Common Sense

'Tis the season for political ads. I drove by one today that said he took the "common sense" approach. Wouldn't it be nice if that actually meant something today? What is "common sense" in today's culture? What "sense" do we share in "common"?

Well, obvious to all, if a fellow human being needs a fish and you have a fish, you should give it to him, right? Unless, of course, you'd prefer the obvious "teach him to fish and he'll eat for life." You'd think that the idea that less than 5% of the population engages in something makes it "not normal," but if you did, you'd be called a "hater." If Bob does something bad, is it common sense to shoot him in the head metaphorically or give him another chance? Can't tell by today's standards. Is it common sense to trust the media or to distrust the media? Do the people still "have the right to know," or do they only "have the right to know what we tell them"? If the media tells us "There is no story" and then, a year or two later, "We were wrong; that was a real story," is it "common sense" to drop that criminal activity off the radar or to pursue it? When we do a congressional investigation into a former president, do we investigate with people from both sides of the president (so to speak), or do we "stack the deck" with all "president haters" and expect to get the truth? That's "common sense"? In the song, Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, Irving Berlin wrote, "My tiny baby brother, who's never read a book, Knows one sex from the other, All he had to do was look." Silly people. By today's logic that makes no sense at all ... which makes no sense at all. Seriously, is it "common sense" to suggest that men can get pregnant simply because "she" decided she was a "he"? And we will lock anyone up (hopefully metaphorically, but ...) if they suggest that science tells us what sex people are. Common sense?

Scripture says, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no god'" (Psa 14:1). We read in Jeremiah that the heart is deceitful and desperately sick (Jer 17:9). Paul wrote, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers" (2 Cor 4:4), that humans as a race supress the truth about God and become futile in their thinking (Rom 1:19-21). I would suggest that "common sense" is a myth when we humans are, by nature, hostile to God (Rom 8:7) and do not -- cannot -- operate from a common basis without intervention from God. You'd think that common sense was common. I'd argue that the vast divergence in our world from anything approximating "common" would preclude the notion of common sense. But maybe, just maybe, that would only be an acceptable notion if we had common sense.