Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.
People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

• Hebrews 6:13-20

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

• John 14:6

“Scepticism has had a permanently important part to play in the history of philosophy, from that day to this. Chiefly, it is because certainty is simply not available at the level of argument, demonstration, or proof – although it was not until the 20th century that this became generally acknowledged, so the pursuit of certainty was destined to play a centrally important role in the historical development of philosophy. What a valid argument proves is that its conclusions follow from its premises, but that is not at all the same as proving that those conclusions are true.”

• Bryan Magee, The Story of Philosophy

“By Scepticism … we arrive first at suspension of judgement and second at freedom from disturbance.”

• Sextus Empiricus

“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Pyrrho (360-270BC) was the first philosophical sceptic.  I am sure there have been humans from long before Pyrrho that said they were not going to believe this or that until they had more proof, some not accepting any proof as being too early to tell.  But we only know of Pyrrho through anecdotal comments in the written philosophy of philosophers that followed.  To understand how scepticism works, or fails to work, in a philosophical setting, we look to the writings of Sextus Empiricus (160-210AD) over four hundred years after Pyrrho’s death.

The focus of Empiricus was to argue that we never will know the absolute truth about anything.  Thus, we cannot pass judgment on anything.  Now with judgment about knowledge suspended, we gain the freedom to study the evidence of such ideas without disturbance.

That is all well and good until you have to make a decision.

In Myers-Briggs temperament studies, they have found that a little over half of the people tested feel much more comfortable when everything is decided and settled.  In fact, they make their mind up easily.  But the others, slightly less than half, hate it when something is settled.  They think that we simply do not know all the evidence.  Since philosophers tend to not be people who work the trades, you might find that among philosophers, it might be nearly two-thirds or three-fourths of them prefer things settled.

Thus, scepticism philosophy has never been the majority opinion, but they make some key points.

On the day that I wrote this, I had seen a television show that discussed “Settled Science.”  You hear a scientist say that science has “settled” this political and media-driven “problem” which means that the issue is not settled at all, but if you accept the lie we just told, here is what you will have to do, no matter how bad it hurts.  The scientist on the program said that science is never settled in many key areas, and science never says that.  Scientists say such things.  He used Climate Change as an example.  He used scientist statements from the past 50-60 years.  Leading magazines had articles in the 1950s and early 1960s that the next ice age would bring the world to a halt by the 1990s.  But long before we got there the “science” showed we would turn the world into something uninhabitably hot by the early 2000s.  Then Global cooling became Global warming until the numbers flipped back and forth, and the alarmist title became Climate Change.  That way, whatever happened in the climate could be spun by a good spin doctor to be a man-made issue that mankind needed to fix.  In other words, since more data is inevitable, give the “problem” a name that can be more encompassing, rather than hot or cold, which gives you whiplash when more data is received.

The scientist also explained that most scientists disagree with the climate change alarmists, and even the scientists that do agree, because they get paid to agree, agree that our “knowledge” might change when the next bit of data arrives.  It all sounds very sceptical.  The people that are firmly in the camp of fixing the “problem” are environmentalists (the non-science activists), politicians, and the media.  And the true fuels that provide the energy for this madness is money and power.  Somewhere in there, we have a puppet master who knows that almost all the climate change out there is beyond what humans contribute to.

Another offshoot of scepticism is the idea that there is no objective truth, but there is an evil beneath the surface with that philosophy.

The lack of objective truth undermines what Jesus claimed.  Jesus said, “I AM the Way.  I AM the Truth.  I AM the Life.  And no one comes to the Father except through me.”

Regardless of whether you need things settled or you are looking for more data for non-critical ideas, when it comes to the foundation of all things, Jesus is the answer.  When you have your feet solidly planted on that bedrock foundation, you can have the confidence to argue about those other things, with or without having all the data.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.