Aesthetic and Moral Beauty

Knowing nothing in truth about which of these convictions and desires is noble, or base, or good, or evil, or just, or unjust, he applies all these names following the great animal’s opinion—calling what delights it good and what vexes it bad.                                                                                                                              -Plato                                                                                                                         

Over the summer my eleven year old daughter read a contemporary piece of young adult “literature”. This is not a genre I enjoy, but I read the work with her so that we could discuss it together. 

“Was it a good book?” I asked.

“Yes!” she answered.

“Why?” I followed up.

“Because I liked it.” 

As I continued to press her, she continued to locate the book’s objective goodness in her subjective enjoyment of it. I was unsurprised by this. It is a natural human tendency to conflate our subjective preferences with objective qualities. 

Why is this?

First, while it takes a mere moment’s reflection to determine whether or not we like something, it is incredibly difficult to explain in what way and to what degree a thing is objectively good or bad, true or false, or beautiful or ugly. 

What is more, because man is a unified being, and not a amalgam of objective thought and subjective feeling, it is very difficult for people to separate their objective analysis of a thing from the pleasure or disgust it evokes in them. 

Yet it is essential that we learn to do just this. Let any untrained child determine his diet and he will subsist on candy, chips, soda, etc.—on things that give a moment’s delight, but fail to nourish and promote the health of the body. In the same way, let any untrained child determine his reading and he will subsist on the trash that passes for children’s or young adult literature—books with thin plots, shallow characters, asinine and repetitive, if not downright wicked, morals—works that may produce momentary enjoyment, but fail to nourish and promote the health of the soul. 

What is more, junk food and junk books alike stave off our hunger and thereby deter us from seeking higher and better things that provide true nourishment for the body and soul. What is more, this deprivation leads to a corruption of taste. The child that only eats Skittles and Cheetos will not enjoy broccoli; the child that reads junk books will not enjoy Jane Austen or Charles Dickens—the child exposed only to trash will be far too easily pleased in his reading and eating.

An even more serious problem, as Plato argued years ago, is the natural progression from aesthetic relativism to moral relativism. If one can say “I like this [movie, song, painting, book, etc.] therefore it is good and there is no argument or evidence that anyone can say or produce to prove me wrong,” then it is but a small step to say “I like this [act, lifestyle, etc.] therefore it is good and there is no argument or evidence that anyone can say or produce to prove me wrong.” In other words, if there are no aesthetic absolutes, if a seemingly objective aesthetic judgment is merely a subjective preference in disguise, then one may infer (and far too many do!) that there are no objective morals and all objective truth claims are mere masks for subjective preferences. 

So important was the connection between aesthetic and moral goodness to Plato that he advocated banning poets; so real is this connection to me that I have told my children, with only a touch of hyperbola, that I would rather they be illiterate than read aesthetically or morally bad books. This seems an absurd exaggeration, but people in oral cultures had both proverbial wisdom and prodigious memories. While the culture and wisdom passed on in the Great Books more than makes up for our loss of proverbs and our diminished memories, I am not sure that the content of popular books compensates for the loss of these two things.  

The aesthetic beauty of a thing is deeply connected with its power to influence our thoughts and actions. Whereas reason moves the mind, beauty moves the heart. The most important thing about a man is not his thoughts, but his loves. The anarchist and libertarian are wrong in believing that freedom alone will lead a man to naturally enjoy and embrace things that are good. The totalitarian and authoritarian make the converse mistake in assuming that nothing but power and fear can restrain a man from chaos. Man is neither angel nor demon, neither naturally good nor incapable of goodness. Man is capable of the construction of both Chartres and Dachau; of composing the melodies of Bach and the discord of Kid Rock; men have followed saints like Francis and madmen like Jim Jones; mankind has produced statesmen like Solon and Trajan and tyrants like Nero and Caligula. Man is nothing less than a creature made in the image of God, fallen. As such he must be trained to love what is good—neither left to himself to choose or determine what is good nor compelled by brute force to choose what the state deems good, but rather trained to love what is good. 

This training is essential to the internal harmony of both the soul and society. For example, it is not enough to merely say to our children, “this is wrong, don’t do it.” We must show them that wrong things are not only bad, but also ugly. Right now we are laudably telling young men that sexual assault is wrong. Nonetheless, the numbers of incidents seem undiminished. One of the reasons for our lack of progress is that our approach is insufficient. Yes, young men must be told that rape is wrong, but they also must be shown that it is false and ugly. They must be not only told that their personal purity and the protection of others is good, but also shown that this is a true and beautiful use of their minds and bodies. People become what they love for they only pursue what they love. 

Reading trashy vampire novels trains young women to love shallow romance; playing games like Grand Theft Auto trains young men to love exploitation and selfish pursuits. On the other hand, Jane Austen can teach a young woman to embrace the painful growth of character that will prepare her for marriage; reading a work like A Tale of Two Cities and seeing the example of Sydney Carton can inspire a young man to embrace the type of self-sacrifice on behalf of another that will prepare him to be a leader, husband, and father.

This begs the question: what is a good book? 

When determining the goodness of a work one must consider both its aesthetic and moral qualities. As simple as this sounds, an aesthetically good book is one that is well-written and that speaks to something immutable in the human heart. Who determines what is “well-written”? No single individual can make this determination. All of us, even the best of us, are at times subject to the biases of our particular circumstances such as our class, ethnicity, the age in which we live, etc. Though these do not determine how we view a work of literature, they certainly influence our views. Instead of looking to his own limited experience and fallible judgment, a man ought to consult the “Democracy of the Dead.” We ought to ask, “What have prior generations, especially the best of those that have come before us, thought about this or that book?” If generation after generation of readers consider a work well-written and worth reading then it is well-written and worth reading. If we read it and come to a different conclusion, the lack is not in the book, but rather in us. Single generations often err in their valuation of a work of literature; but multiple generations never do. If a book has withstood the test of time it is worth reading.

In determining the moral goodness of a work Plato again frames our inquiry. We ought to ask, “Does this book elevate virtue or denigrate vice?” A book may portray vice, but in so doing it ought to show the ugliness and consequences of vice. Likewise and above all a book must never mock virtue. Praising vice and mocking virtue train the heart to love what is evil and hate what is good. When one reads a good work one does not analyze, but rather enters into and often enjoys a new world. In so doing the work bypasses reason and directly affects the heart. If its moral is perverse in some way, it will work toward the corruption of one’s loves, which will in turn lead to a corruption of one’s thoughts, choices, character, etc. Though this is a deeply conservative idea, even progressives understand this principle. Consider, for a moment, the last film you saw that mocked diversity or that praised racism. Hollywood does not make films like this, knowing well that these types of films would move viewers away from its values.    

Just as it is easy to find films that reflect the modern zeitgeist, it is relatively easy to find books that are both aesthetically and morally good. Indeed, one could spend a lifetime reading the likes of Dostoevsky, Augustine, Plutarch, Dante, Virgil, Tolstoy, Lewis, Tolkien, etc. and never plumb their depths. The more difficult question is: how do we train our children to not only prefer the works of Tacitus to Twilight, but to love and to be moved and transformed by great works? 

As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” We lack the power to make our children love anything. Nonetheless, we can and should lead them to good literature time and again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again. We should also limit their exposure to junk literature. The two, taken together, will often whet their appetite for good literature. 

For example, I cannot make my children like carrots. But I can give them carrots every day and require that they eat them. I can also limit their intake of candy, chips, and soda so that their hunger encourages them to eat the food I give them. They may grow up and resent me for this and indulge in junk and ruin their health. I cannot control that. But in serving them tasty and healthy food and explaining the goodness of it, I increase the likelihood that they will develop a healthy palate. They will eat junk, both in my house and elsewhere, but I can limit their intake of junk far more than I would like to admit.

In the same way, you and I can share deep and moving stories with our children and we can keep them from much of the cheap trash that passes for literature. They may resent us and reject our teachings as adults, but in sharing great works with them we highly increase the likelihood that they will develop a healthy desire for good books. The man that has only known idleness may, in his ignorance, feel content in his sloth, but the man trained in hard work, though he may become lazy, will never be comfortable with his self-indulgence and this discomfort may drive him to embrace work. In the same way, the mind that has only known television and zombie books may be content with them, but the mind forged in Shakespeare and Homer will never be satisfied with such offerings. The man that has been well-trained may reject his training and read and watch junk, but his constant dissatisfaction will often lead him on to greater things.  

We have a rich cultural inheritance and a duty to pass it on to those that follow us. Let us prepare feasts of literature for our children that they may love and be shaped by the great works that have helped to mold so many of the great men and women that have come before us. 

The Church and Education

Imagine a missionary meeting with a group of local pastors. The missionary is fully trained, virtuous, has already been discipling individuals locally, and has a well thought out plan to disciple a hitherto unreached people group. Imagine that he gave a clear presentation of his ideas to his community’s pastors and asked them for their support, but instead of supporting him they said the following. “Look, between us we support what you are doing. But we just can’t take resources from our church and give them to you. Most of the members of our church aren’t missionaries. If we give money to support you, but don’t support accountants or nurses in our church it might appear to some that being a missionary is somehow better than being an accountant or nurse. This really is a good idea, but you have to find a way to make it pay for itself. We simply can’t play favorites by supporting you when we don’t support other members in their vocations.”

I actually can’t imagine this happening with the pastors I know; hopefully none of you can imagine this happening with the pastors you know. But change “missionary” to “Headmaster” or “Principal” and “unreached people group” to “children” and the scenario is all too common. For a variety of reasons many churches are refusing to support Christian education.

Anyone that has spent any amount of time with children knows that children are not born fully formed in Christ. Indeed, every generation is born pagan—every child must be both evangelized and discipled. The question is: whose responsibility is it to disciple these young ones? Is discipleship the responsibility of parents or is it the responsibility of the Church?

Obviously it is both. However, the time that kids spend at home and in church is far less than the time they spend in school. At school they learn how to interact with their peers. Their teachers instruct them on how to discern what is true, good and beautiful. They are taught not just facts about math and history, but if and how they should use and value the things they learn in these fields. In short school inculcates within children a view of the world, as well as habits of thinking and behavior, as it trains them in a mode of life. This is discipleship and it influences students just as much, if not more, as what happens in the home or church. Growth in Christ is no more accidental or passive than growth in physical fitness; if we want our children to grow spiritually they must have a fully immersive discipleship, which includes a Christian education.

And yet our churches are by and large neither advocating for nor supporting this. We are (rightly!) investing in God’s Kingdom all over our world, but we are failing to invest in our young. No missionary is asked to completely fund his work in discipling an unreached people and yet we ask the majority of our Christian schools to fully fund their work in discipling our pagan children.

As our economy becomes increasingly hierarchical and our middle class progressively smaller, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christian schools to fully fund themselves. Many parents cannot afford to send their own children to a private school, let alone to pay a tuition high enough to support the children of others or to ensure that their children’s teachers receive a livable wage. Do we really want Christian education to be limited to affluent children? Is discipleship only for those that can afford it? Is this a principle of the Kingdom of God?

Of course not. But this will inevitably come about if churches do no change their thinking. Given our economy’s structure parents alone cannot bear the burden of Christian education. If Christian education plays a significant part in discipleship, then the Church must support it. Parents that send their children to public schools may feel upset or judged and may leave churches. But our churches must operate on the conviction of what is true and right and not from a place of fear.  

Dostoevsky and False Dichotomies

The human mind is predisposed to simplify. This is necessary because reality is so complex that we are often unable to comprehend it completely. For example, the activities in one cell or the objects in our solar system, let alone our galaxy, are so numerous and varied that we must simplify them in our models if we are to have any understanding of them.  

The same is true in the discussion of increasingly complex political issues. Few, if any, have the time or ability to understand the implications of a thousand page piece of legislation. As a result each political party reduces every political action or idea to a handful of “talking points.” Partisans listen to “their” news sources that repeat these points ad infinitum; if a news source refers to the arguments of the other side it is only to portray them as strawmen and debunk them accordingly. This produces the appearance of debate, but in reality it is mere babble that lacks the purposeful thought and intellectual honesty of true debate. This oversimplification of complex ideas coupled with hyper-partisanship produces a myriad of problems, the most notable being that it forces us into false dichotomies that generally fall along party lines.

The problem with a false dichotomy is that it presents us with two choices, neither of which are good or true, and this artificial either/or prevents us from searching for and discovering true, or at least better, solutions.

This is why I love reading Dostoevsky.  Dostoevsky consistently looks at problems from a unique prospective and refuses to be forced into false dichotomies. Consider Dostoevsky’s critique of laissez faire capitalism in Crime and Punishment. “Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love thy neighbor’, what came of it? . . . It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my neighbor and we both were left half naked. . . . Science now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on self-interest. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak for all, and helping to bring to pass my neighbor’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general advance.” This is the type of critique one would expect to read from a Marxist and yet Dostoevsky vehemently rejected socialism in all its forms.

Dostoevsky’s critiques of both laissez faire capitalism and socialism are particularly relevant. Since the end of the Second World War many have been prone to divide the world into two camps: capitalist and communist, free and tyrannized. This has caused us to pigeonhole debate and reduce it to overly simplistic solutions, like either more government or more markets. What Dostoevsky recognized in his critique of both laissez faire capitalism and socialism is that both have a similar philosophical justification and both, therefore, have similar consequences. 

Dostoevsky believed that both laissez faire capitalism and socialism are grounded in a form of utilitarianism—both justify sin and evil on an individual level or small scale because it will bring about a greater good to the whole. For example, completely embracing laissez faire capitalism, as understood by Dostoevsky, allows or even leads an individual to disregard Christian virtues like charity and embrace the vice of greed in order to promote general economic growth. Likewise, socialism, in order to help the poor, allows for theft and violence against the affluent. Though we think of these systems as polar opposites, Dostoevsky believed they had the same grounding and justification.     

Given their common grounding, laissez faire capitalism and socialism have the same consequences. Both, for example, undermine faith. Granted the way they undermine faith is very different: communist regimes directly persecute it, while the modern capitalistic West mocks true faith and has created a society of diversion and entertainment that simply ignores it. The respective dystopias of Huxley and Orwell would not have surprised Dostoevsky: because they both jettison Christianity, the repression of communist regimes and the indulgence of capitalistic societies alike can create atheistic societies.

Likewise, both systems undermine family. The Soviets created a society where scarce housing and low wages prevented people from being able to have large families. We in the West are creating a society where expensive housing and education and stagnating wages are making it more difficult for people to have large families, while widespread divorce undermines a significant number of families that do form. Moreover, we have idealized career advancement and self-expression, which in turn leads many to disregard and avoid marriage altogether.

Solutions to our current predicaments are not be found in doubling down on the lesser of two evils, but rather in seeking to look past false dichotomies. Instead of getting bogged down in their relatively minor differences, we should seek to understand and overcome the greater and deeper errors they hold in common. We will never do this without resisting the tyranny of the temporary. Modern thought, as profound as it is at times, shares our assumptions and thereby exacerbates our errors. Old Books on the other hand view the world through different eyes and provide a perspective we lack and insight we need.

Infernal and Celestial Venus

“I don't believe that anybody

Feels the way I do, about you now. . . .

I said maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me
And after all, you're my wonderwall”

-Oasis

Out of Love Christ rescued His fallen creation from the depths of sin, death, and the dominion of the Devil. The salvific power of His Love reverberates through the cosmos. It is displayed movingly in our greatest literature and its faintest echoes are even found in our shallowest teenage love songs. When correctly understood and embraced Love transforms and uplifts us, but when misunderstood it contributes to our damnation.

The love of Dante and Beatrice is an obvious example of the salvific power of love. Dante’s love for Beatrice, when reciprocated and infused with God’s grace, pulls Dante up and out of himself, out of the error and confusion of the dark forest. It sanctifies him and ultimately leads him into Heaven.

Our love, when it reflects Christ’s Love, has this same effect: it transforms the beloved, it carries the beloved to greater heights, it pulls him or her out of vice and into faith, virtue, and charity. In a word, true love makes the beloved more like the One that is both the source of love and its worthiest object.

C. S. Lewis described this transformative power memorably in Till We Have Faces. In the final pages of the book Orual’s perverse and corrupt love for her sister, Psyche, is purified and redeemed as she receives God’s Love through Psyche. “I was being unmade. I was no one. But that’s little to say; rather, Psyche herself was, in a manner, no one. I loved her as I would once have thought it impossible to love, would have died any death for her. And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted (and oh, gloriously she did) it was for another’s sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake.”

Contemporary popular culture recognizes the salvific power of love, but it oversimplifies and thereby trivializes it. This is a tragedy. For love misunderstood does not lead to salvation, but rather damnation. A love that is grounded in the intensity of the lover’s feelings, like the love expressed in the song quoted above, is self-centered and not a love that reflects Christ’s Love. It is therefore not the type of love that will lead to salvation.

In every potential moment of love each party is confronted with an “other”, with someone outside the self that offers something that the self lacks. This creates a shock to the self. While it may be that every moment of potential love begins with feelings and self-gratification, there is always an accompanying choice: the lover and beloved can settle for the temporary euphoria of feelings and self-gratification or pursue and receive something better and higher. When lover and beloved reject grace and choose self-gratification they thereby attempt to make each other into appendages of themselves. Instead of seeing each other as Ends made in God’s image, worthy of self-sacrifice, they come to view each other as a means to the gratification of their respective egos or libidos, via fantasy, manipulation, or even force. This love, instead of elevating both parties, leads to their mutual degradation.  

While popular culture has largely failed to recognize this hard truth, great literature has not been so blind. One of the most frightening examples of this is found in Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, unable or unwilling to choose what is best for Catherine, desires to possess her for his own sake. His false love leads him to hurt Catherine and destroy the lives of a number of individuals around her. But it is not just Catherine and those around her that are hurt; in destroying others Heathcliff destroys himself. He achieves his goals, but his success leaves him cold, angry, and filled with hate. He dies alone, mourned by none.  

Heathcliff uses a brute force uncommon today in the West—we tend to be subtler in our exploitation of others. But the fact remains the same: whenever a man or woman degrades another they lie to themselves and thereby degrade themselves. People are made for God’s glory. When a man fantasizes about a woman he is treating her as a means to his own end. This is a lie; she was created for God, not him. When a woman manipulates a man to get what she wants or needs out of him, she is not treating him like a creature made in the image of God. She too is living a lie. This refusal to embrace truth corrupts the mind and soul. This corruption, if left unchecked, will ultimately destroy mind, soul, and body.

Love confronts us with a choice: will we put the other first and die to ourselves or will we attempt to have our beloved on our terms and for our purposes? In embracing the former we imitate the Love of Christ, embrace the Truth, and thereby transcend ourselves; in embracing the latter we reject Truth and move toward unreality, harming others and damning ourselves. We are all moving either towards salvation and sanctification, to an eternity of everlasting joy and beauty or towards one of damnation, corruption, sorrow, and pain. The way we love is a good indicator of which path we are on.

The Poison of Postmodernism

A specter haunts the West. It denies knowable, communicable truth and thereby threatens the dissolution of all community and the atomization of every individual. While variations of this specter have appeared in prior ages and indeed have never been wholly absent, today’s intelligentsia and masses alike have imbibed and manifest this specter to degrees hitherto unknown. Unless it is exercised, the specter of postmodernism will continue to poison us against each other and undermine the basis of our society while distracting us from questions of ultimate importance.

Postmodernism is a nebulous philosophy and impossible to universally define. Indeed, how can there be a “true” definition for a philosophy that doubts the existence of truth? For my purposes I consider postmodernism to be the belief that the subject projects part of himself into the object he seeks to know, which prevents him from being able to know any objective fact or value. Indeed, because every individual has different contingent characteristics (things like sex, ethnicity, age, class, etc.) every person sees every object slightly different. It follows that man is not only incapable of knowing the truth, but because every individual gives the same name to an object that everyone else sees differently, man is incapable of communicating truth.

It is obvious that our contingent characteristics influence how we view various things: to wit, a poor and rich man will view a tax hike on the wealthy very differently. Every thinker has always recognized this. But postmodernism takes this truth further and asserts that a man’s contingent characteristics determine how he sees things. Whereas people in the past used to think that finding and communicating truth was laborious and difficult, postmodernists believe it is impossible. 

But if there is no knowable truth because every subject projects him- or herself into all objects, then there is no point in attempting to persuade another, indeed, this is impossible. Instead of arguing against opposing viewpoints discourse is reduced to debunking the people that hold them. This approach to discussion and debate is at the root of the complete and utter breakdown of our political discourse. For example, instead of dispassionately discussing complex economic data, patterns, and trends when considering the wage gap, the experience of a working woman is often used as evidence. As is obvious, this destroys dialogue for there is no man that shares this experience and therefore there is nothing a man can say to refute, counter, or even agree with what the woman says. The same is true for issues that involve class, race, age—that is to say, virtually every political and social question.

As important as this breakdown of discourse is, and social and political issues are important, it is of secondary importance and distracts us from issues of primary importance. For example, we are all made in the image of God and no one’s income or lack of income changes that. We have all, young and old alike, sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Christ offers us, no matter our tribe or ethnos, the salvation we need. And we will all die and stand before the judgment throne of God. At that moment none of us will be thinking about the melanin in our skin. Our gender will neither save nor damn us and when we look on the face of God we’ll see clearly the ultimately arbitrary divisions of language and culture.

The most pernicious poison of postmodernism is that it hides the fundamental fact that the things that unite us are far more important than the things that divide us. African-American and Caucasian citizens may not see eye to eye on judicial reform, but this pales in comparison with the fact that they are both subject to mortality. Rich and poor citizens may disagree about economics, but this is of small importance when viewed in light of the fact that they share God’s image, His moral expectations, and His offer of salvation.

Postmodernism is grounded in an epistemology of separation that inevitably leads to division and alienation. When we focus on the things that divide us we lose sight of the things that unite us and it is these things that are of ultimate and eternal importance.

The Joy of Seeking Something Great

I was recently reading the second chapter of Matthew with my children when I was struck by the contrast between the Magi on the one hand and Herod and the people of Jerusalem on the other.

Consider the Magi, the aptly named “Wise Men”, for a second. They see a star and then they think: I bet that signifies the birth of a king! There is no proof of this—indeed, what type of proof could you have that a star signifies something like that? They don’t know who this king is or even where exactly he is; consider for a moment that they stop and ask for directions en route! And yet despite the lack of proof that they will find anything, they travel for months through harsh climate and hostile territory on the chance of meeting and worshiping this supposed king. They were men that pursued evidence, no matter where it led, and passionately sought after the thing that the evidence pointed to all in the hope of finding something greater than themselves. They sought the Truth, and as Christ promises, they found Him. When they found Him they worshiped him and rejoiced.

Contrast this with Herod and the people of Jerusalem. When the Magi tell them that a king has been born they are disturbed and even, according to some translations, afraid. Unlike the Magi who sacrificed vast quantities of wealth and traveled for months on the chance of meeting the newborn king, Herod and the people of Jerusalem would not travel a few hours to see this supposed king. (For Jerusalem and Bethlehem are very close, a ten minute cab ride today.) What is more, in his fear of this new king, in his fear that there might be someone or something greater than him, in his fear that he, Herod, might not be the center of his own life and that he might in fact be accountable to another, Herod unleashed violence against a number of innocent babies in an attempt to destroy the newborn king and secure his own power.

Two thousand years later we are in the same position as Herod and the Magi. There is evidence that a King has been born. Will we imitate the Wise Men and seek Him out? If we do, we too will be filled with joy when we find and worship Him. Or will we be filled with fear like Herod and the people of Jerusalem? Will our fear lead us to lash out as we try to protect our place as “king” of our own lives? These are the only two options open to us—we can worship and follow God or we can worship and serve ourselves.

As a father and head of a classical Christian school I encourage my sons and daughters and I encourage my students to seek and find Christ the King. I want them to see the evidence for His divinity, to dig into this evidence as they honesty seek the Truth, I want them to find Him and then worship and rejoice in Him! I pray that this Christmas season God gives grace to many to overcome fear and pride so that they may seek and find Him, the Goal of all seeking, the embodiment of all Truth, and the source of all Joy.

The False Doctrine of Rob Bell and the Remedy of a Grounded Tradition

C. S. Lewis once observed that a well-traveled man is unlikely to fall prey to the local superstitions of his village; in the same way a scholar, because he has “lived” in many ages, is not likely to fall for the folly and nonsense of his own age.

Every age has its own nonsense, but each age tends to have its own “brand” of nonsense. This is why it is absolutely essential to understand our Christian tradition. Without knowing our tradition it is impossible to know if an idea or doctrine is in keeping with orthodox Christianity or if it is a heretical innovation. Providing young men and women with a foundation in the Christian tradition may be the most valuable aspect of a classical Christian education. To illustrate the value of this I’ll discuss a new, popular book about the Bible.

I recently picked up a copy of Rob Bell’s most recent book What is the Bible? at the library. First a disclaimer: I did not read the whole book. That being said, I have read significant chunks of it (it is broken up like a series of Twitter threads, so it reads really fast).

Bell’s book takes an innovative approach to the Bible. When discussing the question of whether or not the Bible is inerrant, Bell writes the following. “Where did people get the idea that without error is the highest form of truth? Is the sunset without error? Is the love between you and the person you’re in love with without error? Is the best meal you’ve eaten without error? You don’t think about those experiences in those terms because that would rob those experiences of their depth and joy” (page 282, the italics and bold are in the original).

To begin with, these are very poor analogies! The Bible is not like a sunset! It repeatedly says things that are either true or false and if its promises are not true, we are fools to believe in them. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” That is a truth claim; it is not something we enjoy like a good meal. If it is true we had better submit to Christ and trust Him for our salvation; if it is false we had better find another way. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” That is not analogous to being in love! That statement makes a truth claim: it is either true or false. If it is false my hope for salvation is in vain; if it is true then I can be confident and live in hope and joy.

When considering the question “Did Jesus Have to Die?” Bell answers “No. He didn’t. He was killed” (page 240). However, in the Gospels Jesus repeatedly stated that He had to die. After His resurrection both His Apostles and His Church came to share this understanding (c.f. Acts 3:18 and 4:28). On what reasonable basis can one believe, like Bell, that when Peter said “God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that he must suffer these things” Peter was simply sharing his perspective, but when, in the very same breath, Peter said “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away” Peter was saying something that we can rely upon and that we should believe? How can anyone rationally divide the two and accept the latter claim, while rejecting the former? Peter’s understanding of salvation must be right or wrong—there is no rational or Biblical principle that allows us to divide it up and claim part is right and part is wrong. Furthermore, on what basis is Bell claiming that he is right that Jesus did not have to die and that Peter is wrong? And why on earth does he think we should not read the Bible in terms of truth and falsehood?

This is where it helps to be able to put together what Nietzsche (a very bad man, for what it is worth, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day) called “a genealogy of morals.” There are a ton of unspoken assumptions in Bell’s book. However, students like ours that have read a number of original sources will be able to see what sources Bell is drawing from. This in turn will allow them to better understand unstated and underdeveloped assumptions and premises.

For example, when discussing the crucifixion Bell states that it is “a story about humanity growing in maturity, leaving behind the idea that the divine needs blood. . . . The Bible is a reflection of a growing and expanding human consciousness” (page 245). In similar fashion, when discussing the conquest of the Promised Land Bell writes “when you read that God told them to kill everyone in the village, someone wrote that. That’s how someone understood that event. Don’t drag God into it. The Bible is a library of books reflecting how human beings have understood the divine. . . . What you’re reading is someone’s perspective that reflects the time and the place they lived in. It’s not God’s perspective—it’s theirs.” (page 295, italics and bold in the original.) Do you get that? According to Bell, the Bible is not God’s word about Himself and man, it is man’s word about God. This is not how orthodox Christians have seen the Bible. But if Bell’s is not an orthodox view of the Bible, where did it come from? 

A student familiar with the history of ideas will immediately say, “oh, that’s a mixture of Hegel and Natural Religion. Bell also has a lot of existentialism (c.f. chapter 40), with a pinch of post-modernism (c.f. chapter 37), all covered with a light glaze of New Ageism (c.f. pages 266-267). [I apologize that I only refer to these ideas, but this post will become far too long if I develop all of them.] This is nothing new! I’ve seen these ideas before, I’ve seen them articulated far more persuasively and effectively, and I’ve already worked my way through many of them. Bell believes the Bible is a collection of books written by people who put words and ideas into God’s mouth that He never said; if this was true, I wouldn’t trust these people to give me directions to Kwik Trip, let alone to instruct me in God’s plan for salvation. Ultimately Bell believes that the Bible is man’s Tower of Babel—it is our creation, something that we have constructed in our attempt to reach God (c.f. pages 304-305). I’ve read enough to know how that works out!” 

Specialists trained to spot counterfeit bills don’t spend their time looking at every type of false bill. Instead, they look at authentic bills over and over and over and over and over again. Because they know the truth they are able to spot the false. In the same way, a student, like our students, that has read Athanasius, Augustine, Bede, Benedict, Boethius, Dante, Luther, Lewis, and many more great authors has seen the truth articulated over and over again—in many ways, in many genres, and in many ages. Our students have a knowledge of the Christian tradition and because of this knowledge they can recognize whether or not someone is within that tradition. Knowing the Christian tradition they will recognize that Bell does not read the Bible as Christians historically have (he does not even read the Old Testament the way the New Testament authors do). This isn’t to say that the tradition is automatically right and Bell is automatically wrong, but instead of directly engaging the tradition and showing why he is right where Aquinas, Edwards, Irenaeus, Origen and countless others have been wrong, Bell time and time again side steps difficult questions by saying he “isn’t interested in those types of things” or that he is after “higher truths.” A student trained in logic will not find that compelling in the least! Finally, knowing the Bible, when they read passages wherein Bell does things like doubt the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus (page 185) our students will rightly see Bell for who he is: a false teacher. That is what a classical Christian education provides and this education is sorely needed.