Is Truth Dead?

Last week I visited the dentist for a routine checkup and cleaning. The waiting room had a television on with 80s music blaring over it, not exactly the best place for quiet and thoughtful meditation, so I decided to read a magazine.

A recent edition of Time caught my eye. In big white letters over a black background it asked: “Is Truth Dead”? I expected to find an interesting philosophical discussion on the nature of truth and our society’s perception of and interaction with it, instead I found that the cover article was simply an editorial against Trump dressed up in pretentious and high-minded language. The article bored me so I turned to something else and I have no further comment on it.

I next turned to a short article on the gender pay gap. The article assumed, without presenting any evidence for or against, that the pay gap is real and that it is a huge problem. The focus of this article was how female professional athletes make less than male athletes. There was no discussion of the workings  of the market—e.g. of the fact that more people watch men sports than women sports so men’s sports generate more money, which in turn allows male athletes to make more money. Nor was there any discussion on the consequences of guaranteeing equal pay for male and female athletes—we either have to take money from male athletes and give it to female athletes or change people’s desires so that they enjoy and watch male and female athletic s equally. All in all, the article was devoid of any real content. It seemed to argue, in essence, good people oppose the pay gap, we oppose the pay gap, therefore we are good people.

I next turned to an interview with an actress that is playing one of the Power Rangers in the new Power Rangers movie. I was struck by the fact that the very first words were not her name, but rather the ethnicity of this actress. In the interview this young lady said she was proud to be part of this movie not because it is a beautiful piece of art or because it winsomely and boldly declares some truth, but because the cast was diverse and her character questions her sexuality in the movie. Now let me be clear about one thing: diversity is good. All men and women are made in God’s image and Heaven will be filled with people of every tongue, tribe, and nation. I think it is great that the cast of the Power Rangers movie is ethnically diverse (however I wouldn’t consider the expression of sexuality as a matter of diversity, but rather as a matter of obeying or disobeying God). Nonetheless, what really struck me was the fact that she was judging the merit of a work of art based on its conforming to a certain ideology! She seemed to be implicitly saying that all good people think ethnic and sexual diversity is good, this movie has both, therefore it must be a good movie.

Finally I turned to an article on the Bible. Certainly, I thought, I will read something of substance, if not value, in a Biblical article. I couldn’t believe what I read. According to a pastor/theologian who has just done a study on Genesis and published a book on his findings, Adam and Eve were really good people! In eating of the apple Eve became the world’s first true individual, which is what God wanted her to do. Adam likewise was good because he chose relationship over duty when he too ate of the fruit. Finally, the author asserted that the Bible clearly (!) teaches that gender is fluid given that God made “male and female in His image.” Why has this clear truth been hidden for so long? According to the author, men created religion and turned the Bible into a tool of oppression. The underlying assumption behind all this is that our ideas of individuality and sexuality are good and right, the Bible agrees with them, so it must be a good book!

I closed the magazine and I thought to myself, yes truth is dead, at least in the pages of Time magazine. Democratic-capitalism or liberal-democracy or whatever you want to call our political-economic system has stultified public discourse and confined thought within the bounds of a narrow and rigid ideology. Think about it: in the space of a few pages this magazine judged sports, art, and religion all the basis of whether or not they advance a certain ideology! For the editors of Time, truth is not objective, but relative to the promulgation of our current understanding of “social justice.” You almost have laugh at the irony of a magazine asking if “truth is dead?” without the slightest recognition that it is burying it!

Lenin believed that truth was dead. He judged everything: family ethics, art, sports, the church, businesses, etc. based on whether or not they advanced the interests of the Bolshevik Party—everything that advanced the party was good and true; that which hindered its advance was bad and false. I am not saying our society is communist or anything like that, but the fact is there is a sizable and noisy contingent in our society that is constantly judging universities, laws, movies, etc. based on whether or not they hold the line on the orthodox political ideology. This reduces truth to a state of relativity and in fact kills it.

Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Truth so Truth will never die. But in terms of public discourse it is dead. That is why we need Classical Christian schools to teach and pass on our heritage of the truth to the next generation.

If you are interested in reading more about how the West has adapted a rigid ideology similar to that of the old Soviet Union, check out The Demon in Democracy by Ryszard Legutko.

If you are interested in how we can hold unto the truth in a post-truth society, check out The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher.    

Jesus the True Aeneas: The Connection Between Easter and Pagan Heroes

At my high school I teach an old poetic work called The Epic of Gilgamesh. This is actually the oldest recorded work of literature in the world. If you haven’t read it, it is worth reading and it is only like 80 pages long.

Anyways, this work tells the story of Gilgamesh, an ancient Sumerian hero that lived before Abraham. Gilgamesh is the ultimate tough guy—he takes what he wants and destroys anyone and anything that gets in his way. He is so strong he is even able to defy the gods and defeat monsters they send against him.

Gilgamesh is as strong and powerful as a man can be . . . and yet there is one thing he cannot defeat: death. The Sumerians had a clear understanding that no matter how great they or their heroes were, death was greater still.

In a similar way, the Greeks and the Romans had a vague notion that a true, ultimate hero would somehow be able to overcome death. Theseus and Odysseus, as well as Aeneas, all entered death (Hades) and returned. None conquered death; all of them did in fact die at a later time. But all of these heroes did temporarily master death, or at least held it at bay. The tales of Odysseus and Aeneas are the greatest stories of two of the greatest cultures in history and both show a universal human longing for a literally larger-than-life hero to conquer death.

This longing was in fact realized in the God-man Jesus Christ! Every Easter we celebrate Christ’s victory over death. In myth Odysseus and Aeneas went into death and returned to the land of the living; in reality Christ went into death, mastered it, and tore down its gates thereby making a way out of death for us all. Whereas Odysseus and Aeneas died even after entering and exiting death, Christ has once and for all defeated death. As master of death Christ will never die, and what is more, He allows us to share in His everlasting and eternal life.

On Easter Sunday Christ conquered that which the Sumerians feared and completed and actualized what the Greeks and Romans longed for. Jesus Christ is greater than Gilgamesh and an actual and true embodiment of what the Romans longed for in Aeneas. Christ accomplished more than our ancestors dreamed their heroes could accomplish and He did this in reality, not simply in the realm of myth.

It is Christ’s great victory, the victory we get to share over our seemingly invincible opponent death, that we celebrate every Easter. 

A Christian Understanding of Discipline and Punishment

My wife and I recently received an information packet from our doctor. Often there is good material in these about how to stop the spread of germs or how to foster healthy development. To my surprise this mailing contained a long article on how to best discipline and punish children.

The advice found in this article could be reduced to three main ideas:

      (1) Children should be disciplined, not punished. (Discipline being defined as either a correction or consequence with the goal of bringing a child to a place of learning from their mistake; punishment being defined as a penalty for an act even when the child is sorry and has already come to understand that what he or she did was wrong.)

        (2) Discipline should consist primarily of positive reinforcement and encouragement, not correction. 

      (3) Parents should never spank a child or engage in any other form of corporal punishment.

In Plato’s Apology Socrates remarked how craftsmen tend to know their crafts really well, but as a result of knowing one thing well they often come to assume they know everything well. I couldn’t help thinking that as I read through this advice from the clinic.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for modern medicine—without it I would have died years ago. But doctors specialize in the care of the body, not the soul and discipline and punishment are things that deal with the soul. To understand them we should look to those that understand the soul, not those that specialize in the body.

Who understands the soul? Only those who understand He that made our souls. There is a reason that medieval educators considered Theology the “Queen of the Sciences”—only in understanding God can we understand who we are and how we ought to live.

Given a Christian understanding of who God made people to be and how sin has corrupted mankind, it is clear the authors of that article made two primary errors: they assume that children (and people in general) are naturally and basically good and they assume that human beings are the highest value. Let me explain.

If children were basically good, then it would follow that simple correction and encouragement would be all they would need to bring out their natural goodness and equip them to live a good life. The problem with relying solely on positive reinforcement is that children are not good! Yes children are made in the image of God, but that image has been defiled and debased by sin. Even when a person comes to Christ he or she continues to be beset by temptation that flows out of his or her broken sinful condition. As one theologian put it, “In Christ sin no longer reigns, but it still remains.” Because people are not naturally good they need more than positive reinforcement to keep sin in check.

Think about it like this. Every good football coach will encourage his players. However, he will do more than encourage them if he wants them to be effective—he will correct them when they are wrong, he will force them to lift weights, run sprints, and practice plays, etc. He will do this because people are not naturally good at football; if they were, all he would need to do is to encourage their natural goodness to come out. No, to become good at football one needs to work hard and train. This will hurt one’s body, but it will help make one into an effective player. A team may not like their coach’s discipline, but without it they will be weak and will surely lose when they face another team.

In the same way we are called to discipline ourselves as Christians so that our faith will not be ineffectual. Paul wrote about “beating his body and making it his slave” so that he would not “run the race in vain.” Moreover, we are all called to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” Working to the point of trembling requires a high level of effort and self-discipline!

As parents our goal should be to raise children that will be self-disciplined; if we are passive and neglect the discipline of our children they will not develop self-discipline. Children are not naturally good; they are naturally sinful. Because of their inherited sinful condition, without our discipline, without negative reinforcements used as external restraints on their sinful condition, our children will not develop the character and self-discipline necessary to fruitfully live out their faith. If they were naturally good we could simply encourage their natural goodness to come out and develop all on its own. But because they are born into sin we must teach them to restrain, in Christ, the sin within them that wants so desperately to master them. 

Enough about discipline. Some of you may be thinking, “ok, I see the value of discipline, even in the form of negative reinforcement. After all, I want to show my child that this or that action is wrong and I want him or her to feel sorry when he or she sins. But what about when a child learns their lesson and knows that what he or she did was wrong, is it still appropriate to punish him or her by administering some sort of penalty?”

While I would not say that a child should be punished in every circumstance, good parenting does require discernment after all, punishment is still appropriate in some cases. This is because children are not the ultimate value; punishment, on behalf of greater things, shows them this fact.

My pastor used to put it like this, “God loves you, but He also loves other things. If you won’t live in God’s Truth, He is not going to send the Truth to Hell so you can go to Heaven; if you reject His glory He will not divest Himself of it and prefer you to it. No, God loves you, but He loves other things more than you.”

In the same way it is appropriate for us to punish a child on behalf of things of great value, like the truth. But how can it be appropriate to punish a child when he or she is already sorry and there is seemingly nothing more he or she can learn? In short, something like the truth is of value and we defend its value and show our children its value when we punish them. If children were of the highest or the only value, it would make sense to refrain from punishing them in cases when no other person was hurt and when they felt sorry for their mistake of their own accord. But since children are not the only thing of value it is just to punish them simply to show the value of the thing they have insulted by their sin. In this way we show them that God values other things besides them.  

If this is too abstract or unconvincing, consider this: all sins are ultimately against God and God is of ultimate value. In punishing kids in cases where they are sorry and no one else is hurt we can affirm the value of God and the fact that their sin is ultimately directed against Him. This is in turn will better help our children to live in reality. Conversely, if we think that punishment is unjust in cases where no one is hurt and our child has nothing to learn because he or she already feels bad, then we are treating our child as if he or she is the highest value. This is idolatrous and foolish. Teaching our children that their wrong choices are ultimately about them is false and it will lead them into pride and confusion. Punishment shows our children that they are not the most important things and that sin is wrong even if it doesn’t hurt anyone; God is the being of ultimate worth and sin is wrong because it is against Him.   

The Question of the Day

In addition to my responsibilities as the Headmaster of my school every afternoon I teach a high school Omnibus class. I like to begin my class with a “question of the day.” What is this? In simple terms, the students are able to ask me basically any question on any topic. The only limits are: if it is inappropriate for a classroom I will change the question or refuse to answer it, if it is a personal question I will answer it quickly because I find talking about myself tiresome and boring, if it is a “google” or reference question I will have them look it up themselves, and if it is an incomplete question I will help them rephrase the question so as to give it more depth and meaning.

Why do this?

There are a number of benefits to doing something like this. First, it creates rapport with students. It is a nice, easy way to have a “soft start” to a class while still doing something of value.

Second, it shows students that questions in general, and their questions in particular, have answers. I would hate for my students to graduate without having had a chance to explore questions that matter to them. Moreover, so many young people walk away from the faith because they wrongly believe that there are no good answers to their questions. If school is not a place to discover truths that students are interested in knowing, then what is it for? 

Likewise, the question of the day affirms the fact that the purpose of inquiry is knowledge—we don’t ask questions just to sound clever or to impress, but because we want answers (and hopefully) because we want to change our lives on the basis of the truths we discover.

Finally, the question of the day is often a way to tie our class material in with the interests and concerns of my students. Let me clarify one thing before I go on: I am skeptical of everything with even a hint of “child-centered learning.” I believe that I, as a mature adult and as a caretaker of an ancient and venerable tradition, am in a far superior place to decide what is worth learning than my students. I believe that student-centered learning leads to shallow exploration and at best a fragmented understanding of facts and events. I believe that truth is worth pursuing and knowing for its own sake and not for any secondary benefit or “relevancy” it may have. That being said, when there is a connection between classroom material and things of interest to the students, that is to say, when something is indeed “relevant,” it is prudent of the teacher to explore that connection. After all, showing this connection will spark interest, which will make the material more memorable and hopefully encourage the students to continue to investigate it on their own. Let me provide an example of this worked out recently.

Last week our class was wrapping up Suetonius’s Twelve Caesars. One of the students began class by asking my opinion on “unschooling.” Instead of immediately giving my judgment, I asked the class what unschooling assumed about human nature. I helped them to reach the conclusion that it assumed that children are naturally good and will thereby want to learn, that there is nothing inherently essential to conserve and pass down to future generations and therefore children can direct their own education, and that education should be fun. We then looked at these three assumptions from a Biblical point of view. We declared that the Bible clearly states that children are not good, it teaches that some things are of infinite worth and absolutely must be passed down to children, and it assumes, given our sinful nature, that we require discipline to become mature men and women of God. All three of these assumptions run counter to and undermine the assumptions of unschooling. After this we tied the question to our reading. We considered how men like Caligula, Nero, and Domitian acted when they were left free to follow their own impulses.

I asked my students, if they would want to set up an educational system that puts a child’s desires and impulses at the very center. Knowing what the Bible teaches and learning the lessons of history they responded with a resounding NO! 

Not every question goes that well, but showing my students that their questions have answers and that we can often know those answers, while at the same time connecting our readings to the Bible and the world around us, is very rewarding and encourages me to continue with the question of the day.