Caleb Anderson: The fusion of opposites and a new age of darkness

The philosopher Hegel identified a process which later came to be known as thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Basically his idea was that when two seemingly conflicting ideas came up against each other, inherent contradictions could be resolved by the thoughtful incorporation (not fusion) of the best elements of both, potentially producing a better outcome than either idea in isolation.

This is why Richard Dawkins (and he is not alone among scientists) is lamenting the demise of what he terms "cultural" Christianity. Dawkins is not denying the conflict that has oftentimes existed between Christianity and Science, he is also not pulling back on his attacks on historical Christianity. He is saying that the truce between these two parties, for better or worse, has created a space (or a detente) that has enabled progress to be made.

Something a little like what Hegel might say ... that in the space between thesis and antithesis is synthesis ... and in synthesis is progress.

The case can be made that the comparative freedom and prosperity of the West is the product of a functional synthesis of a type of Christianity (accelerating post-Reformation - but with roots much earlier than that) and Science (accelerating post-enlightenment - but with roots also before that), beginning/accelerating (ostensibly) from around the sixteenth century through into the twentieth century.

The first domain is the ontological (moral/cultural) domain, where the truly big (existential) questions of truth, meaning and purpose are attempted (and usually only ever answered in part, if at all). The second domain of knowing is the empirical (evidential) domain, this is where science has (largely) reigned supreme. The former instantiated, and embedded, the concept of moral/cultural order, and thus of order itself, and the latter the idea of a more general physical/natural order ... toward the assumption of intelligibility, and knowability, in the natural world.

The story is of a complex, and sometimes fraught, relationship, but the (relatively unintended) accommodations in some areas, and agreement to disagree in others, has created, by means and mechanisms that are not entirely clear, societies conducive to wondering, and at the same time to personal responsibility, creativity, innovation, personal freedom, tolerance and wealth creation.

These accommodations (each to their own) acknowledge that as many of our questions commence with "Why?" as commence with "How?"... and help to explain how the West has made advances that could not otherwise have been made, or at least not as comprehensively made, at the "Why?"/"How?" interface between morality and science.

In spite of inevitable areas of conflict, which endure to the present, ways were ultimately found to reconcile, or tolerate, these conflicts, even if begrudgingly. This "accommodation" between (not merging of) the moral and natural order is what the West has done well, even if the path to attaining this has been, and sometimes remains, a rocky one.

Over recent decades the emergence of postmodernism has seen an unrelenting attack on Christianity, in part by a sustained attack against its key beliefs, and in part by its displacement by pantheism, Christianity's ancient rival. In its efforts to cover the "Why" questions (those to do with ultimate meaning and purpose) postmodernism has found, in pantheism, a mechanism for attack on foundational Christian beliefs, and also those of science and of reason itself.

According to AI ... "Pantheism is the belief that God and the universe are one and the same, encompassing everything within it. It's a monistic view, meaning it sees reality as fundamentally unified, rather than distinct entities of God and creation. Pantheists believe God is immanent in the world, meaning God is present and active within the universe, rather than separate from it".

While laying claim to healing the breach between the moral and natural order, and between why and how, postmodernism, through fusion (merging) over synthesis (the creation of something new), does the very opposite.

It confuses, undermines, and subverts.

Pantheism (the worship of the spiritual world) is now deeply, and perhaps irrevocably, embedded in climate change ideologies, in multiple academic disciplines, in legislation, and in public life. It is being taught, via Maori culture and worldview, to students from preschools to our universities as a matter of established fact. Acceptance of, or acquiescence to, Maori spiritual beliefs and customs has become a condition for appointment to office, a requirement for licensure or registration, and a prerequisite for advancement.

It also continues to be embedded in our laws.

In disturbingly like fashion, the Treaty is now worshipped as a spiritual taonga, as having its own life force (pantheism), as sacred, evolving, and transcendent ... a receptacle (or symbol) of the mana of those both past, present, and future, a judge of character ... to be interpreted only by a modern (approved) priesthood (e.g. Waitangi Tribunal) whose pronouncements are to be uncontestable ... and rigorously enforced.

Government documents, press releases, and news reports, sometimes contain allusions to pantheism, and associations to things mystical, no less in application to the Treaty.

When you move into the realm of the mystical, reason (in the conventional sense) no longer applies, truths can be twisted (or ignored), voices can readily be silenced, and familiar democratic safeguards can be progressively dismantled.

People (individually and collectively) must be free to believe as conscience dictates in order to attain the synthesis to which Hegel referred, or the detente to which Dawkins alludes.

Over many centuries Christianity and Science achieved this through a demarcation of their respective domains.

In pursuit of untouchability, postmodernism, and the wokeism to which it has given birth, represent nonjurisdictinal incursions into the realm of the mystical and transcendent.

Governments must safeguard the rights of people to worship (or believe, or not believe) as conscience dictates and, equally, to ensure that the worlds of the mystical (and personal) and the real (and generally accepted) do not merge.

Paganism, and spiritualism more generally, must be removed from our laws and our educational institutions. They have no place in either.

The fusion, or corruption, of either the moral or natural order, has always, ultimately, been attended by corruption, and intellectual paralysis. We see this in Marxism, at one extreme, and Religious Fundamentalism at the other.

Synthesis is never achieved by a merging of two opposites, but by the separation of domains, and engagement in the space between. This will never be achieved by postmodernism, the ultimate aims of which are radicalization, destabilization and reformation.

If history tells us anything it tells us that when state and religion combine they become a persecuting power, and reason is replaced by tyranny ... and an age of darkness.

The reaction to the Education Amendment Act is an indication that an increasing number of New Zealanders are awakening to this fact. The apparent inaction of the state seems to hint at the opposite.

Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.