Sept. 4, 2006
MANN TALK: Is Truth Up Yonder or Down Here?
By Perry Mann
Hinton, WV (HNN) – In any argument the first undertaking should be to
determine the premise of one’s opponent: whence its source and how valid.
For if his premise is suspect, his whole argument is suspect.
Most philosophical and theological arguments are premised upon either God or
nature. Those who choose God as their premise more often than not cite the
Bible as the source upon the ground that the Bible is God’s word. Those who
choose nature as their premise cite some philosopher or scientist as the
source on the ground that his study of nature is productive of truth.
The former believe the truth to be up yonder and imposed upon man and nature
and the latter believe truth is down here and resides in man and nature.
Those who believe that all truth reposes in the Bible validate it for
themselves by believing and proclaiming that the men who wrote the Bible had
personal access to God through Moses and Jesus Christ and other God-inspired
prophets. If just an ordinary man wrote the Bible, it wouldn’t have any more
validity than any other words man has written and then men who cite the
Bible would only be citing other men, men who had a vested interest in
making man in the image of god and presenting man as semi-divine with all
the perquisites pertaining thereto.
Thus, the Bible as premise would become suspect, as it is to me. In my
reading of the Bible, particularly a reading of the Old Testament, I find
it so pervaded with the personality and character of man that I cannot
detect therein a difference between him and God. So I believe truth and
morality reside down here in man and nature and not up yonder in some
Superhuman who has sent a message to certain favorite ones of his creation
as to what he expects of them and their fellow- men.
The premise that God and nature are companions and that the latter is a
manifestation of the former is to me cogently clear . Morality doesn’t come
from a God up yonder and evil from a Devil down under, they both come from
nature, here. And anyone who studies nature closely discovers that morality
is here with evil and that both are the result of cause and effect and both
are determined, evil being perhaps man’s egocentric judgment of events.
One would have to admit that man is subject to illusions. One can cite, for
instance, the illusion that the earth is flat or the illusion that the earth
is the center of the universe, an illusion taken so seriously by the church
that it burned at the stake those hearty souls who insisted on believing
that it was not. Or the illusion that God created the earth and man and all
else in it working eight hours a day for six days. An illusion that Darwin
has so effectively dissolved that even the Catholic Church has had to admit
to the probability of his theory. There are certainly other illusions that
activate man. So it is not far fetched that he may be under the illusion
that his will is free.
Language develops from what man believes. An example is that he says that
the sun sets, even though most men know that the sun doesn’t set but that
the earth moves from west to east giving the appearance that the sun rises
and sets. Thus man talks always about choosing to do this and that, even
though some do not believe that he chooses at all but that what he does is
determined by what has gone before. The whole history of man since life
first stirred bears upon the will of anyone at any given moment and
determines what act that person does. He thinks he chooses but the choice
has already been made at the time he acts. If one believes he is free, for
all practical purposes he is free, even though he is a puppet of history,
If a human mother were to exhibit the dedication to the rearing of her young
that a mother bird does, she would be seen as as a paragon of motherhood, as
a woman with high morals, a person of diligence, reliability, faithfulness.
Where does the morality of a mother bird come from? Does a bird have free
will to chose to be a paragon or not to be a paragon? The answer is obvious
to man that a mother bird is programmed by nature to be dedicated to her
young. The morality is built in and determines the actions of the bird. And
so I believe morality is built into man.
Man is programmed by nature to be self-centered and to be altruistic, both
of which characteristics are designed to perpetuate him. If a man is
excessively self-centered and his actions are anti-social he is considered
evil and under the influence of the Devil; but if a man is excessively
altruistic and his actions are self-sacrificing, he is considered a saint
and under the influence of God. Which kind of person he becomes is a matter
of genes and environment, of nature and nurture, both of which are beyond
his control.
A woman who acts to abort her fetus is not choosing to do so, she is
reacting to her genes and to the circumstances of her life and conditions at
the time when she does the act, and all of her previous acts have been
determined in the same manner.
Once trials were conducted by throwing a suspect into boiling water and if
he survived he was innocent and if he didn’t he was guilty, or conducted
nearly as primitively. The present system of trials one day may be
considered just as barbaric. But change will come only when the illusion of
free will is unmasked. And maybe not even then; for fortunate men have a
penchant for and derive pleasure from judging the less fortunate as flawed
fellows whose misfortunes are the product of their poor choices, choices the
fortunate had better sense than to make.
Morality has the same source as intelligence: nature. And it varies from
person to person as does intelligence. An act is committed in conformance
with their mandates. Freedom is relative. Absolute freedom is freedom from
appetites, from pride, from fear, from need of hope. Freedom from nature
and nurture. Such freedom for a member of the human species is
improbable, if not impossible.
But Christ apparently achieved such freedom; for he rose above appetites,
pride, property and fear and he accepted death willingly rather than to
resort in his defense to the sword and to violence, an example that is
large in history and is the better part of the nurture impinging upon
mankind and thus a deterministic force in it. But Christ had his
predecessors who taught that life eternal was a matter of conquering the
flesh and who died for principles. He is unique only in his fidelity to his
words and in the fullness and simplicity of his teaching of the way to
the Kingdom, the entering of which he taught is within the grasp of
every man.