It is no surprise that in a 2002 survey almost three-quarters of Americans (seventy-four percent) rejected the teaching of original sin.¹

After all, Americans want to feel good about themselves Nathaniel Brandon, whom many consider the father of the self-esteem movement, said, “The idea of Original Sin…is anti-self-esteem by its very nature. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality.”² Also, many view this as an idea from the so-called “Dark Ages”; philosopher and historian Ernst Cassirer noted, “The concept of original sin is the most common opponent against which the different trends of the philosophy of Enlightenment join forces.”³ But, sadly, the survey also revealed that only fifty-two percent of evangelicals held to the doctrine of original sin.

The denial or misstatement of any Christian doctrine not only distorts our understanding of reality, but has grave implications for other Christian doctrines, and this certainly is true for the doctrine of original sin. For example, if there were no “first Adam” who actually was a man who sinned, the parallel to Jesus being the “last Adam” is lost. Also, if nothing happened to human nature when Adam sinned, then it becomes theologically inexplicable why Scripture constantly portrays all of humankind as evil and thus deserving punishment. On the contrary, a robust view of human sinfulness justifies God’s judgment, demonstrates God’s patience, and magnifies the significance of Christ’s sacrifice.

Although Christians define original sin differently, historically for Protestants original sin has two commonly held components: humankind is guilty for the sin of their first parents and humankind inherited a corrupted nature, since they are sexual reproductions of their first parents.⁴

Although the words “original sin” aren’t found together in Scripture, the doctrine is taught in many passages: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”⁵ (Rom. 5:12⁶); “one trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Rom. 5:18); and “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22). So it is no wonder that David wrote in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (emphasis added).

That humans are born corrupted makes sense of Jesus’ proclamation in John 6:63 (NIV) that “the Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (emphasis added) and his later telling the Jews in John 8:44 (NIV) that “you are of your father, the devil.” The “natural person,” wrote Paul, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Then in Ephesians 2:2–3 we read that Satan is “at work in the sons of disobedience” who “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” It is no wonder, then, that Paul tells us in Romans 3:10–12 that “none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

The hardest aspect of this doctrine regards how it could be fair that all humans should suffer for the sin of Adam and Eve. Historically, Christians have appealed to the following theories.

REPRESENTED BY ADAM?

Many Christians appeal to “federal” (or “representative”) headship of Adam.⁷ The idea is that a head can be chosen to represent the other members of a group or country and, just as a country’s leader may declare war without polling that country’s individual citizens, so Adam, the federal head of the human race, chose to rebel against God, thus also making rebels of his race. Adam’s progeny may not have “voted” for rebellion against God, but, just like the citizens of a country at war, Adam’s progeny have become enemies of God by the act of their representative. Adam’s children might object that they didn’t have the opportunity to choose their representative, but God knows who is best able to represent the human race. As theologian William Shedd put it, “The sin of Adam, consequently, is imputed to posterity in the very same way that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer—namely, undeservedly and gratuitously.”⁸ Proponents of this view point out that it wasn’t fair that Christ should die for humans. One act may have made us guilty, but one act makes righteous all who trust Jesus. Anyone still angry that one sin could hurt us all should be angry at sin. Perhaps there is a cosmic lesson here for all free beings: hate sin!

PRESENT AT ADAM’S SIN?

Another theory says that we are really and naturally related to Adam by actually being seminally present in Adam when Adam sinned. All of humankind was in “Adam’s loins” when he rebelled, and since we were really present at his sin, we also are therefore guilty of his sin. Proponents of this view point to Hebrews 7:9–10: “One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.” Being ontologically present rendered Adam’s sin as chargeable to us in the same way, as Shedd analogized, that “the hand or eye acts and sins in the murderous or lustful act of the individual soul.”⁹ As we were born in Adam, so also those who are born again into God’s family were crucified with Christ, died with Christ, were raised with Christ, and are now seated with Christ in the heavenly places by virtue of our organic union with Him.¹⁰

ORGANICALLY UNITED IN ADAM’S FALLEN NATURE?

Related to the “realistic union” theory above is a view known as “traducianism.” This view holds that not only were we present with Adam when he sinned, but as his natural generation, we inherited his fallen nature—all of it. Traducianism comes from the Latin tradux, for vine: we are all a part of the vine of Adam. In other words, every human possesses an organic union with the first couple. Theologian Millard Erickson wrote,

We receive our souls by transmission from our parents, just as we do our physical natures. So we were present in germinal or seminal form in our ancestors….His action was not merely that of one isolated individual, but of the entire human race. Although we were not there individually, we were nonetheless there. The human race sinned as a whole. Thus, there is nothing unfair or improper about our receiving a corrupted nature and guilt from Adam, for we are receiving the just results of our sin. This is the view of Augustine.¹¹

It isn’t just that we were in Adam: we are his reproductions and as such we are all conceived with an inclination toward evil that deserves death.

Many struggle to understand this because of a strong sense of Western individualism, but we are not like angels, which apparently were created individually. Rather, we are all organically, spiritually, psychically the same as Adam, and if we live long enough, we will ratify our union with him through our own sinful choices. Adam and Eve had the choice to disobey and ruined their family. But now through faith we may enjoy an organic union into God’s family.

EXPLANATORY POWER

The doctrine of original sin accounts for much of human evil. Indeed, it is empirically verified every day. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.”¹² Even non-Christian Darwinist Michael Ruse thinks so: “I think Christianity is spot on about original sin—how could one think otherwise, when the world’s most civilized and advanced people (the people of Beethoven, Goethe, Kant) embraced that slime-ball Hitler and participated in the Holocaust? I think Saint Paul and the great Christian philosophers had real insights into sin and freedom and responsibility, and I want to build on this rather than turn from it.”¹³

And it’s not just Ruse. In the many books on genocide I have read to date, every genocide researcher and genocide survivor concludes that it is the average member of a population that commits these horrors.¹⁴

In her report on the trial of Auschwitz administrator Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt found it particularly troubling that “there were so many like him, neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.”¹⁵ Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel wrote, “Deep down…man is not only an executioner, not only a victim, not only a spectator: he is all three at once.”¹⁶ Likewise, Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi wrote, “We must remember that these faithful followers, among them the diligent executors of human orders, were not born torturers, were not (with few exceptions) monsters: they were ordinary men.”¹⁷ Consider the conclusion of two Holocaust researchers: 

What remains is a central, deadening sense of despair over the human species. Where can one find an affirmative meaning in life if human beings can do such things? Along with this despair there may also come a desperate new feeling of vulnerability attached to the fact that one is human. If one keeps at the Holocaust long enough, then sooner or later the ultimate truth begins to reveal itself: one knows, finally, that one might either do it, or be done to. If it could happen on such a massive scale elsewhere, then it can happen anywhere; it is all within the range of human possibility, and like it or not, Auschwitz expands the universe of consciousness no less than landings on the moon.¹⁸

If these researchers and victims are correct, then all humans are born Auschwitz-enabled and the doctrine of original sin best explains that fact. Sometimes people ask, if Adam and Eve sinned, why didn’t God just “start over” with someone else? But that is what God did. God sent His son Jesus into the world as the “last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45) who endured temptations without sinning to redeem those who come to Jesus. Adam may have made a choice that corrupted his family, but his descendants can choose to escape that corruption through Jesus. When they do, they are born again into God’s family and are imbued with God’s nature.

Clay Jones is associate professor in the Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics program at Biola University and specializes in issues related to why God allows evil. Some of his most recent reflections can be found at www.clayjones.net.

 NOTES

1. Barna Group, “Americans Draw Theological Beliefs from Diverse Points of View,” October 8, 2002, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/82-americans-drawtheological-beliefs-from-diverse-points-of-view. Accessed June 29, 2011.
2. Nathaniel Brandon, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (New York: Bantam, 1994), 148.
3. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. Fritz C. A. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 141.
4. Eastern Orthodox Christians prefer “ancestral sin” to “original sin” and believe that Adam’s descendants inherited Adam’s corrupted nature, which inclines them to sin, but they are not guilty for Adam’s sin.
5. Douglas Moo writes: “The point is that the sin here attributed to the ‘all’ is to be understood, in the light of vv. 12…and [Rom. 5:] 15–19, as a sin that in some manner is identical to the sin committed by Adam….All people, therefore, stand condemned ‘in Adam,’ guilty by reason of the sin all committed ‘in him.’” Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 326.
6. All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version except where otherwise noted
7. Sometimes also called “forensic union.”
8. William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3rd ed., ed. Alan W. Gomes (Phillipsburg, NJ: P and R, 2003), 435.
9. Ibid., 564.
10. Rom. 6:1–4; Eph. 2:6–7.
11. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 652.
12. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Chicago: Moody, 2009), 28.
13. Michael Ruse, “Darwinism and Christianity Redux: A Response to My Critics,” PhilosophiaChristi NS 4, 1 (2002): 192.
14. For more documentation on the pervasiveness of evil, see the paper I presented, “Human Evil and Suffering,” at the 2009 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, available at clayjones.net/resources.
15. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin, 1994), 277.
16. Elie Wiesel, The Town Beyond the Wall, trans. Stephen Barker (New York: Avon, 1970), 174.
17. Primo Levi, The Reawakening (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri, 1995), 228.
18. George M. Kren and Leon Rappoport, The Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980), 126.

SYNOPSIS

In a culture that has largely shifted from print to visual entertainment, television is the new literature. Given that the average American spends some five hours a day watching television, it is to the advantage of the Christian apologist to seek to understand, interact with, and develop responses to the ideas presented in popular television programs. It is also necessary to learn to exegete the medium. Similar to the process of biblical interpretation, exegeting television involves the application of the concepts of interpretation to the form of television. This involves, for instance, understanding the context of ideas presented in television programs, making lateral connections, fairly evaluating ideas presented, and keeping in mind the intent of the author. Moreover, because print and television differ in significant areas in reference to their functions and abilities, understanding these differences is also important. This does not mean that one form is better than another in every instance, but that each form—print or video—brings with it certain capabilities that the other medium lacks or is deficient in accomplishing. As a dominant medium of popular culture, television deserves serious attention from apologists who wish to demonstrate the differences between ideas promoted in popular culture and those within the Christian worldview. In order to interact effectively with ideas presented on television, Christian apologists must also have some understanding of the philosophical disciplines of metaphysics,ethics, and epistemology.

SIDEBAR

Lost. First airing in 2004 and concluding in May 2010, Lost is an ABC drama about the lives of a seemingly diverse group of individuals who are brought together as the result of a plane crashing on an uncharted island. Characters face not only physical challenges, but internal struggles as they come to grips with guilt, relationships, redemption, destiny, and moral choices and their consequences, and seek to understand the meaning of life and their place and purpose in the world. Not limited to the island, character development also takes place through clever flashbacks and, in the final season, something viewers refer to as flash sideways events.

FlashForward. Based on a 1999 book of the same title by Robert Sawyer, the ABC program FlashForward, which completed its first and only season in late May 2010, begins with a global event, wherein nearly everyone on the planet experiences a blackout for a period of two minutes and seventeen seconds. During this blackout, people see glimpses of their futures six months ahead. The show primarily centers on FBI agents seeking to unravel the mystery of the blackout, while characters must grapple with the often surprising events they have foreseen, bringing to light issues regarding destiny, free will, and determinism.

Battlestar Galactica. A reimagining of the television program that first aired in the late 1970s, Battlestar Galactica aired on the Syfy Channel between December 2003 and March 2009. It tells the epic story of a group of humans who have lost their planetary homes as a result of an attack by the Cylons, a race of highly advanced machines created by human beings, but now evolved, so to speak, to the point where their artificial intelligence and even appearance mimics that of humans. Many overt examples of metaphysical issues are addressed in the program including tensions between monotheism and polytheism, faith, belief, knowledge, and more. Many ethical issues are also represented in various storylines.

24. Starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer and airing on Fox, 24 began in late 2001, concluding in May 2010. Built on the unique television show premise that each season takes place in real time over the course of a contiguous twenty-four-hour period, the show is known for intense action, suspense, drama, and ultimately the need to prevent a disaster, usually of a terrorist variety. Its most significant contribution relevant to this article relates to ethics, as characters are often tortured or face torture or find themselves in difficult moral situations that require them to act, usually for the greater good.

Dexter. A Showtime production, Dexter packs a stylish, intense program into a weekly show that has entered its fifth season. It is based on a book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, byJeff Lindsay. Avoiding the typical police drama, Dexter adds a twist in that the main character, Dexter Morgan, is not only a forensics expert with the Miami police department, but also a serial killer. Dexter chooses his victims methodically, selecting only “bad people” of one kind or another, such as murderers. Obviously, Dexter touches most directly on issues related to ethics.

Nielson Company statistics indicate that the average American watches 151 hours of television per month. To put this figure in perspective, it calculates to about 5 hours a day, 1,812 hours per year, or 75.5 days of television viewing a year.¹ Television is a portal to a myriad of sounds, images, commercial messages, and, more importantly, a world of ideas.

While talent-oriented programs such as Dancing with the Stars and American Idol regularly draw large audiences, other programs ranging from drama to science fiction also capture the attention of millions of viewers every week. Shows such as Lost, FlashForward, Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, and 24 are not only filled with action and suspense, they also contain their share of insights into more philosophical realms. This does not mean that these programs thoroughly contemplate the depths of the ideas of David Hume, the implications of Immanuel Kant’s epistemology, or the many-layered ethical ramifications gleaned from Plato’s Republic. Nevertheless, such programs have the potential to influence millions of individuals, predisposing them, in some cases, to the Christian message, while in other instances challenging or opposing Christianity.

THE AGE OF ENTERTAINMENT

The call to engage the ideas presented in popular television programs is one every Christian, to one degree or another, must answer. As a key and dominant medium of pop culture, television not only entertains millions, but also influences them via ideas. Moreover, my contention is that film and television are the new literature. As Neil Postman expressed it in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, we have moved beyond the age of exposition or typography and into the age of entertainment or show business. This monumental shift from a predominantly print-based culture to one of multimedia entertainment has moved us from a “Have you read…?” mentality to a “Have you seen…?” perspective. In other words, the majority of Western people do not spend their time reading in-depth philosophical works and debating the finer points of the implications of ideologies contained therein, but instead they discuss the latest films and television shows.

Christian apologists have long engaged in the so-called culture war, ideologically battling questionable aspects of culture and popular culture, criticizing anti-Christian ideas in films, pop music, art, and more. Too often, however, our criticisms are more noise than substance, more hostile than empathetic, and engaged more in name-calling than in reasonable evaluation. Consequently, the impact of television on culture requires us to adapt and, in turn, learn to exegete the medium. In the realm of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics), learning to exegete passages is foundational to properly understanding a text. The interpreter must, for instance, understand a passage in its immediate and broader contexts, make lateral connections with other relevant data and ideas, draw out of the text what it says (exegesis) rather than read into it what it does not say (eisegesis), fairly seek to comprehend the intentions of the author, and analyze and evaluate the material under discussion. Similarly, the critic of television must learn to exegete the medium in such a way that is even-handed, relevant, contextual, and integrated.

To this end, this article will seek to illustrate and apply such insights to various television programs, concentrating on three key areas of religious and philosophical relevance: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. First, however, it will be to our benefit to offer a brief comparison between print and television in order to better understand the differences of the mediums and, as a result, better evaluate the medium of video, whether film or television.

Each point in Table 1 deserves some brief commentary. First, print is mostly conceptual, meaning that it deals not only with ideas, but with linear ideas. This means that a careful author states his or her case, interacts with competing ideas, arrives at conclusions supported by premises, and so forth. Given the nature of print, such endeavors most often take a linear approach, meaning that they have a definite beginning point and move towards definite conclusions, with orderly material arranged and assessed along the way. Television, however, is often far from conceptually and ideologically linear. Instead, popular forms of television favor images. But television is also often nonlinear when it comes to ideas. This is not to say that television always tells disjointed stories. The point here is more to observe that television is not nearly as successful as print in communicating well-reasoned, linear ideas.

Second, meaningful print takes concentrated thought. Effort must be placed on the part of the reader to comprehend the ideas of the author. We may disagree with the conclusions, but our disagreement will ideally come from our assessment of the ideas, assessment that takes active intellectual engagement. Television usually requires little concentrated thought. We press a button and are instantly bombarded by images and sounds meant to entertain us, not draw us into deep philosophical engagements. This does not suggest, however, that television cannot grapple to some extent with deep philosophical questions, but merely to demonstrate that television is not a form that favors concentrated intellectual pursuits. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule both with some literature and with some television programs.

Third, print can build rational arguments and, in fact, excels in this endeavor. Were this article material presented as a YouTube video, for instance, its form would significantly change as a necessity of the medium. While video can build fairly simple arguments, it usually favors entertainment over rational discourse. In fact, when television attempts to turn itself into a medium of rational discourse, it often fails miserably. Televised political debates, for instance, more often than not fail at communicating rational, linear discourse and are instead reduced to sound bites. Candidates often have only a few minutes or less to attempt to make a point about issues that are usually quite complex and involved.

Fourth, print requires literacy, while television usually does not. That is why even children who do not know how to read can stare at a television for hours. They are mesmerized by images, sounds, characters, and stories, rather than being drawn into television by its ability to demonstrate syllogisms with ease. This is not to say that video has no application or use within Christian endeavors; merely that it is a different form with different capabilities.

Fifth, print is usually a quiet endeavor, while video is usually noisy. A typical episode of the action show 24 is filled with pulse-pounding music, gunfire, cars speeding down a highway, cell phones ringing, and various individuals threatening one another. Print, however, is often associated with quiet contemplation. That is why academic libraries do not play loud rap music to tickle the ears of professors or students while they research the finer points of Hegel. In short, some ideas require silence, or at least quiet, for our minds to grapple with them properly.

Sixth, print records the great ideas of human history, while television is mostly transient and fleeting. Who, for instance, will seriously turn to the 1970s and 1980s show M*A*S*H for an in-depth history and understanding of the Korean War? Will the film Saving Private Ryan provide historians with a robust understanding of World War II? Granted, both the television show and the motion picture mentioned can indeed succeed in other ways. They can, for instance, give viewers a feel for the setting and challenges of both the Korean War and World War II. But neither film nor television is as successful as print at recording the great ideas of human history.

Finally, print is active, while television is mostly passive. Print is naturally passive if one fails to open a book and read it, but interacting with print is an active endeavor. Beyond the capacity for literacy, print also demands a certain level of common ground, such as understanding words, and also engages the intellect of the reader as he or she seeks to understand the meaning of the author. The mind, then, is active when it comes to reading. Television, on the other hand, is largely passive. We watch as predetermined events, in the case of television shows, unfold before us. Every now and then an idea may engage us, but too often the program has already moved on to something else and the thought passes or we fail to engage the thought actively.

With this said, print and television also share some notable similarities. Both print and video can tell a story, evoke emotions, evoke ideas, entertain, and can be artistic. Jesus did not hand out tracts of parables but instead told audible stories. As such, we should not be so quick to dismiss television’s ability to tell stories and communicate truth. Instead, where appropriate and relevant, apologists need to begin to see such mediums as a point of ministry contact—an opportunity to share the true Christian story with those already interested in stories.

TELEVISION AND WORLDVIEW CONCEPTS

In order to better exegete the medium of television thoughtfully, we must have some basic ideas in mind relative not only to theology, but also philosophy. Ideas are the substance of worldviews and worldviews, in turn, shape the ideologies of individuals. Philosophically, exegeting television requires some grasp of the areas of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Ethics is probably the most commonly encountered in television programs, most likely because the foundational elements of storytelling often require characters to struggle with moral challenges, and because ethics is easier to show than metaphysics or epistemology. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with questions of right and wrong and, consequently, moral choices.

Metaphysics deals with questions about ultimate reality. It is, by definition, beyond the physical. Examples of metaphysical questions include, “What is real?” “Does God exist?” “Does life have any meaning?” “Is there life after death?” “What is the nature of mind?” and “Does free will exist?” Although metaphysics is more difficult to show on television, that does not preclude characters or situations from addressing metaphysical themes.

Epistemology is even more difficult to address via television. Epistemology deals with questions of knowledge. How, for instance, do we know what we know? What criteria exist to know whether or not something is true? How can we justify truth, if at all, or belief? Is the basis for knowledge internal to our consciousness or external? Are some forms of knowledge foundational? Most television programs that even bother to venture into epistemological realms do so simplistically. For instance, a character may state, “How do I know what to do? I follow my heart.” Hence, a rigorous discussion of epistemological grounds in relation to decision making, usually relating to ethics, is avoided and shifted to an emotional appeal. Neil Postman referred to television as “the command center of the new epistemology.”² Epistemology is paramount to every worldview. After all, if our method or theory of knowing is faulty, there’s a good chance that our entire worldview is similarly flawed. At any rate, what follows is a discussion primarily of two areas of philosophy—ethics and metaphysics—in relation to a sampling of contemporary television programs: Lost, FlashForward, Battlestar Galactica, 24, and Dexter (see sidebar). The goal here is not a thorough analysis of each show, but to provide examples of engaging and exegeting television programs from a uniquely Christian perspective.

TELEVISION’S MORAL DILEMMAS

Chronicling the real-time exploits of Jack Bauer, 24 is primarily an action show. Nearly every season, Jack faces ethical dilemmas. As always, the stakes are incredibly high—a nuclear device may go off in a major city, for instance. With little time to sort through the implications of his actions, Jack decides that the best thing to do is torture someone. It seems the most expedient way to provide the greatest good to the greatest number. This is not to say that Jack is unaware of the ethical implications of torture, but he reasons that the end justifies the means.

The ethical system underlying much of 24 is utilitarianism, which seeks to determine right or wrong on the basis of whether it is harmful or beneficial to the greatest number of people. A particular act is not viewed as inherently right or wrong. Instead, the focus is the outcome. A utilitarian act is not concerned with moral rules, but instead seeks to follow general guidelines that are apparently present in society and have stood the test of time. A utilitarian rule, however, is based on the belief that if a generally accepted rule has been deemed good, it should not be violated.

Utilitarianism has several shortcomings. Who decides what is beneficial or harmful to the most people in the long term? On what basis is something deemed “beneficial” or “harmful”? Based on our limited understanding, it is conceivable to choose what may appear to be the greatest good at a particular time, only to end up causing problems in the future. Utilitarianism may also be used to justify immoral actions such as slavery. After all, according to the principles of utilitarianism, the enslavement of a minority is a small price to pay for the benefit of a majority.

Dexter is another program that demonstrates various ethical dilemmas.³ The main character is a serial killer, but also a forensics expert. Although the show is clear that the main character is deeply troubled psychologically, Dexter nevertheless rationalizes his murders by reasoning that such deaths will result in the greater good. In one episode, Dexter says to one of his victims, “Soon, you’ll be packed into a few neatly wrapped Hefties and my own small corner of the world will be a neater, happier place…a better place.”⁴ Thus, Dexter justifies his ongoing murders, citing the greater good he is doing for society at large. Not without a moral center, albeit a twisted one, Dexter often appeals to “the Code of Harry,” referring to his deceased foster father, a police officer who helped Dexter channel his aggressions and, in fact, taught him how to get away with murder. Similar in reasoning to 24, Dexter also is representative of utilitarianism in action.

Dexter’s reasoning is obviously flawed, particularly so from a Christian perspective. First, God condemns murder. Second, vigilantism goes against the God-ordained structure of society that places such punishments in the hands of government, not rogue individuals (Rom. 13:1–5). Third, Dexter’s brand of justice leaves no room for future potential repentance on the part of those he murders.

UNREALITY VS. ULTIMATE REALITY

Although these programs also grapple with ethical issues, and to some extent epistemology, the focus on this section is the metaphysical content in Lost, FlashForward, and Battlestar Galactica (BSG).

Lost and FlashForward are overt in their references to destiny or fate versus free will or, in some cases, chance. In Lost certain characters, particularly John Locke, believe strongly in destiny, believing that some force such as a mysterious island is directing and purposefully maneuvering the lives of certain individuals. Lost at times speaks of “course corrections” to reality, meaning that reality somehow adjusts to human choices in order to nevertheless bring about inevitable outcomes.

In FlashForward the fact that a global blackout has given billions of people glimpses of the future causes some characters to question whether or not free will is a reality or an illusion. Are, for instance, the events seen in the flash forwards predestined or can they be changed? If they are predestined, then do our choices matter? If they are not predestined, then is there any real purpose or meaning to our choices? When one character learns that his flash forward involves the death of a woman and her children, he takes extreme measures, committing suicide, thereby avoiding the deaths of those individuals. His suicide and the reasons for it are highly publicized and people are relieved that the future, it seems, can indeed be changed.

Over the centuries Christian theologians have also turned their attention to seeming puzzles involving free will and predestination. If God is sovereign, then do human choices ultimately matter? Will God “course correct” reality as needed, as Lost intimates the universe will do? Can the future be changed, as FlashForward suggests? These questions are addressed by various theological and philosophical models such as compatibilism, determinism, and issues regarding causation, free will, and God’s foreknowledge. Fatalism is a potential pitfall, being the idea that nothing human beings do really matters.

A broader approach to responding to fate as depicted in popular television programs is to focus on God’s providence. Within Christianity, history has a divine and directed linear purpose. Therefore, history is not random or cyclical.⁵ God does not leave reality to chance, but instead works in His creation, meaning that He is immanent (present and active) in creation. But what of the relationship between God’s sovereign providence and human free will? We will not solve every nuance of the puzzle here, but we can say that biblically speaking our choices do matter, perhaps most significantly in reference to our own moral character and how choices shape our nature for better or for worse. Ultimately the Christian worldview gives meaning and hope to reality, as opposed to fatalistic or nihilistic views that end in despair. The Christian view of history will culminate in a climactic, God-directed end to an arc that began with despair and pain (the Fall), but will end with redemption, restoration, peace, and joy.

Perhaps more than any other science fiction program to date, Battlestar Galactica made the once-nerdy realm of science fiction appealing to the masses. BSG also addressed issues of spirituality, belief, and God directly, not as mere passing references or vague nods. One character, Gaius Baltar, is initially a skeptic if not an outright atheist.⁶ His people are polytheists, but he will have none of it. What is surprising is that it is the skeptical Baltar who later begins to have unexplainable visions. A woman appears to him, appearing like the Cylon woman who seduced him in order to obtain defense secrets that ultimately allowed the Cylons to decimate the home worlds of the Colonials (humans). Much later in the series, it is revealed that the visions were in fact real, and the result of apparently angelic beings influencing the affairs of human beings.

Another metaphysical area of interest in BSG concerns monotheism versus polytheism.⁷ Monotheism is the belief in one theistic God, while polytheism posits  many gods. Interestingly, it is the Cylons who worship what they call the one true God, while the Colonials are polytheists. The Cylons, in fact, are eager to set their human progenitors straight by emphasizing that belief in the gods is not only wrong, but even harmful. Only by seeking the one true God can humanity find any semblance of redemption and salvation. Although this sounds Christian, ultimately the show is devoid of any really meaningful Christian message beyond monotheism. After Baltar sees himself as a messiah figure, he makes no mention of sin, but instead preaches a message that human beings are perfect as they are, sounding far more like New Age philosophy than anything Christian.

BSG seeks to tie up some loose spiritual ends in its series finale. Baltar utters the following metaphysically charged words: “I see angels. Angels in this very room. Now I may be mad, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not right. Because there’s another force at work here. There always has been. It’s undeniable—we’ve all experienced it…Whether we want to call that God or gods or some sublime inspiration or a divine force that we can’t know or understand, it doesn’t matter…It’s here, it exists…God’s a force of nature, beyond good and evil.”

It’s unfortunate that Baltar’s speech essentially provides a stamp of approval for religious pluralism, basically stating that it doesn’t really matter what one believes so long as one believes in something. Contrary to Baltar’s statement that “it doesn’t matter” what we call this “divine force,” it most certainly does matter. Unless we are willing to jettison the logical law of noncontradiction, it is impossible for all views of the divine to be true. God, for instance, cannot be personal and transcendent (theism), but also an impersonal force permeating everything (pantheism).

As for Baltar’s claim that God is “a force of nature, beyond good and evil,” that too is flawed. The implication is that God is limited to the bounds of nature, but in theism God is transcendent, meaning that He made the universe and is not confined within it. Ethically speaking, if God is indeed beyond good and evil, then where do moral standards come from? Such a statement suggests that God is morally neutral, when in reality God is in His very nature a morally good being.

ENGAGING THE NEW LITERATURE

Most people view television for entertainment purposes, but this does not mean that television programs are absent of any substance when it comes to philosophy and theology. Moreover, whether we like it or not, television is a dominant medium of pop culture. With individuals watching as much as five hours or more per day, television is not an area Christian apologists can simply avoid without consequences. As ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical ideas are presented to one degree or another on television, viewers will be influenced by such presentations. Consequently, it is important for the apologist not only to understand and exegete the medium of television, but also to interact with those who may reject or misunderstand Christianity because television has presented opposing viewpoints.

The goal is not to turn apologists into rabid television viewers, but to underscore the extensive influence television has on our culture and to demonstrate the need to understand and evaluate television programs in light of Christianity. Television is in many respects the new literature. To neglect our understanding of it or to minimize its relevance is detrimental.

Robert Velarde is author of The Wisdom of Pixar (InterVarsity Press), Conversations with C. S. Lewis (InterVarsity Press), The Heart of Narnia (NavPress), and Inside The Screwtape Letters (Baker, forthcoming). He received his M.A. from Southern Evangelical Seminary.

1. “Television, Internet and Mobile Usage in the U.S.,” Nielsen Company Report, February 23, 2009; available at http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/3_screens_4q08_final.pdf.
2. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 78.
3. A caveat is in order here in reference to Dexter, as the show routinely reaches what would require an R rating in a theater, depicting bloody violence, sexual exploits, and a steady barrage of bad language.
4. Dexter, Season 1, pilot.
5. Battlestar Galactica, for instance, repeatedly posits a cyclical view of history.
6. At least two other characters are also self-described atheists: Commander William Adama and the Cylon character John Cavil.
7. Some have posited that influences such as polytheism within BSG are the result of Mormon theology due to Glen A. Larson’s involvement in the program since Larson, who created the original BSG in the late 1970s, is Mormon. However, any vestiges of Mormon influence on the more recent BSG series are typically subtle references.

Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle!

All at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. The young riders stroke the horses’ necks and soothe them. They begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing. In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded.

The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes—the child has no understanding of time or interval—sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the eyes disappear.

“I will be good,” it says. “Please let me out. I will be good!” They never answer.

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.

Now do you believe them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman.

Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.

—Jeremy Bentham¹

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is an allegorical tale² regarding a Utopian society where happiness is contingent on the sacrifice of one child for the sake of the community. The point of the short story is that the promotion of one’s own good or the good of an entire community at the expense of the other can lead to some pretty dire ethical results. The ethical egoist (someone who says that everybody should pursue their own best interest) will pursue his own best interest while the ethical utilitarian would, ideally, desire the good for everyone concerned and count all as equal. Both are ethical hedonists, in that ethical judgments are based on our desiring pleasure over pain and making happiness the goal of life.

The utilitarian hedonist takes into account her own pleasure and happiness when choosing to act and is concerned with how the act will affect everyone, whether or not they are directly involved in its consequences. Utilitarianism is best described in three stages.³

First, the principle of utility is considered. “Utility” basically means “usefulness” but is further defined by the utilitarian as “that which promotes the greatest balance of good over evil.” Put simply, utilitarianism is the doctrine that we ought to act so as to promote the greatest balance of good over evil.

But what is the “good” in this case?

Second, like hedonism, utilitarianism defines the good as pleasure. Therefore, utilitarianism is the doctrine that we ought to act so as to promote the greatest balance of pleasure over pain.

Another question arises. Whose pleasure is to be maximized?

Third, utilitarianism judges the rightness of an action by its consequences and it does so by judging the rightness of an action as a function of the production of pleasurable consequences.

The egoist and the utilitarian hedonist part ways at a critical juncture. The former is motivated out of self-interest and strives for self-satisfaction and the latter is motivated out of an interest for the greatest possible number of persons and desires their satisfaction most. Where egoism drives egoistic hedonism, social or utilitarian hedonism substitutes its benevolence principle, the idea that happiness should be distributed as widely and as equally as possible among all people. Thus, utilitarianism is, finally, the doctrine that we ought to act so as to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

BENTHAM’S VERSION: QUANTITY OVER QUALITY

Utilitarian hedonism has as its founding fathers the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Bentham placed an emphasis on the quantity of happiness and Mill placed an emphasis on the quality of happiness.

For Bentham, a moral decision consists of considering the courses of action, taking into account how each course will affect the people involved, and counting yourself one of those people. Once this is done, the person is able to calculate both the pleasures and pains that will result from the action, and then choose the action that results in the greatest amount of pleasure over pain.

Bentham’s quantitative notion of pleasure begs the question of how we determine what is the most pleasure. Bentham proposes seven ways in which we can measure, or account for, the quantity of happiness:

Intensity: How strong is it?

Duration: How long will it last?

Certainty: How likely is it to occur?

Propinquity: How near at hand is it?

Fecundity: What is its ability to produce further pleasures?

Purity: What freedom from ensuing pains does it produce?

Extent: What is the number of people affected by it?

Philosopher Barbara MacKinnon notes that “By applying these seven criteria—someone has likened them to a moral thermometer—we ought to be able to grind out, like a machine, what course of action would deliver the most pleasure.”4

MILL’S VERSON: QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

John Stuart Mill, Bentham’s successor, was certainly the most famous utilitarian of all. His book Utilitarianism is a classic of philosophical literature and a more critical analysis of the idea that happiness for the greatest number is possible. Regarding hedonism, he writes: “By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure…pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.”⁵

Bentham and Mill agreed on the principle of utility— that actions are right if they produce pleasure, happiness, or satisfaction of needs and are distributed among as many people as possible.

Where Mill split with Bentham was over Bentham’s purely quantitative view of pleasure. Mill believed that it is not as important as the consideration of quality. He writes: “It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that, while in estimating all other things quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasure should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.”⁶

For Mill, it is better to be a dissatisfied human than a satisfied pig. For both Mill and Bentham, the action is to be pursued that makes for the greatest happiness for the greatest number. For Bentham “greatest” meant “most” and for Mill it meant “best.”

But who decides what is the “best” and the “most”? Mill argues that the decision belongs to anyone who has experienced both: “Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.”⁷ In other words, those who have experienced both will in most cases choose the higher or more qualitative pleasures for the most. Mill explains that “no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.”⁸

SOME OBJECTIONS

Let’s consider a few of the most popular objections to the ethical theory of utilitarian hedonism. First, utilitarianism sidesteps the charge that it is egoistic by appealing to the best for the most, but it is not purely altruistic either. We are to distribute happiness to the greatest number of people, but we are also to recognize that each one of us is one of those people. How does this fare, for example, with the one child who is tortured in Le Guin’s story, “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas”?

Second, all forms of hedonism use a hedonic calculus. While this calculus may add up on paper, how realistic is it when we take it to the streets? We may be able to foresee some of the consequences of our actions, but who can really foresee all of them, to say nothing of the consequences of the consequences, and so on?

Third, utilitarian hedonism creates more than a few awkward situations in real life. Writes MacKinnon, “We are told to act so as to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number. But is not ten parts of happiness distributed over two people—five parts of happiness each—as much the greatest happiness for the greatest number as ten parts of happiness distributed evenly to ten people?”⁹

Fourth, critics object that utilitarianism and hedonism are incompatible with everyday moral decisions. People for the most part understand what it means to tell the truth and to keep their promises. But what about situations where breaking a promise would promote the happiness of someone you love or others? What about moral dilemmas where the principle of utility and the idea of justice conflict? Would you be willing to offer up to Nazi soldiers Jewish refugees hidden in your basement if it meant you wouldn’t have to lie to save them?

Finally, like hedonism, utilitarianism is a naturalistic ethic—it takes its cue from nature, or from what is. Now, like the citizens of Omelas who achieve the greatest happiness from torturing a starving child, the utilitarians’ moral world is wide open to the charge of the naturalistic fallacy. They are trying to derive an ought from an is. Are not their so-called factual judgments of their reality confused with value judgments of how their reality “really” is? Is it possible that they might actually be enslaved by the “natural masters” of pain or pleasure, preferring to exalt the good of pleasure above the demagogue of pain at all costs without ever considering what they “ought” to be doing instead?

An endless night falls on the theory of utilitarian hedonism after only a cursory questioning. We stand outside the gates of Omelas and watch those who choose to walk away pass by, alone, going west or north towards the mountains.

Strange! Weren’t we once the ones leaving, too? Where did we go? To whom did we run for a chance at a new life?

C. Wayne Mayhall is a frequent contributor to the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL. He is also an adjunct professor of philosophy at Liberty University and Regent University and the author of Patterns of Religion (Cengage, 2004), and Religious Autobiographies (Cengage, 2002).

notes

1 Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morality and Legislation (1823 ed.; Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1907), 1.

2 Written by Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” was first published in the magazine New Directions in 1973. It was subsequently printed in her short story collection The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004). Excerpts from the story appearing at the beginning of this article are used by permission of the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency, P.O. Box 278 538, East Hartford Street Milford, PA 18337 USA. Le Guin devised the town’s name by reading a roadside sign backwards as it appeared in the rearview mirror of her car—“Omelas” is an anagram of Salem, Oregon.

3 There is hardly enough space in this article to give a full account, either historically or philosophically, of utilitarian ethics. For further exploration I suggest the following: Mel Thompson, Teach Yourself Ethics (Oxford: Teach Yourself Publications, 2003), 63–77; Donald Palmer, Why It’s Hard to Be Good: an Introduction to Ethical Theory (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), 184–226; Theodore C. Denise, et al., Great Traditions in Ethics, twelfth ed., (Florence, KY.: Wadsworth Publishing, 2007), 156–169; Fred and Christina Sommers, Vice & Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics, sixth ed., (Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2008), 93–110.

4 Barbara MacKinnon, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues (Florence, KY.: Wadsworth, 2004), 48.

5 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. Oskar Priest (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 10–11. 6 Ibid., 11–12. 7 Ibid., 12. 8 Ibid., 12. 9 MacKinnon, Ethics, 50.

6 Ibid., 11–12.

7 Ibid., 12.

8 Ibid., 12.

9 MacKinnon, Ethics, 50.

Synopsis

Radical skepticism about the external world is the idea that we cannot have accurate knowledge about the physical world outside of our minds. That idea, if true, would block the truth-seeker’s attempt to gain knowledge of God based on God’s revelation in the physical world. We can, however, examine four types of radical skepticism concerning the external world—funky/pop skepticism, sensory skepticism, Kantian skepticism, and linguistic skepticism— and show that they fail.

According to funky/pop skepticism, our knowledge of the external world is blocked because various logical possibilities can be raised—that we are in a dream or are living in a computer-generated virtual reality, for example. This type of skepticism confuses possibility with plausibility.

According to sensory skepticism, we do not know the external world because we cannot trust our senses, since they have deceived us in the past. This skepticism fails, however, because from the fact that our senses sometimes deceive us, it does not follow that they always do.

According to Kantian skepticism, we do not know the world because the mind’s structures are a distorting influence on our knowledge of what is real. This view, however, seems to require at least some accurate, i.e., undistorted, knowledge of the reality and influence of the mind’s structures. But this requirement contradicts the core of Kantian skepticism (that the mind’s structures are a distorting influence on our knowledge of what is real), rendering its broader skeptical claims dubious.

According to linguistic skepticism, we do not know the world because language refers only to other language, it is a “prison” that keeps us from the world. This view of language, however, is false, because the existence of ostensive definition (definition by pointing) makes it possible for people to get out of the dictionary and to the world.

Other reasons also render the radical skepticisms seriously problematic. One significant reason is that the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of those who would deny the obvious; when radical skeptics fail to provide such proof, the obvious—the idea that we can know the external world—remains.

Radical skepticism concerning the external world is the philosophical view that we cannot have accurate knowledge about the physical reality that exists outside our minds. Sadly, if a person believes that the external world cannot be known, then it will be difficult for that person to know that (as Psalm 19:1–2 and Romans 1:20 state) the physical world—its glorious heavens included—declares the existence of its Creator. l Following the apostle Paul’s mandate to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5), in this article I will look at four types of radical skepticism—funky/pop, sensory, Kantian, and linguistic—and will show that they fail. Those who deny the obvious, as do radical skeptics, must shoulder the burden of proof;the radical skeptics’ failure to disprove the obvious means that the obvious remains: we can know the external world.

FUNKY/POP SKEPTICISM: BLINDED BY LOGICAL POSSIBILITY

Funky/pop skepticism is my label for a radical skepticism about the external world that probably is best explained by considering some examples. (The examples are a bit weird, hence funky. The notion is common due to the influence of media on contemporary popular culture, hence pop.)

Consider the film The Matrix. Suppose we are characters in this story: what we perceive to be real is merely a computer-generated illusion, but in actuality, each of us is floating in an amniotic-sac-like pod with our nervous systems and brains wired into a common virtual reality. Whatever we sense—that is, whatever we think we sense—is merely what a supercomputer programs for us to sense. Nothing we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch is real.

Prior to The Matrix series of films, philosophers entertained a similar possibility. Some suggested that we are merely brains in vats, kept alive by a mad scientist who feeds us patterns of electrical impulses that mimic our sensory organs.

Consider also the possibility that you are at this very moment dreaming. (This example originates with René Descartes [1596–1650].)¹ Whatever you see, hear, smell, taste, touch—and read—is simply part of your dream.

How do you know that, right now, you are not in something like The Matrix? Or that you are not a brain in a vat? Or that you are not dreaming? I might answer that I believe I am not in The Matrix because I have not yet met agent Smith. (Smith, according to the film series, is a representative of the supercomputer.) The skeptic would respond that the supercomputer wants to keep me in the dark. I might argue that I am not a brain in a vat because I can feel my skull with my hands. The skeptic answers that the mad scientist has wired me to perceive that I am touching my skull when in fact I’m not really touching anything. Let’s say that I argue that I’m pretty sure that I’m not dreaming because I heard my alarm go off this morning. The skeptic answers that it’s not at all unusual for one to hear one’s alarm go off in one’s dream. Alarmingly (sorry), any evidence that I present against the skeptic can be subsumed under the Matrix hypothesis, the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, or the dream hypothesis. Should I thus give up my knowledge of the external world?

A Rational Reply to Funky/Pop Skepticism

There is a reasonable way to answer the funky/pop skeptic. In fact, there are five ways, which together constitute a formidable cumulative case argument.²

First, following the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), we can point out that to imagine a doubt is not really to have that doubt.³ We can imagine, say, that the Statue of Liberty is a robot—but that’s not really to believe it actually might be a robot. That is, we can imagine the doubt that the statue isn’t really a statue, but that’s not actually to doubt it’s a statue. So, yes, I can imagine that I am in a computer-generated world, but that doesn’t mean I truly believe I might in fact be in such a world. Simply put: imagining isn’t doubting. To think otherwise is to conflate two distinct cognitive categories.

Second, we can point out that if one were to be convinced of any of the above skeptical hypotheses, then one would be confusing logical possibility with plausibility/probability. Yes, it is logically possible that the moon is made of green cheese (i.e., there is no logical contradiction in this claim), but from this it does not follow logically that the moon actually is made of green cheese. In other words, the mere logical possibility of X is not the same as an adequate justification for X; therefore, the mere possibility of doubt does not constitute sufficient grounds for doubt.

Third, we can point out that there is no compelling reason to accept any of the funky/pop hypotheses. After all, all we have is the skeptic’s mere assertion (of a mere logical possibility).

Fourth, we can point out that belief in any of the funky/pop hypotheses requires a denial of many of our prior beliefs that are logically incompatible with those hypotheses. Furthermore, these prior beliefs are not without epistemic weight—that is, they also count as contenders for knowledge.

Fifth, we can point out that if, for the sake of argument, we accept mere assertions of bare logical possibilities as sufficient grounds for the truth of those assertions, then, to be consistent, we should believe all mere assertions of logical possibilities as truths. This, however, would mean that all logical possibilities are true, which is plainly absurd. We would have to believe that The Matrix is true, and that the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is true, and that the dream hypothesis is true, and that The Lord of the Rings is true, and that Batman is true, and that the moon is made of cheese, and that the moon isn’t made of cheese, and…you get the picture.

In other words, rational persons can weigh the pros and cons—in this case, one pro that consists of a mere assertion of funky/pop skepticism versus five cons or counter-considerations—to conclude that it is reasonable not to believe funky/pop skepticism.⁴

SENSORY SKEPTICISM: BLINDED BY OUR SENSES

Sensory skepticism tells us that we cannot know the external world because our senses deceive us. (This skepticism, like the previously mentioned dream hypothesis, also is inspired by Descartes.) Consider the following examples. When rowing my boat, I put an oar into the water, but then the oar appears bent. When walking in the countryside, I see a flat wall on a distant farm building, but as I get closer the wall turns out to be curved. When strolling along the railroad tracks, I see that the metal rails look straight and parallel, but on the horizon they appear to meet. When driving my car on a hot summer day, I see water on the road ahead, but as I continue to drive I observe that the road is dry. While volunteering as a subject for psychology research, I see a red six of hearts as the researcher flashes a playing card, but later discover that it was a red six of spades.⁵ Clearly, my senses do deceive me. They therefore should not be trusted.

A Rational Reply to Sensory Skepticism

There are three reasonable criticisms that we can set out against radical sensory skepticism. I describe each of them as follows.

First, always does not follow logically from sometimes. The fact that we are sometimes deceived by our senses does not mean that we are always deceived by them.

Second, to know that our senses sometimes deceive us requires that they sometimes or often do not. Indeed, for us to discern that I mistakenly think that the oar is bent, that the wall is flat, that the tracks do not remain parallel, that the road is wet, or that the card is a red six of hearts requires that we have clear and accurate sensory knowledge. It presupposes that we know—accurately—that the oar is in fact straight, that the wall is in fact curved, that the tracks are in fact parallel, that the road is in fact dry, and that the card is in fact a red six of spades. The argument of the sensory skeptic, then, requires as legitimate and true what it purports to show is not legitimate and true. It self-refutes.

Third, because the argument for sensory skepticism very apparently fails, our senses’ prima facie veridicality—that is, their very apparent truthfulness—remains. As mentioned, the burden of proof belongs to those who deny the obvious, so the senses are innocent until proven guilty. It is reasonable, then, to go with what our senses tell us about the world, as long as we have no overriding reason to doubt them, and as long as we’re careful.

KANTIAN SKEPTICISM: BLINDED BY OUR MENTAL STRUCTURES

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) set out a theory of knowledge that inspired yet another form of radical skepticism.6 According to Kant, all our knowledge begins with sensory experience, but the human mind—via its conditioners of sense-experience and its categories of thought—makes a significant contribution to this knowledge. These conditioners and categories determine what we can experience, and even shape our experience. Using Kant’s terminology, all we can perceive is phenomena (what our mind has conditioned and categorized), not noumena (the things themselves).

In effect, our mental conditioners and categories are like rose-tinted glasses that project pink onto all we see. Our mental conditioners project space and time, and our mental categories project category-specific thought onto all we experience.

Via our mind’s category of, say, causality, we project causation onto events we experience. We project cause onto, say, a pool cue hitting a pool ball, and thereby we “know” that the cue “causes” the ball’s movement. Via the mind’s category of substance, we project the notion of material stuff onto what appears to be, say, a brick. We do the same with various other mental categories, such as existence. (According to Kant, there are twelve such categories.)

Our mental conditioners and categories are even more like a meat-grinder/sausage-making machine than tinted glasses. What we can perceive and know—the phenomena, which have been shaped by the conditioners and categories—would be the sausages. What is real—the noumena, besides the meat that is shaped into sausages (which we only know as sausages)—would be the stuff that does not fit into the grinder (e.g., the knives, the butcher, bicycles, and suspension bridges). No matter how much we grind, we won’t really know the external world.

A Rational Reply to Kantian Skepticism

We need not accept Kantian skepticism, for four reasons.

First, if Kantian skepticism is true, then science’s search for causal connections/laws ultimately is a search for connections/laws that are not really in the world, but in our heads. That this is a search for what is not really in the world is plainly false; therefore, Kantian skepticism is false.

Second, as philosopher Jim Leffel astutely observes, “The success of scientific technology is a strong argument that our perceptions of the world are relatively accurate. Countless achievements attest to the reliability of human knowledge. We can engineer enormously sophisticated rockets to propel men to the moon, and provide health care that has more than doubled human life expectancy. We couldn’t do these things without an essentially reliable correspondence between our ideas of reality and reality itself.”⁷

Third, for Kantian skeptics to perceive that the mind cannot perceive things as they are requires that the mind can. The Kantian skeptical position assumes that the skeptic can stand outside the meat-grinder/sausage-making machine and see the meat, the grinder, the table, and so on. If the skeptic is correct that the mind cannot see things as they are, however, then he or she should only see sausages, and nothing else. If the skeptic can have this “outside” view, then, surely, so can everyone.

The previous point can be argued more carefully as follows. The Kant-inspired skeptic holds to the thesis that humans misperceive the world through their colored and distorted concepts of it (hereafter, this thesis will be referred to as the Kantian thesis). In other words, the Kantian thesis has to do with a particular aspect of the world, that is, that humans in fact misperceive the world via their concepts. To gain traction, Kantian skepticism must involve an admission that we can know, via our concepts, that the Kantian thesis is true. This, however, means that the skeptic must presuppose an alternative non-Kantian thesis, a thesis that holds that humans, via their concepts, actually do know the world in a noncolored, nondistorting way. Now, because this alternative thesis is not self-contradictory (and thus not knocked out of the explanatory competition right at the start); because the Kantian thesis requires that the alternative thesis is true (albeit with respect to a limited domain); and because there seems to be no overriding reason to limit the domain of the alternative thesis in the way the Kantian thesis does, we can conclude that the doubt the Kantian thesis casts on observation is seriously weakened. This means that it is quite reasonable to accept as accurate the evidence that our observations of the everyday/scientific sort very apparently and very often are accurate.⁸

Fourth, Kant’s theory of knowledge faces other deep problems. The categories of understanding are supposed to apply to phenomena, not noumena. The category of causation, however, is applied to noumena (as the cause of the phenomena). The category of existence is applied to noumena too (noumena is said to exist), and so on. In other words, Kant’s view is contradictory in some of its crucial tenets; thus, it is reasonable not to succumb to Kantian skepticism.

LINGUISTIC SKEPTICISM: BLINDED BY LANGUAGE

According to linguistic skepticism (which lurks behind some postmodernist philosophizing), we cannot know truth about the world in an objective way because of the distorting effect of language. On this view, we think only in language, and language refers only to other language, so language is a “prison” (of signifiers) that keeps us from knowing anything outside language. There is no reference to an extra-linguistic world, and words continually refer to each other; because of this there is a never-ending deferral of meaning. Also, the semantics (word meanings) and syntax (grammatical structure) of languages are not fixed; they are, rather, social constructions (cultural creations), so the way people understand reality is dependent on culture, which varies. Consequently:

• There is no objective truth; each community has its own mere “story” or ”narrative.”
• There is no objective rationality; we reason in language, which is culture-dependent.
• There are no objective ethics; values are relative to culture, too.
• Therefore, power rules; the dominating cultural group ultimately controls the language (wittingly or unwittingly), so it determines “truth,” rationality, and ethics.

We thus should be radically suspicious of alleged knowledge of the external world.

A Rational Reply to Linguistic Skepticism

We should not be persuaded by linguistic skepticism. The following reasons demonstrate that language does not always shield us from truth, as linguistic skepticism suggests.

First, and most important, the linguistic skeptic’s view of language is false. To be sure, language often refers to other language (check any dictionary). It is simply not the case, however, that language is completely defined by other language. There is such a thing as ostensive definition—that is, the fact that we define our words by physically pointing at the extralinguistic thing(s) to which we intend our words to refer.⁹ Language, then, is not a “prison” that keeps us from reality; there is no endless deferral of meaning. We do use words to communicate information about the extralinguistic world, and we—linguistic skeptics included—do this quite well. Linguistic skeptics refer us to their writings, but those writings are extralinguistic markings (called print) found on extralinguistic objects (called pages), found in other extralinguistic objects (called books), located on yet other extralinguistic objects (called shelves), and so on. Linguistic skeptics even be­come upset if we misrepresent their written work.

Second, although the semantics and syntax of languages are not absolutely fixed (they are contingent social constructions), it does not follow that our understanding of reality depends wholly on language and so is wholly socially constructed. Yes, labels and how they are used are in fact dependent on the language system in use and are in a sense arbitrary. The word “dog” is actually an arbitrary collection of letters (in France, people use “chien,” in the Netherlands, “hond”). The semantics and grammar we use with the word are conventional (culturally dependent, not absolutely fixed). Such labels, nonetheless, can refer successfully to extralinguistic entities. Think of the dog down the street. The dog itself clearly is not a mere social construction, as the torn pant leg will attest. In other words, relativity of term selection and use does not mean that language cannot refer to external reality, nor that external reality has no say (or bite).

Third, we legitimately can ask, is there really no objective truth? To answer this question, it may be helpful to look to Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), who, famously, wrote the following:

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical and binding. Truths are illusions we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.

If truth is mere metaphor or illusion, then Nietzsche’s claim, which purports to be true, is mere metaphor or illusion. If truth is not mere metaphor or illusion, then Nietzsche’s claim is false. Either way, why bother with Nietzsche’s claim?¹⁰

The fact is that there is something called simple truth. Simple truth is the (correspondence) notion of truth of which we are all aware and which we all use in science and in everyday life. For example, it is true that water freezes at 32° Fahrenheit, it is true that my desk is made primarily of wood, and so forth.

Fourth, the claim that standards of rationality are wholly relative to the community or tribe is false. The principle of noncontradiction, for example, is a fundamental principle of logic that is applicable to all. The principle of noncontradiction states that something cannot both be and not be, at the same time and in the same respect. (We can see this as necessarily true: can anyone be taller and not taller than a particular neighbor of his or hers, at the same time and in the same respect? Moreover, argument forms exist that are deductively valid,¹¹ and thus applicable to all as well.¹²

Fifth, that moral relativism is true can be seriously challenged. Poking pins into a baby’s eyes for fun surely is wrong for everyone, everywhere, always.¹³

Sixth, the fact that language and power are often intertwined is grounds for caution, not radical skepticism. People who have power (e.g., politicians) might use words that carry persuasive emotional appeals rather than truth (e.g., “only rednecks vote for [the politician you like the least]”). The claim, however, that language is wholly a power play and thus not capable of communicating knowledge is false. The truth or falsity of sentences depends on the facts of the world, not on power agendas. That’s why we are able to check up on power-mongering politicians to hold them accountable. Moreover, if (contrary to fact) language were wholly a power play, then we would have no good grounds to believe the linguistic skeptic’s arguments, because he or she merely would be using language to exert power over us.

In sum, we should be careful with language, because sometimes our language is unclear, ambiguous, emotionally loaded, or false, for example. Language, nevertheless, need not and does not always blind us to truth about the extratextual world; thus, linguistic skepticism fails.¹⁴

REASONABLE SKEPTICISM, RADICAL SKEPTICISM, AND REASONABLE FAITH

We have examined funky/pop skepticism’s alleged blinding by its assertion of mere logical possibilities, sensory skepticism’s alleged blinding due to our senses getting it wrong from time to time, Kantian skepticism’s alleged blinding by the influences of the mind’s structures/filters, and linguistic skepticism’s alleged blinding by language—and we have found some good reasons to be skeptical about each of these radical skepticisms. Of course, we often make mistakes—but sometimes we don’t. Of course, we don’t know the external world exhaustively or absolutely—but sometimes we do know some of it reasonably and fallibly. Of course, we don’t have X-ray vision—but we are not blind either.

This is good news. It turns out that because we can know at least some of the external world (in a limited way), we can find reasonable evidence for the existence of God. Scientifically based evidence and good reasoning lead us to believe that the universe had a beginning; that it was caused; that that cause transcends matter, energy, space, and time; that the arrangement of the universe was fine-tuned for life; and that life itself—the cell’s molecular machines and DNA’s code/language—is exquisitely fine-tuned. All of this points to an intelligent and powerful supernatural cause. Historical investigation of the external world gives us further reason to believe the New Testament’s witness concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. In other words, the external world points us to the Christian worldview, the gospel, and a reasonable faith in Jesus Christ.¹⁵

Hendrik van der Breggen, Ph.D. (University of Waterloo), is assistant professor of philosophy at Providence College and Seminary, Otterburne, Manitoba.

notes

1 René Descartes, “Meditation One,” in Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1986), 58.

2 A cumulative case argument consists of a collection of arguments that, individually, may not provide strong or decisive support for a conclusion, but jointly do—just as one strand of string may not be strong enough to lift a heavy load but several interwoven strands are.

3 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), no. 84, p. 39e.

4 The idea of weighing the above considerations (especially the third and fourth) against the skeptical position comes from Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (Foster City, CA: IDG Books, 1999), 72–74.

5 See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 62–64, 112–13. The card example (as well as the other examples) can also fit under Kant-inspired skepticism, i.e., skepticism arising from conceptual categories, schemes, or even paradigms, as well as under linguistic or postmodern skepticism, to be discussed.

6 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp-Smith (London: Macmillan, 1929; reprint 1986).

7 Jim Leffel, “Postmodernism and ‘The Myth of Progress’: Two Visions,” in The Death of Truth, ed. Dennis McCallum (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1996), 52.

8 My argument is heavily influenced by Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 92–96. “The second-order theories [e.g., Kant’s theory, i.e., the view that our concepts/perceptions do not get us to the external mind-independent world] cannot avoid competition with the content of what they are trying to reduce or debunk [i.e., that our concepts really do get us to the external mind-independent world]” (Nagel, 96).

9 Wesley C. Salmon, Logic, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984), 145. This point is from Douglas Groothuis’s excellent book Truth Decay: Defending Christianity against the Challenges of Postmodernism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 95.Friedrich Nietzsche, “Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” in The Nietzsche Reader, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson and Duncan Large (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 117.

10 If, contrary to what his words seem to mean, Nietzsche is talking only about some or many (but not all) alleged “truths” not being genuinely true, then we should have no quarrel with him. Such a scenario would warrant a careful case-by-case investigation, however difficult, but not radical skepticism. If in his rejection of truth, however, Nietzsche means that truth is nothing but interpretation that precludes accurate knowledge of the external world, then Nietzsche seems unduly influenced by Kantian skepticism and unaware of the significance of ostensive definition apart from Kant’s influence, which provides us with what philosophers call knowledge by acquaintance. For more on knowledge by acquaintance, see J. P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 120–130. For a helpful and generally sympathetic look at Nietzsche, see Robert Wicks, Nietzsche (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002).

For more on the concept of simple truth, see: Michael Luntley, Reason, Truth, and Self: The Postmodern Reconditioned (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 103–23; and J. P. Moreland, “Truth, Contemporary Philosophy, and the Postmodern Turn,” in Andreas Köstenberger, ed., Whatever Happened to Truth? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 75–92.

11 Deductive validity means that whenever an argument’s premises are true, then the argument’s conclusion is true too; that is, it’s not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false.

12 The valid argument form modus ponens is stated thus (where P and Q respresent declarative sentences): If P then Q; P; therefore Q. Consider this form as exemplified by the following argument: If Fido is a dog, then Fido is mortal; Fido is a dog; therefore Fido is mortal. The argument is deductively valid everywhere and always. See also Salmon, Logic, chap. 2 , and Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument, 6th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005), chaps. 7–8.

13 For further explanation see Paul Chamberlain, Can We Be Good Without God? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996); Russ Shafer-Landau, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

14 It seems to me that the text has priority in interpretation: we seek out the context (historical and linguistic) to which the text directs us, then we seek out specific meaning in that context, to which the text also directs us. In other words, the text directs through its context to the meaning that the text was intended to point to by its author, and this meaning is picked up by the reader. For more, see the appendices of Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

15 On the external world’s evidence for the Christian worldview, see Chad V. Meister, Building Belief: Constructing Faith from the Ground Up (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006); and William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008).

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who critiqued the traditional view of epistemology (the study of knowledge) and sought a compromise between rationalism and empiricism. Rather than primarily or exclusively relying on human reason or experience to arrive at truth, Kant instead sought a philosophical synthesis of these approaches. In so doing, Kant’s philosophy resulted in skepticism such that what we can actually know about God is severely limited, if not entirely crippled. Kant jettisoned traditional theistic proofs for God as utilized by natural theology, but sought to ground ethics, in part, in his concepts of categorical imperatives or universal maxims to guide morality, rather than rooting ethics in God’s love and revealed truths.

Writing of the incarnation of Christ, the Gospel of Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14: “’The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23 NIV). Although philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) bore the name meaning “God with us,” his ideas resulted in skepticism that places God beyond us.

But who was Kant? What was the historical context in philosophy that moved him to form and develop his ideas? How do we respond to Kant’s philosophy? How are his ideas relevant to contemporary Christian apologetics?

Before addressing such questions, it will be beneficial to cover briefly two points. First, we need to address why we should study philosophy at all, particularly the variety that tends to harm rather than help Christianity. Second, we must become familiar with the basic vocabulary and concepts of philosophy.

Space does not allow for a thorough defense of the value of studying philosophy, so only brief points are made here. The objection is sometimes raised that the Bible prohibits the study of philosophy on the basis of passages such as Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” Note that the caution offered concerns the need to be discerning combined with a warning against “hollow and deceptive philosophy.”

Being discerning of philosophy requires some level of familiarity and understanding of it. Moreover, not all philosophy is “bad.” As C. S. Lewis succinctly put it, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”¹ Learning to interact with, and respond intelligently to, philosophicalideas is part of the Christian calling to love God with all of our minds and to defend the faith (see Matt. 22:37 and 1 Pet. 3:15).

Philosophy is the “love of wisdom.” Wisdom includes the ability to make correct judgments based on a proper understanding of reality. Any thoughtful study of philosophy requires familiarity with the basic terms of the discipline. Three questions summarize main areas of philosophical study: (1) What is ultimate reality? (2) How do we know? and (3) How should this knowledge of ultimate reality guide our conduct?

The first covers metaphysics, sometimes called ontology, which attempts to go beyond the physical realm to understand and answer questions such as, “Does God exist?” If so, what kind of God?

The second question covers epistemology, or questions regarding knowledge. Epistemology asks questions such as, “How is truth justified? What is knowledge? How do we know anything?”

The third question relates to ethics, the branch of philosophy concerned with right and wrong (what ought or what ought not to be done) and, consequently, how one should or should not live. As we shall see, Kant’s major contributions to philosophy are in the areas of epistemology and ethics, but they also touch on metaphysics.

KANT, RATIONALISM, AND EMPIRICISM

Influential philosophical ideas rarely if ever simply fall out of the heavens and into history. They are, rather, the result of the philosophical milieu of the time. For Kant, this included tension between two significant philosophical systems and how they relate to knowledge: rationalism and empiricism.

As its name suggestions, rationalism focuses on reason as the primary or, in extreme forms, the only means of arriving at truth. Historically, key rationalists include Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Christian Wolff. It may be said, then, that rationalism is an a priori philosophical approach, meaning that a philosophical proposition is said to be determinable prior to sensory investigation or experience.

Empiricism, on the other hand, as a philosophical approach to knowledge, is a posteriori, viewing sensory experience as paramount in determining truth. Historically, key empiricists include Francis Bacon, John Locke, and David Hume.

One of the key philosophical goals Kant wanted to accomplish was to synthesize rationalism and empiricism intelligently in order to arrive at a better system of epistemology. In short, Kant wanted to arrive at “a Copernican revolution of the theory of knowledge.”²

KANT’S LIFE AND WORK

Are Kant’s ideas the result of his personality and personal life? They may or may not be to a certain degree. We should not, however, seek to understand Kant’s philosophical ideas primarily on the basis of personal aspects of his life. C. S. Lewis referred to this sort of emphasis in approach to understanding poetry by understandingthe personal life of a poet as “the personal heresy,”³ because of potential pitfalls. Applying a similar concern toKantian studies, Winfried Corduan writes, “Perhaps too much has been made out of the fact that Kant spent his entire life in Königsberg, East Prussia [Germany], leading a regular and disciplined life.”⁴ Corduan goes on to write, “[Kant] was far from insular in his thinking.”⁵

Kant’s family background was Lutheran, of a particularly pietistic variety. He began his studies at the University ofKönigsberg at the age of sixteen, where he studied the rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff. His studies of empiricist thinker David Hume would later spur Kant’s thinking in reference to synthesizing rationalism and empiricism.

In 1755, Kant accepted a lectureship with his former university, but the position was unsalaried (Kant’s students paid him directly). His fifteen years of service in this capacity resulted in the university appointing Kant, in 1770, to a position in logic and metaphysics. Kant’s inaugural address made note of his desire to reconcile rationalism and empiricism, something he worked on for many years until the publication of The Critique of Pure Reason(1781). Other key works include Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), Foundation for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793).

Kant never married or traveled far, but his ideas influenced the history of philosophy, traveling the world and spreading what Kant believed was his Copernican revolution in epistemology.

KANT’S KEY IDEAS

A thorough presentation and critique of Kant’s philosophy is beyond the scope of this article.⁶ Much time, for instance, would have to be spent just on explaining Kant’s unique definitions of terms such as synthetic, phenomenal, noumenal, transcendental deduction, ampliative, antinomies, and more. Fortunately, the fundamental concepts of Kant’s philosophy and their particular relevance to the Christian worldview and apologetics can be presented in a straightforward manner.

Rather than delve deeply into Kant’s metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, we will concentrate first on presenting a basic outline of Kant’s epistemology, offer an apologetic example of Kant’s ethics, and briefly note the importance and interconnectedness of Kant’s ideas in relation to metaphysics.

Studying with rationalists such as Wolff resulted in Kant’s initial rationalism, but his encounter with Hume’s empiricism, in Kant’s words, “first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction.”⁷ Ultimately, Kant argued that the beginning of knowledge is experiential, but not exclusively so. Rationalism, too, has something to offer and the mind can help us know.

Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” in epistemology is “that the mind is so structured and empowered that it imposes interpretive categories on our experience, so that we do not simply experience the world, as the empiricists alleged, but interpret it through the constitutive mechanisms of the mind.”⁸

Knowledge, then, “is not the mind’s passive reception of orderly truth from outside itself, but the active work of the mind in formulating the very truths it is assimilating.”⁹ In short, Kant believed in the reality of knowledge, but wanted to know how we know.

Unfortunately, Kant’s epistemology for all practical purposes resulted in skepticism, effectively cutting off any valuable access to metaphysics and, hence, God. As such, in Kant’s philosophy, God is not with us, but beyond us. As Colin Brown writes, “In effect, Kant is saying, ‘Hands off metaphysics!’ For metaphysics are completely beyond the grasp of the human mind.”¹⁰

Ultimately, Kant’s philosophy also resulted in his rejection of natural theology and traditional “proofs” for the existence of God because Kant’s epistemology does not allow for apprehension of viable knowledge in the realm of metaphysics.¹¹ Despite Kant’s rejection of traditional classical arguments for God such as cosmological,¹² teleological,¹³ and ontological¹⁴ forms, it’s interesting to note Kant’s seeming recognition of at least the emotional impact such arguments may have: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and themoral law within” (emphasis in original).¹⁵

As we shall see next, Kant’s ethics offer some value for the Christian apologist.

KANT, CHRIST, AND THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

Despite the resultant skepticism of Kant’s epistemology, his ethics offer an intriguing potential for an argument in favor of Christian ethics. This argument, presented here in brief, is particularly relevant in light of contemporary atheistic challenges to Christianity that claim, among other things, that Christianity is morally harmful.Christianity, for instance, is often accused of contributing to strife, violence, and suffering in the world. While it is true that some Christians in some instances in history and the present are responsible for such behavior, it is far from true of all Christians. This argument will utilize one form of what is known as Kant’s categorical imperative and apply it to some key ethical principles of Christ and Christianity.

As Kant explained, “I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law” (emphasis in original).¹⁶ Kant is stating in this succinct presentation of one form of the categorical imperative that our moral behavior based on a specific maxim or maxims should be tested against its results if it were to become universal. In other words, what if everyone behaved this way? Would this result in a positive situation or a negative one? Christ said we are to love God, love neighbor (Matt. 22:37–38), and, in this context of love, to do to others what you would have them do to you (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31).

Let us apply these Christian concepts universally.

What if everyone loved God, loved their neighbor, and would “do to others what you would have them do to you”?Would this result in a positive or negative situation in the world? Would it contribute to strife, violence, and suffering in the world, or would it alleviate it? Granted, not every Christian in every instance of behavior achieves or expresses the ideal maxims of Christ. Indeed, Christianity grants that we often fail. But the underlying moral principles of Christ and Christianity offer benefits to society, not detriments.

Are there similar universal maxims of atheism that would contribute as positively as those of Christianity? Atheism posits a godless universe that is the result of chance and time. Moreover, there are no transcendent and authoritative moral standards in atheism. Instead, the end result of atheism is logically that of despair in a meaningless universe, secular humanism notwithstanding. In short, atheism can offer no categorical imperative that would justify superiority to the moral maxims of Christianity. In fact, a case can be made that atheism does not on the whole contribute positively to the world.

KANT’S LEGACY, OUR OPPORTUNITY?

Despite disagreements with aspects of Kant’s epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, his efforts highlight the importance of using our minds in order to better understand reality. Far from being detached and irrelevant, Kant’s philosophy continues to influence the world of ideas, with some thinkers crediting him with the riseof subjectivism and “the subsequent arrival of phenomenology, existentialism and postmodern relativistic philosophies.”¹⁷ In addition, incorporating or adapting philosophical concepts such as one form of Kant’s categorical imperative, aids in improving our apologetic efforts.

Far from being a lofty, enigmatic, or impractical pursuit, philosophy plays a key role not only in our everyday lives in areas such as ethical decision-making, but also a practical and relevant role when it comes to evaluating and understanding worldviews. In reality, as we pursue such endeavors, God is not beyond us, but isindeed with us.

Robert Velarde is author of Conversations with C. S. Lewis (InterVarsity Press), The Heart of Narnia (NavPress), and Inside The Screwtape Letters (Baker Books). He studied philosophy of religion at Denver Seminary and is pursuing graduate studies in philosophy at Southern Evangelical Seminary.

notes

1 C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 28.

2 Louis P. Pojman, Classics of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 819. Kant’s own suggestion that he desired to bring about a Copernican revolution in epistemology is found in his preface to the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason (1787).

3 C. S. Lewis and E. M. W. Tillyard, The Personal Heresy: A Controversy (London: Oxford University Press, 1939). This book has recently been reprinted by Concordia University (2008).

4 W. C. Campbell-Jack and Gavin McGrath, eds., New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), s.v., “Kant, Immanuel.”

5 Ibid.

6 For more in-depth Christian critiques of Kant see Colin Brown, Philosophy and the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968); Gordon Clark, Thales to Dewey (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 1957, 2003); and Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume VI: Modern Philosophy, from the French Enlightenment to Kant (New York: Image, 1993). Brown and Clark reject natural theology, but not for the same reasons as Kant. Copleston approaches some aspects of philosophy from a Roman Catholic perspective, but in general offers erudite and insightful Christian critiques. A useful secular overview of Kant is found in Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), s.v., “Kant, Immanuel.”

7 Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, in Pojman, 824.

8 Pojman, 821. See the second edition preface to Critique of Pure Reason (1787).

9 Campbell-Jack, s.v., “Kant, Immanuel” (entry by Winfried Corduan).

10 Brown, 95.

11 An evaluation of the apologetic efficacy of natural theology is beyond our scope. For a recent Christian defense of natural theology see James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis, eds., In Defense of Natural Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

12 Cosmological arguments claim God is the explanation of a causal universe (i.e., a universe that could not have caused itself ).

13 Teleological arguments point to evidence of design in the universe as indicators of God’s existence.

14 Ontological arguments claim the very concept of God supports the necessity of His existence.

15 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2003), 360.

16 Kant, Foundation for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), in Pojman, 880.

17 Campbell-Jack, s.v., “Kant, Immanuel.”

In one of his editorials¹ journal editor DerekH. Davis compassionately argues for a degree of separation of church and state and offers this advice to President GeorgeW. Bush: “If I could tell the president anything it would be that there is danger in attaching his policies too closely to his personal faith, if in fact that is what he is doing. The Founding Fathers formally and wisely erected a constitutionally non-religious state, a republic whose affairs were not to be pursued according to one man’s religious vision.”² He goes on to write, “Omitting God’s name from the Constitution was intentional on the part of the Founding Fathers, not because they did not look to God providentially to direct the nation, but because they believed that the human person is sacred and that each person’s religious conscience can be respected only if the state declares itself incompetent regarding religious matters and leaves religion as much as possible to each individual”³ (emphasis added).

I need only note the example of Roev. Wade over the last three decades to support the case Davis makes for the incompetence of the state regarding religious matters. I have concerns, however, about his insistence on the fact that a separation from such incompetence is necessary in order to leave religious matters up to the individual. Davis, although quite generous in his evaluation of the democratic,⁴ fails to realize the most glaring of its inadequacies—that rule by a people that is not predisposed to heavenly-mindedness tends to become, over time, not much earthly good for the kingdom of God.

With its roots in ancient Greece and Rome, its phenomenal growth in post-French revolutionary Europe, and its adoption into the fabric of colonial America, the concept of separation of church and state flourished. In the twenty-first century, however, the state is overwhelmingly secularist, and the church reels in the wake of privatization (keep God to yourself) and pluralization (don’t impose God upon the secular or sacred gods of others). Catholic theologian Plinio Correa de Oliveira writes regarding the humble beginnings of separation, “This immense transformation, the natural and typical fruit of a tendency towards laicization [the exclusion of religion from society by removing control from the church] that has made itself progressively felt in the various sectors of Western culture, in society, and in life itself, was inherently prejudicial.”⁵

I believe with Correa de Oliveira that faith is the foundation for virtue and virtue is essential for the realization that salvation is necessary for membership in the new heaven and earth to come, and that laicization is thus contrary to faith. I realize that such a conclusion leads others to label me with the oft-maligned and superficially understood term “theocrat”; nonetheless, I am eager to declare that I am a theocrat, and to state that democratic tolerance is merely smoke and mirrors.⁶ Further, I believe that my claim has ample support from Paul, the greatest of Christ-followers.

Paul’s Political Nature. Paul had been arrested by the Romans and thrown into prison when he wrote his letter to the Philippians. Because he was in immediate political danger, he was careful to disguise his political and social ideas⁷ in the letter by using a joyful and spiritually grounded tone. He does, however, particularly in Philippians1:1—3:1 and 4:4–7, repeatedly reference the lordship of Jesus. Theologian Deiter Georgi observes that Paul writes that Jesus, as “Lord” (Phil.2:11), “has created a realm of peace in which people can live secure (4:7) and in which all may demonstrate royal forbearance (4:5).”⁸ In Paul’s words:

Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consideration of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind….with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves….Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself….Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil.2:1–11).⁹

We must be careful not to hide Paul’s declaration in Philippians2:5–11 in the shadows of mere spiritualized moralizing when in its true light it seems, as Georgi states, that the text “defies not just the world but all of its powers.”¹⁰

A bridge between the phrase “in Christ” in verse1 and in verse5 establishes Christ’s jurisdiction and the dynamics of His rule. Paul declares Jesus to be first among equals and makes known His obedience and willingness to be subject to the limits of the human condition. Georgi writes that “for Paul (the Roman citizen) as well as for the citizens of Philippi (a military colony of Rome) the description of Jesus’ exaltation and entrance into heaven must have suggested the events surrounding the decrease of a princeps [leading Roman citizen] and his heavenly assumption and apotheosis [model of excellence] by resolution of the Roman senate, ratified in heaven”¹¹ (emphasis in original).

A critical antithesis emerges from this. Jesus is the sole possessor of absolute ruling power given Him by God, and all earthly powers are subjected to Him; yet, “Jesus is introduced into heaven and made the object for the oath of loyalty administered by all the powers.”¹²

Christ, No Crucified Pretender. In this Christological hymn that opens Philippians, Paul explains that the rule and the worship of Jesus are not to be compared to the exalted rule and worship of Caesars that were typical of the Roman time to which he was born. As a Roman citizen himself, Paul purposely writes to offend anyone versed in the ways of Rome. Christ’s exaltation follows His very real death so that He is indeed the first among equals and equal to the biblical god and His death occurs on the most accursed of symbols: the Roman cross. Georgi writes that such “a death should have rendered his very memory accursed: a true damnation memoriae. But more than his memory lives on: he himself does. This affront at the same time disguises what is for Paul the critical sting of the text, its tangible political and social threat: no Roman censor would think it necessary to fear a crucified pretender and a group of his followers. He would rank such a notion as an absurdity.”¹³ It is nonetheless obvious that Paul purposely is putting forth the idea that the existing political and social ideology has been subverted.

Philippians2:5–11 is a plea to eschew the evils of privatization and sectarian dominance. Paul asks his readers to shine as lights in the world, and to be fully engaged in their present political reality.

Our Political Responsibility. Paul would have the Philippian Christians become the competitors of the governing statesmen, not to rule the chaos of earthly affairs as do the elite of a “crooked and perverse generation” (Phil.2:15) but as genuine followers of Jesus, the true representative man and ruler of the human race. If they were to understand and follow through with this new form of government they would be able to exercise true political responsibility.

In Philippians3 and4 Paul employs the loaded political term politeuma (Gk., “citizenship”). He says: “For our citizenship [politeuma] is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil.3:20). He urges a separation from those whose god is their belly and whose minds are set on “earthly things” (3:18–19) and puts forth an appeal for action within the community (4:1–4) and a secular call for creativity regarding ethical questions (4:8–9).

Head on, Paul confronts the secular ethics of his day and makes space for the paradox of human frailty and disgrace (3:4b–14); he excites his subversive ethical theory and democratizes it with a plan to see its growth through grass roots multiplication (3:15–17); he reminds his readers that they need discernment and mutual respect and inclusiveness. Paul envisions the resurrection of Christ-followers and their transformation from an earthly body to a heavenly one. He adds another critical consideration when, regarding Christ’s position in all of these events, he concludes with the words “of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself” (3:21).

As Georgi writes, “Behind the awaited transformation stands the same power which, according to the hymn in Philippians, forced and still forces all other powers to acknowledge Jesus. Renunciation of ascendancy is the secret of ascendancy. Jesus’ obedience is the mystery of his ‘glory’ and establishes his rule.”¹⁴ All claims to hegemony [political authority or control] are nullified, as are all alienating and murderous powers and the law by which they stand.

A Plea for Intolerance. Many Christians long for the rule of God in a democracy such as that of the United States. Such democracies tolerate any and every opinion except intolerance; opening one’s eyes to certain evils inherent in the system is the quickest means to becoming the object of persecution and ridicule.

As Correa de Oliveira so poignantly says, “We are speaking of knowing….[to] what point we may and should be tolerant. We have every reason to fear that contemporary man will often lazily and apathetically tolerate what should be vigilantly, firmly, and astutely tolerated and even opposed.”¹⁵ I offer this reflection on Paul’s theocratic declaration in his letter to the Philippians with the hope that Christ-followers might confront evil of this magnitude directly on every front. I hope we can do so even as proverbial Goths gather outside our gates and the fires of corruption from within slowly burn what is left of the fragile moral fiber that weaves this tapestry we proudly proclaim, often at great risk, to be one nation under God.

— C. Wayne Mayhall

NOTES

1. Derek H. Davis, “Thoughts on the Separation of Church and State under the Administration of President GeorgeW. Bush,” Journal of Church and State (March 2003): 229–235.

2. Ibid., 234.

3. Ibid.

4. The word “democracy” is derived from the ancient Greek dïmokratia, which is derived from the roots dïmos (“people, the mob, the many”) and kratos (“rule” or “power”).

5. Plinio Correa de Oliveira, “What Is Tolerance?” TFP Student Action, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, http://www.tfp.org/student_action/opinions/culture/tolerance1.htm.

6. For an excellent treatment of why a democracy isn’t God’s idea but man’s, see Fuller Theological Seminary President RichardJ. Mouw’s blog entry “A Larger View of Theocracy,” at Mouw’s Musings: the President’s Blog, http://www.netbloghost.com/mouw/?p=24.

7. I refer to Deiter Georgi, Theocracy in Paul’s Praxis and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991) throughout this article.

8. Georgi, 73.

9. All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible.

10. Georgi, 73.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., 74.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., 77–78.

15. Plinio Correa de Oliveira, “Tolerating the Secular State, the Enemy of Faith,” TFP Student Action, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, http://www.tfp.org/student_action/opinions/culture/tolerance4.htm.

“Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear––hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 1:22–23).²

Today tolerance is being redefined to mean that all views are equally valid and all lifestyles equally appropriate. As such, the notion that Jesus is the only way is vilified as the epitome of intolerance. Rather than capitulating to culture, Christians must be equipped to expose the flaws of today’s tolerance, while simultaneously exemplifying true tolerance.

First, to say all views are equally valid sounds tolerant but in reality is a contradiction in terms. If indeed all views are equally valid then the Christian view must be valid. The Christian view, however, holds that not all views are equally valid. Thus, the redefinition of tolerance in our culture is a self-refuting proposition. Moreover, we do not tolerate people with whom we agree; we tolerate people with whom we disagree. If all views were equally valid, there would be no need for tolerance.

Furthermore, today’s redefinition of tolerance leaves no room for objective moral judgments. A modern terrorist could be deemed as virtuous as a Mother Teresa. With no enduring reference point, societal norms are being reduced to mere matters of preference. As such, the moral basis for resolving international disputes and condemning such intuitively evil practices as genocide, oppression of women, and child prostitution is being seriously compromised.

Finally, in light of its philosophically fatal features, Christians must reject today’s tolerance and revive true tolerance. True tolerance entails that, despite our differences, we treat every person we meet with the dignity and respect due them as those created in the image of God. True tolerance does not preclude proclaiming the truth, but it does mandate that we do so with gentleness and with respect (cf. 1 Pet. 3:15–16). In a world that is increasingly intolerant of Christianity, Christians must exemplify tolerance without sacrificing truth. Indeed, tolerance when it comes to personal relationships is a virtue, but tolerance when it comes to truth is a travesty.³

— Hank Hanegraaff

NOTES

1. Excerpted from Hank Hanegraaff’s The Bible Answer Book, Volume 2 (Nashville: J. Countryman, 2006).

2. All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.

3. For further study, see Paul Copan, “True for You, but Not for Me”: Deflating the Slogans That Leave Christians Speechless (Bethany House Publishers, 1998); see also Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, The New Tolerance (Tyndale House Publishers, 1998).

SYNOPSIS

Liberal Tolerance is perhaps the primary challenge to the Christian worldview current in North American popular culture. Proponents of this viewpoint argue that it is intolerant and inconsistent with the principles of a free and open society for Christians (and others) to claim that their moral and religious perspective is correct and ought to be embraced by all citizens. Liberal tolerance is not what it appears to be, however. It is a partisan philosophical perspective with its own set of dogmas. It assumes, for instance, a relativistic view of moral and religious knowledge. This assumption has shaped the way many people think about issues such as homosexuality, abortion rights, and religious truth claims, leading them to believe that a liberally tolerant posture concerning these issues is the correct one and that it ought to be reflected in our laws and customs. But this posture is dogmatic, intolerant, and coercive, for it asserts that there is only one correct view on these issues, and if one does not comply with it, one will face public ridicule, demagogic tactics, and perhaps legal reprisals. Liberal Tolerance is neither liberal nor tolerant.

Our assessments of the future are always at the mercy of unexpected contingencies. Perhaps, like the Berlin Wall, current academic and cultural fads that challenge Christian orthodoxy will soon crumble by the sheer force of their internal contradictions, coupled by the ascendancy of both the vibrant movement of Christian thinkers within the discipline of philosophy and the growing criticism of Darwinism and naturalism by Phillip Johnson and others. Perhaps. But barring such a near-miraculous cultural turnaround, I offer a number of observations. This article will suggest some ways that Christian thinkers and cultural critics may defend their faith if present trends continue.

First, do you remember the words of John Lennon, put to song in the mid-1970s?

Imagine there’s no heaven; It’s easy if you try
No hell below us; Above us only sky….
Imagine no possessions; It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion too
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
Someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.

Those who came of age under the tutelage of Lennon and his contemporaries are now dominant in our most prestigious institutions of cultural influence: law, education, the media, and the social sciences. Although the optimism of these former flower children may be waning, their totalitarian impulses, implied in Lennon’s call for global unanimity on matters controversial, are in full bloom. We will call their project liberal tolerance.

Relativism: The Ground of Liberal Tolerance

Liberal tolerance is grounded in relativism, the view that no one point of view on moral and religious knowledge is objectively correct for every person in every time and place. This notion, as understood and embraced in popular culture, feeds on the fact of pluralism, the reality of a plurality of different and contrary opinions on religious and moral matters. Against this backdrop, many in our culture conclude that one cannot say that one’s view on religious and moral matters is better than anyone else’s view. They assert that it is a mistake to claim that one’s religious beliefs are exclusively correct and that believers in other faiths, no matter how sincere or devoted, hold false beliefs. Thus, religious inclusivism is the correct position to hold.

Relativism, pluralism, and religious inclusivism are the planks in a creed that does not tolerate any rivals. Its high-minded commitment to “openness” prohibits the possibility that anything is absolutely good, true, and beautiful. This was the central thesis of Alan Bloom’s 1987 best seller, The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom writes: “The relativity of truth [for college students in American culture] is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it…. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all. The students, of course, cannot defend their opinion. It is something with which they have been indoctrinated….”¹

According to Bloom, by dogmatically maintaining there is no truth, people who are relativists have become close-minded to the possibility of knowing the truth, if in fact it does exist. To understand what Bloom means, consider the following dialogue (based loosely on a real-life exchange) between a high school teacher and her student, Elizabeth:²

Teacher: Welcome, students. Since this is the first day of class, I want to lay down some ground rules. First, since no one has the truth, you should be open-minded to the opinions of your fellow students. Second….Elizabeth, do you have a question?

Elizabeth: Yes, I do. If nobody has the truth, isn’t that a good reason for me not to listen to my fellow students? After all, if nobody has the truth, why should I waste my time listening to other people and their opinions. What would be the point? Only if somebody has the truth does it make sense to be open-minded. Don’t you agree?

Teacher: No, I don’t. Are you claiming to know the truth? Isn’t that a bit arrogant and dogmatic?

Elizabeth: Not at all. Rather, I think it’s dogmatic, as well as arrogant, to assert that there is not one person on earth who knows the truth. After all, have you met every person in the world and quizzed them exhaustively? If not, how can you make such a claim? Also, I believe it is actually the opposite of arrogance to say that I will alter my opinions to fit the truth whenever and wherever I find it. And if I happen to think that I have good reason to believe I do know the truth and would like to share it with you, why won’t you listen to me? Why would you automatically discredit my opinion before it is even uttered? I thought we were supposed to listen to everyone’s opinion.

Teacher: This should prove to be an interesting semester.

Another student: (blurts out): Ain’t that the truth. (the students laugh)

The proponent of liberal tolerance, it turns out, is not the celebrant of diversity he portrays himself to be. Perhaps another example, one from popular culture, will be instructive. In 1997, in her acceptance speech for an Emmy for cowriting the “coming out” episode of Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres said, “I accept this on behalf of all people, and the teen-agers out there especially, who think there is something wrong with them because they are gay. There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t ever let anybody make you feel ashamed of who you are.”

There are many who, after hearing or reading Ellen’s speech, applauded her for her liberal sensibilities, concluding that the actress is an open and tolerant person who is merely interested in helping young people better understand their own sexuality. If you think this way, you are mistaken. Ellen’s speech is an example of what I call “passive-aggressive tyranny.” The trick is to sound “passive” and accepting of “diversity” while at the same time putting forth an aggressively partisan agenda and implying that those who disagree are not only stupid but also harmful. In order to understand this point, imagine if a conservative Christian Emmy-award winner had said, “I accept this on behalf of all people, and the teen-agers out there especially, who think there is something wrong with them because they believe that human beings are made for a purpose and that purpose includes the building of community with its foundation being heterosexual monogamy. There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t ever let anybody, especially television script writers, make you feel ashamed because of what you believe is true about reality.” Clearly this would imply that those who affirm liberal views on sexuality are wrong. An award winner who made this speech would be denounced as narrow, bigoted, and intolerant. That person could expect never again to work in Hollywood.

Ironically, Ellen’s Emmy speech does the same to those with whom she disagrees. By encouraging people to believe there is nothing wrong with their homosexuality, she is saying there is something wrong with those (i.e., Christians and other social conservatives) who don’t agree with this prescription. This condemnation is evident in the script of the show for which Ellen won an Emmy. In that famous “coming out” episode, the writers presumed that one is either bigoted or ignorant if one thinks Ellen’s homosexuality is deviant and that such a one is incapable of having a thoughtful, carefully wrought case against homosexuality. Such hubris is astounding. It presumes not only that Ellen’s detractors are wrong but also that they are stupid, irrational, and evil and should not even be allowed to make their case. They are, in a word, diseased, suffering from that made-up ailment, “homophobia.”

What a strange way to attack one’s opponents! After all, whether one fears homosexuals is irrelevant to the question of whether homosexual practice is natural, healthy, and moral. No one would say that the arguments of an antiwar protestor should not be taken seriously on the grounds that he is “hemophobic,” that is, fearful of bloodshed. Moreover, if one is homophobic (assuming there is such a thing), that is, suffering from a phobia as one would suffer from claustrophobia, then the homophobe cannot help himself and is therefore suffering from a mental disorder, perhaps one that is the result of his genes. Consequently, calling someone homophobic is tantamount to making fun of the handicapped, unless of course the accuser is himself homophobic.

Ms.DeGeneres has every right to think those who don’t agree with her judgments on human sexuality are wrong. The problem is that she and her more cerebral and sophisticated colleagues present their judgments as if they were not judgments. They believe their views to be in some sense “neutral.” From their perspective they are merely letting people live any way they choose. But this is not neutral at all. It presupposes a particular and controversial view of human nature, human community, and human happiness. It assumes that only three elements, if present, make a sexual practice morally permissible: adult consent, one’s desire, and the lack of intrusion into another person’s lifestyle orientation (i.e., “it doesn’t hurt anybody”).

This, of course, is not obvious. For example, an adult male who receives gratification as a result of pedophile fantasies while secretly viewing his neighbor’s young children, though he never acts on his fantasies and nobody ever finds out, is acting consistently with these three elements. Nevertheless, it seems counterintuitive to say what he is doing is on par with heterosexual monogamy and ought to be treated as such. By what principle can the Ellenites exclude this gentleman from the “tolerance” they accord more chic sexual orientations? At the end of the day, Ellen’s viewpoint is one that affirms what its proponents believe is good, true, and beautiful, while implying that those who dispute this viewpoint are incorrect. Ellen is as intolerant and narrow as her detractors.

In the words of Lieutenant Columbo, the proponent of liberal tolerance is pulling a fast one. She eschews reason, objective morality, and exclusivity, while at the same time proposing that liberal tolerance is the most high-minded, righteous, and philosophically correct perspective that any reflective person with a university education can possibly embrace. Even the most sophisticated defenders of this viewpoint, whether intentionally or not, cannot seem to avoid this philosophical faux pas.

A More Sophisticated Defense

Consider the work of social scientists Jung Min Choi and John W.Murphy. They argue that although there are no objective universal norms of knowledge and morality, there are interpretive communities (i.e., cultures, civilizations, nations, ethnic heritages, etc.) within which objective norms are valid. Choi and Murphy explain: “Each community, accordingly, values certain norms. Therefore, some norms may be irrelevant in a specific community, because behavior is not random but is guided by expectations that are known by every competent member of a region. Exhibiting just any behavior would certainly result in a negative sanction. Within an interpretive community the idea that anything goes [i.e., relativism] is simply ridiculous, for all norms do not have equal validity.”³

Supporters of this view deny it is relativistic because, they argue, it affirms that each community has its own “absolute” norms of knowledge and morality, though these norms do not apply to other communities. For example, if I live in community X and my community believes it is morally permissible to torture babies for fun and you live in community Y, which maintains that it is morally wrong to torture babies for fun, according to Choi and Murphy, there are no moral norms that transcend communities X and Y by which we can say that Y’s opposition to torturing babies is better than X’s acceptance of torturing babies.

Perhaps another example will help clarify this view. Suppose that the people in community X believe that the best method of making major medical decisions in life is consulting the zodiac and/or a Ouija Board. So, for example, if Dr.Jones recommends an appendectomy for Mr.Smith but the Ouija Board says no, then it would be best for Mr. Smith not to undergo the appendectomy. Now, the people in community Y used to believe the same thing as the people in X, but they have discovered through numerous double-blind experiments that consulting the zodiac and/or Ouija Board was no better than guessing, flipping a coin, or just plain luck. The people in Y rely on the science behind their medicine as a major part of their decision-making and for that reason have far fewer number of dead patients than community X.

If Choi and Murphy are correct that norms of knowledge are community-relative, then there is no basis for asserting that community Y’s view of medical knowledge and decision-making is better than the view held by community X. Yet, it is clear that Y’s perspective is more true, and for that reason results in a larger body of life-saving knowledge than X’s perspective.

Even though they may deny it, the position defended by Choi and Murphy, and those who agree with their perspective, is relativism. It denies that there are universal norms of knowledge and morality that transcend diverse cultures and communities.

When Choi and Murphy attempt to marshal a philosophical defense of their viewpoint, their position unravels, for they are unable to defend their position without relying on the very notions they deny. For example, Choi and Murphy, after arguing for the concept of interpretive communities, go on to defend the work of literary scholar Stanley Fish, by arguing that

sociologists of various hues have verified a long time ago what Fish is saying. Symbolic interactionists, for example, have illustrated that persons evaluate their actions with regard to their respective “reference groups.” Therefore, in terms of a single city, very different pockets of norms may be operative. To understand what deviance means in each circumstance, a priori definitions of normativeness must be set aside. For norms are embedded in symbols, signs, and gestures that may be very unique and restricted to a specific locale. Upon crossing one of these relatively invisible boundaries, an individual quickly learns which behaviors are acceptable. This diversity, moreover, has not resulted in the disaster that conservatives predict. Yet navigating through this montage of norms requires interpretive skill, tolerance, and an appreciation for pluralism. (94, emphases added)

We learn from this quote that such sociologists verify the perspective that knowledge and morality are bound by interpretative communities. Apparently sociologists, at least the sociologists who verify this perspective, are not restricted by their interpretive communities. To claim that sociologists verify this perspective as true is to say that they have knowledge about reality. According to Choi and Murphy, however, this is impossible, for we are all (including sociologists) restricted by our interpretive communities. In other words, if these sociologists are restricted by their interpretive communities, and thus can give us no objective knowledge of reality, how can Choi and Murphy claim that their viewpoint has been “verified”? It seems, therefore, that Choi and Murphy must ironically presuppose that one can have knowledge of the real world in order to verify the perspective that one cannot have knowledge of the real world. But if their perspective is the correct one, the norms and observations put forth by these sociologists as well as Choi and Murphy cannot be true claims about the world. Thus, the appeal to sociologists who “verify” this view presupposes that the view itself is false!

In addition, Choi and Murphy presuppose certain objective moral norms when they maintain that interpretive skill, tolerance, and appreciation for pluralism are virtues by which one navigates “through this montage of norms,” for this view is offering objective moral guidelines that apparently transcend any particular interpretive community. Put differently, Choi and Murphy are requiring that all people, regardless of what interpretive community in which they may reside, abide by certain universal objective moral norms. Yet, if this is not what they mean, then these virtues do not have to be followed by the members of some interpretive communities that don’t accept these norms (e.g., Nazi Germany, a skin-head commune, or a group of sociopaths). Of course, it is absurd for any moral theory not to account for the objective wrong of Nazism, neo-Nazism, or the callous disregard for others.

Liberal Tolerance and the 2000 Southern Baptist Convention

In addition to what we have covered thus far, there are other ways by which we may defend the Christian worldview in a culture that celebrates liberal tolerance. Consider the recent controversy over the plans of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to evangelize Jews, Muslims, and Hindus in the summer of 2000 in conjunction with its meeting in Chicago. SBC plans to bring 100,000 missionaries for the task. But this does not sit well with religious leaders who embrace liberal tolerance. According to a 28November 1999 story in the Chicago Tribune, “The Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago, representing the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and 39 other major Christian and Jewish institutions, sent a letter Saturday [27Nov.1999] warning that the high-profile evangelical blitz proposed by the Southern Baptists in June would poison interfaith relations and indirectly contribute to violence.”⁴

The letter states that “while we are confident that your volunteers would come with entirely peaceful intentions, a campaign of the nature and scope you envision could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes.”⁵Although the letter acknowledges the Baptists’ constitutional right to religious expression, “it cites last July’s [1999] shooting of six Jews in West Rogers Park and vandalism of a mosque in Villa Park in May as evidence of the vulnerability of people targeted because of their faith.”⁶It is interesting to note that the Council did not tease out its own logic and conclude that perhaps its call for Southern Baptist self-censorship while connecting a time-honored Christian practice (i.e., evangelism) to vandalism and battery could itself “contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes” and result in the Baptists themselves being victims.

In any event, how should we as Christians respond to such hysterical and outrageous assessments of our Christian practice? First, the Council is not claiming that Christian doctrine is false, but rather, it is claiming that religious beliefs are not legitimate claims to knowledge at all. So it is not that the Southern Baptists are mistaken about the truth of Christianity; they are mistaken about the nature of religion. For if the Council truly believed that religious doctrines, and Christian truth claims in particular, are claims to real knowledge, they would not have relied on demagoguery and scare tactics to make their point. In other words, the Southern Baptists are dangerous not because Christianity is false and they believe it is true, but because they really believe that Christianity is true and they believe other people from contrary religious traditions should become Christians as well. This, for the proponent of liberal tolerance, is absurd, because, as we have seen, liberal tolerance is grounded in relativism — the view that no one point of view on moral and religious knowledge is objectively correct for every person in every time and in every place.

This is why Bishop C. Joseph Sprague (of United Methodist Church’s Northern Illinois Conference) can say of the Southern Baptists’ plans for evangelism in Chicago: “I’m always fearful when we in the Christian community move beyond the rightful claim that Jesus is decisive for us, to the presupposition that non-Christians…are outside God’s plan of salvation. That smacks of a kind of non-Jesus-like arrogance.”⁷Of course, if Jesus’ disciples had followed the Bishop’s advice rather than their Lord’s Great Commission, there would have been no Christianity as we know it today, if at all, and hence no Methodist bishops calling for the revocation of the Great Commission.

Second, the Council’s letter is itself a form of evangelism for the gospel of liberal tolerance, for it is suggesting that the Southern Baptists, the letter’s target, abandon their religious tradition and embrace the Council’s relativist view of religious truth. If the Southern Baptists don’t follow this suggestion, then there will be a type of punishment (i.e., “a campaign of the nature and scope you envision could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes”). Like most calls for openness and sensitivity by proponents of liberal tolerance, the Council’s letter in reality calls for neither. It requires its recipient either to behave and think in accordance with what the Council believes is the only appropriate way for religious believers to behave and think or to be prepared to face opposition. This opposition may include everything from uncharitable judgments (e.g., “non-Jesus-like arrogance”) to threats of violence (e.g., “could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes”) to far-fetched McCarthyesque guilt by association accusations (e.g., “last July’s [1999] shooting of six Jews in West Rogers Park and vandalism of a mosque in Villa Park in May [cited] as evidence of the vulnerability of people targeted because of their faith”).

The Tribune article states that the timing of the Council letter “throws Chicago into the center of a debate already raging in other parts of the nation.”⁸A couple of examples are cited: “In New York, a Jewish coalition protested a Southern Baptist campaign to pray for the conversion of Jews during the Jewish High Holidays in September. A similar campaign Nov.7 targeted Hindus on their holiday, Diwali, triggered protests not only across India but also outside a Southern Baptist church in Boston.”⁹

These examples are instructive because they show the incoherence of liberal tolerance. In neither case were the Southern Baptists interfering with, or calling for the state or any other agency or group to interfere with, the worship or religious practice of the Jews and Hindus, for whose conversion they were praying. In fact, the Southern Baptists were exhibiting true tolerance. They showed respect for the religious freedom of those who did not share their faith, while at the same time praying for them to come to a belief in what the Southern Baptists believe is the truth. On the other hand, both the Jews and the Hindus tried to exert public pressure on the Southern Baptists through protest so that they would cease to engage in fundamental practices of their Christian faith, that is, prayer and evangelism. If anything, the Jews and Hindus showed less tolerance than the Southern Baptists, whom they sought to silence.

I do not doubt that some Hindus and Jews fail to appreciate and understand why Southern Baptists would choose their holidays to pray for their conversion, and that they find this practice offensive. But do these Hindus and Jews understand and appreciate that, because evangelism is a central aspect of the practice of Christian faith, when they tell Christians not to pray for them the Christians are equally offended?

Just as the Southern Baptists hope that non-Christians are converted to what Christians believe is true about God and religion, proponents of liberal tolerance hope that the Southern Baptists are converted to what proponents of liberal tolerance believe is true about God and religion, namely, relativism. Both groups are committed to a creed they will not compromise, though only the Southern Baptists seem thoughtful enough to understand this. The liberally tolerant are not as insightful, for they do not see their dogmas as dogmas. For that reason, in the name of liberty and tolerance they will likely continue to use their social and political power to punish Christians and others who will not submit to their doctrines.

THE SHAM OF LIBERAL TOLERANCE

Liberal tolerance is a sham. Although portrayed by its advocates as an open, tolerant, and neutral perspective, it is a dogma whose proponents tolerate no rivals. Those of us who are concerned with presenting and defending our faith in a post-Christian culture must be aware of this sort of challenge, one that masquerades as open, tolerant, and liberating, but in reality is dogmatic, partisan, and coercive.

Although the Christian worldview is marginalized in our culture and considered dangerous by some, we cannot lose our confidence. After all, this is God’s universe, and He has made human beings in His image. We must be confident that when we unpack these undeniable notions that are “written on our hearts,” those who unreflectively and unthinkingly dismiss our case really do know the truth as well (Rom.2:15). But this must be balanced with the knowledge that the human heart is incredibly wicked (Jer.17:9). This tension will remain as long as we attempt to defend our faith in a culture hostile to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus of Nazareth.

Notes

1. Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987),25.

2. This dialogue originally appeared in Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998),74.

3. Jung Min Choi and John W. Murphy, The Politics and Philosophy of Political Correctness (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992),93–94. The remaining citations of this book will appear in the text.

4. Steve Kloehn, “Clergy Ask Baptists to Rethink Area Blitz,” The Chicago Tribune,28November1999, at www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-38638,FF.html (28November1999).

5. Council letter as quoted in ibid.

6. Kloehn.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.