Astronomy and Politics Through the Lens of Epistemology
How do We Know What We Know?
What is Our Method of Evaluating Truth?
Christian Epistemology
ARE MEN/WOMEN NATURALLY GOOD?:
Faith and the Inclinations of Secular Philosophy
Presuppositions and Precepts
On my last blog on the secular world view of moral relativism, I entered an area that few Christian political activists seem to grasp. That is the driving force behind either secular, Jewish or Christian philosophy. The sequence of secular perspectives is preceded by what they describe as one’s presuppositions. Christians and Jews are similarly driven by what the Jewish Tanakh and Christian Old Testament describe as “precepts”. Both secular and religious systems of logic similarly depend on what presuppositional principles are understood before any analysis or evaluation begins.
For example, I spent almost all of my adult life as a technician in the field of astronomy. In that field, as with any of the sciences, the presupposition or means to determine truth is the scientific method. There, all fields of reasoning or analysis in science are based on that sequence of logic, hypotheses and experiments. Likewise, in theology, all moral truth is analyzed and based on Biblical precepts from the creator. In this sense, all reasoning in both disciplines of secular or Christian reasoning is based on principles that one accepts prior to any analysis being done.
So, what about Precepts and Presuppositions in Evangelism
Since both secular and theological systems share this similarity, it only stands to reason that Christians should be paying more attention to these systems of logic prior to any communication or attempt at persuasion. After all, the Apostle Paul did this very thing prior to his address on Mars Hill to the polytheistic audience there and the beginning of his speech.
So, as Christians, why are we not focusing on what is the fundamental difference between Christian and secular means of moral reasoning today? The most basic and stark difference in this present environment is the question of the nature of man. From both Jewish and Christian scriptures, the nature of man is anything, but naturally good. A Jewish Dennis Prager explains this better that this Christian ever could in this simple 5 minute video [1] . No, when I say this, I am not just Dennis Prager lip service, I really mean that this Jewish speaker/author really explains the presuppositions of Jewish political thought, better than this Christian ever could, so stop reading and take the 5 minutes and WATCH IT!!! It will make this text blog better than anything I could ever write! Just click on the [1] above!
The Bible and its Precepts or Presuppositions in the Jewish Tanakh
Gen 8:21 [(JPS or Jewish Publication Society 1917)] And the LORD smelled the sweet savour; and the LORD said in His heart: 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
1st Kings 8:46 [(JPS)-1917] If they sin against Thee - for there is no man that sinneth not - and Thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive unto the land of the enemy, far off or near;
Eccl 7:20 [JPS-1917] For there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Ps 14:1 [JPS-1917] For the Leader. A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart: 'There is no God'; they have dealt corruptly, they have done abominably; there is none that doeth good.
Ps 14:3 [JPS-1917] They are all corrupt, they are together become impure; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Ps 53:1[JPS-1917] For the Leader; upon Mahalath. Maschil of David. (53:2) The fool hath said in his heart: 'There is no God'; they have dealt corruptly, and have done abominable iniquity; there is none that doeth good.
Ps 53:3 [JPS-1917] Every one of them is unclean, they are together become impure; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
[NT] Rom 3:10-12, As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one."
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,…
The reason I have cited so many verses here is to emphasize that despite a lot of variations on this subject in Catholic, Jewish and evangelical history, all three faith's texts share something in common about the general existence of man’s evil nature. In Catholic theological history as with main-line Protestantism today, one can find historical exceptions as to whether EVERY individual human is so flawed and their writers can, in some cases, be on both sides of the fence.[2] In Jewish culture, the inherent goodness of man is overwhelmingly popular but as the conservative Jewish writer, Dennis Prager points out, “As regards Judaism, from the Torah through rabbinic Judaism, I am unaware of a single mainstream Jewish text that posits that people are basically good” [3] “Evangelicals on the other hand, are hard-nosed and literal about there being no exceptions and I am one of those. However, evangelicals are so focused on the universality of that exception-less doctrine that they often do not notice that the textual basis of all three faiths universally accept the existence of evil in general among the human population. A consequence of this human evil has been the devastated psyche of the Jewish people, in the last century, as a direct result of the dramatic rise of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust! So regardless of the acknowledged differences in the religious communities on this subject, EVIL exists and MUST be a factor in how we govern ourselves and relate to other countries.
Note: the above biblical passages on man’s flawed character must be understood as being from our God’s perspective. When one considers that subject from our human perspective, we see men and women building hospitals and all manner of good works. What we have to take from these passages is that despite these good activities, they are still inadequate to satisfy our perfect creator or to functionally work in our real world. In addition, in the Christian faith, Adonai has provided the solution in His son that IS adequate, if and only if, we accept Him into our lives. Despite this, men without a knowledge of God will not have a recognition of man’s flaws or how that impairs their efforts toward solutions and ultimate peace. So, without acknowledgement of man’s flawed character, liberals and progressives in government are destined to concoct solutions that are doomed to ultimate failure in our real world.
Likewise, a very popular trend in secular society is the humanitarian or humanistic tendency to either deny outright or to at least deemphasize the existence of evil in our society and its governance. The University of Idaho puts it this way by quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau in
1749 [4]. Ok, think about that pre-supposition. What if that assumption about the inherent good nature of man is simply not true or functional in the real world?
The modern historian, Rutger Bregman, “Humankind: A Hopeful History”, [5] (p. 45), gives a bit more of a synopsis of Rousseau’s work, though a bit wordier:
“At the moment of that reading,’ he later wrote, ‘I beheld another universe and became another man.’ In that instant, he realized that civil society is not a blessing, but a curse. As he continued on his way to where his innocent friend was incarcerated, he understood ‘that man is naturally good, and that it is from these institutions alone that men become wicked’”.
Yet, that is a heretical belief in Christianity because of what the apostle Paul wrote about what God had revealed to him on this very matter in...
Rom 13:1-2, Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
It is not merely the fact that this is a heretical belief in Christianity that makes that doctrine utterly dysfunctional in the real world of governance. Many years ago, a physician friend gave me an article written by a Christian directly involved in the Strategic Arms Limitation talks with the Soviet Union. All their efforts were to create a negotiated system of agreement between our governments to greatly limit the chance of the accidental nuclear war. In the various scenarios where such a disaster had real danger, this negotiator asked his colleagues the question “what if the nature of man is not inherently good”? The response he got from his shocked colleagues was along the lines of “that would effectively collapse our entire effort” and would likely make matters even worse - with the possible exception of a scenario involving SHEER LUCK! For that reason, motivations behind government efforts or programs have a high probability of failure unless in one’s world-view, one accounts for the fallen or even evil nature of man in our governmental planning and programs.
For an additional example, I personally remember President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Programs of 1964-5. These programs involved education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, etc. Yet, who would look at our society today and describe it as a “Great Society”? All those programs had a similar problem destined from the outset. They all neglected Adonai’s many repeated warnings that “there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Eccl 7:20 NKJV). So, what was left out that should have been included in the design of any such programs? They left out the fact that many flawed men would sit out the period of the program declining any such opportunity for employment which the program were supposed address, assuming the absence of possible employment. So, would there have been any such programs that would have been available as biblical alternatives? Open your eyes, there have been many such conservative alternative efforts like those of the late Senator Jack Kemp among others. People are just ignorant of these conservative efforts, because without a God, they want government to solve every societal problem or social inequity in life from the womb to the tomb!
Iran JCPOA deal
But what about today? Are there any such utopian efforts by government underway that would have similar disastrous results? One must look no further than the terroristic government of Iran and the Democrats attempts to bribe them into “good” international behavior with the revived JCPOA Iran nuclear deal! Why do so many people give credibility to such utopian efforts? Well, if the human race is inherently good, according to the wicked of our society, then the JCPOA agreements should work just great!?!?!
Gun Control
On a similar government issue, we have coined phrase regarding domestic gun-control. “If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns!” That brief expression is in itself is based on the biblical fact that there will always be those that are lawless and rebel against any rules of civility. We are even destined to deal with those elements in our end-times society in the Second book of Thessalonians
(2Th 2:8-9 NKJV) “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the [lawless one] is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,”
So, no presumed natural goodness of man will save us from guns or foreign attack either! But for possible intervention of our God, the JCPOA may damn us to nuclear annihilation in the future, or beyond!
Bad Neo-Conservative Assumption
Now, given my analysis so far, can one conclude that liberal or progressive Democrats are the only ones to be impacted by a presupposition of universal human goodness or that conservatives are always biblical? Certainly not! After 911, neo-conservatives were convinced that all we had to do was to defeat Saddam Hussein and the thirst for freedom in Iraq would transform that country into a bastion of democracy in the Muslim world. That was not a justification for the war, which is a more complex discussion. But transforming a Muslim nation into a peace-loving democracy was a vision by many who supported our military incursion into Iraq. Nevertheless, I certainly remember the inspiration of all those Iraqi people proudly holding up their ink drenched finger to prove they voted, so that vision definitely had a temporary impact. Yet the presence of evil terrorist forces drowned out those laudable expectations. Can this be a case where the expectation of the natural goodness of man gave conservatives a false transformative vision of that country as to affect a permanent change? If so, it certainly failed and that failure to anticipate the influence of evil is where utopian plans of human goodness so often die in either conservative or liberal thought.
Twilight Zone Event
To demonstrate just how bizarre liberal, humanistic, or progressive thought is when based on optimistic views of human nature, I will relay an experience of mine just after the 9/11 attack in 2001. There was some discussion in our university setting about what the US could or would do in response to the attack on the Twin Towers. One co-worker, a very well-educated man, said we must hire thousands of psychologists to spread all over the middle east to council them on why mass murder was a bad thing!! I then realized that the level of stupidity to even voice such an idea, could likely only be measured in astronomical units!! But, it was not just the pragmatic problem of executing such a plan. It was that such a thought could never be contemplated unless some variation of a utopian view of human nature was employed!
A Remarkably Simple Baptist Observation
In 2015 a black Baptist pastor and former Oaklahoma Republican Representative, J.C.Watts, made an astounding observation while campaigning to support current Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
"The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good." "We are born backwards into this world," he said. "We are born bad ... no one has to teach a child how to behave badly — they are born knowing how to do that ... we teach them how to be good. We become good by being reborn — born again ... Democrats believe that we are born good, that we create God, not that he created us. If we are our own God, as the Democrats say, then we need to look at something else to blame when things go wrong — not us."
No doubt, there must have been exceptions to this generalization, but apparently not in Watts' eight years of experience in the House of Representatives.
He continued: "So take the theater shootings in Lafayette [La.] — Republicans know that this was a bad man, doing a bad thing. Democrats will look for other causes — that the man was basically good, but that it was the guns, society or some other place where the blame lies and then they will want to control the guns, or something else — not the man. We don't need to look anywhere else for the blame. It's the man." (The Hill - Robert Leonard - 09/02/15)
By the way, according to Watts, he was the political disciple of the same Jack Kemp I previously mentioned that promoted conservative programs for the poor. So it was that this question of utopian views among progressives that was settled in my mind, thanks to the words of the absolutely brilliant, J.C. Watts.
The Most Astonishing Display of Naivet'e About the Nature of Man in U.S. Presidential History.
Yet, compare the brilliance of J.C. Watts about the nature of man with that of the Biden Administration's ignorance of giving a list of names of Americans we wanted to get safe passage to the airport during the evacuation of Afghanistan. That naïve act, regardless of who executed it under Biden, essentially gives the Taliban terrorists a hostage list for extortion of billions of dollars from American tax payers. And that says little regarding the devastating impact it will likely have on hundreds or thousands of lives of Americans remaining there as is testified to by the One America News Report and backed up by other news outlets. This a spectacular example of how people with very high IQ'scould be reduced to abject idiots with a simple but heretical pre-supposition. Click here for a video report on this.
Another Mystery Was Resolved for Me
Yet, this also settles a question beyond that. I have a friend who is in that Neverland position of being partly in the Christian camp and partly in the camp of secular philosophy.
He has been totally pre-occupied and utterly consumed by the question of why so many Christians (though not everyone) gravitate in the direction of a conservative political philosophy and tries to convince us of our error. I wrote an article back in 2018 to try to address that question by itemizing an assortment of government policy issues consistent with the biblical text[4]. Still, that was a complicated set of issues for any secularist to get their arms around. Yet, the fallen nature of man is a far simpler pre-supposition for both he and them to consider whether they accept this tenet or not.
The Trump Factor
In addition, this also addresses the personal question of Donald Trump. Many conservatives objected or disliked Trump profoundly because of his insulting nature, his past moral history, the fact that he often stepped on his own message and oversimplified more complex issues and generally failed to address questions of nuance. But those objections are questions of a leader’s likeability. Yet likeability is NOT a criterion for biblical governance. Since Romans Ro
13:1 For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
If that is true, then we can state with irrefutable authority that Donald Trump was appointed by God! Then in Rom 13:4 “For he is God's minister to you for good…” Since Paul’s letter was written to Roman Christians and Jews, who was the “minister for good” at that time? He was the emperor Claudius as was confirmed in Acts 11:28, 18:2, and 23:26”. Now is there any Christian or Jew out there who would deem Claudius as a paragon of virtue or follower of the way? I can promise you if any Christian responds in the affirmative, I will be falling down laughing! Yet when considered in the light of so many Christians today, Trump was historically the single most successful President with regards to his policies' consistency with biblical values, quite irrespective of his personality!
The Biden Factor
Now, if it is true that Biden was illegally elected, does this mean that this corrupt election is his? Certainly, we do not have a biblical basis to rebelliously deny his authority now unless the legal process or God Himself causes that result. Yet, in such a humanistic authority, there is no way a system that denies evil and persecutes the good can fulfill God’s ordination of government to punish evil and reward good!
The Current Christian Position
So, the position of Christians today, at least theoretically speaking, is the same position Christians were in after “the furor” came to power in Germany. From 1926 and the publication of Mein Kampf till 1932, the Nazi philosophy transformed the German people and government gradually. During that most critical period, after Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published in 1926, Christians had virtually no public input on the rise of the Nazi philosophy until it had saturated Germany resulting in the Nazis first taking power in 1932. Christians did not speak out openly until after 1933, but that was 6-7 years of silent witnessing with no response from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller or the eventual confessing church. That is the result of Christians being taught that matters of government were not their calling.
The Conventional Evangelical Approach
As the argument would go, if one was called a street preacher, for example, one’s primary duty was preaching and or passing out Christian Gospel Tracts, etc. Now if someone were to suggest that one stop that activity temporarily to be salt and light in the world around them, the reflexive answer would be that our primary calling was the Gospel and the Great Commission. Furthermore, that government and Naziism was not a Christian calling, so keep passing out the tracts and so forth!
The Resulting Historical Evangelical Disaster
But that biblical approach has a horrible deficit in the area of the study of hermeneutics and the message of the entire Word of God. In fact, it has a deficit in simply reading the very next sentence after the call to evangelism. Let’s look at those two verses together below.
Mathew 28:19-20 NKJV: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”
"teaching them to observe ALL things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Now what is the reference to “all things I have commanded you. Obviously, that is a big subject.
So what is the second most important mandate of the church which is secondary to the ultimate priority of spreading the Gospel?
Mat 5:13-16: "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. "Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all [who are] in the house. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (NKJV)
Conclusion:
It does not require much reasoning today to conclude that public discourse is the best forum for letting our light shine and being that SALT in the world around us and to a generation who falsely believes in its own inherent goodness. In our society, one of the simplest ways to be SALTY is by some means of supporting public discourse and government debate. Remember, since our light includes the practice of exposing sin, we are obligated to share the tenet of man's fallen nature. The "good news" is rarely valued unless people hear and are convicted of the bad news of sin first. That is another reason Adonai commissioned government to take on that job first. Beyond that very restricted government role, Christians are then better enabled to share the "Grace Card" less restrained by the constant obstructions of dealing with sin. If we cannot do that because of the possibility that Elder or Deacon xx will be offended by any discussion of "politics" and withdraws their financial support, then for what purpose does Adonai want us here? Preaching repentance from SIN is a preliminary requisite for understanding the gospel of forgiveness. If we are still unable to do that, then on what basis do we claim the mantle of Christian love? As an evangelical, I do not raise this question to spread guilt because the Gospel is meant to free us from all guilt. Rather, I raise it to motivate Godly conviction to act on one’s beliefs and the principles in His Word.
Given in that we are just sitting here while babies are scalded alive just prior to birth at the US rate of 862,000 per year. Given the drop in the abortion rate that still comes out to 62 million dead babies since abortion was legalized in 1972 which blows away the genocides of the Nazis, Paul Pott, Stalin, etc! Now considering that number, then what do we think while we are too timid to stand up for righteousness publicly? Again, this is a conviction, but not a salvation question. Yet, at what point in our cowardice do we conclude that our own lives are secondary and we must become more active advocates for national repentance in the most effective way we can find!
NEVER FORGET HIS WORDS BEFORE PRAYER:
"if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." 2Ch 7:14 (NKJV)
here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.