For if you [the rulers] suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves [outlaws] and then punish them. - Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Utopia, Book 1
THE SOLID ROCK
As the name of this blog suggests, we are interested in exploring exorcism, though, as I stated in my introductory post, not necessarily the dramatic kind with possessions and priests. We’re talking about ways the average person can clear the cobwebs that clutter up everyday life, and as any home maker knows, it’s better to clean up a little litter on the daily, rather than wait until the mess has accumulated.
We’ve discussed how exorcism - spiritual warfare - starts in the mind. We talked about how Satan’s doctrine established in Genesis is one of confusion: he speaks half-truths and gets Adam and Eve to question and doubt the motives God had when laying the ground rules in the garden. This demonstrates how crucial critical thinking is, and how easy and commonplace it is to be deceived.
We introduced the Trivium Method as a way to prepare our minds for battle. Let’s recap the Trivium and go further in depth:
The Trivium is the first 3 segments of the classical 7 liberal arts.
Grammar: who what when where
Logic: why
Rhetoric: how
When approaching a subject, we need a systematic way to filter and process the information to make sure we are interpreting it correctly. This is especially true in a world over-saturated with information, much of which is contentious and perhaps even risky (for health or for reputation) if we don’t understand what we’re being told. Who wants to be That Guy who shares a statistic, article or meme only to find out it consisted of “fake news” or bad sources?
The Grammar part of the method is about collecting raw, factual data into a pool of knowledge. We then move into Logic by eliminating contradictions so we can understand/process the VALID information. Once we’ve obtained wisdom on the topic, we are able to coherently express and utilize the information in the world - the Rhetoric stage.
For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. - Ecclesiastes 7:12
The external usefulness of this method is being able to tackle subjects by oneself; anyone can be an autodidact. This is why I stress how disappointing it is to have this methodology missing from educational systems; rather than teaching students how to teach themselves something, it makes the student reliant upon guidance from an instructor or authority figure. When a person is able to arrive at his/her own conclusion, the educational process becomes rewarding and the person enjoys learning.
It grieves me when those willing to research a topic for themselves are derogatorily labeled “conspiracy theorist” simply because they aren’t immediately accepting the official narrative from the “experts.” Let independent investigators present alternative information with proper Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric before tossing out their conclusion, please!
This is a logical fallacy called “appeal to authority.” (We will get more into fallacies in a subsequent post!) It is also presented as an appeal to ridicule, in an attempt to dismiss and discredit this form of information gathering via shame. It also presents as a sweeping generalization (another fallacy!) of all indie researchers being unfounded, and "all the world's top so and so's" having the final say.
PLATO V DERRIDA
The internal usefulness of the Trivium is for spiritual purposes - a way to avoid confusion and cognitive dissonance, which, as we already established, is the multifaceted tool of the father of lies.
How serious can confusion be on a spiritual level? Many believers are falling prey to a process known as “deconstructionism.” This is a complex topic that deserves its own post, but essentially Christian deconstruction happens when the believer receives and processes information that leads them to question and many times abandon their faith. This is usually due to - surprise! Confusion. The confusion comes because of logical fallacies such as appeal to emotion, and classic post-modern methods such as re-defining words to have new meanings.
Philosophical Deconstruction, stemming from French philosopher Jacques Derrida, is the criticism of Platonic thought. Over simplified, Platonism posits there is an objective truth to forms. Deconstruction divorces meaning from text/object and asserts that the meaning of something is in how it is sensed (appears or feels). This is haphazard: if we all arrive at the meaning of something based on how we experience it, how can we know what something objectively is? You can see how this could cause a person’s foundation to crumble. Ironically it can lead to an appeal to authority, for if a book, video, or talking head can bring you to an emotional state with the information provided, it can appear to be true based on the experience created for you rather than through deductive reasoning.
It may not be perfect, but Platonism is the bedrock of Western Thought through which the Trivium method is derived, attempting to put, as best we can, a foundation to substance and meaning so that we can have a common ground upon which to arrive at factual information. In the post-modern world of relativism and deconstruction, discourse becomes nearly impossible because words themselves take on different definitions. We may all be speaking English, but in a sense, we have a Tower of Babel scenario..
Additionally, as we’ve previously touched on, the current compulsory school model has steered away from classical education into social engineering. This type of “education” dovetails perfectly with postmodernism, since being a good member of society these days has more to do with how you contribute to society’s (increasingly fragile) psychological state than of being grounded in objective realities, be them unpleasant, unpopular or not. Here such logical fallacies as ridicule, false equivalence, non-sequitur, and more can erode a person’s ability to arrive at Trivium-based wisdom since we are unable to systematically sift the inconsistencies.
David Hayward of nakedpastor.com
The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. - Proverbs 17:24
When writing his gospel, John used the Greek philosophical lingo of the time and described Jesus Christ as the logos - the Word - traditionally defined as “logic, evidence.” Notice he did not use the word pathos - “emotion, feeling.” Yet this is precisely how the post-evangelical deconstructionist “Christian” wants to arrive at the Messiah today: “feel your way to salvation.”
God himself is referred to as the Rock - the firm foundation, upon which the Church is established. Jesus died on a piece of wood stuck into the earth, with iron nails through his physical hands. These are cold hard facts. Let us not mince words.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” - Matthew 7: 24-27
Do you think it is too late? We seem to have lost the idea of a truth outside our own constructs eg absolute truth. Also, I am taken aback when the definitions of words seem to have shifted and taken on political overtones and slants.