Agree to Disagree? Resurrecting Universals
Often in life we make compromises so that the wheels of society will remain greased and day-to-day matters will continue unimpeded. However, in the modern world we cite even extreme disagreements over universals as mere differences of opinion to avoid confrontation.[1] We set aside disagreements over human nature and God so that society can function with “efficiency.”[2] But this is a materialist understanding of the world and as such, is inherently anti-Christian.
Before the rise of modernity, people saw the world as an open system upon which God and man exerted their wills. However, by the 1800s the system closed, encompassing man within it, excluding God, and transforming the cosmos into a mere universe. Thereafter, people rejected universals and began seeing conceptions of morality and human flourishing as subjective. This had wide ranging effects, including, as we will see, in politics. However, these developments are destructive to our humanity,[3] and we must rekindle an emphasis on universals in our daily lives even if it requires change in ourselves.
Everything Matters—Except Everything
In 1906, G.K. Chesterton wrote that modern man may hold any opinion he desires about the particulars, or details of life, so long as he avoids “generalizations.”[4] That is to say, we take seriously others’ thoughts on books, politics, movies, cars, clothes, and whatever else. But forming overarching universal principles or conclusions about these particulars is impossible and useless. Attempting to derive such universals would be like creating a private imaginary language.[5] Therefore, the most unimportant and useless information about a person is their philosophy. Or as Chesterton would say, “Everything matters—except everything.”[6]
Let’s take film as an example of the phenomenon I’m describing. How might we moderns identify the greatest film of all time? At all costs, we must avoid bringing up general principles that could guide filmmaking. Such generalizations make specific demands on the particular details of our lives, turning all decisions into moral ones. Therefore, introducing subjects like purity or justice into a conversation about the greatest film immediately changes our opinion-based discussion to one of universal and eternal import. The topic has changed from, “Which film is my favorite?” to, “From where does goodness flow, and how do I discern if it’s embodied in a particular film?”
Christians believe that they know from where goodness flows—even all goodness. In fact, this knowledge is primary to our belief structure. We believe that all goodness flows from God (Jas. 1:17), and that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ (Jn. 14:6). Our express calling and responsibility is to persuade others to come to the Living Waters (Mk. 16:15; Jn. 4:10). Beyond this, God has commanded us to focus on things that exhibit certain qualities and principles (Ph. 4:8).[7] Bluntly, we believe that everything matters—especially everything. How then did this shift occur?
Cosmos into Universe: Shifting Worldviews
Though moderns regard universal principles as unimportant, Chesterton notes that this hasn’t always been the case.[8] Before modernity, a person’s philosophy was so important it could even get them killed (as some early Free Will Baptist/General Baptists experienced).[9] Though it was wrong to persecute people for their thoughts and beliefs, ideas were at least understood to have real world consequences that must be dealt with.
The world has changed dramatically since then. Though narratives of that transition abound, some generally agreed upon elements of these developments are pertinent to this discussion.[10] Beginning with the reintroduction of Aristotle into the medieval world, theology and philosophy began to focus on the particulars.[11] The Christian understanding of particulars relating to a Creator opened the whole world up to investigation—itself a good development.[12]
Both northern and southern Renaissance humanists continued to seek the universal laws that God had embedded in creation (cause and effect).[13] They viewed the world as an open system in which God and man were outside looking in on and influencing the causal universe. However, as the Enlightenment developed over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, humanist philosophers and scientists began describing the world as a closed system encompassing man within the causal machinery of nature.[14] Simultaneously, God was inched out of the picture until He became the blind watchmaker of Deism.
Echoing H.R. Rookmaaker, Charles Taylor describes this worldview shift as man being removed from “living in a cosmos to being included in a universe.”[15] The removal of God from everyday experience left man alone and adrift in the midst of a cold and purposeless universe. The world changed from one “where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.”[16]
Politics in the Universe
Once man became part of the universe and no longer indwelt the cosmos, generalizations (or universals) lost their power. As an example, we see this in society and politics. Morality has become a matter of subjective circumstances. As Francis Schaeffer has noted, “If there is no absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.”[17] Therefore, society must be founded on a social contract of mutual benefit unattached to universal laws and morals.[18]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) developed The Social Contract (1762) along these lines. Without universal morals and principles received from outside himself, man’s ultimate goal became autonomous freedom.[19] Therefore, under Rousseau’s paradigm the state is no longer responsible for promoting godliness and punishing wickedness (cf. Rom. 13:3-4). Instead its primary aim is to ensure the individual’s unfettered, autonomous freedom. Impinging upon another person’s opinions by suggesting they’re wrong has since become one of the rudest actions we can perform.[20] The result, as Chesterton points out, is that politics based on “opinion” has become a matter of “efficiency” and “politics for politics sake.”[21] Policies today are not usually designed with the purpose of engendering righteousness, purity, loyalty, or the human good (as defined by universal principles). Rather, they’re crafted to appear philosophically ambiguous, meet certain immediate social needs, and benefit political parties.
Few principles guide many of today’s politicians, usually only opinions. Unlike philosophies, opinions are unassailable. The actual ideas behind policies are left unaddressed or at least undefended to avoid defining the good.[22] It’s easier and more politically efficient to assume that the human good can be defined materially and leave matters of meaning to theologians, philosophers, and autonomous individuals.[23] Rather than enter into an actual dialogue about meaning, many political debates devolve into little more than name calling and muckraking.
Starting a Change
Avoiding the discussion of meaning or ideals isn’t a viable option for believers, whether in film, politics, or anything else. One’s beliefs and thoughts are eternally important and society benefits when we deal honestly with them. How do we begin to affect change in our world, transforming it into one where we take seriously each other’s thoughts and beliefs?
First, we need to reorder ourselves. We must overcome our ingrained discomfort with discussing deep matters. Many struggle to broach topics of this nature with people because their responses are unpredictable (and most folks don’t revel in offending or insulting people). However, we must realize that we have to discuss these matters with meekness and gentleness. The Gospel is for all of life.
Second, we must live out our universal principles consistently. Here we’ve only briefly addressed the implications of our aversion to universals on film and politics. However, this subject applies to everything. Do we attempt to apply Biblical principles to our television viewing, musical selections, clothing choices, family time, free time, artistic choices, worship, and reading material? Perhaps the most seductive aspect of ignoring principles is that we’re able to avoid changing our lives. However, we must be ever vigilant in our sanctification. Once we begin calling some things right and others wrong, our imperfections are thrown into relief and demand change.
Lastly, we need to gently but persuasively lead people to see the conclusions of their beliefs. We shouldn’t only tolerate people’s beliefs, but actually become interested in them. By showing interest in their understanding of the world, we bring the matter into a place of discussion. Then we must acknowledge the insights and highlight the fault-lines in their position. Once the problems inherent to their view are visible, we can begin to help them build a Scriptural one.
During this process hopefully we’ll win folks to Christ. However, this is important whether or not that happens. The human good can be found only in God. Therefore, a better society in this world can be built only on the principles given to us by God for the good of mankind. We need to write policies and books, engage in family activities, play music, strengthen communities, and build churches that are founded on God’s principles. We need to argue philosophy and principles. We mustn’t allow universals to remain banned from discussion. The thing we absolutely cannot do is to agree to disagree when God has spoken.
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[1] Universals are abstract principles that inform the particulars of life. For example, justice is a universal that guides our decisions about how our children need to be disciplined.
[2] G.K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905, reprint Mineola: Dover Publications Inc., 2006), 4.
[3] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith (1908, reprint New York: Image Books, 1990), 25. Leroy Forlines, C.S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer also echo Chesterton’s analysis that these developments destroy our humanity. See, F. Leroy Forlines, The Quest for Truth: Theology for A Postmodern World (2001); C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: Or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools (1947); C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (1970); and Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There (1968).
[4] Chesterton, Heretics, 2.
[5] See Christian Smith and Ken Myers’s discussion of our experience of this mentality in our culture in Christian Smith, interview by Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio Journal 112 (June 2012).
[6] Chesterton, Heretics, 2.
[7] For an excellent treatment of the Christian’s responsibility to apply Philippians 4:8 in a manner that penetrates and saturates all of life see Darrell Holley, “The Principles of the Christian Critical Tradition” in Integrity: A Journal of Christian Thought 1 (Summer, 2000): 153-170.
[8] Chesterton, Heretics, 2.
[9] For example, when Thomas Helwys addressed A Short Declaration of the Mystery Iniquity to King James, he did so to save the king from God’s holy punishment and preserve “the king’s person.” Although he argued for the king to allow freedom of conscience to all people, he did not thereby hold that all people’s ideas were equally valid or unimportant. Rather he maintained that “any false way, or any one error, though of ignorance” is extremely dangerous.[9] Though Helwys and his general Baptist followers were humble enough to admit they too were “burdened [with] ignorance and blindness” in understanding God’s word, he also urged that those who were confused and mistaken should be meekly persuaded of the truth. Thomas Helwys, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612) in Joe Early Jr., The Life and Writings of Thomas Helwys (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), 156, 157, 160, 164.
[10] For a well-developed yet approachable synopsis and overall analysis of these changes see Forlines, The Quest for Truth; Schaeffer, The God Who is There; H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970); and Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation (2012). For more detailed but less accessible treatments see Gordon Leff, The Dissolution of the Medieval Outlook (1976) and Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (2007).
[11] Leff, The Dissolution of the Medieval Outlook: An Essay on Intellectual and Spiritual Change in the Fourteenth Century (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1976), 26.
[12] Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1970), 42, 43.
[13] Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Culture L’Abri (50th Anniversary Edition) (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005), 140-143.
[14] Schaeffer, 146-147.
[15] Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 59; Rookmaaker, 46.
[16] Taylor, 3.
[17] Schaeffer, 145; see also Taylor, 140-146.
[18] Rookmaaker, 45. For a detailed discussion of this transition and its non-Christian and problematic implications, see Charles Taylor, “The Impersonal Order” in A Secular Age.
[19] Schaeffer, 154-155.
[20] F. Leroy Forlines, “The Responsibility of the Bible Department as It Relates to World View Thinking” (Nashville: unpublished, 1989), 8; F. Leroy Forlines, “Dealing with the Influence of Epistemological Atheism” (Presented at the National Association of Free Will Baptists Commission for Theological Integrity Theological Symposium, Nashville, TN, October 25, 1996), 8.
[21] Chesterton, 2, 4.
[22] As Edward Carnell points out universals are found only outside the “flux of sense-perceptions.” Therefore, in order for politicians to discuss the good, they would first have to determine universal/general values which “exist…in the intelligible soul, [and can] be perceived by an analysis of the content of rationality itself.” Edward John Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics: A Philosophic Defense of the Trinitarian-Theistic Faith 2nd edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 153.
[23] Of course, there is no such non-philosophical point of reference for any human. Even the most morose and deconstructive anti-philosophies are inherently philosophical thereby rendering the attempt to forgo philosophy impossible. We all have worldviews; some are intentionally formed, while others are drawn from the prevailing cultural moment.
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