Two Truth’s At The Heart Of The West’s Social Order

You can always arrive at the truths (or myths) that a social order is built on by finding the taboos in a culture. The taboos are those issues that can’t be spoken upon or brought up in polite company without causing somebody to faint or freak. Violation of the assault on the social order by violating the received wisdom surrounding the taboo will cause you either to be ostracized from society or will get you arrested. All social orders protect the foundational truths they are built upon and the closer you get to the core truth that the social order is built upon, the more harrowing will be your experience if you mess with it or call it into question. This is especially true if you are able to make a convincing case that the core truth is utter nonsense, or if you are able to make people believe you have a convincing case.

Now, I am convinced that the core myth that our social order is based upon is the myth that all people, all faiths, and all cultures are equal, and I submit that is proven by the response that is visited upon someone who begins to mess with that core truth and who thus begins to violate cultural taboo. Allow me to introduce as evidence the response of people when the idea is raised that ethnic groups have different strengths and weaknesses that make them more or less inclined to achieve and prosper in certain tasks. To raise such a notion, which was taken for granted as truth for centuries, is a statement that will immediately raise hackles. You see if everyone and every faith and every culture is equal then it is heresy in our social order to suggest that some members of a set ethnic group might be inherently superior to members of another ethnic group for a given task or calling. The fact that our social order has been based upon the myth that all people, all cultures, and all faiths are equal demands that we dare not think that some cultures, faiths, or peoples, might be better suited for some task, calling or mission then others. And so if you suggest, in the presence of polite company who have imbibed the multi-cultural social order myth, the notion that all peoples, cultures, and faiths are not equal in value for all tasks you will be met by individuals either freaking or fainting. This is because the guiding myths that propel social orders come to be seen as self-evident by the weight of ongoing and perpetual repetition.

Now, out of fear of being misunderstood, allow me to insist that it is Christian to believe that all men are created equal in the sense of having equal value before God and in the sense of none being privileged over others in being adjudicated by God’s law. Equality does not mean that all peoples have all the same ability or even the same propensity in ability in sundry categories. Equality does not mean that all cultures or all faiths are to be equally esteemed.

The fact that all faiths are seen as equal is demonstrated in something recently said by the Prince Of Wales. It is a well known fact that the monarch of England carries with it the title, “The Defender of the Faith.” The faith referenced there is the Christian faith. Charles has recently said that he would prefer it if that title was changed so that the Monarch of England would be called “The Defender of the faithS.” Obviously for Charles no faith is to be preferred over any other faith since all faithS are equally valid.

A second indicator that I am correct in this assessment is another “truth” that has received official “do not touch” sanction and that is the idea that 6 million Jews died in the holocaust. Now, the moral behind the 6 million Jews dying in the holocaust is the moral that teaches, according to the multi-culturalists, that no society should be allowed to become uni-cultural in its organization because in the death of 6 million Jews we see what happens to minorities in those places that have not embraced the multi-cultural ethic and social order. The Germans sin was to believe that the Aryan was superior. The German sin is most clearly seen in their killing 6 million Jews. The way to avoid the German sin of Aryan superiority, therefore, is to embrace the social order idea that only multi-cultural superiority is allowed for social order arrangements. People who question whether or not 6 million Jews were killed are obviously people, so the multi-cultural story goes, who desire that 6 million more be killed and so must be socially ostracized for playing with the taboo. The reason that the number 6 million must be so adamantly defended is because that number becomes the bulwark against social orders that are not arranged multi-culturally. If people question the 6 million number the larger reality that is being questioned, in the multi-culturalist’s mind, is the foundation of multi-cultural social orders.

These two “truths” — (1) The absolute equality of all faiths, cultures, and ethnic groups, and (2) The number of 6 million Jewish dead who testify against cultures that are not organized multi-culturally — are at the organizational heart of the West’s social order. Challenge these truths and you can be put on trial (as Mark Steyn was in Canada or as Geert Wilders is in Europe) or put in jail as David Irving was.

But the problem with these two “truths” as a Christian is that (1) Christian do not and can not believe all faiths, and cultures are equally valid or that the evidence suggests that all ethnic groups function all societal tasks with equal proficiency, and (2) Christians do not believe that the death of any number of people at the hands of those who imbibed an anti-Christ world view (Nazi paganism) proves that we need to embrace another anti-Christ worldview (multi-culturalism) that is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions upon tens of millions of the unborn. Even if 6 million Jews died in the holocaust that does not justify supporting the multi-cultural social order that is responsible for the deaths of over 50 million unborn.

Then And Now

“So Southern belief in a Northern determination to transform the US into a consolidated nation, where the majority must always rule a central government endowed with large, indefinite implied powers, loomed as a grave threat to many Southerners’ most cherished ideals of society, of government, of life itself. When secessionists insisted that they left the Union to preserve states’ rights, they meant exactly that. In the last analysis, they seceded for an idea, the idea that they would not meekly submit to Northern rule. If they were rebels so be it. After all, it was a name their “patriot fathers bore.”

Ludwell H. Johnson
North Against South; The American Iliad — 1848-1877

People may wonder why I keep returning to this theme. I would hope that the answer is already strongly hinted at in what I said in the last post. A people’s understanding of their present is shaped by their understanding of their past. If, we as a people, continue to think of the Second War for American Independence as one in which the forces of good wore blue we will not be willing to fight for the issues that those who wore butternut and gray died for. They died fighting for Republican regionalism against the Federated Nationalism that was sought for by the army of the Potomac. We have come to the point that we must fight for Nationalism versus the New World Order that our political masters are trying to force on us. They died fighting for States Sovereignty against those who desired the sovereignty of the Nation State. We must fight for American Sovereignty against those who desire to the sovereignty of globalism. Men like R. L. Dabney and John Giradeau understood that the South was fighting for Christendom against pagan inroads. The desire not to be globalized, is much the same battle, even if people don’t understand that. If we don’t find the ability to sympathize with the Southern reasons for fighting Yankees we won’t find the ability to fight against the Internationalists.

It’s the same war folks, except that it is coming to another phase. If you believe that those toting a New World Order are the bad guys then you better realize that the Confederates are your intellectual heirs.

Multi-culturalism, religious pluralism, and cultural tolerance is a myth

A Christian has the one view that social order and culture should be based on the singular one religion of Christianity. This is referred to as Christian culture. A pagan has the one view that social order and culture should be based on a plethora of faiths. This is referred to as multi-culturalism.

Note though that the second view is not more pluralistic or tolerant than the first view or to say it positively; note that the second view is just as homogeneous and intolerant as the first view. Both the first position that has the one view that social order and culture should be Christian and the second position that has the one view that social order and culture should allow for multi-faiths are both positions that are advocating one single view of the way social order and culture should be. Both views are equally non-pluralistic because the first view allows only for Christian culture and the second view allows only for polytheistic culture. The first rules out any culture that is uniquely polytheistic. The second rules out any culture that is uniquely Christian. Both views are equally intolerant because the first view will not tolerate those who want to overthrow Christian social order and culture with polytheism while the second view will not tolerate those who want to overthrow polytheistic social order and culture.

Multi-culturalism, religious pluralism, and cultural tolerance is a myth.

Analogical …. Univocal … Equivocal; Creator — creature distinction

“Thomas Aquinas taught what was later called an ‘analogy of being,’ which grounds his account of how human language can be used in talking of God. Analogy is the alternative to ‘univocal’ and ‘equivocal’ language. A word is used ‘univocally’ when it means exactly the same thing in several different contexts, and ‘equivocally’ when it means different things in different contexts. ‘Leaf’ is used equivocally in the sentences ‘Put the leaf in the table’ and ‘Don’t pull that leaf off the tree,’ and ‘man’ is used univocally in the sentences ‘Socrates is a man’ and ‘Duns is a man.’ When applied to theological language, each of these alternatives is an unhappy one. If theological language is equivocal, then we cannot say anything true about God, but if it s univocal, God is reduced to the creaturely level.

Thomas believed that the solution to this was to say that theological language is ‘analogical.’ When we say ‘God is wise’ and ‘Socrates is wise,’ ‘wise’ is used analogically. We are not using ‘wise’ in exactly the same way, but we are not using ‘wise’ in completely different senses, either. There is an ‘analogy’ or ‘similarity’ between the two uses. Thomas applied this to all the attributes of God, including the fundamental attribute of ‘existence’ (Being). God’s existence is his essence, but this is not true of other beings. Thus, in the sentences ‘God exists’ and ‘My toenail exists,’ the word ‘exists’ is being used in an analogical way.

By contrast, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) defended the ‘univocity of being.’ Though it pertains to theological language, the dispute has much larger implications. Scotus did not deny analogy per se. Terms are not predicated of God and creatures in exactly the same way, and Scotus believed that analogy is necessary because ‘creatures are only imperfect representations of the divine. Yet, he said that without some univocity within the analogy, there can be no analogy. In brief, ‘analogy presupposes univocity.’ More fully, ‘If of two things one is the measure of the other, then they must have something in common that permits the first to be measured of the second, and the second to be measured of the first. If of two things one excess the other by some quantity or degree, however great, then they must have something in common with respect of which the first exceeds the second….

Scotus argued that similar points must be true of our language about God and creation. God is more perfect than man, but that raises the question; a more perfect what? What is the common term? God is more perfect in ‘wisdom’ and ‘justice.’ But if this is to make any sense at all, then ‘wise’ and ‘just’ must be used univocally. Unless we are able to form a concept ‘wisdom’ that will encompass both God’s and man’s wisdom, the analogy is impossible….

In some respects, his (Scotus) arguments in favor of univocity seem correct, yet his treatement has radical implications for the relationship of theology and philosophy. Richard Cross points out that God’s ineffability, his transcendence of all our concepts of him, is weakened in Scotus’s account, so that ‘we can know quite a lot about God.’ That seems to put the case to mildly…. As a result God is paled on a continuum with his creation, and the Creator-creature distinction is blurred….

By distinguishing God and man as ‘two degrees’ (finite and infinite) of a single concept (‘being’), he flattens out the Creator-creature distinction….”

Peter J. Leithart
Medieval Theology And The Roots Of Modernity
Revolutions in Worldview — pg. 169-171

I bring this forward because I believe we are still stumbling over this issue today. Leithart lays out the contours of the issue but he doesn’t answer how to navigate through this epistemological problem.

It is interesting that Gordon Clark argues in a very similar way in one of his books that Leithart reveals Duns Scotus argued on the issue of univocal and analogical language.

As I’ve thought about the Van Til, and Clark blowout (which really remains with us today) I think the issue is captured by how Leithart lays out the issue. It seems to me that the issue is whether or not there really is such a thing as analogical language in a pure sense. In my reading it seems that Van Til used “analogy” in a way that fell off the equivocal side of analogical whereas Clark, when he used the word “analogy” fell off the univocal side of analogical.

If I am reading this correctly then the problem for Van Til and his disciples is that the Creator creature distinction becomes a barrier that no language can get through. On the other hand the problem for Clark and his disciples is, as Leithart notes concerning Scotus, the Creator – creature distinction is flattened out and the mind of man and the mind of God become one at every point of univocity in analogy.

Obviously a Creator-creature distinction that cannot be overcome by language and a Creator-creature distinction that really isn’t a distinction because it is conquered by the univocal in the analogical are both fraught with serious problems. The former is going to lean towards a unwholesome rationalistic theology while the latter is going to lean towards a unwholesome mysticism in theology.

Hey, I don’t have the answers (and apparently Leithart didn’t either) I’m just trying to lay out the ideological topographical map.

Christianity And Social Order

In “The Politics of Guilt and Pity,” by R. J. Rushdoony (1995 – Ross House Books) Rushdoony as a chapter where he precisely explains how the belief in the “Kingdom of God,” and “justification by faith alone” shaped and affected the social order of Protestant nations. Rushdoony traces how the core beliefs of the Medieval age formed and shaped the social order of the Medieval age. He then goes on to relate how Calvin’s understanding of the “Kingdom of God,” and “justification by faith alone” was not only a threat to Medieval Catholicism’s doctrine of soteriology but as importantly how those twin doctrines were a threat to Medieval Catholicism’s social order. In short the doctrines were a threat to not only the Church but also to the Medieval way of life in the public square. Rushdoony contended that “Rome and Reformed theologies have their distinctive sociologies of justification,” which lent to distinctive social orders.

In, “The Age of Atonement,” by Boyd Hilton (1988 – Oxford) – subtitled “The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785 – 1865,” the author identifies a doctrinal emphasis on the Atonement during this period and meticulously documents how this emphasis affected social order and economic ideas. As a result of this influence, the author notes what he terms the “rage of Christian Economics” in the early decades of the 19th Century. The Age of Atonement closes as the prevailing doctrinal emphasis shifts from the Atonement to the Incarnation, which gave rise to pietism and the “social gospel” liberalism of the late 19th Century.

George Grant in his lectures on Ancient History spends several lectures explaining how Egyptian religious beliefs incarnated themselves into and provided ballast for their social order. Grant spends time connecting the ancient Egyptian Mahat social order was a reflection of Egyptian religion which held to a chain of being organicism. Grant explains how the architecture in Egyptian social order likewise proclaimed Egyptian religious belief.

Social orders and cultures are always a reflection of the prevailing religion of a people. Attempts to sanitize social order or culture from the religious impulse of a people, is futile. First, because such an attempt itself would be the result of a religious impulse. Such an impulse, when pursued by putative Atheists might be called a kind of public square nihilism and when pursued by Christians might be called a kind of public square Deism. Second, such an attempt of sanitizing social order or culture from the religious impulse of people is futile because both social order and culture are nothing but the outward manifestation of a people’s inward religious beliefs. Trying to build a social order or culture or public square that is a-religious would be like trying to draw a square circle or trying to touch dry wet.

Christians who seek to delete Christian considerations from the public square are insuring that a social order and culture will come to pass that is hostile to the Christian faith. A Christianity that refuses to create a social order is a Christianity that insures the attempt on the part of the social order to try and eliminate the Christian faith. Further, a Christianity that refuses to create a social order is a Christianity that will find itself creating heretical forms of Christianity that are formed in order to conform to the prevailing social order that the otherwise orthodox Christianity allowed to come to pass.

There is no such thing as a secular social order. The sooner Christians realize this the sooner they will be about asking how they can be part of building a social order that is distinctly Christian.