Henry - Hi, I'm Henry Reyenga, and with me is Dr. Roy Clouser. So Roy, one of the things that we get asked by ministry training students all over is sort of a philosophic drift, that there is no more will male and female, there's all sorts of genders, 400 different genders now, is talked about. And again, I'm not talking about those who have same sex attraction here, I'm not talking about those who were born, you can't tell if they're male or female, I'm never getting any of that stuff. But there there is a seems to be in some of these theories that they, the old constructs is they would call them of gender are gone. And new constructs that relate to male or female are starting to be very popular. Now again, and again, I'm not addressing the fact that we are to love and have compassion. Everybody has their own journey as ministers that we take people where they are, and lead them to Jesus Christ, I want to deal with the philosophy of what's happened since really the 1980s and 90s, that it shifted on some of these historic understandings of like, male female, that's sort of the ordinary, self evident, understand the to now. Anything goes what where does that come from?

Dr. Clouser - Well, I think it comes from pragmatists. Okay, now, a lot of people know that that word just means being practical. Yes, it feels like and that was the name given to this philosophy. But the philosophy, it doesn't just mean be practical, okay? In a common sense way. It has a theory of, of reality and a theory of knowledge. I should take that back. Most of the people were pragmatists now would say they don't have a theory of reality, and they don't want one. But they certainly have a theory of knowledge, this epistemology, and the epistemology is that there really is no truth. And that's you should stop this search for truth. The modern period in philosophy 1600-1800, everybody is looking for this truth that truth? What can we know? How, how much can we know about the world outside ourselves? How much can we know about how our minds operate? Can we know that there's a transcendent God? And we know that there are laws of physics, it's all that stuff they're asking. So these people consider themselves post modern they're overall that they're not investigating what's true or false. And because nobody can ever find that out, that's one of the most, nobody can find it out. Nope. One of the most prominent of our pragmatists, Richard Rorty, as it says, In one of his early books, there's no way for us to know whether we have found the truth or whether we're closer to the truth by investigating anything. Okay. All right, we believe what we believe, because we think it will make us happier than we'd otherwise be. So everything's on that block. Yeah, we're not looking for truth. Of course, we're not looking for absolute truth that can't be otherwise. But we're not looking for local truth, either. What we're looking for is what works in our lives to make us happy. So one of the the originators of it, the first guy to come up with his stuff was William James, just after the turn of the century. And James said, If a man believes in God, and is a good father, a good citizen, upright, happy than that's true for him, I think if another man is an atheist, and he's a good father, and a good husband and a good citizen, and that works for him, and that's the truth for him. In other words, it's, there is no truth, true/false.

Henry - So then when it comes to the sort of the recent thing, where like so many understandings of culture, even things that seem transparently real, are no longer real?

Dr. Clouser - And well, you know, I don't see that's, that's the ontology again, that's okay. So they don't want to mess with that. They want to say there is no you can't get to an ontology. You can't get to a theory of reality at all. So we're just going to take as real where you are, where you live, what your problems are, and so on. And then in good workflow, I call it political correctness style, right. So it seemed to me that the political correctness people glom on to something that's true, and maybe it's even a place where the public generally has failed to be

as considered as good of somebody and then exaggerate it into absurdity. Right. Okay. So there's no, there's no ethical truths that can't be made crazy by wild distortion. I'll give you an example. Of course, you don't want to assume or speak to a blind person assuming that they see you take that into consideration, right. But the point is political correctness, people wanted to rule out of the New York Times ad, which was an ad for an apartment that had had a river view I suppose one can see the river? Well, the flying know that they don't care the if the read to them it says river view. Maybe they'd rather have a river view apartment. Yes, people visit them. That's right. That's right, you, you can't assume that they're so silly and touchy, as that they're going to be offended that you put it into the ad of course you put it in the ad because not everybody that's interested is blind. And they do one want a river view. I think that's just, I can tell you one just as silly when I was taking my turn as chairman of the department at the College of New Jersey, which is the institution from which I'm retired, right. And, and so I had to write up an ad that we wanted to put out because we had an opening in the department. And the ad one of the say that we want, we need somebody in ancient philosophy, right? All right, but the job freezes setting. And jobs are so scarce, that any place that advertises that they have any opening, everybody who's just finished their PhD is just finishing their PhD, who doesn't have a job sends you their resume, right? So I know I'm gonna get 1000 resumes, right? And we aren't gonna have to go through all these, the first thing we're going to do is throw a whole bunch of them out because they're not an ancient philosophy. Right? So I said in the ad, please don't respond to this. If your specialty is not ancient philosophy, the affirmative action officer at the College made me take it out of the yet, because that was discriminating. Well, not in the bad sense. It's discriminating in the sense that we know what we want and need. Yeah. And there's no need no use to having all those people send their resumes, if they're not nice and fluffy. That's just stupid, right? And I said to the dean, okay, I'll take it out. But I'm going to change the address, and all the applications are going to go to the affirmative action officer, she can go through them and see which ones are for ancient philosophy and which ones aren't. It's just, it's a what we're saying we're getting it.

Henry - So what's happening is, in a sense, from a philosophic perspective, it's moving in a way that things that aren't self evident, are no longer self evident. Things like isn't just claim, you're looking for a philosophy person, you want somebody in ancient philosophy, you want that. Ordinarily, if someone is born, male or female, ordinarily, that's their gender. And I have noticed so many people are. So someone gets to be like, 12 or 13 year old and parents take, you know, their gender off the table. It's totally up to you. We don't know, you know, in a sense, it we're creating a world where things that used to be are no longer and things that seem clear are no longer clear.

Dr. Clouser - It seems to me that's an example of the same thing I was talking about. I call it an exaggeration of political correctness. Okay. It is true that in the past, those people have been treated. But yeah, it's been true that they have. Oh, yeah, that's right. I

Henry - God created all humans to be loved and respected. And we, yes, we want that. Dr. Clouser - And we want them to be accepted.
Henry - Yes. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Clouser - We can achieve that by saying no, it doesn't matter. Now, we're not going to we're not going to mention anything. Right? Right. Because sometimes it does matter in hiring. You may want a man rather than a woman or a woman, right?

Henry - There are goals. But the point being is you're saying there's a little bit of an over a lot of an overreach. Yes. So it's two things. One is the philosophy that the truth for me has moved the dime philosophically.

Dr. Clouser - Yeah. And there's no general truth to be had. Right? And we have a truth. And it can be false.

Henry - and we they have a religious belief like they do, and they don't necessarily admit to it. What is their religious belief that well,

Dr. Clouser - you have to examine each one to see what it is he or her leaves in? Untouched as the self existent origin of everything else. I think that's the definition of religious belief about a belief is a religious belief, if it's a belief in something as the self existent but it's absolutely non dependent. reality that generates everything else, right. And people have very self consciously said that that's matter. That's logical laws. That's mathematics. That's the other thing. And of course, the Christian views. It's only God,

Henry - God. God shows us his truth from God

Dr. Clouser - right? And so when you see somebody saying no, nothing is divine, this is what this pragmatists I quoted earlier. There's nothing divine, and we're not going for ontology. We're just dealing with the truths of the circumstances we find ourselves in. And we things we regard as true without having to justify that they are true, because we can't do that for anything. Imagine that this guy doesn't even know that one and one makes two so that's just luck, is that Rorty? Yeah. Oh, it was Richard Rorty.

Henry - Where was Richard Rorty he was? He was

Dr. Clouser - Richard Rorty. He was at Princeton, and a member of arguably the finest philosophy department in the country, certainly one of them. Okay. And when he arrived at the conclusion that pragmatism was right, that we don't accept things because they're true, but because we think they'll make us happier than would otherwise be, and that there's no real way to get access to any truth, or know that you're closer than you were before. He resigned his position.

Henry - Oh, wait, he resigned his position. Yeah, from philosophy. Yeah, at that prestigious

Dr. Clouser - because everybody else in the department presents philosophy is looking for the truth and finding it. And ever and the other members of that department, so far as I'm acquainted with their work would have said, of course, they're strengthened, it's this, they disagree. But they all think something is is true. And he's outset, I haven't read any autobiographical writing by him. But it looks to me that he resigned because he couldn't agree with that. And he didn't want to be part of a department that, that the idea that there's really truth, so he was later hired by the University of Virginia, and it wasn't in philosophy. It was something like culture studies. So that's not made, but something close to that. Yeah. But

then he's free to present his field. Right. Now, if if that was the reason that he resigned, I have all kinds of esteem and admiration for his integrity. Yeah, even if he's wrong. Yes. Well, and

Henry - I guess maybe we should conclude by saying that in the end, we see God in Christ Jesus as the truth by which all of our lives hang together. And his word is the truth about God and how he's made us revealed by God. Yes. And that is our religious belief. We judge no one for not holding that. I mean, that's up to God in them and our ministry, ability to proclaim the gospel when appropriate. That's right. So thank you. I think that clears up some of these issues. And I just really appreciate you you've come and done several classes here. So this is just another one of those things we want to check in with you and see sort of what say you on this subject.

Dr. Clouser - My pleasure.


Остання зміна: вівторок 18 жовтня 2022 08:07 AM