Click for: CSSHS Archive Main Page
Vol. IV • 1981       http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v04n3p22.htm

 
Eulogy
Russel Moe

Enlightened people never expected their Hope to suffer death. They never expected this deadly impasse between ideology and practice. They prefer employment within medicine, religion, the arts, education, law and government. Their ideology proclaims them as our burden-lifters. In practice, we must carry them. Thus systematizers of knowledge lost our confidence and respect. Our Hope in them has also died.

We gather today to mourn the death of their Hope — and ours. Let us therefore relive its Life, which at first appeared to further our highest good.

They shared a common bond, an intellectual brotherhood committed to the power of reason to dispel chaos and evil. They accepted mere experimentation, but surely, they agreed, science could no the so limited! Indeed, they had already enlarged science by developing agreed upon statements (axioms) and building thereon a well-reasoned edifice of systematized thought with which they hoped to make sense of reality. Only their rigorously systematized knowledge could be science. Mastery of the axiomatic system gave them status, allowing them to offer interpretations and subsidiary axioms to their brothers. Joyously they seized the mantle of science! They directed all their activity toward achieving the single repeatable answer by which science is set apart from philosophy and such. They broadcast their discovery of more truth than that accessible through mere experimentation. Freedom was theirs, and they yearned to liberate mankind! Above all, they respected, even honored, one another.

Their resulting sense of superior objectivity was seldom openly displayed. Instead, subtle arrogance set them apart. They condescendingly ignored or stoically endured those who questioned the validity of their axioms and resulting edifice. Their Hope sustained them. They believed everyone would eventually rush to them for solutions because they repeatedly paraded the mantle of science. Most everyone did rush to the systematizers — expecting to find science.

This rush to science swelled their ranks. They divided the quest for systematized knowledge into specialties, each holding seminars, conferences, and conventions. They discussed their thought-edifice and passed resolutions. They knew they were right and this activity convinced others. With such objectivity, such illuminating axioms, such reason —and thus so many adherents — science couldn't err!

Civil authorities, sharing their desire to improve the human condition, became their allies. Stressing the unity thus implied, they made certain their unbiased laws and ordinances were passed. Dissension from the brotherhood became sympathy with the sinister forces being combatted. This clever stress on unity made them immune to criticism, trapped their opposition, promoted their science, and unified men of good will under their leadership.

Monetary offerings flowed to them. Their treasuries bulged with dues, donations, and tax monies. They only qualified to lead the noble cause of dispelling chaos and evil. They required mankind's unified resources.

They had access to the media, which, mesmerized by meticulous logic and eloquent speech, accepted their objective viewpoint. The media then eagerly used this systematic knowledge to focus their factual reporting. The brotherhood offered their knowledge to whoever sought truth. They inscribed the edifice in the souls of those who watched and heard and read. They succeeded in having their axioms disseminated and instilled as self-evident truth.

They proclaimed themselves the legitimate protectors of the masses' precious minds and bodies. Their influence seeped into the very corners of society.

Many of the masses and most of the influential people believed them and were now happily part of the brotherhood. So a well-reasoned arrangement— promoted for our highest good — began to encircle large numbers of people. Wherever this important circle could be closed, they lovingly began the final assault. Thus ideology and practice became united, but simultaneously came ominous warnings of the impasse!

They were shaken when the masses acted like individuals. They had long realized that their thought-edifice was threatened by individual souls—there were just far, far too many to serve, or systematize, or compete with. But ''the masses" — they were unitary, they needed molding, they needed directing— but not serving. "The masses" was a cherished axiom, vital to their leading role as burden-lifters. Why couldn't their Love blossom? Why didn't the masses conform?

They were also shaken when the numerous specialties into which systematized knowledge was divided could make sense of the accumulating mountain of observational data and yet yield contradictory results! Bewildered and shocked by this unexpected "multiple-imaging" defect in the "vision" of reason, they began to wonder if the sense their axioms made of reality was legitimate. Were their "canonized" axioms merely relative, rather than the starting point?

They were further shaken by contradictions developing even within specialties and by painful recognition of additional axiomatic systems. They desperately sought to rediscover their precious single answer! They saw, yet would not see, that commitment to the power of reason never guaranteed that only a single well-reasoned edifice would result They struggled to envision how they were ever set apart from philosophers and such.

They veritably trembled when some of the masses — and philosophers and such — once again began to make sense of reality without consulting them. They protested, saying irrationality threatened their enlarged domain of science!

They shrunk from an emerging spectre — that their freedom from the bonds of mere experimentation had inflated science into a vague enterprise, engulfing mankind with increasing chaos. They had used reason to outmaneuver other people. Was reason now betraying them, exposing their well-reasoned edifices as more chaotic within than scientific?

As frantic men of reason, they knew they had gone too far to permit any possible limits to its power. Further research and encirclement of humanity would surely dissolve the spectre! They were driven by a heroic conviction that no systematic knowledge — or experimental knowledge — could survive without them. Besides, had they not cleverly immunized themselves from criticism? (Although, if their axioms failed, the good they had done for the masses might be evil.) No, they reasoned, it was best that the masses serve those who knew their highest good.

Accordingly, they strengthened their resolve, achieved more minor victories, paraded their laurels, but finally sputtered and stalled. The deadly impasse! The unthinkable could not be surmounted, but pride of intellect prevented retreat. The burden-lifters could not comprise their ideal of a single repeatable answer without — Oh, the humiliation! — exchanging the mantle of science for the vestments of philosophers and such. They could not face a hard fact: that, given free reign over humanity, their illuminating axioms, their programs to control chaos and evil, and their theories of human motivation— well-reasoned though they were — proved wrong.

Death had come painfully, untimely, for this Hope was born in Promise, raised with every Freedom, and given every Advantage. But its widely admired, yet fragile, beauty was due, alas, to a genetic defect. The brotherhood had mistaken this beautiful, yet imaginary, "ideal" for the blueprint of reality.

None who remain in the brotherhood admit their Hope has died. Maintaining a form without life, they dissolved into several proud camps. A comparatively few Zealots and small groups argue that the unthinkable resulted from the other camps' corrupting the logic, rather than from logical necessity. Others say they have not gone far enough — they need just a little more power. Still others maintain that time and further theoretical refinement are necessary. Some go to the Orient—and elsewhere—to find fresh directions. All these remain disciples of dead and putrifying axioms. Hypocrites among them substitute security for their lost ideal. All keep influential positions throughout society. Now, whether they bureaucratically require service or idealistically enforce enlightened guidance, they expect to be obeyed, at least for their highest good.

We, the living, have lost much through this Life and its death—we who gladly made emotional and intellectual commitments to improve the human condition under the "light" of its axioms. Especially saddening is that our desire to be rational and to help mankind turned for fulfiliment to commitments that brought the opposite result. Let us break free, repent of our painful complicity, and begin anew, untangling science and data from edifices. Their clever trap now lies exposed. We see their strategy to control us by enslaving our healthy concern about good and evil.

We have buried the dead—but what will now fill our emptiness? A sincere love does not guarantee a good result. There were so many well-reasoned ones seeking our allegiance. Our emotions drift! Another doubt looms. Suppose we successfully deflate science. Will the shrunken remnant show us how to live? Our reason is adrift!

Fellow bereaved, in spite of all, we have no choice but to go out to the real world. As we cautiously approach the mouth of this shadowy cave where axioms are reverenced, whose hand reaches to pull us drifters into the light? … Oh no!… But yet… Aha! The axioms are now in the grave, not Him! . . . It is the Living God—our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier!


"Eulogy"
<http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v04n3p22.htm>
CSSHS • Creation Social Science & Humanities Society • Quarterly Journal

Main Page:  CSSHS Archives
www.creationism.org