Saturday, January 25, 2014

Self-esteem without a Self, or "Hearts don't have neurons".

   This blog, after returning from a sloth-induced hiatus, continues to jump the shark by indulging in the oft-decried practice of self-reference. E.g., today I posted this on everyone's favorite social network: "Why is it that our society has glorified humanity to a greater extent than any in the past, yet bemoans the ever-present failure of man's self-esteem? It's because a society built on moral relativism has no exterior framework, no objective values by which to esteem the self. Culturally, we have become a chorus of yes-men with no conductor, an octopus grasping for meaning with no brain to discern it, a disembodied assembly of hearts, pumped by the hand of the State. Once, the Roman Emperors wished one neck upon mankind, the more easily to cut it; millenia later, Kant and Marx have delivered it."

   Some thoughts to expand on this topic, and to make it at least somewhat scripturally relevant seem in order, otherwise such statuses consist of little more than philosophizing for it's own sake. I have long noticed a tension self-contradiction between two aforementioned phenomena in modern society. Everywhere one looks, the individual (or so it is said) man is elevated onto a podium, and exalted as a, nay THE God. "Rights", we cry, "rights! Marriage rights, drug rights, privacy rights, reproductive rights, rights to live and rights to die! We have a RIGHT to (x)!" One need look no farther than Texas pro-choicers chanting "Hail, Satan" to drown out the opposition, or gay marriages, e.g., covenants centered on sodomy, taking place on floats in the Rose Parade to realize that from the Christian perspective, this self-exaltation is prevalent, anti-God, and in your face. The creator has no rights, his creatures do. Moloch-worship lives, folks.

   "And yet", some of us puzzle, "people don't seem to be happy this way...they provide themselves with all the reason to love their (sinful) natures and lifestyles in the world, and yet, they constantly fear the loss of their precious self-esteem.  Confusing".  Well, one reason is scripturally evident: all reprobate persons are "god-suppressing ones", as the Greek would have it, and the image of the Father on their souls tells them that "those who do such things deserve to die".  (Rm. 1:18-31).  But I think that in our time, there is a more philosophically subtle reason that this has become more and more evident in the lives and attitudes of unbelievers.

   While the atheist philosophers of the Twentieth century merely inserted their ideological constructs in the place of the Most High, whether they be "science", "pure reason", "the classless state" or "racial purity", in the end, even the hollow shell of Theism and moral absolutism that these bore was not only evidently hypocritical to many observers, but repugnant to the Enemy, who abhors good and can only mock.  In the end, each of these systems degenerated into the moral soup (or rather, immoral cesspool) of modern Western Civilization, a witches' brew appropriately given a catch-all term: "moral relativism".  "Well that might be *your (science, reason, logic, most-good-for-the-most-people, truth, personal experience), and it's great for you, but I have mine, so butt out!", cry the relativists, all failing to realize that in doing so with no Theism they have shot all those principles, the fabric from which reality itself is woven, in the head.  After all, what is "science and reason"?  What is "the most good for the most people"?  What is "truth"?  In fact, what are people and what is mind?  Who can say?  Certainly no one can with finality.  And herein lies the Romans rub: mankind was not made that way.

   Stripped of the objective standard God gave us, (his word), but desperately urged by the residual and unceasing Imago Dei they still bear to find a substitute, the reprobate find it in each other, each failing to grasp that each man and woman they use as a distorted mirror is trying as desperately to catch the "truth" of their neighbor as they are.  Ultimately, human relationships are twisted into a mix of fear, loathing and desperation, as each person's "truth" is simultaneously infallible right and deadly threat.  And in our time, Satan, seeing the sort of vacuum that he most enjoys filling (a throne with no God on it), has decided to insert that most Western of tropes: the State.

   "Oh, who can say where truth is!", idolaters cry, wringing their hands and ignoring their previous claims that it didn't exist, "we've got to compromise".  This compromise, they say, IS the truth that does the most good for the most people, but "truth" and "good" and "people" are determined by those most unscrupulous of idolaters, the bureaucrat and the politician.  Accepting the premise of relativism at face value, yet motivated by some unspoken sense that they can game the system, the charlatans of the modern state steadily introduce whatever truths afford them the most power, wealth and fame, and inevitably, moral stagnation and perversion are the result.

   A brief case study of ancient Rome should suffice: 1) Men worship idols. 2) Men become idols.  3) Only some men retain the power to stay idols.  4) Divine judgement and societal ruin.  And so here we are, Americans.  The philosophers of the past have convinced us that we have moved beyond such petty superstition as Emperor worship and polytheism.  Have we?  The psychologists of the present have told us that the source of self-esteem is societal.  Is it?  The Historians of the bleeding edge are now telling us that any link between the end of Rome or Greece and their sex practices is outmoded and prudish (while teaming with their buddies, the philosophers and psychologists, to tell us to embrace said practices).  Is it?

   Christians, we know better.  The Bible teaches better.  God gave us minds, and he gave us selves, but he gave us a standard for our minds (his word) and a standard for our selves (his law).  Don't settle for the wisdom of the world.  Know that the only ethical source of self-love is love of God.

In Christ,

~JS