Some misery and oppression caused by the greed and pride of men is persistently present in life. However, there are times when the torment is intensified by certain ideologies which negate traditional values. We are now living in such a time. 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.
As we worship at the altar of secular ideologies, we have abandoned all efforts to recognize the truth that life is a spiritual journey, with meaning and purpose, and that a reality that we are able to know, does universally exist. Rather we view life as being the result of blind evolutionary processes and thereby harbour the notion that there exists such a thing as a personal truth.
Traditional Values
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 is supported by the political class and 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 values that are grounded in reality, to one in which anything goes.
The modern view believes that value judgements are not judgements at all but are sentiments, or complexes, or attitudes 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. Maybe what we feel is good is not good at all and we can improve our morality. Western people are in the grips of subjectivism.
This subjectivist approach is painfully illogical. 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.
Also, when a society promotes one definition of compassion or goodness as being better than that which is naturally existent and upheld by tradition, what does that even mean?
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 a senseless and totally arbitrary 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, should this impossible event have taken place, the resultant minutest of lifeforms, born in a totally hostile environment, would have died instantly, and not made 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. In life the infinite and the finite coexist. This is an aspect of reality. 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.
At this point we must remember that Christian theology does not believe God to be a person. When we express any idea about God, we have no other way but to use our dualistic manner of reasoning. We therefore speak of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We struggle to understand that God necessarily exists outside duality and need to name as separate the aspects that we think make up God.
It is important to see God as a unity 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 generosity. The human ability to choose 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 bends towards goodness.
The human mind has no more the power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky. Any attempt to do so really consists of arbitrarily selecting, partly or wholly, one maxim of natural morality, isolating it from the rest, and using it to impose personal or collective tyranny. It is our appreciation of an existing natural 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 and, perhaps, no one code that includes everything.
The divine is not merely good but goodness itself. Natural values became traditional as they of course survived the passage of all time. True freedom requires recognition of the existing universal and objective moral code by all. That includes our leaders.
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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