Lesson 2 Review:
Last week, we saw that a knowledge and appreciation of the history of our culture is pivotal in order to come to terms and understand where we are now. We often suffer from a chronic disinterest in history, which has made it difficult to address present issues that we face. Our present struggles must be addressed through the context of our past if we are to salvage the future. With this premise, Ravi Zacharias had us look briefly at the four primary influences on those who founded America: Greece, Rome, England, and Jerusalem. From the Greeks, we received our philosophical categories. From the Romans, our legal categories. From the English, our language and the principles of representative government. And from the Hebrews, a base for our moral categories. Focusing mainly on our heritage from the Ancient Greeks, we discussed how the lofty ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were sifted via Rome through European medieval culture and carried into America. The Greek philosophers, the Sophists, were known for their skill in Argumentation that employed a fallacious use of logic. The Stoic philosophers held that wisdom lay in rising above passion and in unperturbed submission to the divine will. The Sophists popularized the phrase, "Man is the measure of all things." They translated this to mean that individuals are not responsible to any transcendent moral authority for thier actions. Aristotle taught that the three principal reasons for knowledge were Truth (what is true), Morality (how to live), and Technique (technology - the instrumental use that this knowledge could serve). In the end, however, it was not the mystical insights of Plato, nor Aristotle's aspiration after the Supreme Good that dominated the thinking of the classical Greeks, but it was the clear relativism of the Sophists. The words enscribed on the temple at Delphi, "Know thyself", placed man, and not God, at the center of their universe. There was no consideration for the depravity and sinfulness of the human heart and no acknowledgement of the need to find a measure outside himself. The preoccupation with a perfect mind and body overtook the warning cry of an imperfect heart and soul, and the Greek civilization collapsed.
Those who first settled in America recognized the sinfulness of man and believed that the human heart was in need of instruction in moral uprightness. They believed that this instruction had to come from the word of God. Today, such sentiment has been angrily and mockingly denounced in academia. The relativism (the theory that our basis of judgment is relative, differing according to events, circumstances, persons, etc.) of Ancient Greece has worked its way into modern America, and the conviction once held of the fallen nature of man is now rejected. How ironic that at the end of the bloodiest century of history, the depravity of man is denied?
Preview of Lesson 3:
The objective of this week's lesson is to discover the sources of conflict that have created tension between those who are dedicated to God and the authority of Scripture and the surrounding secular culture, which has grown increasingly hostile to faith. The threats from outside the church are serious, but Ravi has us also look at the serious attacks from those within the flock.
We will discuss the difficulty that the church has had in coping with the range of humanistic values popular today and the effect that this has had on the well-being of our nation, as well as its effect on the church. We will also discuss the attack on the authority of Scripture and the church's response to this. Is it possible that a major portion of the blame for the slide into secularism lays at the door of the Christian clergy? What effect has "higher criticism" had on the authority of Scripture? We will discuss some of the ravages of a diminished view of the authority of Scripture, and how in the name of progress and of supposed sensitivity to other systems of thought, much has been done to bully the Christian believer.
If the goal at the inception of America was to reconcile liberty with law, then the denial of the authority of Scripture has brought us to a devastating contradiction. For law cannot merely serve as a random set of rules without any objective point of reference. It is not sufficient just to have a law "out there" for people to obey. There must be an inner urge,or hunger, to keep and honor that law because it is good. Secularism cannot accomplish this in the hearts and minds of the people. Law and liberty can never be reconciled when external and internal constraints are arbitrary.
Come ready to listen to Ravi's words, discuss and listen to each other's insight, and maybe even learn someting.
Pat