The Chicken or the Egg

The classic question about the chicken and the egg is really not about chickens or eggs. It is about cause and effect. The question of what causes what can get a bit confusing. Does something occur that causes something we can see, or is that which we can see the cause? What I'm thinking about primarily here is this: Do belief systems cause people to go a different way, or do people who are going a different way produce a new belief system?

I'll admit up front that the answer is hard to prove. It has been argued (at least in jest) that carrots cause criminal behavior. How do we know? Well, they serve carrots in prisons, and who occupies prisons, but criminals? There it is! Proven! Okay, so maybe you can see the problem. Still, on this question of belief system causing behavior changes or behavior changes causing belief systems, I think there is a valid question of cause and effect.

Consider Charles Darwin. His father was a secret "freethinker", a philosophy predicated on discarding religious beliefs at the outset. Darwin was "raised Christian" and even set out on a path toward ordination, but found he couldn't subscribe to Christian theology. Instead, he set out on a 5-year trip on the Beagle. What he experienced on that trip (along with the baggage he already carried) caused him to shift his theology entirely. According to his own autobiography, he cites that period as the point of his loss of faith. Thus, his theory of the origins of species became an attempt to build a case against God's special creation. So ... which came first ... the theory or the loss of faith? It would seem, from Darwin's own writings, that the new philosophy he developed of natural selection was intended as a replacement for Paley's "Natural Theology", the argument of the existence of God from nature and design. The chicken or the egg?

Look at Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous author of the phrase, "God is dead." Did Nietzsche come to this conclusion because he was driven there by philosophy, or did his personal life drive him to develop that philosophy? Nietzsche was a theology and philology student with an emphasis on interpretation of biblical and classical texts. With various injuries and illnesses (he was diagnosed with syphilis), he ended up rebelling against the culture in which he lived, eventually had a mental breakdown, and died an incapacitated philosopher. The question remains to this day. Did Nietzsche determine that "God is dead" because of his drug use and sexual immorality or did his arguments for atheism determine his behavior?

A name you may or may not have heard is Michel Foucault. He was one of the leading proponents of post-modern philosophy. Foucault determined that the best thing he could do in life was ... whatever he wanted to do. Live life to the utter extreme. Of course, there were "rules", "norms", reasons not to do that. In order for Foucault to pursue his drug use and wanton (extremely wanton) sexual desires, he had to produce a new set of "rules", a redesign of "normal". So he argued that words have no meaning, there is no overarching reality, and the only reason people make truth claims is to take power over others. Poof! Now Foucault has no reason not to do whatever he wants to do. The "battle cry" of post-modernism is "transgress all boundaries", and Foucault lived that cry. His desires determined his philosophy; his philosophy approved his desires. And in 1984 he died of AIDS, overcome by his own revelry.

We live in a world beset by differing ideas. While we muddle about out here arguing about ideas, I have to wonder. Did the ideas come on their own, or did they occur because of the error they permit? Did someone read through 2 Timothy 2 and say, "You know ... I don't think this means that women can't be pastors at all", or did someone determine, "Women have the right to be whatever they want, so we will reexamine 2 Timothy 2"? Did people read through passages like Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 and say, "I don't see anything in here that says anything about homosexual behavior. Clearly the text is talking about something else"? Or did they engage in homosexual behavior and then try to reinterpret these passages to approve their behavior? I am convinced that many of the ideas that we have to deal with today are not ideas that would stand on their own if it were not for people who wanted to use them to approve sin. It seems a little gratuitous to have to fight off ideas and philosophies that are intended simply to approve sin. Wouldn't it be nice if they just came with tags? "This idea is just a smokescreen so its users can revolt against God." I don't suppose any such "truth in advertising" rules will be soon forthcoming.