Faith’s Children

Of all the qualities of the present age, perhaps the most troubling is the pervasiveness of “easy nihilism,” the rather blasé acceptance of a world without ultimate purpose. In the raging of Nietzsche one discerns at least the virtue of fortitude, for he admits how repugnant and devastating a meaningless existence is to humanity’s ineluctable need for purpose. Now, however, the spiritual progeny of Nietzsche often seem unconcerned with the consequences of devaluing the highest values. The question that so haunted Dostoevsky—namely, “If God is dead, is not everything permitted?”—is greeted with sophomoric delight, as the apparently life-denying limits of God and religion are shunted aside. Allan Bloom, in The Closing of the American Mind, articulates that the great struggle of Nietzsche is supplanted by indoctrination; relativism is not a hard-won decision but a moral postulate, as self-evident to the modern student as the principle of non-contradiction was to Aristotle. Bloom writes,

It almost goes without saying that God is rejected, for the notion of God supposedly leads to absolutist claims negating the voices of others. Both God and reason are suspect in this brave new world. Of course, this does not mean that the ability to calculate or deliberate is lost, but reason is not merely the ability to determine the best means to some end. Rather, reason can be viewed as the force and criterion by which humans discover order in a world not of their own creation and in which they hold on to a “precarious existence within the limits of birth and death.”² From this very precariousness “rises the wondering question about the ultimate ground …of all reality,”³ as humans attempt to discover where they came from and where they are going. Thus, reason attempts to discover the ultimate cause and final end of existence; reason attempts to find God.⁴

However, it is possible to distort reason by imposing some sort of ideological barrier that cripples reason’s quest for the ultimate cause. The new openness imposes such an ideological restraint not because it has rationally demonstrated the impossibility of ultimate causes or final ends but because reason tends to totalize and universalize its answers. The new openness takes as its maxim that all answers, however exclusive of each other, deserve equal respect and voice. Thus, reason is rejected, for it seeks truth and does not allow mutually exclusive positions to be true simultaneously.

An example of this ideological revolt against reason is seen in the current rejection of logic. Logic was once thought to be based on self-evident principles—identity, law of excluded middle, non-contradiction—that were incapable of demonstration, as any demonstration would assume these very principles.⁵ Such universal principles are now in doubt, as voiced by Jean-Francois Lyotard in his seminal work, The Postmodern Condition: “The principle of a universal metalanguage is replaced by the principle of a plurality of formal and axiomatic systems capable of arguing the truth.…What used to pass as a paradox, and even paralogism …acquire a new force of conviction.”⁶ Instead, logic is attacked on various ideological grounds, as it is “patriarchal, masculine, or phallocentric,” and needs to be replaced by a language that “would undo the unique meaning, the proper meaning of words, of nouns, which still regulates all discourse.”⁷ A common universal language is no longer desirable, in the minds of some, because it totalizes truth and marginalizes other voices.

But how is communication possible when “proper meaning” and logical rules are usurped in an ideological coup? In fact, rational discourse becomes impossible in this plurality of axiomatic systems where everything is simply a language game, because every person has his or her own axiomatic principles at loggerheads with the axioms of others. Aristotle, recognizing this problem, argues that a person denying non-contradiction cannot even speak but must remain silent.⁸ Meaningful discourse is impossible when a common reason is rejected, for each person or group is in a world fundamentally separated from other persons.⁹

Not only is rational discourse impossible, but without reason any hope for a common morality is also extinguished. With the death of reason, the instrument by which to discover morality is irreparably damaged, as reason is no longer allowed to investigate reality and order a system of rational moral principles. Instead, reason is supplanted by will, for the good is no longer determined by rationally discerned principles of what is right but by whatever is valued, and all values are equal. This is to say that something is good because it is valued, because it is desired, or because an individual wills it so, not because of any normative or intelligible principle of what is right or true. Reason itself, once the instrument of attaining the truth and discovering the good, is now a lackey to will, for reason is degraded into the tool that determines the best means to whatever end the will desires.¹⁰

To supplant reason in favor of will creates a radical separateness; all individuals seek their own good—the good of their own will—and no standard exists by which to limit this rampant individualism. Inevitably, a dispute will arise between individuals or groups of individuals concerning some clash of wills or desires. Now, however, with the absence of reason, there exists no common arbiter to which both groups might appeal in defense of their position or by which they can police their own desires. Instead, all individuals have their own standards of rationality and justify their desires in light of their private standards. Alasdair MacIntyre describes the inevitable result of disputes in a situation without common reason:

Such a world—where separated individuals or distinct groups are isolated from one another, with no common good or standard of reason but only a clash of wills decided by strength—bears striking resemblance to Hobbes’s descriptions of “that condition which is called War; and such a war, as in of every man, against every man.”¹² As is well known, Hobbes intends that humans should escape the natural state of war by transferring rights to the sovereign. It is only in the sovereign’s advent that peace is possible, for the sovereign has power, and only in the “fear of death” and “terror of some power” will individuals stop their wars with one another.¹³ Some power capable of overwhelming both parties must be introduced, for the factions are no longer capable of discussion but must be cowed into submission. This power, the sovereign, exists not to inculcate virtue in the citizens but merely to overcome the brutish state of nature. Order is possible, but only at the expense of individual liberty, and only given the terror of the sovereign.

Plato, perhaps the best-known apologist for reason, argues in a similar fashion: If individuals are not ruled by reason but by spirit or appetites, then they are at war with themselves, and the parts “bite and fight and devour each other.”¹⁴ Likewise, if the embodiment of reason, the philosopher-king, does not rule the city, then the city will be at war with itself, for class will be at war with class, family with family, and individual with individual. Conversely, the just city, which is ruled by reason, is of “one conviction about what’s their own, straining toward the same thing, to the limit of the possible, they are affected alike by pain and pleasure.”¹⁵ As all are ruled by a common ruler, reason, all share a common good and freely choose to serve this common good in tandem with their fellow citizens. Without reason, Plato, like Hobbes, foresees the necessity of force and law. Unlike Hobbes, however, Plato thinks a system of force will fail, for law is “really cutting off the heads of a Hydra,” and “accomplishes nothing,” as long as the citizens are ruled by their own insatiable desires and will.¹⁶ Unless reason rules, the city is doomed, regardless of the sovereign force, and the rulers must “spend their lives continually setting down many such rules and correcting them, thinking they’ll get hold of what’s best.”¹⁷

If the city is to survive, and if its citizens are to serve the good by their own free will and not by coercion, then a common reason must exist by which individuals might curb their own desires and peacefully decide between their own claims and those of another. But is a simple return to reason, as advocated by Plato, sufficient to overcome the errors of the will? Hardly, for Plato realizes that reason, unaided by moral character, is equally capable of producing a cunning Pol Pot or a prudent Thomas More. History proves Plato correct, for the intellectual hubris of the philosophes leads to Robbespierre, the rational progress of modernity gasps its death with the horrors of the last century, and reason itself seems such a failure that we are told by the postmoderns that philosophy and logocentrism are dead.

In defending philosophy, and thus reason, against these charges, Plato acknowledges that those trained in philosophy are endowed with skills that enable them to accomplish greater good or greater evil than those without such training.¹⁸ To ensure against this great evil, Plato insists that philosophy must not be taught until potential students have demonstrated both their intellectual and moral character—students must show themselves to be lovers of the Good before they are to be entrusted with philosophy. In addition, before introducing the guardians to philosophy, Plato attempts to inculcate in them this love of the Good through music and gymnastics, beginning first with a religious education. In these well-known passages, Plato takes Homer and Hesiod to task for their portrayal of the gods committing evil, changing shape, and lying. In the purified education suggested by Plato, the gods cause only good, do not change their form or shape, do not lie, and are so perfect that any change would be for the worse. It is Plato’s genius to introduce this religious education, for as the youth are taught about the qualities of gods, there arise the necessary conditions for reason’s proper function, as seen in the following paragraphs.

In the persons of the gods the student is introduced to a standard of goodness not known through experience. Experience of persons and nature provides no examples of perfection; humans err and seek their own advantage while the world of nature is interpreted by some as demonstrating only chance or, perhaps, the law of survival. Further, all things are contingent and thus imperfect. Therefore, in the content of experience no perfection is found, and reason cannot abstract from the imperfect to the perfect, for it does not create concepts out of thin air but merely abstracts intelligibility from its experience.¹⁹ Without the conception of perfection that the religious education provides—a revelation of sorts—no conception of perfection would exist. Even natural theology admits the difficulty of demonstrating more than the fact that God exists; at best, natural theology demonstrates that God exists with will and power, but not that God is perfectly good.²⁰ But without knowledge of the Good there exists nothing beyond the self-preservation of Hobbes to check one’s own desires. The possibility of any rational standard beyond one’s own wants requires knowledge of God, and this knowledge must be revealed through religion.

Not only does Plato’s theological education introduce the possibility of a greater Good, but it also teaches the guardians a love of the Good, with the hope that they will subsequently attempt to know and possess it for themselves. With the introduction of the highest Good, reason has an end, for although the education of the guardians or the doctrine of a religion is accepted on faith, reason is hardly content and desires understanding. But reason’s desire to possess the Good means that the individual seeks it by his or her own free will; no longer is an external threat of force necessary, for the individual acts out of his or her own desire to know. In the revelation of the gods, Plato creates the foundation for free individuals freely exercising reason in search of the Good.

Thus, Plato rightly predicts the outcome of a lack of religious training; without it, reason is bereft of the moral and intellectual notions necessary for its proper functioning. Without the proper functioning of reason, individuals and groups lack a common good, as well as the means of rational discourse in their disputes. The death of reason is the advent of the will—or the state of war between every individual checked only by means of force or the threat of violence from some power. Without the revelation of religion, only fear can preserve the social order, but fear is oppressive and does not allow individuals to follow the Good on their own free will. With the death of religion, freedom and reason—religion’s children—also die. In the new world of openness, however, an ideological constraint is thrown in against religion and reason, resulting in the superiority of the will and the virtual destruction of reason. One can only gasp at the potential implications, for in the willful ideology of openness there exists a concerted effort to remove all traces of God from our thought and language and, therefore, to devalue reason. Where will reason be when God is expunged from the will and the mind, and, with reason’s absence, what will remain, other than the exercise of will and subsequent fear? “How dreadful it will be in those days….”²¹