The Dark Side of Political Philosophy, and How it Led to the Growth and Development of Today’s “Political Left” Movement

(Updated August 30, 2020): On the topic of why I think that the Roman Catholic Church is a problem with respect to the “wokism” situation we see today, it is not simply that I think things like “the Mass”, the priesthood, the saints, had anything (or much) to do with it. Roman Catholicism is NOT just its religious trappings. It is not just its history. It is not just “the evils that it has done in history”. It is also a thought system of its own. It has adopted “philosophies” over time. It is in fact a collection of these things. More, as well, it was a “cause” against certain “effects” reacted. Today we see some “effects” in the form of the so-called “academic subject” called “intersectionalism” that reacts against “White European Males”. There is so much more.

In this article, originally dated February 2019, I began to make the philosophical connection.

I’ve been asked many times, “why do you think it’s the intellectuals who convert to Roman Catholicism, while many of those who don’t approach the topic from a so-called intellectual viewpoint tend in large measure to convert the other way, from Roman Catholicism to evangelicalism?”

It seems to me that the “intellectuals” (or those who would think of themselves in that way) are more philosophically savvy, and they tend toward logical and ordered systems such as Aristotelianism (and derivatively, Thomism). That is a definite draw.

However, I think that is wrong-headed in several important ways. To take just one example, in his “Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction”, Edward Feser outlines Kant’s “naturalist” assumptions and decides simply to ignore all of Kant (and what followed). He says (and I’ve added paragraph breaks to enhance readability):

"Two Reformed philosophy geeks"

James Anderson and Christopher Watkin discuss Derrida, Foucault, and Hume. More information here.

How Many Genders Are There? (Or, Where is the Logical End of Postmodern Thought and What Do We Do About It?)

This Dude – and so far as I can tell, This Dude is neither the anonymous “CalvinDude” nor the writer of the “Epistle of Dude” – has mined the social media platform Tumblr for an answer to the question, “How Many Genders Are There In 2019?”.

The short answer is 112. Unless you are a regular old male or female, neither of which is listed. In that case, adding those in, there are 114.

But wait, there’s more!

A Response from Stephen Hicks

A week or so ago, I posted an article entitled “The Dark Side of Political Philosophy, and How it Led to the Growth and Development of Today’s ‘Political Left’ Movement”. The blog post was largely intended to introduce a book entitled “Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Expanded Edition)”.

My intention was to show:

“how Kant (and the thinkers who followed Kant) led, first of all, to the nebulous “postmodernism” that evolved out of various streams of “Continental” philosophies, and to the growth and development of “the political left” as we see it today.… I want to publish selections from Hicks’s work over time, and to comment on them, primarily for the purpose of providing a roadmap for the current political environment, and for discussing ways of addressing this overall environment of postmodernism, from a Christian perspective.”

I also posted a link to a review, which I thought was very thorough. That reviewer said,

A Brief History of Reality (as it relates to the culture wars of our times)

I’m not trained in philosophy, by any stretch, although I’ve done some reading on the topic. As well, I’m not a sociologist, nor even a close observer of contemporary culture, but I do live here and observe things.

And so I publish this blog post with the idea of starting a discussion that is looking forward to diagnosing some of the cultural difficulties that we face today, and not because I’m not suggesting I have all the answers. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I see myself as more of a journalist, a reporter (but an honest one), collecting information and passing it on, than anything else.

The study of “reality” may be found within the fields of “metaphysics” and “ontology” (with the differences between them viewed as):

Metaphysics is a very broad field, and metaphysicians attempt to answer questions about how the world is. Ontology is a related sub-field, partially within metaphysics, that answers questions of what things exist in the world. An ontology posits which entities exist in the world. So, while a metaphysics may include an implicit ontology (which means, how your theory describes the world may imply specific things in the world), they are not necessary the same field of study.

While there are many complexities within these discussions, in broad outline form, the history of “reality” has kind of followed this trajectory:

Three views of human nature

http://journal.rts.edu/article/three-views-human-nature/

Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism

Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism by Vern Poythress

Is inerrancy an Enlightenment construct?

Critics of inerrancy often claim that inerrancy is an "Enlightenment" construct. Supposedly, Christians before the Enlightenment didn't espouse the inerrancy of Scripture.

I've never see critics who make this historical claim bother to document their claim. Rather, it seems to be a postmodernist trope. Inerrancy is associated with a modernist view of truth. Modernism is equated with the Enlightenment. That's the slack reasoning. 

It's striking to compare their claim with this recent book:

Matthias Henze (ed.)
A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012.

This is a very useful volume about Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. The introductory chapter by James Kugel describes the origins of biblical interpretation in post-exilic Israel. Interestingly enough he points out that all biblical interpreters, despite their diversity, shared four basic tenets: (1) The Bible is a cryptic document that needs to be explained; (2) The Bible is a book of  instruction; (3) The Bible is perfectly consistent and free of error or contradiction; and (4) Every word of Scripture comes from God. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2015/07/book-notice-a-companion-to-biblical-interpretation-in-early-judaism/

Charting the “Reformed” Postmoderns

A Postmodern Continuum, by Jacob Aitken

One of the most useless terms in lay apologetics is “postmodern.” It usually means “someone different from me but I am not sure how.” Or it means Brian McLaren. Postmodernism as a critical literary and philosophical position is rarely distinguished from applications of postmodernism by hippie, angry, post-evangelicals. ...

For my own view, I see postmodernism as a literary-philosophical position in critique of (if not parasitic upon) late modern structures. Such a view is mediated through the works of Michael Horton and Kevin Vanhoozer.

We will start with the most radical and dangerous postmoderns to those who are sympathetic to postmodern, but would probably fit in a Reformed church. This list is not exclusive but is limited to those thinkers whom I have read...

Read more: A Postmodern Continuum

Who's afraid of relativism (director's cut)

http://www.proginosko.com/2014/06/whos-afraid-of-relativism/

Who's Afraid of Relativism?

http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-life/whos-afraid-of-relativism.php

Inerrancy and the enlightenment

One popular line of attack on the inerrancy of Scripture is the oft-repeated claim that the very concept of inerrancy is a product of the Enlightenment. A concept of truth that only developed during or after the Enlightenment. I've never seen people who say this document their claim. It seems to be a thirdhand claim that began in Philosophy 101 courses on postmodernism, then seeped into theological literature. From there it gets repeated time and over by people who don't bother to trace the claim or check the facts.

I'd simply point out that attacks on the inerrancy of Scripture antedate the Enlightenment by centuries. Take pagans like Celsus (2C) and Porphyry (3-4C), or the medieval Muslim polemicist Ibn Hazm (11C). It would be grossly anachronistic to say they were operating with an Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment concept of truth.

"Jesus is neither a Democrat nor a Republican"

As is quite often the case, Michael J. Kruger has an incisive post titled "Postmodernity and Politics: Moving Beyond 'Jesus Is Neither a Democrat nor a Republican'."

Whence Justice?

An Analysis of Brian McLaren's Postmodern Deconstruction of the Christian Metanarrative and A Recommendation to Pursue Biblically Defined Humility

The wing of the evangelical church that is most concerned about the loss of truth and about compromise is actually infamous in our culture for its self-righteousness and pride. However, there are many in our circles who, in reaction to what they perceive as arrogance, are backing away from many of the classic Protestant doctrines (such as Forensic Justification and Substitutionary Atonement) that are crucial and irreplaceable—as well as the best possible resources for humility.¹

Abstract

This paper engages a few of the core philosophical and theological commitments of the Emergent Church, a movement that is attractive to dissatisfied, current and former Christians. Since the movement is broad, and to some extent indefinable, Brian McLaren's works will serve as a representative of its general concerns. One of these primary concerns is how to respond to the enormous quantities of injustice and suffering that have been wrought throughout modernity. According to McLaren, this suffering and injustice flows out of arrogance grounded in normative metanarratives; therefore, the ultimate sin resides in absolute confidence in a worldview. This absolute confidence can be defeated utilizing a postmodern, deconstructionist methodology, and the Emergent Church is the natural outworking of applying this methodology to the modern, Christian metanarrative. While this approach does not entail a comprehensive rejection of absolute truth or a descent into moral nihilism, as some have suggested, it does fundamentally redefine the orientation of sin and salvation toward earthly, rather than heavenly, concerns. A return to a Biblical conception of humility will allow Christians to have both strong levels of confidence and a meaningful concern for others and the cause of justice.

Ministering in Gotham

Some corners of the Reformed world consistently criticize Timothy Keller for his ministry practices. Having attended Redeemer, I find some of these criticisms to be unfair.

This is especially the case for those that suggest or state Keller compromises the Gospel in order to coddle and appease the expectations of unbelievers. Keller often commits the only secular sin of unapologetically asserting that belief in Jesus Christ is superior to all other religions and belief systems. That's far from accommodating.

Keller isn't beyond critique, of course, but sometimes it seems like his faultfinders are clueless as to what's involved in ministering in New York City. Their cultural expectations, which they improperly universalize in evaluations of other ministries, seem generated from Southern and/or heavily Christianized environments. What's appropriate in a nominal Christian culture isn't necessarily appropriate in a post-Christian environment.

I think Keller has his finger on the cultural pulse of New York City and effectively dismantles the postmodern foundation upon which all manner of sinful lifestyles are built, offering instead a life built on Christ. Criticisms of his failure to speak to some specific sins are misguided insofar as they fail to appreciate that there's more than one way to diminish sinful behavior. Sometimes one sin is produced by another sin, or several sins are symptoms of a greater, underlying sin. If you dig up the roots, you kill the tree and its fruit.

This is especially relevant given the transitory nature of New York City. You don't have a lot of time to speak to surface manifestations of deeper idols. You need to attack the heart of the secular lifestyle before its too late. It's not like a small town in rural Georgia where you can expect the same congregants to faithfully attend church for ten, twenty or thirty years.

This also means I disagree with some of the attempts to repeat the Redeemer model elsewhere. New York isn't Boston or LA.

There's also a lot of work to be done. Christians are underrepresented in urban areas in general, and New York is no exception. Given the number of lost souls and the enormous influence cities have on society at large, someone like Keller has an obligation to draw a wide net.

I'm also reproducing some relevant remarks I left on a comment thread containing criticisms of Keller and Redeemer:

Brad said:

I’m given to reckless oversimplification. Here I go again: The Redeemerites/transfos are basically “U2 church.” Their deepest desire is to see Bono join a hipster PCA church. For Bono to sign up of course he’d need to like us and feel comfortable. The whole movement is about building a “space” that Bono would like and about doing things he would largely approve of.

I came to Christ listening to Keller preach during my undergraduate years at New York University, after which I spent a few years attending Redeemer.

What Keller preaches is viewed as radically intolerant and utterly absurd by the secular world in NYC, to say nothing of how ridiculous Keller and fellow evangelicals look within the university context (I was a Religious Studies major). He’s just another contemptible Evangelical as far as many are concerned, as Redeemer’s preaching ministry is unapologetic in its clear declaration that Christ alone is the path to salvation and fulfillment.

You can criticize his approach to homosexuality, and there’s probably a better way for Keller to address the issue (I suspect he frames it the way he does because some, or many, gay people in NYC listening to an Evangelical on these issues will automatically associate him with the “God hates f—” movement unless he’s exceptionally careful with his words). But please avoid these kinds of simplifications about how Redeemer simply wants hip celebrities to “need to like us and feel comfortable.” Maybe you simply need to live and work in the city to appreciate the utter contempt its inhabitants have for any exclusive truth claims; neither I nor my friends in the city felt that Redeemer was seeking to make others “feel comfortable” like you might find at some theologically liberal church. Simply by proclaiming Jesus as exclusive Lord and Savior and taking the Bible seriously as God’s inspired/inerrant Word you are creating a deeply uncomfortable, even offensive, environment (to say nothing of Keller’s consistently pointed critiques of the postmodern, relativistic understanding of truth and fulfillment).

Phillip Mayberry said:

Dear Matthew,

Your point about oversimplification is well taken.

I am glad you are in the faith, my brother. There IS a better way to address homosexuality, and it is to say what the Bible says. The way something is viewed by a God-hating culture is irrelevent to the message itself. We have no liberty to change the message. Period. I rejoice where Pastor Keller gets it right, I lament where he gets it wrong. Whether or not we will speak what Jesus spoke openly is a serious matter according to Mark 8:38: check it out. With prestige comes great temptation to compromise.

I remember a man whose message was also rejected, and yet the message was not altered at all. This man calls his disciples to do the same… nothing less, for any reason, and no matter where they live, and no matter what the consequences- even death or loss.

Hope you will consider this: it is written in love. I have spoken personally to Pastor Keller along the same lines, and exhorted him to stick with the Bible, and proclaim it openly on every topic, not just what we deem to be the “main” ones. We are heralds, speaking the message of the King, not politicians, keeping some parts of the message quiet so as not to offend. The gospel is offensive: and as you point out, people already think we are crazy anyway- why not declare the whole counsel of God?

Grace to you,

Phillip

Phillip,

I appreciate the spirit in which your comments are offered.

We need to distinguish between compromise and presentation. I think the question is not whether the message is declared, but where and how it is preached, and in what manner, for, if I recall correctly, Redeemer is undoubtedly clear about this issue on its membership form. I also believe it confronts the issue in small groups.

In NYC (or Manhattan, really) what is the critical issue for its inhabitants? Since Richard Rorty won the question of solidarity at the academy, and logical positivism has suffered its (frankly all too fitting) death, the critical philosophical issue, and thus critical theological concern, is whether objective truth exists, whether there are normative, universal standards binding on all of humanity. Obviously the secular intellectual and cultural leaders of the city say "no," and there is now a belief that the words you choose have the power to create value and meaning. Combine this with a generous heaping of Enlightenment individualism, and you have an edifice, a structural framework, that excuses sins of every kind merely as a matter of personal preference, fulfillment and choice.

Keller attacks and dismantles this edifice on a regular basis. It's one of the stronger points of his preaching that only Christ will satisfy the deepest longings of your heart, not whatever you yourself define and pursue as the means of satisfaction. He attacks the intellectual/philosophical roots that produce virtually all the sins of the secular world, including homosexuality. To focus on this foundation is highly effective in that sense, especially given the intellectual nature of his audience, which will work out the implications of what he teaches a the core level. Certainly this line of attack, this destruction of deep, abiding, foundational patterns and assumptions of sin, worked much more effectively on my heart than if someone had simply preached to the surface manifestations of my sinful behavior. Obviously that's not applicable in all situations, but I don't think we can discount this approach as necessarily false.

People listening to Keller come to see the ravishing beauty of Jesus Christ over against the secular ash heap that is personally defined fulfillment. They then can't help but give up their sinful habits and ask Christ what he demands of their lives--including sexually in the practice of homosexuality, if I am to believe some of the reports I've heard.

While you're certainly correct to say that the "way something is viewed by a God-hating culture is irrelevant to the message itself," this has the potential to paper over an acute issue that all pastors in cultures other than the ANE in which Christ was preaching must address. Sometimes when you say one thing to one culture, it will be misinterpreted as another thing you didn't say. Of course, sometimes this is willful and deliberate on the part of the audience, done in order to distort and create (yet another) excuse for sinful behavior. But since we have some measure of control over how the Gospel is received, to what extent do we have an obligation to change our presentation (not content) so as to be properly understood by the audience hearing our message? The practical outworking of this question is felt in NYC when people hear condemnations of homosexual behavior; the homosexual community and its allies will interpret such language as that of Fred Phelps. Obviously the orthodox position on this matter is nowhere near what Phelps presents, but how do you speak to this issue so that others, conditioned by the media to associate a denial of homosexual "rights" with the language and attitude of "God hates f---," can understand that you are offering the Gospel of hope to sinners who are lost under the wrath of God in their self-destructive ways, rather than a reveling and rejoicing, as Nietzsche and other moderns suspect (not without reason), in the eventual torment and suffering of those "disgusting sinners" over there? This is not an easy question, and its often made out to be almost binary by those who really demonstrate no comprehension of the difficulties of ministering in what is almost accurately called the City of Satan.

Again, I think Keller could be better on this issue, but it's not the kind of deficit it's often made out to be by people (not necessarily you in particular) who strike as both simplistic and unsympathetic in their critique of Redeemer and the work it does in a culture completely and totally alien to the Southern and/or Christianized environment that most of the PCA seems to enjoy.

Innate Solidarity or the Despotism of the Sky

In what might very well be one of his last pieces, Christopher Hitchens has again raised the banner of atheism against the parochial machinations of theism.

Defiant to the end, Hitchens' letter reflects his customary style of rhetoric over substance, so there is little in terms of argument to critique.

However, his article provides insight into modern assumptions about the ultimate source of value and meaning:

It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

He goes on to explicate this choice:

That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.

Notice how Hitchens frames the issue; we are left to choose between oppressive concepts of objective truth ("despotism"), on the one hand, and dignity enriching subjectivism, on the other.

This is all downstream of Richard Rorty and his famous essay Objectivity or Solidarity, where Rorty defends subjectively defined community. Here are some representative excerpts (emphasis original):

There are two principle ways in which reflective human beings try, by placing their lives in a larger context, to give sense to those lives. The first is by telling the story of their contribution to a community. This community may be the actual historical one in which they live, or another actual one, distant in time or place, or a quite imaginary one, consisting of perhaps a dozen heroes or heroines selected from history or fiction or both. The second way is to describe themselves as standing in immediate relation to a nonhuman reality. This relation is immediate in the sense that it does not derive from a relation between such a reality and their tribe, or their nation, or their imagined band of comrades. I shall say that stories of the former kind exemplify the desire for solidarity, and that stories of the latter kind exemplify the desire for objectivity. Insofar as a person is seeking solidarity, she does not ask about the relation between the practices of the chosen community and something outside that community. Insofar as she seeks objectivity, she distances herself from the actual persons around her not by thinking of herself as a member of some other real or imaginary group, but rather by attaching herself to something which can be described without reference to any particular human beings.

The tradition in Western culture which centers around the notion of the search for Truth, a tradition which runs from the Greek philosophers through the Enlightenment, is the clearest example of the attempt to find a sense in one's existence by turning away from solidarity to objectivity. The idea of Truth as something to be pursued for its own sake, not because it will be good for oneself, or for one's real or imaginary community, is the central theme of this tradition.

...

By contrast, those who wish to reduce objectivity to solidarity--call them "pragmatists"--do not require either a metaphysics or an epistemology. They view truth as, in William James' phrase, what is good for us to believe...They see the gap between truth and justification not as something to be bridged by isolating a natural and transcultural sort of rationality which can be used to criticize certain cultures and praise others, but simply as the gap between the actual good and the possible better.

...

Part of the instinctive resistance to attempts by Marxists, Sartreans, Oakeshottians, Gadamerians and Foucauldians to reduce objectivity to solidarity is the fear that our traditional liberal habits and hopes will not survive the reduction...I think that putting the issue in such moral and political terms, rather than in epistemological and metaphilosophical terms, makes clearer what is at stake. For now the question is not about how to define worlds like "truth" or "rationality" or "knowledge" or "philosophy," but about what self-image our society should have of itself. The ritual invocation of the "need to avoid relativism" is most comprehensible as an expression of the need to preserve certain habits of contemporary European life.

...

We should say that we must, in practice, privilege our own group, even though there can be no noncircular justification for doing so. We must insist that the fact that nothing is immune from criticism does not mean that we have a duty to justify everything. We Western liberal intellectuals should accept the fact that we have to start from where we are, and that this means that there are lots of views which we simply cannot take seriously.

...

The best argument we partisans of solidarity have against the realistic partisans of objectivity is Nietzsche's argument that the traditional Western metaphysico-epistemological way of firming up our habits simply isn't working anymore. It isn't doing its job. It has become as transparent a device as the postulation of deities who turn out, by happy coincidence, to have chosen us as their people.¹

In at least one critical sense, Rorty has won the philosophical debate, and this is reflected in Hitchens' piece.² The secular world, through the influence of the university, accepts these terms: either we choose unity through subjectively defined, community-based morality, or we suffer under those who think they have a divine mandate that allows them to bend the world to their will.³

Even though Hitchens' dilemma is ultimately false (and deeply problematic, for it ends in claiming God as the fundamental problem with the world!), it is partially correct. Formed in the image of a Triune God, we only thrive in loving, service-oriented community. History is filled with examples of professing believers brutalizing those outside of their community. We may only need mention the Catholic Church of the middle ages and its cultural expectations of "how things ought to be"; claiming that its cultural values were derived from a transcendent standard, it laid a delightful foundation for every sort of rank imperialism and colonialism. And Scripture gives us several case studies of claimed followers of God exercising injustice against those who do not hold to the in-group's standard of righteousness. (A prime example is that of the Pharisees.) The thirst for solidarity is natural and good, and there is a limited, qualified sense in which objectivity ruins its pursuit.

Yet because Scripture accounts for this behavior--the misuse of God's truth for selfish, destructive ends--such activity cannot be a sufficient objection to theism.

Indeed, Scripture offers a positive alternative. Christ has come to establish a kind of community that promotes not just in-group solidarity, but love for those outside of the group, even if they are enemies.⁴ In one sense, the Sermon on the Mount presents a choice between two kinds of objectivity: (a) one which inevitably brings derision, scorn, hate, and even violence, toward those who are not part of the in-group, and (b) another which brings peaceful, loving, tolerant solidarity to both those inside and outside the group. In the former, exemplified by the Scribes and the Pharisees, you earn your social and religious standing through righteous obedience to an extrinsic standard. This acceptance inevitably produces a superiority complex out of which arrogance and oppression flow. In the latter, however, acceptance into Christ's kingdom is grace from beginning to end, a justification by faith alone. Since you do not earn the love of God, there is no ground on which to say you are better than those in the out-group. Since you understand your own sinfulness, and what Christ sacrificed to save you from it, you will have grace and power to love others, even those who hate and despise you.

The love of Christ shatters the post-modern dilemma. In Jesus you will find both objective meaning and loving solidarity.

_____________________________

1. Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 21ff.

2. Strangely enough, here we also find the basis of Brian McLaren's objections to modern Christianity, whether in its conservative or liberal forms.

3. While Rorty's essay targets all forms of objectivity, including scientism, Hitchens' narrowing of the scope of objectivity to theism is reasonable given his intended audience of American atheists.

4. I am indebted here to Timothy Keller's conception of Christ's community as described in "The Community of Jesus." This sermon, an exposition of Luke 6:12-36, is available for free, either on the Redeemer podcast or here at the Redeemer website.

A Friendly Critique of One Man's Grappling with Postmodernism

INTRODUCTION: Below are a few informal definitions from an atheist Facebook friend that is finding certain aspects of postmodernism appealing. He was asked by another Facebook friend to give some definitions of his take on postmodernism. I reproduce these below with my critical commentary in-between:

1) a philosophy that does not dehumanize people by calling people irrational because they come to different conclusions.

Two caveats need to be made in order to be fair in my criticism: (1) my atheist, postmodern friend is still thinking through the implications and varieties of postmodernism and is not yet well-developed in his views. Thus, the critiques I offer below only interact with those undeveloped, informal views he has presented in an informal environment. He may change his views or abandon postmodernism altogether, thus, the critiques below are based only upon his current, informal definitions. (2) Some of my critiques below depend upon what it means to "dehumanize" people. Regardless of what "dehumanize" means to him, to "de-" anything to a person shows that my postmodern atheist friend assumes that there is a moral obligation for people not to mistreat others. Now for my friendly criticism:

• As it stands, the statement above is self-defeating because it itself suggests that there is something wrong or irrational with calling people irrational if they come to different conclusions about that conclusion. I.e., Why are you "dehumanizing" me for "dehumanizing" postmoderns? Also, assuming we are evolved pond-scum and assuming that this is a universal moral obligation, where does such an obligation come from and why shouldn't I do it? However, I'll return to this last question below in fuller detail.
  
• It is arbitrary since assuming we're all mere molecules in motion, I could just as easily say that we should dehumanize irrational people. In other words, we have a moral obligation to punish people for being irrational. After all, isn't that what bad grades, prison sentences, and traffic tickets are all about to a certain extent? This is just another example of how secularist morality is arbitrary.
  
• If this includes people who critique the various forms and facets of post-modernism from a Biblical perspective, then it is also a straw man. Christians do not think that people lose their essential God-given humanness if they adopt a non-Christian philosophy or disagree with certain aspects of orthodox Christian doctrine. On the contrary, those who affirm Biblical authority realize that all people are God's image-bearers and as such they continue to reflect this essential humanness regardless of their philosophical beliefs and this reflection is the essential point of contact with the unbeliever (Romans 1:18-32).
  

My atheist friend goes on to say that postmodernism is:

2) a philosophy that understands that we are not going to get everyone to come to the same conclusions . . . .

• Fair enough, but assuming the conjunction of naturalism with postmodernism, lets ask some deeper questions :
  

1. Assuming the conjunction of naturalism and postmoderism, why do people come to "conclusions" about anything in the first place? Why are people inherently rational whereas animals are inherently instinctual? Why does reasoning exist in the first place? This smacks of teleology, but in an attempt to avoid this obvious implication, our naturalist, postmodern friend may try to argue that it is instinctual for humans to engage in higher-order reasoning via the end-result of neo-Darwinian mechanisms whereas this is not so much the case with "other" animals since they took a different evolutionary pathway. But that skirts the issue, which again, is compacted together into these two questions: Why assume that rationality is normal for people and how do you know what is normative versus non-normative rational behavior given the conjunction of postmodernism and naturalism?

2. Assuming the conjunction of naturalism and postmoderism, why should people come to "conclusions" about anything in the first place? It seems to me that assuming the aforementioned combination, all you are left with are statistical averages. Statistical averages don't necessarily tell us what we ought to do, they only tell us what is the case. As the skeptic David Hume beautifully demonstrated, you can't get an ought from an is. Why assume the need to be rational or ought to do so when no ultimate standards of truth exist in the first place to distinguish between rationality and irrationality? Why should we come to conclusions about anything and why should we expect that we should make conclusions about anything? Using words like "conclusion" assumes that there are fixed principles for determining correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning (i.e., laws of logic like the law of identity, law of non-contradiction, and the law of excluded middle) by which one can come to logical conclusions. But if multiple logical systems exist that are mutually exclusive and contradictory yet supposedly equally valid since no ultimate capital-"T" truth exists, how do you get ultimate "conclusions" to anything (including the conclusion that there is "no ultimate conclusion") since there is no overarching logical meta-narrative exists by which we can judge between competing and sometimes contradictory systems of logic? So, not only do we have the problem of the "why" question, but now we have the problem of the how question. Why should we seek to be rational when, according to the conjunction of postmodernism and naturalism, there is no ultimate criterion to determine rationality from irrationality? How can any type of rationality be possible in a system like that? The only consistent answer a postmodern naturalist can give is that there is no one system for determining "rationality" but that many different "rationalities" exist and that people reason from their different assumed and relative starting points to competing and contradictory conclusions about the nature, scope, and limits of reality. However, that still assumes that there are fixed, non-relative laws that determine correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning. Thus, it is self-defeating to say that there are no fixed, transcendent, immutable laws of logic since the very language that the postmodern uses to deny those laws uses those laws.

3. How can people be rational and responsible if they are merely stimulus-response mechanisms? In other words, rationality presupposes that a person had the ability to choose between two competing conditions and then use their cognitive faculties to reason to the most rational conclusion. Many non-Christians with conservative moral and social values informed by Western culture have expressed outrage with rulings from certain court cases. They wonder what sort of reasoning could have been used to result in such "unfair" decisions when "common sense" should have dictated otherwise.

But assuming postmodernism, "common sense" is only common when there is a commonality of thought between people. The Judeo-Christian foundations of Western countries have been seriously eroded, leaving behind a plethora of differing, mutually exclusive beliefs. This has resulted in the "culture wars" in the United States as well as the religious tension occurring with the Islamization of Europe. However, one common theme that is being taught to all who are subjected to public education in the west is this: the theory of evolution. How does their "creation story" story affect the reasoning processes that have lead to the changes in Western culture?

A recent online article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, by evolutionist A.R. Cashmore, argued that the justice system is flawed because it assumes people have the ability to rationally deliberate and make a choice between two opposing actions, something he argues doesn’t exist at all if people are merely the products of time, chance, and natural processes. He wrote,

"In Anglo-American law, for a person to be found guilty of a crime, he must be aware of his wrongdoing at the time of the crime—he must display mens rea: that is, the mind must be guilty. In certain circumstances, a defendant can be found not guilty by reason of insanity.” [http://www.pnas.org/content/107/10/4499.full.pdf]

He then gives an example where such a defense was not successful;

“. . . the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, who was found guilty . . . for the death of seventeen young men from 1978 to 1991. Dahmer was a necrophiliac, performing gross sexual acts on the dead bodies, as well as performing frontal lobotomies and boiling their skulls in acid.” [Ibid.]

“The rationale for the guilty verdict was that it was claimed that he knew what he was doing was wrong, as evidenced by the fact that he lied to the police about his activities. I raise this case to illustrate two points: First, the legal system assumes a capacity for individuals not only to distinguish between right and wrong, but to act according to those distinctions—that is, an integral component of the legal system is a belief in free will. Furthermore, the legal system assumes that it is possible to distinguish those individuals who have this capacity of free will from those who lack it.” [Ibid.]

However, according to Cashmore,

“The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.” [Ibid.]

What is his and other like minded people’s conclusion?

“As noted by Lady Barbara Wootton, the British criminologist, ‘If mental health and ill health cannot be defined in objective scientific terms that are free of subjective moral judgments, it follows that we have no reliable criterion by which to distinguish the sick from the healthy mind. The road is then wide open . . . to dispense with the concept of responsibility altogether.’” [Ibid.]

In this atheistic evolutionary worldview, serial-killer Jeffrey Dahmer was not responsible for his actions. He simply reacted the way he did because he was biochemically determined to do so. It wasn’t right or wrong, good or evil, it just was. Consider what Dahmer himself said about the effects of one's belief about origins has upon one's behavior,

“If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s—what’s the point of—of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought, anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing . . .” [Dahmer, J., in an interview with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994; creation.com/mass-murderers-testimony. See also here @ 2:25ff and 5:18ff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjW7bezdddE]

So, despite Cashmore’s claims that free moral agency is a myth, Dahmer stated he actually thought through his actions and logically decided on a course of action based on those beliefs. Not only do beliefs have consequences, but if one tries to be consistent (read = rational) with the starting assumptions of postmodernism and naturalism, the logical end result will be nihilism and hedonism. Regarding biochemical determinism, Cashmore admits,

“Darwin was aware of the implications of his theories concerning evolution in reference to free will as indicated in these notes: 'This view should teach one profound humility, one deserves no credit for anything. Nor ought one to blame others.'” [http://www.pnas.org/content/107/10/4499.full.pdf]

This view has several supporters. Consider this statement from atheist professor William Provine,

“Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear . . . There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either." [Provine, W. (prof., Cornell University), Origins Research, Vol. 16:1/2 (1994), p. 9.]

So according to atheistic evolutionists who have thought through the implications of their "creation" story, our actions are simply the result of a biochemically determined stimulus-response mechanism that we are not responsible for, and this outlook has deep roots back to Darwin himself. But perhaps this view is not simply a rational outlook based solely on the "facts". Aldous Huxley said,

“I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do . . ." [Huxley, A., Ends and Means, London: Chatto & Windus, pp. 270 ff, 1937.]

Huxley clearly understood that the only way for existence to have inherent meaning was to believe in a Creator-God, but he didn’t want that to be true because he knew that with a Creator comes standards of right and wrong. So, Huxley willfully chose to suppress the idea of a Creator because it conflicted with his sinful desires. But how could he have chosen anything if he didn't have free moral agency?

After all, Cashmore said,

“A belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs. Indeed, I would argue that free will makes ‘logical sense,’ as long as one has the luxury of the ‘causal magic’ of religion. Neither religious beliefs, nor a belief in free will, comply with the laws of the physical world.” [http://www.pnas.org/content/107/10/4499.full.pdf]

So according to his own beliefs, Cashmore and his fellow atheists have no choice but to be atheists! Every decision he thinks he has made thinking atheism to be a rational, logical worldview is really nothing but biochemical predestination. As I said in my debate with the UNCG Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics in September 2010, if naturalism is true, then we are simply like two different soft drinks fizzing at different rates based upon our chemical composition; one person is "fizzing" Christian theism, the other is "fizzing" atheism. There is no true rationality or responsibility behind what we are doing, we are just dancing to the tune of our DNA.

The modern day champion of new atheism, Richard Dawkins agrees that there is no ultimate purpose to anything.

"Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life . . . life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA . . . life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference." [Dawkins, R., River out of Eden, Chapter 4.]

Given such a view of reality and human existence, it is impossible to ground moral responsibility and rationality, for we are simply biochemical machines dancing to the tune of our DNA.

Internet atheist P.Z. Myers put it this way:

“First, there is no moral law: the universe is a nasty, heartless place where most things wouldn’t mind killing you if you let them. No one is compelled to be nice; you or anyone could go on a murder spree, and all that is stopping you is your self-interest …

“There is nothing ‘out there’ that imposes morality on you, other than local, temporary conditions, a lot of social enculturation, and probably a bit of genetic hardwiring that you’ve inherited from ancestors who lived under similar conditions." [Myers, P.Z. (University of Minnesota–Morris professor), “Morality Doesn’t Equal God”, Pharyngula, August 24, 2009.]

All of these people believe the same ‘creation’ story: atheistic evolution. Even though they have no rational foundation for being rational or responsible, the image of God still pokes out in that (1) they defy the conclusions of their own philosophy by assuming that they can and should be intellectually consistent in some way even if it means consistency in their unbelief; namely, that they all believe there is no such thing as an absolute moral law, and (2) they still hold on to the idea that objective "truth" exists and is knowable. If they didn't believe this, they wouldn't argue the way they do.

Let's go back to our atheist naturalist postmodern friend's informal definitions:

3) [postmodernism is] a philosophy that has proper respect for how our language constructs our realities. . . . in the sense that by even by describing something we are limiting ourselves on what we can know of that thing. [bold mine for emphasis - DSS]

Again, this is self-refuting because if consistent, it ends up in form of linguistic solipsism where no statement about reality actually comports with reality, including any postmodern statements about reality. The idea that we can't really know anything is self-defeating. How does one know that proposition unless he can know something about reality?

4) [postmodernism is] a philosophy that is aware of who our culture and society works to construct our values and how we perceive the world, and a philosophy that rejects an objective "right" perspective to perceive it. [bold mine for emphasis - DSS]

Is the statement in bold itself true? If this is the claim, then postmodernism self-destructs because it cuts its own legs right out from under itself. It says on the one hand that there is no one true way to correctly perceive the world yet it claims to have the truth about how to correctly perceive the world!

5) [postmodernism is] a philosophy that does not however take the view that because there is no objective "right" ways that does not mean we must accept all ways as equally valued. All that statement really means is that we accept and are comfortable with and more willing to deal with the complexity in which we exist in the world. Instead of the positivist point of view that too often just naturalizes their cultural perspective as the objective right way without justification. Postmodernism succeeds in replacing the language of "objective" and "right" with "useful."

Again, this is self-defeating. To criticize the logical positivists because they arbitrarily asserted their views as objectively true without justification is hypocrisy since the postmodernist does the same thing when he asserts without justification that the correct way to perceive the world is to understand that there is no correct way to perceive the world. Also, is it absolutely, objectively, "right" or the "correct way to perceive the world" to say that we need to replace objectivity in language with mere utility? But postmodernism denies that there is one "right" way to perceive the world, thus this statement is self-refuting.

6) again drawing on Michael Lackey . . . postmodernism is the ultimate humanist philosophy. It square puts the human at the center of our knowledge construction and empowers us to change our world in ways others cannot.

I had a very wise and godly man tell me once, "If you reject God at the start of your thinking, you'll not only lose man but you'll lose the world too; but if you start with God, you'll redeem man and He'll also throw in the world for free." Michael Lackey is right. Postmodernism is the ultimate humanist philosophy. After all, when Satan tempted Eve in the garden the first question he asked her was "Did God really say . . .?" Postmodernism as defined by my atheist friend leaves us with no objective truth, meaning, morals, beauty, nor do we have any proper frame of reference by which to make sense out of reality. The only consistent thing is to embrace with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength a dark, cold, nihilism. But because of common grace, most people will not do this, however, some have. Such is the consistent fruit of a godless philosophy.

IN CONCLUSION, the above should sufficiently deal with my friend's understanding of postmodernism. However, he hasn't gone far enough in constructing his autonomous, humanistic philosophy. Recall what one atheist that goes by the nick "Azrienoch" said in an article from his now defunct blog:

Atheists, scientists, philosophers, and other thinking persons that spawn from the second kind of post-modern tradition: I am calling you out. This is your fault. It is this lack of rigor, effort, and sincerity of atheists, scientists, philosophers, and other thinking persons today that has created the monster of Christian presuppositionalism in non-academic philosophy. But mind you, it won’t be non-academic for long.

I’ve seen you fight presuppositionalism with every reasonable bone in your body. But as long as you continue to claim that there is truth, they will win. They have the upper hand against you in using the deconstructive techniques of the first kind of post-modernism. And as long as you insist that there is truth, they can just take you at your own word. Watching you collide with the presuppositionalists is like watching a mother fight with her own child; you want to beat them as hard as you can, but at the same time, you want pieces of them to survive the fight because their truth is your own.

I’ve read paper upon paper on how to defeat a presuppositionalist in debate, and each time I see one of those methods used, I’ve also seen them fail. So listen closely, because I’m about to tell you how to beat them: cut their feet off. Of course, you will only be able to do this by admitting and remembering that you also have no feet. Show them there is no logos and no truth, and they too will have nothing to stand on. This mutated child you’ve given us will die.

But this is a self-sacrificial mission. Your own flawed philosophy, based off of your hopes and desires instead of your honesty and rigor, will die too. That is the tradeoff. If you decide not to, and go about fighting them your way, you only lend them the time and practice to get stronger. [http://graceinthetriad.blogspot.com/2009/05/call-to-atheists-another-atheist-is.html]

Here’s what Azrienoch is saying: If you want to get rid of Christianity and construct a human philosophy that doesn't depend upon God at all, stop saying that any truth exists whatsoever to argue for in the first place and stop assuming that truth exists by even arguing for and defending the very humanistic philosophy that undermines it in the first place. To argue and debate assumes that truth is objective and knowable; but as our postmodern atheist friend has argued, there is no truth, so why debate?

Azrienoch did the Christian community a great service when he wrote that blog article back in 2006. While atheism is wicked, I truly appreciated Azrienoch's logical rigor and consistency. His analysis only confirms what I've been saying for years, which goes something like this: If you are logically consistent and want to have a worldview that can ground rationality and provide an indubitable moral basis to be rational, then there is only one worldview that you can adhere to in the end: Biblical Christianity.

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe." (1 Corinthians 1:20-21 NAU)

It's safe to cross against a red light if everyone does it together

The following is an excerpt from D.A. Carson's article, "Contrarian Reflections on Individualism":

[W]e need to reflect a little more on the bearing of truth on [individualism]. Begin with an essay by Phil Myles, "Of Truth, Tolerance and Tyranny." Miles begins by outlining one of the central myths of our time. According to this myth, a society is likely to be most tolerant if it holds to flexible, non-dogmatic, even multivalent notions of truth; conversely, a society is likely to be most intolerant where it holds to absolute truths, truths that are inflexible, unbending. In other words, tyranny and tolerance find themselves in a perennial battle, and which pole triumphs is largely tied to the conception of truth that we sustain.

But does this myth capture reality? Is the myth true? Miles sets forth his thesis:

The reality of the situation is just the opposite of what we have been led to believe. Put simply, tyranny is not the inevitable outcome of an absolutist view of truth, but is, rather, the direct product of relativism. Likewise, tolerance arises not from relativism but from the very thing that our society anathematizes—the belief in absolutes.

It would take too long to lay out the details of Miles’s argument. Suffice it to say that he holds that many of our categories for thinking about these things are inappropriate. In part, he argues by case study. He begins with Japan, a country where he lived for many years. In most Western cultures, we live in the shadow of the Enlightenment, which taught us to classify our experience into two categories: the one, full of non-absolutes, is characterized by emotion, aesthetics, the arts; the other is characterized by absolutes, objectivity, science, logical thought, and truth. These two categories are mutually exclusive. The second category is the domain of both tyranny and objective truth. By contrast, Japan brings the two categories together in ways that would be judged incompatible in most of the Western world: on the one hand, haiku poetry and delicate paintings of enchanting cherry blossoms, and on the other, ruthless business corporations and political machinations. The fact that these two categories co-exist and interpenetrate each other in Japan is part of what makes Japan seem so "mysterious" to the Western observer. In reality, Miles argues, what is often called the “iron triangle"—"the triad of elected government, big business and the bureaucracy"—exerts enormous power in a frankly oppressive manner. "There is no need to picture this in terms of dictators and jack-boots. Things are done a lot more subtly in Japan, but the salient fact is that those who hold power use it to control the lives of those beneath them.” There is little tradition of elected officials being “servants of the people"; in fact, the people exist to serve the state and culture, not to mention the company to which a person belongs. In Japanese culture, there is little notion of "right" and "wrong" in absolute terms; it is well known that there is no Japanese word for "sin." In this sense, Japanese society is relativisitic—i.e., what is "right" depends on the situation in which you find yourself, determined by the social expectations of your position in the power structure. Miles writes,

Japanese are very adept at assessing what is required in a situation and acting accordingly. This is often misunderstood by Westerners as duplicity, but it is simply the way life must be lived where all is relative. Truth itself becomes merely a social construct. If everybody believes something to be true, or if the powers that be say that it is, then for the practical purposes of daily life, it is true. As the Japanese say, it’s safe to cross against a red light if everyone does it together.

In other words, Japan is a case study in which a kind of relativism opens up the door to a kind of social tyranny that massively discounts the significance of the individual and therefore squashes individualism. Miles argues that in this sort of culture, if there were, say, unambiguous and objective moral law to which individuals could appeal, there could be a critique of the unfettered deployment of social and political power. It is the absence of such objective standards that make the oppressiveness of the culture possible.

Though it is not part of Miles's argument, one might observe that in the twentieth century the greatest political crushing of individualism occurred under Marxism and Fascism. Both deployed not only brute force but massive propaganda machines to keep people safely in line with the party dogma. Truth was what Joseph Goebbels (for instance) said it was.

In the light of such case studies, one becomes aware that individualism that can become personally tyrannical (everyone does what is right in their own eyes) may, in this broken world, alternatively serve as a bulwark standing athwart massive social and political tyrannies crying, "Enough!" But it is hard to see whence the moral fortitude for such a stance will come if we systemically lose the category of objective truth. Martyrs are not made of sponge.

Green like Puke - Donald Miller's Postmodern Epistemology

I have had several people either make reference to or ask me about Donald Miller's writings over the years. I have purposely refrained from directly addressing the writings of men like Miller both on my church blog and in teaching because I would rather focus on teaching people the truth of a Biblical epistemology, that way when a counterfeit rears its ugly head, they recognize it for what it is. That is why I'm three years late on this issue. Nevertheless, in my pastoral ministry and evangelistic work, I have been asked questions about Miller, and thus, I will provide a short response to his views in this blog article. In short, Miller is a postmodern relativist with a constructivist theory of truth. That means that he has bought in to the notion that truth is neither objective or knowable.

On page 103 of Blue Like Jazz, Miller basically says that Christianity is not an intellectual issue for him any more because he has grown past that. According to him, having an intelligent, rational discussion and debate about the existence of God is pretty much a waste of time because doing so amounts only to a display of arrogance and ego since it reveals who the smartest debater is. To be fair, this can be true as far as it goes, but not all debaters are the same since some love the truth and believe they are obligated to defend it. In the context of this discuss Miller then says, "Who knows anything anyway?" There are a few obvious problems with a statement like this:

1. If we really can't know anything then we can't know that proposition either. Thus, Miller's position is self-refuting.

2. He also essentially says that if he walks away from God he will not do so for intellectual reasons. Instead he says, "I will walk away for social reasons, identity reasons, deep emotional reasons, the same reasons that any of us do anything." However, the discerning Christian doesn't walk away from truth claims and worldviews simply because they are emotionally painful; we walk away from them because they are not true.

3. If there is no objective truth that is knowable (as Miller clearly suggests in his book) and if there is only the endless, pointless argumentation of intelligent people who disagree with each other because it only amounts to relativistic opinions, then what else is there at the bottom of it all? My conclusion as an unbeliever was this: nothing. There is nothing at the bottom of it all and reality as we know it is a cosmic accident (i.e., nihilism).

As I see it, the problem with Miller and any professing Christian who has fallen for this postmodern cultural view of the nature of "belief" can say that he believes in biblical authority or biblical inspiration, but the words will be absolutely meaningless. The postmodernist's individual's particular interpretation of Scripture will potentially be devoid of any significant grounding in the historical creeds and confessions of faith because of the complete lack of epistemological certainty; hence, Miller's statement, "Who knows anything anyway?" This is highly problematic, because the idea of mind-independent, objective truth necessarily grounds belief in Biblical authority and if truth does not exist and is not knowable, then we are without hope and without God in the world.

Biblical authority has to do with the author's intended meaning in writing what he wrote. The postmodernist view of truth as merely a social or personal construct (a constructivist view of truth) that renders the author's intended meaning completely irrelevant. With a postmodern constructivist view of truth, what really matters is the reader's understanding and perspective of the writing, not what the author originally intended. As a result, biblical authority and inspiration flies out the window and the door has just been opened to theological liberalism. Whether he knows it or not, this is exactly what Miller does with his "who knows anything anyway" type of statements. This is also the fundamental presupposition behind Jacques Derrida's philosophy of literary deconstructionism.

Christians who want to be clear in their statements and intellectually compelling can never fall for the truth-eviscerated notion of "belief" put forward by Donald Miller while at the same time arguing for a particular interpretation of Scripture based on the authority of Scripture. Such view would be internally contradictory, because a constructivist view of truth does not permit Scripture to have any intrinsic authority in and of itself; it can only have the authority that the reader chooses to give to it. Someone who holds this postmodernist view of truth will not hold to Christian teachings because of the truth and authority of the God-breathed Scripture, but because of his or her "social reasons, identity reasons, deep emotional reasons." This is mysticism at its finest; determining truth based upon how it makes you feel. In conclusion, Miller's "who knows anything anyway" view of truth is at best dishonoring to God since it implies that He hasn't spoken to men in His word with sufficient clarity and at worst, it is dangerous to Christianity since it eviscerates the very foundation for objective, knowable truth, the type of truth that is necessary to ground the sure and certain promises of the gospel as contained in Holy Writ.

Words Have Meaning

I just read this article about a family who tried to abort a "weaker" twin who refused to die. Now I could go on about certain aspects of that, but what I want to focus on here is this stupid statement by the mother:

It really is a miracle. Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die - yet he hung on.

Did you catch that? "Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die"...to let him die????

I suppose if I ever kill someone I can stand before the judge and say, "Your honor, I simply pulled the trigger/cut the throat/poisoned the food of the victim to let the victim die. I didn't actually do anything. It was all passive."

This statement by Mrs. Jones is nothing but a rationalization of abortion by making it seem passive instead of admitting it is the active killing of the unborn. We see the same exact terminology used in euthenasia cases too. "We'll pull the feeding tube and let the patient die. It's what they would have wanted."

All this begs the point that anyone who deprives another person of food will CAUSE that person die. Anyone who engages in activities that will cause the death of another human being is not "letting" death occur, it is causing death to occur.

Words have meaning. The fact that this woman felt pricked in her conscious enough for her to twist her words from an active killing to a passive allowing of a death demonstrates that she knows in her heart that what the doctors were doing was wrong. If the doctor's decision is not morally suspect, there is no reason to pretend that what the doctors do is to permit a death instead of causing the death.