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A True View of the World: Inside or Outside?
Anthony Kennedy and Casey
In the Supreme Court decision “Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania V. Robert P. Casey” in 1992, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his opinion:
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
Is that statement by a Supreme Court justice true? Can someone define his own concept of existence, of meaning? Everyone defines his own meaning? I say “no” to that, but it relates to how anyone obtains an accurate understanding of the world.
Anthony Kennedy wrote that personal preference, which originates from a person’s feelings or opinions, arising from the inside and not the outside, would override objective meaning. Therefore, objective truth contradicted freedom and essentially then America itself. Something is true as long as it corresponds to someone’s desires.
Authenticity and Relativism
Even more so, when truth is your truth, then it’s also authentic. Count that for goodness and beauty too. Stephen Presser writes about Kennedy’s line:
It undoubtedly owes a lot to Freudian psychology, to Rousseau’s notion that civilization places us in chains, and, most of all, to the concept usually associated with Abraham Maslow, “self-actualization.” The core of this philosophy seems to be that each of us has an authentic “self,” and the goal of life ought to be to maximize individual opportunities to express and develop it.
I read someone, who called the statement, “the epitome of relativistic thought.” Obviously, when applied to abortion, to which the Casey law was written, a baby is anything the person feels it to be, who wants the abortion. It is an invader of the mother or just a clump of cells or cancer.
Outside, Not the Inside
Before the 19th century in the United States, almost everyone saw truth as received from the outside, not the inside. God was separate from His creation. Truth, goodness, and beauty, which came from Him, outside of His creation, were transcendent. Hence, people called them the transcendentals.
On the outside was evidence. Revelation is the declaration of God. This is premodernism. Everything starts with God. But even modernism said evidence on the outside was necessary. As Ben Shapiro very often says, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Man’s observation falls below revelation though. Modernism assumed that absolutes existed, but their testing came through man’s reasoning.
Predmodern, Modern, Romanticism, Postmodern
Between Christ and the 19th century, this very long period is premodern. Sure, 1500 to 1800 is an early modern period. I don’t want to get into when modernism started. It depends on how you define it. Theological modernism started in the 19th century. That’s the time of the worldview shift reflected also in the Romantic Movement of the 19th century.
Modernism connected truth to man’s experience, his observation. Romanticism moved modernism all the way to the inside, where truth, goodness, and beauty were not longer transcendent, but completely immanent. New religions exploded in the 19th century. Truth lost objectivity. People’s opinion, their feelings, increasingly become more important to decide truth, goodness, and beauty. The movement toward truth is your truth is postmodernism.
God’s Word is the final arbiter of truth, but it isn’t the only one. 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the church the pillar and ground for the truth. Still, however, that’s outside of your opinion, your thinking, and your feelings.
Even modernism depends on man’s thinking or reasoning. This continues to influence even conservatism in the world. Modernists confirm God’s revelation to man’s thinking, what one could call, rationalism. Scripture stands above man’s reasoning, what Peter calls the pure mother’s milk (1 Pet 2:2). It circumvents man’s observation and reasoning, coming directly from God, that is, from the outside. What it says is true, good, and beautiful.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Postmodernism, and Critical Theory
People in general don’t want to be told what to do. This arises from the sin nature of mankind, a cursed rebellion passed down from Adam. So people won’t have to do what an authority tells them, they disparage the credibility of it. They especially attack God in diverse manners so He won’t hinder or impede what they want.
Premodernism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Critical Theory, and Epistemology
The premoderns, even if some did not view themselves or the world correctly, related everything to God. Truth was objective. They knew truth either by natural or special revelation of God. If God said it, it was true, no matter what their opinion. Many invented various means to deal with their own contradictions, but God remained God.
Modernism then arose and said revelation wasn’t suitable for knowledge. Modernists could point to distinctions between religions and denominations and the wars fought over them. Knowledge instead came through scientific testing, man’s observations, consequently elevating man above God. Man could now do what he wanted because he changed the standard for knowledge. Faith for sure wasn’t good enough. With modernism, faith might make you feel good, but you proved something in naturalistic fashion to say you know it. Modernism then trampled the twentieth century, producing devastation, unsuccessful with its so-called knowledge.
Premoderns had an objective basis for knowledge, revelation from God. Moderns too, even if it wasn’t valid, had human reasoning, what they called “empirical proof.” Postmoderns neither believed or liked scripture or empiricism. This related to authority, whether God or government or parents, or whatever. No one should be able to tell somebody else what to do, which is to conform them to your truth or your reality. No one has proof. Institutions use language to construct power.
Postmodernism judged modernism a failure, pointing to wars, the American Indians and institutional bias, bigotry, and injustice. Since modernism constructed itself by power and language, a postmodernist possesses his own knowledge of good and evil, his own truth, by which to construct his own reality. No one will any more control him with power and language.
Critical theory proceeds from postmodernism, but is ironically constructed to sound like modernism. It’s not a theory. Theory is by definition supposed to be rational and associated with observations backed by data. Critical theory criticizes, but it isn’t a theory, rather a desire. People desire to do what they want and don’t want someone telling them what to do, so they deconstruct the language to serve their desires and change the outcome. In the United States especially, theorists criticize white males, those who constructed language and power for their own advantage. According to their theories, white men kept down women, all the other races, and sexual preferences.
The postmodernism behind critical theory procures its knowledge with total subjectivity. Those proficient in theory based on their own divination know what’s good and evil, making them woke to this secret knowledge. They have eaten of the tree. White men are evil. The patriarchy is evil. Anyone contesting gender fluidity and trangenderism is evil.
Epistemology is a field of study that explores and judges how we know what we know and whether we really know it, that it is in fact knowledge. What is a sufficient source of knowledge? You can say you know, but do you really know? The Bible uses the term “know” and “knowledge” a lot. Biblical knowledge is certain, because God reveals it. You receive knowledge when you learn what God says. You can’t say the same thing about what you experience or feel.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
In Genesis 2 (vv. 9, 17), what was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? In the same context, Genesis 3:5-7 say:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,, knowing good and evil. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
If Adam and Eve depended on what God knew, they would not have eaten of the forbidden tree. Instead they trusted their own knowledge. The tree wasn’t the tree of the knowledge of good. God provided that knowledge. Just listen to Him. Eating of the tree brought the knowledge of evil. The knowledge of evil, what someone might call, carnal knowledge, reminds me of three verses in the New Testament.
1 Corinthians 5:1, It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
Ephesians 5:3, But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.
Romans 16:19, For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
What Is the Primary Cause of Division in the United States?
Our country is divided. Many say it is more divided than any time since the Civil War. Most of you readers live here, so this is no surprise to you. Many articles and even whole books have been written in the last decade on the division in the United States, but the present situation provoked some to write in the last month on the subject. The following paragraph represents writing in the last month on severe division in America.
The City Journal published an article by Andrew Klavan, titled, “At the Heart of Our Divisions.” Klavan, part of Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, tries to explain the division as others have. Newsweek reports that a “Majority of Trump Voters Want to Split the Nation Into ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Halves.” The Las Vegas Sun reported it this way:
A new political poll offers an alarming look at the state of American unity and our population’s respect for some of the nation’s core values.
The poll, conducted by the University of Virginia’s nonprofit Center for Politics, shows that 52% of respondents who voted for former President Donald Trump were in favor of splitting the country into red and blue states, while 41% of voters for President Joe Biden agree with the idea. More than 2,000 voters participated in the poll, nearly equally divided between those supporting Trump and Biden.
Ed Kilgore at The Intelligencer, part of New York Magazine, writes, “No, We Can’t Get a National Divorce There’s growing sentiment for secession, particularly on the right. It should be rejected.” At Substack, Claremont senior fellow David Reaboi writes, “National Divorce Is Expensive, But It’s Worth Every Penny.” Karol Markowicz writes at the New York Post, “Sorry, but a national split up just won’t work.” Steven Malanga at the City Journal writes, “The New Secession Movement.” Conservative commentator Rich Lowry writes at Politico of all places, “A Surprising Share of Americans Wants to Break Up the Country. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” Dan Rodricks writes at the Baltimore Sun, “Civil war unlikely, but the nation’s present course could still be disastrous.” Most of these were written in the last week, and there are more.
Okay, so there’s division. Everyone can agree with that. Putin of Russia and Xi of China smile. Why though? I’ve read or heard a lot of different reasons: media, tribalism, the education system, the deep state, and more. Klavan lists reasons in the first paragraph of his post. Those are typical, whole books written about them, but I believe these are surface reasons, I would call, non-worldview reasons, that are superficial and don’t dig deep enough.
My take on the acute and bitter division between states, people, and parties in the United States, I want to give credit, corresponds to something Nancy Pearcey writes about in her book, Total Truth. She explains a division portrayed by the lower and upper stories of a building or house with the lower story being “facts” and the upper story being “values.” Today you hear a lot about facts in the media, news, and schools. This is the “science is real” at the top of the leftist value sign. In this upper and lower story bifurcation, values are probably not what you think they are. Let me explain.
God is One. Truth, which proceeds from God, is also one. Pearcey’s proposition is “total truth,” the title of her book. There are not two stories that treat facts different than values, where values are constructed, personal and subjective. You can’t really know these with certainty. No, with God His natural laws, facts or science, are no different than moral laws. If you fall from the edge of a cliff, gravity sends you down to destruction. Breaking moral laws also destroys. Worse even. God is the Author of both.
Premoderns took a transcendent view of the world. Truth, goodness, and beauty, the transcendentals, all related to God. God transcending the world is the basis of the transcendentals. He’s not part of the world. He created it and having created it, He is separate from it. As James 1 says, that with God there is no shadow of turning. God is holy. He is Self-existent and immutable. Nothing affects Him. All meaning comes from God, so truth, goodness, and beauty, the transcendentals, are objective.
This world is God’s world. Even if someone doesn’t believe in God, they are living in His world. This is reality. The division breaks down into those who live in reality, recognition that this world functions according to laws according to which everyone must live, even if they reject the God of the Bible, and then those who don’t live in reality.
The ones not living in reality, which are one side of the division in the United States, see the top story, values, how they want to see them. It’s one reason they are called “values,” and not “morals” or “moral laws.” Using “values” is using language with power. Incidentally, part of critical theory is perfecting this language for use in reconstructing reality.
Looking at the world like two sides of the campus, religion, art, etc. on one side and then science, math, and engineering on the other, the blue part of the country thinks they can assign their own meaning on one side of the campus. They ultimately don’t want God in charge. They don’t want objective values that clash with what they want, so they make up their own and dismiss God or make up their own god that approves of their values. This is the basis for the Democrat party booing God when voting on their political platform in 2012. This is also how they justify killing babies.
The truth is that the blue states, people, etc. now assign their own meaning to science as well. They call it science like hanging out a shingle, pulling science out of a Cracker Jack box. Their subjectivity on the upper story, think of it as bad plumbing, has burst through into the lower story like a broken pipe. That side can’t tell you that a girl is a girl. This is one reason why many don’t want to go to college in this country anymore. They know it’s a racket that is not living in reality.
One side of the division in the country wants the nation to be called like it really is. Borders are representative of this. You can’t be a nation when you don’t protect, not just protect — how about acknowledge that you have a border. Whatever one thinks about the virus and masks and the vaccination, it’s understandable why a big chunk of the country doesn’t trust authority on this. I’m not going to even get into what Fauci has said. He doesn’t speak science and this is demonstrative on multiple occasions.
The government, the media that supports it, and now even corporations are all in on the lies. They allot whatever meaning they want and they expect you to receive it. If you don’t, now they’ll even prosecute you. They’ll fire you. If you don’t put on their particular pin, which supports whatever lie that they deem correct, you might lose your job.
I believe most churches too have succumbed to the two stories I’ve described. They put beauty, music, dress in the personal, the subjective, the top story. They capitulate on basic doctrine and practice to accommodate for popularity and numbers. Their targets see the world according to the lie of these two stories. They know it and they concede to it. This does not bode well for the country. Even if the nation does split into two parts, what will happen to the red side when the churches have taken the same basic approach to truth? This is the most fundamental aspect of worldliness in churches today.
Another metaphor to demonstrate what the division of truth, the two story view, does to the country is a rudderless ship. The country has no certain belief to hold it together or to give it direction. It moves according to whatever current or wind produced by the world, like a float or a bob on an aimless sea. The force of popularity, what scripture would call lust, the combined desires of the population, decides what is it’s truth, it’s goodness, and it’s beauty, whatever each of these is in their own eyes.
Everything above explains the division in the country. Maybe the next question is, what is the solution to this division? That, my friend, is much more difficult.
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