Chaperones for the High School trip to Europe. The White teacher is a total doofus while the Black teacher while a little goofy is overall Mr. Cool when compared to his White counterpart.

7,) Peter Parker’s high school nemesis who is a fanboy of Spider-Man is an Indian for India.

8.) Peter Parker’s High-school classmates look like they attend “United Nations High School” (UNHS).

9.) The soundtrack consists of musical numbers of distinct ethnic numbers which likely match the countries they are traveling through on their high school trip to Europe.

10.) Twice in the film traditional male to female compliments are stood on their head.

a.) “Happy” tells Peter’s Aunt May that she looks lovely and May immediately responds with, “You do too.”

b.) Peter tells M. J. that “she looks pretty,” whereupon M. J. responds by bitterly asking, “therefore I have value?” She tells Peter she was “messing with him,” and immediately tells him “you look pretty too.”

Only a feminist or a SJW could’ve come up with this dialogue.

11.) Spider-Man’s initial fight with the villain Mysterio takes place in a pentagram.

12.) This movie is a HUGE revelation of the method. It’s main thrust is that perception trumps reality every time. It is communicating that reality doesn’t matter as long as you can create whatever perception you desire.

13.) The eye of Horus is prominently displayed in the initial fight scene with Mysterio as connecting Mysterio’s cape to his uniform.

14.) In the final fight scene we see that Mysterio’s costume is covered with Triangles.

15.) Movie theme is in the dying line from the villain Mysterio,

“People need to believe and now days they will believe in anything.”

Point being made is that people are suckers and want to believe in illusions and by extension that we are believing in illusions.

____

Meaning of all of these films,

1.) White people are either Stupid, Evil, or only have value if they are intimately connected to minorities.

2.) Occult sub-themes
3.) Multiculturalism is the only way to go
4.) Minorities are always the good guys
5.) Females are as strong as men
6.) Patriarchy is evil
7.) White people can only be delivered and rescued by minorities