Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0465004997\")
\n<\/strong><\/em>. My own reading of that book impressed me again with
\nthe connection of philosophers with their world. From Socrates to Kierkegaard,
\nphilosophers are products of their day.<\/p>\n<\/span>So
\nare we. <\/p>\nWhich raises the profound problem of blinders when it comes to
\nperceiving what is influencing us, and which raises the other profound problem
\nof needing to understand our cultural blinders in order to break through them
\nwith the light of the gospel. Kolakowski’s chapters are short, and everything
\nshort when it comes to the history of ideas risks simplicities that mask
\nnuance. I risk the same in what I am about to suggest: that the current generation emerges out of a toxic combination of
\nmodernity and postmodernity<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/span>In
\nanother context (Leadership Journal<\/i>)
\nI called the toxicity of the current generation a “self in a castle.”
\nModernity’s singular contribution to the history of ideas is individualism.
\nDavid Bentley Hart gets this exactly right in his new rant against the flimsy
\nideas in new atheism when he writes: “We live in an age whose chief value has
\nbeen determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the inviolable liberty of
\npersonal volition, the right to decide for ourselves what we shall believe,
\nwant, need, own, or serve” (Atheist
\nDelusions<\/i>, 21-22). That is, “it is choice itself, and not what we choose,
\nthat is the first good.” Personal freedom, which both Kolakowski and Hart
\nunderstand far more profoundly than most, has become getting to do whatever I
\nwant, when I want, and how I want – and government’s job is to make sure it
\nhappens now. That’s, of course, an exaggeration, but it’s the exaggeration that
\nis causing our problem in gospel work today. Perhaps the most important words
\nin Hart’s lines above are “by overwhelming consensus.” The consensus is so
\noverwhelming that the emerging generation – each of us – believes we can form
\nour own religion. A religion of our own making, however, never leads to transcendence
\nor worship of God or anything like the ancient Hebrews’ “fear of God.” Instead,
\nwe tinker on the edge of holiness with the notion of experiencing The Beyond.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nHow
\nfeeble of a god is that? When “The Beyond” evokes mystery or suggests to our
\nminds that we are on the edge of something important, then we need to look into
\nabyss of where we are headed.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nIf
\nmodernity handed on to our culture a sense of individualism that has been
\nratcheted up beyond what either Bible or philosophers would ever recognize, postmodernity
\ntells us that individual choice itself is relative. I don’t believe we should
\ndismiss postmodernity with the derisive, and far too often unthinking, “moral
\nrelativism,” but there is within postmodernity’s deepest impulses the belief
\nthat universal truth and all-encompassing metanarratives can’t be had. We are
\ntoo finite and when folks do think they’ve found the magical metanarrative for
\nall, they abuse power and turn violent. Well, yes, there’s some truth to that,
\nbut that’s the whole problem with postmodernity. Genuine insights become,
\nparadoxically enough, all-encompassing metanarratives against all
\nmetanarratives. This tendency is one of postmodernity’s addictions.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nSo,
\nhere we are. Staring at a unique cultural product: humans turned inward to
\ninvest sanctity in the Self and who have constructed a postmodern castle wall
\nthat informs that, because that Self is so sacred no one can violate your
\nchoice – you determine what to believe and what is right and wrong. The Self is
\nprotected the Wall of Individual Relative Choice.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nThe
\ntragedy of the “self in a castle” is that we are blind to it – blind to see it
\nin ourselves every time we choose to think we are the most progressive and wisest
\nof all generations, every time we fool ourselves into thinking we have achieved
\nlevels of love that we call tolerance, which is a vapid imitation of what
\ngenuine love is, and every time we think our moral struggles rival the profound
\nstruggles of an Athanasius or an Augustine, a Luther or a Calvin, a Bonhoeffer
\nor a Martin Luther King, Jr.. <\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>The
\nSelf is so large because our walls are so high, blinding us from seeing the
\nMorning Light. That Light is the Light of All Light.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
First published on Out of Ur blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leszek Kolakowski, a Polish philosopher who weakened Marxism’s grip on Eastern Europe, recently died. Few, I suspect, knew who he was. I consider myself fortunate to have read some of Kolakowski, one book being his scintillating sketch of the history of ideas by probing the central idea of twenty-three thinkers. That book is called Why…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-origins-project"],"yoast_head":"\n
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