Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task.

• Leviticus 16:21

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.

• 1 Peter 2:13-15

“’The first step toward philosophy is incredulity.’ Denis Diderot.”

• Bryan Magee, The Story of Philosophy

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

• C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a French philosopher, art critic and writer.  Per the author’s book, he was a professional student, “long after his allowance was cut off.”  He was the co-creator of the French Encyclopedia, working with Jean le Rond d’Alembert.  Their encyclopedia kept growing with each new edit until it was 35 volumes in length.  Diderot claimed that religious teaching was not a valid source of factual knowledge.  This limited the encyclopedia in certain parts of history, and it created a firestorm of complaints from both the church and the monarchy.  But the writers of the encyclopedia refused to budge from that stance, writing the last volumes in hiding and secretly getting it published.

No biography considers Diderot a polymath, but he knew enough about a variety of topics that he could write about them in great detail.  He was said to be a walking encyclopedia.  Being a polymath is a combination of knowing a variety of subjects and making contributions in those fields.

Going underground to finish the encyclopedia, although in large part it was a translation from English into French of Chambers’ Cyclopedia of 1728, this effort mirrors the unrest in the nation, leading to the French Revolution.  But in rebelling in this sense, to get the encyclopedia out to the populace, they were adding to the tension between the clergy and royalty on one side and the common man on the other.

But Diderot’s thought that any philosophical discussion has its first steps in incredulity is a profound concept.  We cannot argue intelligently about foundational topics, however.

“An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man’s mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut.”

• C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man

So, when we add one plus one, in any mathematical base except binary, we get two.  Since binary is either zero or one, one plus one is ten.  Computers used binary numbers since it was easy to conceive of a string of lights.  They were either on or off, thus one or zero.

From a Christian perspective, the bedrock foundation is that God the Father, the Creator of all things, sent His Son into the world to pay the price for our sin, our rebellion against God, if we would believe and trust in Jesus.  There are other things we could add to that, but then again, there is more foundational knowledge about math than one plus one is two.

Diderot’s insistence that religious texts were not reliable factual information belies the fact that religious texts are the only source for some historical information, and there is archaeological information and secular historical texts that confirm enough that the religious text fills in the gaps.  And then, the history of those religions and what their beliefs are was a big part of history that would be ignored, whether you accepted those beliefs or not.  The biggest issue in the Western Culture today is that with ignoring God, and the Judeo-Christian Ethics that founded Western Civilization, we have lost the foundational morality that springs forth from the Scripture and love our neighbor has quickly been replaced with not trusting our neighbor and then eventually hating our neighbor.

But our present age has turned Diderot’s quote on its head.  We have forgotten or we distrust the foundational things of life.  When a learned scholar says that Shakespeare never existed because some of his sonnets have a different style from the rest is bordering on questioning foundational things.  Questioning that there is only two genders crosses the line completely.  But then has philosophy gone insane or is that just the realm of Psychology that is insane?

I would say more, but I guess that I have offended enough people today.  But are any of those people thinking that their worldview may be wrong?  After all, a house without any foundational support will crumble.

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.