Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000401A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is a program bringing you news, 00:30 views, insights, discussion, and up-to-date information 00:34 on religious liberty in the US and around the world. 00:37 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine, 00:41 and my guest on the program, Elijah Mvundura. 00:44 From Zimbabwe. From Zimbabwe. 00:46 But Canada, at the moment. 00:48 Yes, yes, I'm half Canadian now. 00:50 Yeah, and lived in the US for some time 00:52 and I think like me, 00:54 when I'm originally from Australia, 00:55 we become world citizens, right? 00:58 Yes, yes, yes. 01:00 So let's go far afield 01:02 and start our discussion on this program with... 01:06 In England and link some views that we might hold today 01:11 with what happened during the English Civil War 01:15 and the English Republic that followed. 01:17 Yes, one of the issues with the Reformation 01:20 that would like me to come back to is that 01:24 with the Reformation, before the Reformation, 01:26 Catholic was the institution... 01:30 It was the main game in town, wasn't it? 01:32 It was the main game in town and it was the authority, 01:36 you know, if you wanted 01:38 to know about life and everything, 01:40 it determined everything. 01:42 Now let me interject something because it's important I think 01:44 as we talk about not just this program, 01:47 what we've spoken about. 01:48 I believe that the Reformation... 01:53 While it had some theological aspects 01:55 and one very important, the righteousness by faith 01:58 that Luther picked on, 02:00 at root, it was a challenge 02:03 to the wrongly used authority of the dominant church, 02:07 the Roman Catholic Church. 02:09 But even saying that, it's worth remembering 02:13 that the Catholic Church had an incredible ability 02:17 to absorb or to... 02:20 Not even absorb, to cover disparate views 02:23 before... 02:24 It was a cult. 02:26 Even now, it... 02:28 Some of the orders within the Catholic Church 02:30 are at odds with what the others hold. 02:32 As long as they accept the authority of the pope, 02:34 they will be countenanced and only really... 02:37 Remember there was a time that the church 02:39 even moved against the Jesuits? 02:41 Yes. They were too far out of line. 02:42 But generally speaking, 02:44 if they accept the central authority, 02:46 it can allow radical differences. 02:49 So the only game in town was not, 02:51 even though I said it facetiously, 02:53 it wasn't always really true, wasn't it the Franciscans 02:56 that were seen as evil by the population at one time? 02:58 Yes, yes, the Dominicans and they're like... 03:00 Yes. 03:01 In fact, you are very right, there were many orders 03:02 within the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. 03:05 Not only orders, the universities too. 03:08 The invest of Paris and... 03:11 Right, there was some divergence 03:12 but that could only be countenanced 03:14 if they accepted the central authority of Rome. 03:17 And the difference with Luther is he challenged 03:19 not just Rome's authority, the source of their authority, 03:23 the claim of authority that they made. 03:25 Yes, even the same thing with Copernicus. 03:28 The reason why he ran afoul with the church 03:31 is because ultimately his physics 03:35 challenged the authority of the church. 03:37 But to going back that, 03:38 so with the collapse of the whole Middle Ages, 03:40 the Christian authority became... 03:42 People became very skeptical, 03:44 they didn't know what to follow, 03:45 how can they guide their lives. 03:48 So that was a crisis, really a crisis in Europe. 03:51 And so you find that if you read the discussions 03:54 around that time, people were trying to say if... 03:57 Because Luther had challenged all these things, 03:59 this church is false, then they're saying, 04:01 "Okay, if this whole thing is false, 04:04 what we base our beliefs on?" 04:07 And remember his challenge overshot the mark a bit 04:10 because it eventually came to include 04:14 legitimate civil authority, 04:15 the peasants rebellion was in throughout Europe. 04:16 Yes, yes, yes 04:18 because it challenged everything. 04:19 Because once you destroyed that authority, 04:22 because church and state were together, were united, 04:25 so you are having the very social foundations 04:28 were challenged. 04:29 And there is historians, they speak about the skepticism 04:33 in that, and actually, modern philosophy, 04:36 modern philosophy begins with Descartes. 04:39 Descartes whole attempt 04:40 was to try and establish authority on mathematics, 04:44 that if you study science and have everything. 04:46 So actually with Descartes, 04:47 you have this whole trend today where people 04:50 have such a high respect for mathematics, 04:53 it starts with Descartes. 04:54 Descartes actually wanted to establish 04:56 a universal science that would settle all doubts. 05:00 But he begins all that 05:01 before he formulated his theory, 05:04 he's all founded on I think, therefore I am, 05:07 he believed I can doubt everything 05:09 but I cannot doubt myself. 05:11 It's kind of esoteric 05:13 but what is very important in there is that 05:16 the English philosophers unlike Descartes, 05:18 Descartes wanted to establish wisdom and methodical science, 05:24 of course, he was influenced by firmest theology, 05:28 Thomas Aquinas. 05:29 Thomas Aquinas believed that the human mind 05:32 can be able to reach the truth, you only... 05:33 You're jumping back 05:35 in time a long way, doesn't it, with Aquinas? 05:36 Yes, yes. 05:38 Yes, but he was educated with in firmest theology. 05:39 Yeah. 05:41 So the difference between 05:42 Descartes and the English philosophers 05:44 is that the English philosophers 05:45 still referred to God as the ultimate authority. 05:49 In fact... 05:51 They didn't make a full break with the biblical 05:53 or transcendent truth. 05:55 They didn't. 05:57 In fact, you know, 05:58 I think that we had that conversation before, 06:00 Newton and John Locke believed that you can find 06:03 certainty in biblical prophecy, that Bible prophecy 06:06 approves the authenticity of the Bible. 06:09 So you now have actually two competing strands 06:11 in Western thought. 06:13 You have Descartes who is based in truth on mathematics, 06:16 and then you have Newton and Locke, this is important, 06:19 I've been repeating this, 06:21 they actually based their certainty 06:23 on biblical prophecy. 06:25 In fact, I think I... 06:27 We were talking privately... 06:29 Yeah, you're like me, you start to confuse 06:30 our public discussions and our private discussions. 06:32 Yes, I'm sorry about that, I'm sorry about that. 06:35 But Descartes had actually an encounter. 06:38 Descartes is the founder of modern philosophy. 06:40 He had an encounter with some of the English Puritans 06:43 who actually told him, "If you want to find eternity, 06:46 built it on prophecy," 06:47 just as Peter said, 06:49 we have the sure weight of what? 06:50 Of prophecy. Prophecy. 06:52 That's why Newton spent most of his time 06:55 studying biblical prophecy 06:56 and they actually told Descartes 06:58 that the train of thought that you're beginning 07:01 is going to lead to atheism. 07:02 And incidentally, so something just come to me, 07:05 Descartes actually, 07:07 before he started this philosophy, 07:08 he had a dream. 07:11 And I don't know for me... 07:13 You think it was a divine dream? 07:15 No, I don't think it was a divine dream. 07:16 I don't think it was a divine dream. 07:18 I don't know the dream, so... 07:19 Yeah, he actually had a dream, today it's suppressed, 07:21 actually, he had a dream one night 07:24 and everything became very clear to me. 07:26 But the type of dream that he had, 07:28 I don't have time to go on it, I think it was a demonic dream. 07:31 Actually, I wrote an article that I tried to submit 07:34 to the Journal of Ideas, 07:35 the demonic origins of Descartes' philosophy. 07:42 And there is actually an American, Gilsby, 07:45 who writes actually nihilism before Nietzsche 07:48 and he traces the whole problem that we have today, 07:51 a straight line from Descartes to Nietzsche, 07:53 who finally said that God is dead. 07:56 Yeah. 07:57 And this is the philosophy 07:59 that is prominent in American Universities. 08:02 So you can trace that... 08:03 That to be, at least the way I see it 08:05 to be accurate about he was saying when God is dead, 08:08 I don't think they meant that God has now died, 08:10 they mean the idea of God has died out in man, right? 08:13 Yes, yes, yes... 08:14 We no longer need such a crutch. 08:16 Yes, but in his book Gay Science, 08:19 Gay Science, of course is the madman who speaks, 08:23 Nietzsche literally says that we have killed God 08:27 and we is the philosophers. 08:29 In a way, of course, God cannot be killed. 08:31 Yeah. But philosophically. 08:33 Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying, 08:34 philosophically they meant the idea is dying out 08:36 in human thinking. 08:38 Yes, it's the human thinking. 08:39 Although, it's interesting, you know, in the recent years, 08:42 they've been articles in Time and Newsweek about 08:45 what they've described as almost the God shaped 08:48 either void or thinking in because of the brain structure. 08:52 It's like, it's sort of 08:56 a fail-safe built into human beings. 08:58 So it's hard philosophically to get past it when every... 09:04 yearning of the soul is for God, isn't it? 09:07 I mean, that's why the pagans and the animist... 09:08 You know, you have to find God. Yes. 09:13 But for me as an Adventist, 09:14 one of the things that really fascinates me 09:17 is that the time when the Western philosophers 09:21 say that God is dead. 09:22 It's in the 19th century. 09:23 Actually, though Nietzsche is the one 09:25 who says we have killed God, 09:26 it's Hegel, Marx's godfather who first says 09:31 that God is dead in the 19th century, 09:34 at the very time when the Adventists 09:36 were preaching the Three Angels' Message. 09:38 And to me, I believe 09:39 that the Three Angels' Message... 09:41 They just countered the truth. 09:42 Yes, the Three Angels' Message responds, 09:45 it's a direct response to some of the ideologies 09:48 in the 19th century because it points us again 09:51 back to the worship of the one and true God. 09:53 And when you look at the philosophies, 09:55 because the Three Angels' Message is very, very specific, 09:58 "Worship the Creator of the earth, the sea, 09:59 and the heavens." 10:01 And they treated nature is one thing. 10:04 So the very thing that they are trying to put together, 10:07 the Three Angels' Message is trying to emphasize 10:09 that God is the Creator. 10:11 So the whole problem that we have today, 10:14 this is a harvest of the 19th century. 10:16 There's no question, yeah. 10:17 So the Three Angels' Message is indeed a present truth. 10:24 Even talk about the issue of identity... 10:26 That's a terms that Ellen White, 10:27 the co-founder of Adventism constantly uses, 10:31 and I try to resurrect that all the time, present truth. 10:34 What she meant was something relevant 10:36 for these times. 10:37 Yes, it's the modern message. 10:39 And for me... 10:40 Or applied to these times. 10:41 Yes, one of the issues that is the problem today, 10:44 brings us again to the American situation, 10:46 the issues of identity, who am I, 10:48 we have now identity politics. 10:51 Every group wants to be included and multiculturalism 10:55 and all that. 10:57 I find again that 10:58 the Three Angels' Message addresses that 11:01 because it speaks for every nation, 11:04 kindred, tongue, and people. 11:06 It recognizes those identities, it doesn't... 11:08 It affirms the identity. 11:11 But thus we can be able to affirm our identity 11:14 in the worship of the one true God. 11:17 It may take us far 11:18 but I believe that the Three Angels' Message 11:20 is so relevant, so present, so present. 11:24 We need to put it this way, you've been talking 11:27 about the history of philosophy 11:29 and how it's worked out in the modern world, 11:31 you know, that process hasn't finished 11:34 and I don't know 11:36 if you're aware of a fairly recent movie called The Matrix. 11:41 Yes. 11:43 At first, when I saw bits of that 11:45 and then I finally watched it, I figure what... 11:47 I need to see what they're talking about. 11:49 I thought well, this is just a fantastic extrapolation 11:51 of things and it's a good mind game 11:53 but it's not a serious proposition. 11:56 But I'm finding that the scientists are now 11:58 saying the same thing. 12:00 Like there was an article recently 12:01 in a major national paper, 12:03 it says, "Are we really just in a giant video game?" 12:07 Yes. 12:09 And the scientists that deal with, 12:13 like, Hawking and so on 12:14 that really try to imagine the universe, 12:17 they're questioning whether there's a physicality 12:20 to what we're living through. 12:23 And no, I don't believe so, the Bible says, 12:25 "God made heaven and earth." 12:26 He made a reality but we're drifting again to... 12:29 I think disassociating ourselves 12:31 from God's creation, it's man sort of free-floating. 12:35 Yes, but... 12:36 And there's a little substance to it. 12:38 We've been talking privately 12:39 about my predecessor Clifford Goldstein. 12:41 Yes. 12:43 Like, until recently, when I moved office, 12:45 you know, he'd come and we'd discuss 12:47 these philosophical things. 12:48 I remember one of our biggest discussions 12:50 is that "Are we real?" 12:51 Yes. 12:53 You know, the philosophers, it's a very interesting thing, 12:54 I can only deduce that you think like me. 12:57 Yes. 12:58 Because it's all happening in here. 13:00 Yeah, but people, they think that philosophy is up there, 13:02 maybe some of a discussion that we've been having here 13:04 seems so high. 13:06 But the things that people are digesting in the movies 13:08 that they're actually getting in the movies, 13:10 in the popular culture, they first begin... 13:12 These guys are educated in the universities. 13:14 Absolutely. 13:15 So if we want to have a Christian worldview, 13:18 we must know where these things 13:19 are coming from. 13:21 And it's really revival of paganism. 13:26 What we're hearing here is a revival of paganism, 13:28 and Nietzsche himself. 13:29 We talk about Nietzsche, 13:31 why am I referring to Nietzsche? 13:32 Nietzsche is the godfather of post-modernism. 13:35 Because God is not there, 13:36 we can create our own identities, 13:39 we can create our own morals, 13:41 we can be gods, we can be supermen. 13:43 And that's what I was about to say, 13:44 in many ways, he was the godfather of Nazism. 13:46 Yes, he was the godfather of Nazism, 13:48 but Nazism too is human beings taking upon themselves 13:53 to try and shape the world. 13:55 And we know that 13:57 if any human beings try to shape the world, 14:00 we make a mess of it. 14:01 That's true. 14:03 We'd better take a break now. 14:04 So stay with us on this discussion. 14:05 We'll be back to continue this philosophy 101, 14:09 religious liberty 101. 14:11 Yes. |
Revised 2018-09-17