As we worship at the altar of secular ideologies, we no longer recognize the truth that life is a spiritual journey, that has meaning and purpose. Rather we view life as being the result of blind evolutionary processes and thereby harbour the delusion that there exists such a thing as a personal truth. This type of anarchical thinking is increasing in our western societies and has already passed dangerous levels, consuming all good things in its path. It has become a social norm and is supported by the political class. All the resources that we hold in common are being applied to further this ideology. Western society is fast changing from one based on commonly held traditional values that are grounded in reality, to one in which the whim of the moment rules.
Traditional Values
The modern view believes that a sentiment, an attitude, a mood is a value judgement, arising in response to pressure from the social environment and traditions. To say that a thing is good is merely to express our feelings about it and is therefore subjective. Today we may feel a certain value to be true. Tomorrow we may feel quite differently, even adversely, about that same value and that would also be true. Western people are in the grips of subjectivism.
A correct philosophy of life will not, per se, make good men of bad ones, but errors of judgement may neutralize the ordinary checks against evil, depriving good intentions of their natural support.
This subjectivist approach is painfully illogical. For example, if there are many values of goodness held by different people and peoples, and they are all equally valid, then no one view of goodness is better than any other. Therefore, there can be no agreement between people or peoples or peace between nations. Subjectivism destroys common ground, and left unchecked, will certainly destroy human civilization. Subjectivists would have us live in a constant state of conflict.
When a reformer pushes new ideas of morality as an improvement over traditional morality, he is necessarily basing his judgement on some prior standard. This can only be traditional morality as any of the other values arising out of subjectivist ideology are held to be equally true and choosing one over another would be an arbitrary and baseless gamble. This is also circular thinking. Subjectivism, by its own definitions, regularly shoots itself in the legs.
Creation of life is not a random affair. The probability that order (life) would have arisen out a purely chaotic universe is, even by scientific standards, impossible. Now, even if such an impossible event had to take place, the resultant minutest of lifeforms, born in a totally hostile environment, would die instantly, and not make a second such occurrence in any way more probable.
Life was created with intent and that is why it has meaning and purpose. This includes, for humans, an array of naturally self-evident values. Christ was one with God from the beginning. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth. The impact of chaos was intentionally constrained, making life possible.
It is important to see God as unity, albeit expressed as the Holy Trinity, and that creation, being an expression of God, is naturally imbued with His moral code, that we have, so to speak, inherited. I would point out that the God that Christ exemplifies must be a good, true and loving God as creation is a supreme act of love, generosity and mercy. The human ability to chose to err, and thereby cause bad things to happen, is a question of free will and is an altogether different and subsidiary matter. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it does bend towards goodness.
Any attempt by humans to create a new value really consists of arbitrarily selecting, partly or wholly, one maxim of traditional morality, isolating it from the rest, and promoting it as supreme. It is our appreciation of an existing traditional value that may improve but not the original value itself. For example, the views on goodness globally are substantially in agreement, notwithstanding the considerable local differences of emphasis.
Traditional values are an aspect of creation and that is why they survive the passage of all time.
This article has been inspired by the book Christian Reflections by C.S. Lewis.
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Also published on Substack.com
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