Rock & Sand: The Need For The Absolute | Jacques Ellul
As many of you may know, I am an Orthodox Christian. I mention this because at the end of the day, what one believes about God is going to affect what one believes about humans, human responsibility, the purpose of life, the value of the natural world, and so on. I have a doctorate in theology, and am always happy to discuss theology. That said, I don’t discuss theology too often as my goal with is not to discuss theological differences, but rather to discern the tsunami of cultural and social changes that we are all experiencing, regardless of our specific religious convictions (or lack thereof).
In this endeavor, there is a relatively simple divide that I make between those who believe that there is some kind of ultimate truth, some kind of ultimate reality, and those who do not. The irony is that while most people would identify with the first group, most people live as though they are in the second group. If most people truly understood and lived according to the implications of their core beliefs, we would not have allowed the world that we live in to be created.
Jacques Ellul was a faithful Protestant Christian and his understanding of the world was profoundly shaped by his theological convictions. Today’s quote reflects these convictions:
“We can find the most ideal form of politics and the purest science. We can be full of loving kindness; we can pardon our enemies, organize justice, formulate a common body of truth, refrain from oppressing the weak, and spread happiness over the earth. But if all that is done without God (I don’t mean without belief, but without the constant presence and hidden working of God), then it has no value whatsoever… Thus, do everything as if there were no God; but realize that if there is no God, nothing has been done.”
~ Jacques Ellul, Living Faith: Belief and Doubt in a Perilous World
For someone who believes in absolute truth, the only real foundation for reality, for truth, must be found outside of normal human experience. When making any kind of absolutist claim, even an atheist must point to something outside of himself to ground this absolute truth.
For someone who believes in God, Ellul’s words make the argument that, absent God and some transcendent dimension/goal of life, a “perfect” human society is ultimately meaningless (not to mention, impossible). While, for both the theist as well as for the atheist who believes in some kind of absolute truth, Ellul’s words make the argument that the creation of a “perfect” human society will be doomed to failure, as it has been created on a foundation of sand: without reference to some kind of unchanging truth/reality on which it is based, nothing that is created can withstand the vicissitudes of the world.
One of the many tragedies of the modern world is that, because the spiritual dimension of life has been largely expelled from public life and discourse, there is no real hope that our culture’s existential dead-ends can be properly addressed. What are some of these dead-ends,? There are many, including the inability to answer the following questions:
1) What does it mean to be a human?
2) What is the purpose of human life?
3) What responsibility does the individual have to the rest of society?
4) What responsibility does the individual have to the natural world?
5) What is the purpose of communal life?
6) What makes a thriving and balanced communal life possible?
For the most part, people in the pre-Industrial world did not ask these questions because they would not have occurred to them. Most people had a spiritual tradition that would have provided spiritual answers to these questions, answers that they would have absorbed as through osmosis from their community.
Alas, our situation in the modern world is considerably more complex. This is because most of us have not grown up in a culture and society that provide a coherent anthropology and cosmology. This is why I have tried to simplify the situation. At the end of the day, the foundational question is whether or not one believes in absolute truth/reality. Useful discussion as to what absolute reality looks like can be had with those who believe that it exists, but not with those who do not.
Ok…that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed this latest (and last, for awhile) consideration of the thought of Jacques Ellul…as always, stay tuned for more by subscribing and downloading The How Did We Get Here? Reading List…and I will see you soon!