The Basic Error of our Times - Naturalism and its confrontation with the aptitude
of the mind for truth
G.K.Chesterton, from his Orthodoxy writings, said the modern world is some
ways far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. Christian virtues have gone mad. They have gone mad because they
have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. ( The same can apply to globalization and free trade
today. Economies have been split into pieces and the parts have been shipped across the globe destroying the balances of local
value added economies in balanced geopolitical settings. - The globalists have attempted to make it a one size
fits all solution and it has failed from the start because the parts will never come together. As water seeks its
lowest level, free trade seeks the cheapest labor of the markets and there will always be people who will work
for less in order to survive. It is impossible to find the balance between the value of work and a living wage. )
In the chapter from his book Orthodoxy, titled "Sucide of Thought", Chesterton says the story of philosophy
since the Reformation is a story about a "sucide". The Church went into Philosophy to support its doctrines early
in its history. With the object of reason being truth, there could be no contradiction between Faith and Reason. Both would
have to agree with the objective truth.
After the Reformation, this was a stumbling block for Protestants for
in order to deny the Authority of the Church, they had to confront the power of reason with its object being truth. The inconsistency
had to be addressed in order for Prostestants to continue. As a result of the Protestant revolt, a certain type of doctrine
had to be advanced to replace the Doctrine of the Church. A Protestant Theology was introduced as a doctrine of sorts. It
had few answers to contest with the fierce logical power of the Catholic apologist. It was difficult finding a way to make
theology fit with philosophy.
The problem was resolved by a man who was a sincere Protestant himself, Emmanuel
Kant.
Calvin may be called the theologian of Protestantism, Kant may well be called its Philsopher.
However, since
the days of Aristotle, the philosophy of the world was a philosophy of common sense. It was a philosophy that starts and ends
with the premise the aptitude of the mind for truth is self-evident. Following correct premises and using correct logic, the
mind will infallibly attain the truth. There is no other logical way. Protestantism had to find a way around this inorder
to exist. The Church had a foundation that was keenly logical as the intellectual approach to the Catholic Church. Reason
and faith had to match up with the object of reaon always being truth.
The Protestant solution to this problem
came easily - just deny the aptitude of the mind for truth and this is what Kant basically accomplished for Prostestanism.
He broke the bridge between reality and the mind. ( This phrase became the prime example of this process for me - Many say
there are no absolutes - the existence of absolutes is denied by an absolute. )
Thus things which depended upr
reasoning became questionable. The Protestant mind, by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had grains of the agnostic
running through it. It ended up with this. If reason can not be trusted, only the senses remained to be a trusted source.
Experimentation became the critertion of all truth. The scientist took on a separate role of priority that bumped philosophy
off the road to truth. It is no wonder that philsophy took a back seat in the Protestant world. One could not put religion
into a test tube. In fact philosophy became a stranger in the laboratory. It is evident today in stem cell research.
Still religion provided man an organized life and told him what was right and what was wrong. It put order into his virtues
and explained what vices were. It could not be totally ignored. Thinking man must have some sort of philosophy to live by.
They could provide this element by reexaminding the old but they could not come to any final conclusions in the thought processes.
They must advance and inspired an evolutionistic concept of progress. This resulted in a philsophy of life built upon nature,
upon human nature alone , and this is how naturalism came to be. In our times, many have abstracted the religous part and
this led to a vacant theology. Naturalism gave many a universal way to communicate belief systems to one another. but the
important thing to remember for the understanding of naturalism is that it is based on a negation. It denies that there is
any such thing as the supernatural life of grace. It is a system based on nature alone. It has a difficult time adding things
to it since it is much easier to substract things that are supernatural.
( My personal notes : Peggy Lee sang-
Is that all there is- and for me this sums up the climax of Naturalism. Reason alone tells me there is much more. Reason tells
me that perfect love is not something that evolves. It would be a contradiction if it did. It would be imperfect. Truth is
not something that is waiting for be found in a test tube. It is here and it is in the now. I know as a finite being, I can
only go just so far this life pursuing perfect love. We define what it is in the dictionary and I know it exists even though
we can not experience it in this life. Truth can stand alone outside our limitations. The object of that perfect love has
to have no beginning and no ending just based on its self-evident definition. Faith takes over to tell me that it is my loving
God who created me is my perfect love. ) Thus , the Pope's Charity in truth applys to all parts of life including economics.
