Francis Berger's recent post "Liberty No Longer Enlightening the World" raises some important points that are worth considering further. Berger contrasts the idea that increasing freedom caused the decline of Christianity and the culture of the West with the idea that this increasing freedom was actually an opportunity. He mentions the book Liberty: The God that Failed by Christopher Ferrara. Berger writes: "According to Ferrara, it was the dark forces of Enlightenment that did in the Church and Christendom."
Ferrara's view is not uncommon. Whether it is regarded as a good thing or not, many believe that the decline of Christianity was inherent in the changes that led to the Enlightenment. These impulses could have been stopped earlier, but they could not have been prevented from having a negative effect. But is this true? Can we really be sure of this?
Just from a logical perspective the answer is no. Simply because we can document a series of events where each event follows another in time does not mean that each event inevitably caused the subsequent event. At the end of his post, Berger raises this point:
"I think about Libertas in terms of consciousness - that
missed opportunity in the eighteenth century and everything that has
followed since. The missed opportunity created Libertas. And the
culmination of Libertas has led to Servitus. Servitus strikes me as the
death of consciousness. Even worse, the death of spirit - the deadening
of humanity, which is also the deadening of God. What comes then?
Destruction?
But I do not think Servitus has won decisively - not yet anyway.
Perhaps
we will rediscover libertas again - true libertas - the kind of
libertas that does not need to impose its glory upon the world with
through the promise of a beckoning, light-casting statue.
The kind of libertas that can lead us from enlightening to finding the Light, if we so choose."
There is something more subtle going on. Rather than a change merely in culture, we have a change in consciousness, in how people think and understand. This change was an opportunity, but everything bad that has flowed from it was a perversion of that impulse. The two centuries following the enlightenment could have been entirely different in ways that are hard for us to imagine. But, let that not deter us: no one could have imagined 2021 in 1921.
In fact, telling us that these changes are inevitable is the Big Lie that our enemies want us to believe. If we really were meant to unfold this change in consciousness in a good way, then believing that the bad effects were inevitable plays right into our enemies' hands. It wasn't inevitable then, and it isn't now. Let us not try to manipulate the perversions of the impulse for our own benefit and turn them towards the good. One century of that has proven an abject failure. Instead, let us reach deeper and align our thinking and imagining with the Good to find true libertas.
No, I certainly don't believe it was inevitable, and despite current circumstances in the world, I remain rather optimistic about the development of consciousness today. Having said that, the path of consciousness appears to be following that complete immersion in the material before a re-emergence into the spiritual that you made note of in an earlier post (on Steiner, I believe).
ReplyDeleteThat is heartening to hear that you are still optimistic about developing consciousness.
DeleteI wrote this post to amplify what the ideas in your earlier post: contrasting Ferrara's thesis that increased freedom led inevitably to Christianity's decline with what was expressed in your last few paragraphs, that the freedom was actually an opportunity and the bad effects were not inevitable.