Sarah Palin Waterboarding Joe Carter

Okay . . . so I’ve been a touch busy. My company closed operations. They paid me pretty good to be the very last one out the door, so now I’m retooling my skill set. I have a major certification exam coming, so I’ve been buried in textbooks and class work dealing with net present value, cost performance index, and Ishikawa diagrams.

Speaking of cause and effect, unlike some bloggers who are losing their homes because they can’t pay their bills and calling it a test of God, I think there is a relationship between skill set and employability. So being consistent with that principle, I think it’s important to invest in personal development so I can actually have a market value . . . as opposed to say, writing for three years and running my finances into bankruptcy, endlessly waiting for “God” to do something. Everyone else has to get a job, so why shouldn’t former members of the “Apostolic Team” of an oppressive Neo-Calvinist church have to go get a job to support their lifestyle of choice? Frankly, they would do a lot less damage if the sum of their impact was “Would you like fries with that Quarter Pounder?”

I’m just saying . . .

Also, it is highly educational to note that in a free market, unemployed preachers struggle to get jobs that match their six-figure church salary. What does that tell us about what Neo-Calvinist preachers REALLY do?

I am focused on other things. However, while taking a mental break, I read an article by Joe Carter on the Gospel Coalition Blog titled Is Waterboarding How We Baptize Terrorists?  It was published April 27th 2014. This is the original URL.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2014/04/27/is-waterboarding-how-we-baptize-terrorists-sarah-palin-enemies-and-christian-anthropology/

As always I recommend reading my source material, however when I went test the link today I got a totally different blog post by Bethany Jenkins. The URL is the same. It is not forwarded to the new post, so I don’t know what is going on with the website. However, I had the article in its entirety and parsed out most of what Joe Carter  wrote so the only challenge is you dear reader won’t be able to check my source material unless The Gospel Coalition Blog fixes the problem.

Anyway, it would also be a good idea to find Sarah Palin’s comments in context. The big picture will help expand your understanding. But the thing that has Neo-Calvinists woeing and tumulting is when Sarah Palin says, “Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Sarah has her own challenges as a public figure and particularly as a political candidate. And I don’t care to defend her one direction or the other. However, I do want to say this: the one thing Sarah Palin brings to the political arena is an uncompromising conviction that America has the right to exist for its own sake and that it is morally correct for the United States to take the fight to nations governed by Jihadist Islam who foreswear our destruction. This position is virtually nonexistent in American politics. So while the Neo-Calvinists have their panties in a wad over Palin’s comments because it fails to measure up to some doctrinal purity, the theme of her comment is exactly right. America’s enemies should fear us. They should tremble and quake and pray to their god that we don’t take notice of their open, longstanding commitment to our destruction. They should be limited to muttering under their breath in their hovels, and Jihadist Islamic governments should be bending over backwards to make sure that not one hair on any American’s head is ever ruffled.

THIS moral premise is what must undergird an effective American foreign policy: it is morally correct for America to exist for its own sake and take the fight with every available tool to those nations and ideologies that seek our harm. THIS moral premise shaped the foreign policy that eradicated Imperial Japan (its driving ideology) from the face of the earth, and THIS moral premise shaped the foreign policy that removed National Socialism from Europe. And THIS moral premise is exactly what Sarah Palin was trying to express because for the last 80 years, American foreign policy has been dedicated to appeasing Jihadist Islamic states, building their infrastructure, and begging the Jihadist Muslim world to please, please, please like America. The result has been an emboldened enemy, three protracted wars, the USS Cole bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, the World Trade Center bombing, the Benghazi act of war, the deaths of thousands of American citizens, and the systematic erosion of American civil liberties. These are just the highlights of America’s failed worldview and the product of a catastrophic and treasonous foreign policy.

And make no mistake, unless Americans demand that the government—the government they give permission to exist—recognize that America has the right to exist for its own sake and destroy those who foreswear her harm, we have no hope of resisting Jihadist Islam’s quest to rule the world.

But this fundamental message in Palin’s comment is lost on the Neo-Calvinist world. Their collectivist preoccupations make it impossible to see beyond their doctrinal purist panties. Nothing gets them in a twist faster than a deviation from their definition of purist Bible doctrine, which is exactly the focus of Joe Carter’s article.

 

Here is what Joe said:

“Why It Matters:  For anyone to confess Christ as their savior and to compare one of the means of God’s grace to an act of torture is reprehensible.”

This is fan-freaking-tastic! Does no one else see the irony in this comment? Really? Okay, for those of you who don’t get it, let me point out that the whole of Augustinian/Lutheran/Calvinist doctrine is based on the Cross.

Uh, what was the Cross again?

Answer: The Cross is an instrument of torture and political subjugation.

Oh, the irony here is rich. It turns out that Palin is merely following in Christianity’s well-worn footsteps of appropriating whatever it needs, whenever it needs it. The Cross—as a doctrinal icon—was virtually nonexistent for the first four hundred years of Christian history. But as each generation of Christian intellectuals adopted more and more elements of Cynic, Stoic, and Platonist doctrine, Christianity was increasingly focused on death. In the 5^th century Augustine performed the coup de grace, galvanizing Platonism into the annals of Christian doctrine, giving “life” to a cult that worships death and soon after, art conformed to the philosophical foundation because from that point forward the church hierarchy needed an icon of death to manipulate the masses. So, for the last fifteen hundred years, the “means of grace has been compared to an act of torture.” If you don’t believe me, drive by any church and just look at the dead body on the cross and remember that every Sunday people will sing love songs to death. The preacher will proudly extol from the pulpit the virtues of suffering and pain, and self-destruction, and sacrifice. That sounds strikingly similar to what we’d say to a “terrorist.”

So, how can Palin be wrong?

 

I hope members of Gov. Palin’s local church will explain to her why her remarks denigrate the Christian faith.

What Joe means to say here is, he expects the church leadership MEN to help Palin get her doctrine right. Obviously, this silly WOMAN doesn’t understand the nature of her own words, and she needs some right-thinking MEN to help her get her FEMALE mind right.

 

Such remarks bring shame on the Body of Christ and to our witness in the world.

Oh no, no, no.

Joe, beyond the glaring doctrinal inconsistency in this sentence (to be discussed shortly), the leading bringer of shame is that the Church allows men like CJ Mahaney to remain in anywhere near a church. The Church bears shame because it venerates a thug and a murderer like John Calvin. The Church bears shame because the papacy is more interested in covering up pedophilia than bringing justice. The Church bears shame because it has shown itself to be entirely impotent in its ability to resist the onslaught of Marxist ideology and communist tyranny. The Church bears shame because in the immortal words of James Madison:

7. Because experience witnesseth that eccelsiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

8. Because . . . What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.

However misplaced Sarah Palin’s words might be, the church leadership has heaped shame on its own head a thousand times over by much more egregious means.

 

“Even more shameful, however, is the fact that so many Christians would cheer her support of torture (and yes, waterboarding is torture).”

I am soooo glad you said this, Joe. Yes, let us talk about torture.

But first, let us drop the Sarah Palin context. Let us set aside that the scope of Palin’s comments are limited to Jihadist Islamic fundamentalists. Let us banish from our minds that torture would be used against America’s declared enemies to gain knowledge that keeps Americans safe. Let us drop the context that we are talking about members of an ideology that has specifically declared its goal of world domination. Let’s wipe out of our minds that we are talking about a religion that insists it will rule the according to Sharia Law. Let us just magically dismiss this context and talk about Christian support of torture.

Let us now remember that the whole of Christian theology is based on the premise that God predestines men to torture by burning in a lake of fire for eternity.

Let us talk John Calvin and Michael Servetus! Let us talk about the use of the bonfire in Geneva to “torture” people who disagreed with doctrine. Let’s talk about the Christians that supported John Calvin in his use of torture to purge political adversaries from public discourse.

Let us talk about the Puritan practice of dropping suspected witches into rivers to torture the truth from their lying lips. If the women died, they were innocent. If the witches lived, aha! Guilty witch! Sounds a LOT like waterboarding, doesn’t it?

Oh, wait.

You don’t want to talk about THAT torture? That torture was committed by men of God who were just a little “misguided.” Should I just get over John Calvin? John Calvin lamented his actions, so his torture isn’t reprehensible? Or do Calvinists get a special dispensation on torture? They get a dispensation on everything else. Calvinists can harm and maim and maraud their way through people’s lives in the name of Doctrinal Purity, but, hey, God’s mystery is hard to understand. We are all just sinners anyway. Or is Calvin’s use of the bonfire not really that bad because people didn’t cheer?

I guess we don’t know if the Geneva populous cheered or not. But do you know it takes someone roughly 20 minutes to die while being burned on a stake?

How many Christians stood around the bonfire supporting torture while Michael Servetus bellowed out his agony? Where was the “local church” leadership explaining why John Calvin’s actions denigrated the Christian faith? And here is a question for you: How many modern Neo-Calvinist preachers applaud John Calvin today?

 

Gov. Palin was attempting to appeal to the basest political populism (nothing in her remarks could be construed as genuinely conservative) by claiming that current U.S. counterterrorism policy is  overly-tolerant and empathetic toward our enemies. She contends that proper policies would “put the fear of God into our enemies.”

As if Neo-Calvinist preachers never appeal to base motivations to achieve their mystical despotic ends . . .

“God will torture you in hell, if you don’t go to my church!!”

The world has NEVER heard that before.

>big eye roll<

Anyway, I’m not at all sure how Joe Carter is defining “genuine conservatism.” I can hazard a guess that he means that genuine “conservatism” equals Reformed Christian doctrine. If that is what he means, then that is a truly scary thought.

And as for the United States’ current counter-terrorism policy . . . uh . . . it takes less than an hour of research to realize that American foreign policy IS “overly tolerant”. We have been tolerant for decades. America’s political class has worked overtime to avoid offending the very Jihadist Muslims that would just as soon slit our throats. And any time Jihadist Muslims have caught an American alone, that is exactly what they have done. Does no one remember Nick Berg?

But more to the point, the fact that we are talking about counter-TERRORISM is central to implicit tolerance of America’s foreign policy fiasco. We can’t bring ourselves to even name our enemy. We have reduced a discussion about war to an emotional reaction: terror. American foreign policy is little more than an episode of Oprah where the pretty people tell the rest of us how we must abandon our freedoms so they can manage our fears.

 

Unfortunately, what Palin is proposing is a mixture of pagan ethics and civil deistic religion.

Oh no! Say it ain’t so??!!! The pagans are gonna get us all.

So, Joe, you mean like when Christianity took over a pagan holiday to create Christmas? Or when Christianity took over a pagan holiday to create Easter? So, Joe, you mean like when late first century and early second century appropriated Cynic and Stoic philosophy into Christianity? So, Joe, you mean like when Augustine used Plotinus as his source material to galvanize Plato into Christianity? So, Joe, you mean like when Christian preachers accepted Immanuel Kant’s “secular” Categorical Imperative as gospel and eradicated values from human existence? So, Joe, do you mean like mixing those pagan ethics into Christianity?

 

She could have provided a more useful recommendation by supporting a Christian view, for on this issue in particular, Christian anthropology not only provides the correct view but the only one that can provide an adequate framework in which to form our conception of our “enemies.”

Useful? By what standard? No, seriously. The concept useful requires a means to measure effectiveness. So by what standard are we measuring usefulness?

 

As political scientist Glenn Tinder notes, the human being is both fallen and exalted, sacred and yet morally degraded. These two aspects of humanity cannot be separated. A fact, Tinder admits, that is “hard for common sense to grasp.” Indeed, it is almost impossible to grasp when we try to apply this concept to our enemies. We often fall for one of two extremes.

Dear reader, don’t get side tracked by the name-dropping. Glenn Tinder is irrelevant. He doesn’t have anything new to say, and he doesn’t have anything to offer. No self-respecting political scientist starts his public policy with Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin. If Augustine is right about human existence, there is no such thing as political science because there is no such thing as science, and “fallen” man does not have a choice about who rules over his existence because everything is determined.

Joe Carter is using the pretext of Glenn Tinder’s credential as a “political scientist” to enter into evidence his metaphysical assumptions. Joe wants to give his implicit mysticism the veneer of “science.” Joe Carter is in doctrinal solidarity with Augustine who was in solidarity with Plotinus, who was in solidarity with the pagan Cynics and Stoics. Man is a divided creature, “morally degraded” and “sacred.” The soul/body dichotomy is a pagan concept that has been grafted into Christian doctrine since the first century AD. If you, dear reader, want a full discussion of this specific subject, please refer to my 2013 TANC lectures. But know this. If Joe Carter was really interested in purging syncretism from church dogma, he should start with his own metaphysical assumptions.

I have been saying for years that political action is a direct product of metaphysical assumptions. And now you can see an example of what I mean. Joe Carter’s political expectations rest firmly on Augustine’s metaphysics. Well, no, that isn’t quite right. His public policy assertions wobble all over the place because they are based on an inherent metaphysical conundrum: Man is existentially corrupt (fallen). Man is a dichotomy (a mix of warring impulses). Man cannot apply logic to his own existence (hard for common sense to grasp). In short, man is a mindless monster that has been stitched together from corrupt body parts, filled with rage and evil.

Bookmark this point.

 

The “liberal” position criticized by Palin (more accurately framed as the liberal cosmopolitan elite position), tends to be overly empathetic in an attempt to understand and “humanize” our foes. As Palin notes (albeit hyperbolically) they take the view that we cannot “offend them” or “make them feel uncomfortable.”

But this is just one of the ways in which we can err. The “right-wing populist” position supported by Palin, seeks retribution and “dehumanizes” our opponents in order to distance them from ourselves, can be just as dangerous, particularly for those who must carry out the fight against terrorism.

Okay . . . this is little more than Joe’s desperate attempt to illustrate his broadmindedness. He wants you to know that he isn’t some citified, carpet-bagging, bleeding heart liberal, but don’t you dare think he will let Palin get away with her trailer park trash, bloodthirsty saber rattling. He wants you to know that he is a centrist. He’s a right-minded, blue collar, worldly-wise Christian immune to the wiles of pretty women spewing pagan (read demonic) doctrines. The hussy holding out the apple will not beguile him to sin. He is a bold man walking the tight rope of “extremism.” We have to fight “terrorism,” but we can’t lose sight of our humanity. We must not “dehumanize” our “enemies.” Joe Carter is posing as a thoughtful intellectual who is just looking out for the poor young grunt that has to actually pull the trigger on the “terrorists.” It is dangerous to seek retribution. He is holding out a cautionary tale.

 

Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, author of Achilles In Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, found that dehumanizing the enemy during the Vietnam war caused psychological damage to American troops: Restoring honor to the enemy is an essential step in recovery from combat PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). While other things are obviously needed as well, the veteran’s self-respect never fully recovers so long as he is unable to see the enemy as worthy. In the words of one of our patients, a war against subhuman vermin “has no honor.” This in true even in victory; in defeat, the dishonoring makes life unendurable. (Achilles, pg. 115)

Okay, I read On Killing by Dave Grossman. I’ll accept his scholarship that echoes the sentiments above: There is a profound cost to killing. Man does not naturally kill. He has to be taught to kill. This is one among many reasons for man to avoid war.

But here is the problem. How does this square with the Augustinian metaphysic? And the answer is it doesn’t. Joe Carter has unwittingly offered into evidence the very counter proof that undermines his pervasive depravity starting point.

And don’t get sidetracked by Joe’s use of the words “sacred” and “exalted.” This is either lip service to a fundamental doctrinal inconsistency or Joe is fully aware of his doctrinal error and is lying. Augustine granted man NO virtue. Luther granted man NO virtue. Calvin granted man NO virtue. And Immanuel Kant eradicated virtue from human existence. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Kant represent metaphysical absolutes. Man is ONLY metaphysically debased, epistemologically corrupt, and ethically handicapped. In Neo-Calvinist doctrine, there is NO virtue in human existence. This is the only conclusion of orthodox doctrine. And if Joe can arbitrarily deviate from orthodoxy . . . what is the fuss over Sarah Palin’s comments?

So now let us evaluate.

If man is metaphysically debased, how can man do moral harm to himself?

The answer is he cannot.

If man cannot use common sense to grasp his own divided existence, why offer an argument against “dehumanizing” other men?

The answer is, by definition, there is no logical argument; there is no common sense that persuades man to different action because man is not affected by reason. And most crucially, man cannot choose to act on morally superior ideas because man is fallen. For a rational argument to be effective, Joe must reject the Augustinian premise. He must first conclude that man is metaphysically GOOD. This means that man’s existence is tied to values, which means that man must be able to choose values, which means that man must have a rational faculty that understands the world in which he lives, which means that man must have the ability to act on his rational conclusions, which means man has the requisite metaphysical tools to judge his enemies and act according to his own rational interest.

It is the Augustinian metaphysic that condemns man to brutality and dehumanization. Ten minutes of research into the Dark Ages proves my point.

 

In our attempts to dehumanize our enemy, we end up becoming less than human ourselves.

Wobble, wobble, wobble.

Notice again the doctrinal inconsistency. Under Joe’s metaphysical assumptions, it is impossible to become “less” human. Man already exists at the basest level of his moral existence. There is no further down, no greater depravity, no richer debauchery for man to achieve.

We can’t lose our “humanity” because—in this context—humanity is a synonym for virtue. But humans do not have virtue. You can’t lose what you don’t have.

 

It would be a Pyrrhic victory to save civilization and lose our humanity.

Wobble, wobble, wobble.

And again, notice how the foundation of Joe’s argument shifts like the sands of sea.

So what? Who cares if we lose our “humanity” but keep our “civilization”? Isn’t dichotomy at the very root of human existence? What is one more moral conundrum? We live a divided existence and we really don’t have any “humanity” to hold, so what is the difference?

The doctrinally consistent answer to all of these questions is that there is no difference. Man is two things at once, which really means that man is anything and nothing at the same time. It is this flexibility that gives Joe Carter the freedom to argue from any starting place:

• Man is debased and corrupt: “Oh woe is us! We are all just sinners.”
• Man is exalted and honorable . . . “We must cling to our better selves and take a different action.”

Notice the enormous argumentative power this dichotomy gives Joe Carter. He has no responsibility to any objective starting point. He can make up any argument he wants to satisfy whatever outcome he seeks. This is an object lesson for the importance of Aristotle’s three laws (discussed at length here).

• The law of identity.
• The law of non-contradiction.
• The law of the excluded middle.

From this perspective, look at what Joe Carter has really done. Notice how he has manipulated all sides of these laws. Man is both debased and exalted. This is a violation of the law of non-contradiction, which means that man has no identity. Anything that is two opposites at once is really nothing at all. This manipulation gives Joe Carter the power to seize the metaphysical middle ground as the whim moves him, and the moral high ground with impunity.

And lastly, I want you to notice that Joe treats civilization as a given. Civilization is something that man can have while losing “humanity.” This means that civilization is not a product of “humanity.” So if you can lose “humanity” and keep civilization, it means that man does not create civilization. Man is not in control of civilization.

Notice that Joe identifies no causality between human existence and civilization.

Wobble, wobble, wobble.

 

We must never hesitate to defend our culture, our future, and our lives against those who seek to destroy us. The liberal cosmopolitan elite appeal to tolerance and understanding in the face of such an enemy is suicidal. However, the right-wing populist position, which is willing to face up to and address the evil of terrorism, fails to understand the ramifications of becoming like the enemy by dehumanizing them.

Joe is trying to dazzle us with his centrism again. Probably because he doesn’t want us to notice that he does want America to hesitate to defend its culture. He wants America to believe it is morally corrupt to use a method of war to achieve victory. By definition, he wants us to “hesitate” to use every tool available to us to obtain our enemies’ unconditional surrender.

I submit that he wants us to hesitate because he does not believe the United States of America has the right to exist for its own sake. That he does not believe that the U.S. has a virtue worth defending. And most importantly, he does not see a moral difference between us and our “enemies.”

Outrageous you say?

Read the next two sentences.

 

The truly Christian position is to never forget that evil comes not just from the actions of “terrorists” or “enemies” but from the heart of fallen, sacred yet degraded, human beings. If we are to preserve our own humanity we must not forget that our enemy differs from us in degree, not in kind.

The first sentence is a case study in logical fallacy breeding erroneous causality. The second sentence is a case study in moral equivalency. The first sentence asks us to embrace a general moral failing. The second sentence demands that we embrace moral corruption. The first sentence opens the casket, and the second sentence demands that we lay down.

Together these two sentences are a vile assault on all values. And together these two sentences reveal the vile nature of Joe Carter’s heart.

You, dear reader, are already wise to Joe Carter’s vacant appeal to preserving our “humanity.” You know that he is offering lip service to a human value that by his own metaphysical standard does not exist. But now we need to unravel his moral equivalency.

Let me point out that moral relativism is NOT the same thing as moral equivalency. Moral relativism seeks to validate morality by comparing specific actions in context to other like actions.

For example:

• Charles stole a candy bar, but he isn’t as bad as Joseph who stole a hamburger.
• Adolf only killed 14 million people so he is not as bad as Joe who killed 50 million.

In each instance the moral value of the action is seen in comparison to other actions. This is of course a totally screwed up ethical standard, but notice that in all instances there is still a moral standard (i.e. it is wrong to steal and it is wrong to kill). This moral perspective still holds out values as central to the moral equation. So man can still make moral choices, even if the better moral choice is to steal less or kill less.

Like I said, this is still totally screwed up, but moral relativism maintains values at its root.

Now let us talk about the most vile of all ethics: moral equivalency.

I have said repeatedly that the Doctrine of Pervasive Depravity (aka the fall of man, Original Sin, Indwelling Sin) is merely the flip side of the antinomian coin. Joe Carter has proved my point a thousand fold.

Antinomianism says that man’s highest value is unchecked freedom, so there is no law that man must keep. Pervasive Depravity says that man is fundamentally corrupt so it does not matter what the law is; man cannot keep it. Succinctly said, man cannot have values. At least Antinomianism still holds out a foundational value: unchecked freedom. However, Pervasive Depravity can only lead to the eradication of values which is also known as moral equivalency.

Plato, being a good Greek, held that man had implicit nobility, that his existence held virtue, that the material world, though inferior, still reflected the GOOD. Unfortunately, he placed the source of reality into another realm called the Forms, thus making this world a shadow world. Plato was merely trying to answer some crucial philosophical questions, among them the soul/body dichotomy posed by pagan thinkers. Plato’s motive was well intentioned, though his answer to the problems proved disastrous. It gave subsequent generations the foundation to erode values from human existence. As you will soon see, the first rule of philosophy is that the most consistent formulation wins.

By the time the Cynics and Stoics arrive on the philosophical stage, the “virtue” of this earthly shadow world was all but removed from human thought. It stood to “reason” that if the perfect Form was in another realm, then this world’s imperfection was tantamount to moral corruption. The conclusion was that the material world and specifically man’s flesh must be the source of evil. It was this philosophical backdrop into which Christianity was born.

Jesus came preaching to Jews about very Jewish concerns with very Jewish assumptions. It is for this reason that the early gospels show almost no awareness of the broader Greek worldview. They didn’t care. But by the time we get to the Gospel of John (written sometime late in the first century), it is very apparent that Christianity has been smacked in the face with Greek thought and the soul/body dichotomy and the implicit moral corruption of the physical world in particular. The Greek audience heard the accounts of Jesus’ life and immediately assumed that it was a variation on Cynic and Stoic philosophy. The first chapter of John’s Gospel is a polemic against this worldview.

For the next two hundred years, the Christian worldview was bombarded with what we in the modern age called Gnosticism: the fundamental belief that the material realm is evil and only those with special “spiritual” knowledge granted through a rigorous practice of sacrifice, physical degradation, and self-abnegation would be saved. However, what theologians call Gnosticism was merely revivals of Cynic and Stoic philosophy that divided man between his “exalted sacred spiritual self” and his “fallen morally degraded” physical self. By the second century the difference between Cynic, Stoic and Christian doctrine was almost non-existent and asceticism—self-beating, self-starvation, self-dehydration, misogynistic celibacy, self-denial—became Christianity’s highest ethical ideal.

Having long since abandoned its Jewish roots (roots that were firmly grounded in this worldly virtue and this worldly success), Christianity did not have an intellectual base able to refute the prevailing philosophical formulations. To be sure, each generation of Christian intellectuals thought they saw the foundations of Christianity already rooted in Platonism (with Cynic and Stoic ideology tossed in for seasoning). By the third century Christianity had lost the philosophical war: her intellectuals accepted the premise of an evil material world and the moral corruption of human existence. Irenaeus, a bishop in Lyons, was the first to formulate the Doctrine of Original Sin. But if you look it up, you wouldn’t recognize it. The formulation with which everyone is familiar does not emerge for another one hundred and fifty years.

In the fourth century Augustine converts to Christianity and not long after he is handed the works of Plotinus a Neo Platonist who accepted the Cynic and Stoic world view: Man’s flesh was the source of worldly corruption, thus removing the vestiges of human nobility and human virtue from Platonic thought.  Plotinus was foundation for everything that Augustine wrote which led him to formulate the doctrine of Original Sin.

And so it came about that the more consistent philosophical formulation won. The virtue that Plato granted Man was wiped away with the final strokes of Augustine’s pen: Man no longer had a worldly virtue. The only virtue remaining to man was a desire to seek the kingdom of Heaven. Man must shift his allegiance from an earthy debased existence to a heavenly exalted existence and pine for that outcome. Man was morally condemned for “trying” to get there because Grace was a gift of God and Man could not impact his salvation, but it was still GOOD that he wanted to get there.

Is that formulation inconsistent? Yes, it is. Remember what I said above: the most consistent philosophical formulation wins. And just like Plato lost to Augustine, Augustine will lose in due course.

Keep that in mind while I explain something very important.

From the fifth century to the twelfth century, Augustinian doctrine stood unopposed and the Church wielded his philosophy like a cudgel. The result was barbarity, slavery, tyranny, famines, wars, and chaos. The madness reigned until St. Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotle back into the minds of men. Aquinas introduced the virtue of the material world, including the virtue of human existence back into the minds of men. And it was this root idea that changed the course of Western civilization.

Inspired by Aristotle’s ideas, thinkers arose who in turn inspired the Renaissance, who in turn inspired more thinkers, who in turn inspired the Age of Reason that finally produced the Enlightenment. Humanity woke from its long and doleful night, shed superstition and ignorance, and began to solve its own problems. Whatever the errors that this era in Western thought encompassed, the one key idea that it was extolled from the mountain tops was that man was noble and reason was his highest virtue.

Three men are arguably the most important to Western thought: Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke. From Bacon and Newton come the foundations of modern science, the exploration of the physical world, and the mathematical foundations of causality. These men are the fathers of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was proof that man could liberate himself from the clutches of disease, poverty, and war. But the legacy of Bacon and Newton would have never reached its potential if it were not for John Locke. Without John Locke, all human innovation would have been crushed under Church tyranny, just like it had been since Copernicus. John Locke gave the first formulation for Natural rights which was the linchpin of true liberty and the foundation of human prosperity.

Here is a summary of Locke’s argument. Moral law is an eternal reality that guarantees to every man certain inalienable rights and imposes specific responsibilities. These rights and responsibilities are imposed on men, not “citizens.” Man’s first encounter with moral requirements is at the moment of birth and prevails throughout his life; therefore, moral responsibility is man’s first social tie. Individuals then agree to form a political state because they rationally conclude that it is advantageous for them to do so. So the progression starts with the sovereign individual who then chooses free association with other individuals who then choose advantageous consensual social contracts in service to their chosen outcomes. The individual is primary and the state is tertiary.

“To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider that estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.

. . .

“The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions . . .

“Man being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subject to the political power of another without his consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it.”

For almost the whole of human existence the State, the Church, the collective was considered the inalienable and inviolate political starting point, and man’s life was consumed at the state’s whim. Locke’s political theory reverberated throughout the Enlightenment and soon stood seventeen hundred years of political thought on its head. John Locke’s philosophy was the womb of political liberty, endless conflict with the Church and the king was the seed, and the framers of the American Constitution were the fathers. In 1776 the world saw the birth of Liberty. The role of government was delimited and confined to one purpose: the defense of the individual. For the first time in history, man was his own property and more importantly, the whole of his labor was his property. Man was truly free to peruse his life, and happiness.

Liberty always produces prosperity and justice, so it was America that transformed the world, destroying the vestiges of feudalism and slavery and barbarism implicit to mysticism. It was America that embodied all of the virtues of human existence because America was a nation built out of a superior philosophy: rational curiosity, causality, natural rights, liberty, and justice.

Do you think I have drifted far afield of moral equivalency and the vile nature of Joe Carter’s heart?

Not so much.

I told you that Augustinian doctrine can only lead to the eradication of values from human existence.

Here is how it happened. Through the Dark Ages, the medieval period, and well into the sixteenth century, man’s focus was almost exclusively on another worldly reality. This earth and this reality was sensual, devilish, and evil so Man’s highest ethical action was the destruction of his own life in service to obtaining values in the afterlife. For the bulk of human history, this worldview stood unopposed because it seemed self-evident. This life was brutish, full of suffering and poverty. It seemed that the sinfulness of man only confirmed Church doctrine. But the Enlightenment dealt a deathblow to that worldview. It became very apparent that unrestrained human reason could push back the very pestilence that had plagued man. It was no longer self evident that man’s sinfulness inspired God’s wrath, a wrath that created suffering to a humble, wicked, and wayward man.

In 1781 Immanuel Kant, the son of a Puritan family, published Critique of Pure Reason. His stated goal, (among others) was to save religion from reason. I will limit my explanation of his noumenal and phenomenal world to the following brief explanation. Plato separated man from reality by creating another worldly dimension of Forms. This placed man at metaphysical odds with the world: a conflict that condemned man to a host of real life consequences. But Immanuel Kant increased the division between Man and reality a thousand fold. He said that because man was a self he could never know his self; because man had a mind he could never trust its conclusion; and because the mind perceived reality the mind never knows reality. This of course places man in an absolute metaphysical crisis to which Kant’s answer was: So what. Who cares if Man knows reality, or himself, or anything for that matter?

In one fell swoop, Immanuel Kant dispensed with 80 percent of human existence. He wiped out man’s mind, existence, reason, and reality, which means he wiped out causality. He destroyed the last 20 percent with what he called the Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative is a set of unconditional commandments that are good “in themselves” no matter the outcome of keeping the command. Man’s highest virtue is unquestioned and unconditional obedience. Kant said, “the submission of [man’s] will to a law without the intervention of another influence on my mind . . . is a far more worthy purpose of man’s existence . . . the supreme condition to which the private purposes of man must for the most part defer.” Man has a duty and only a duty to conform to the categorical imperative.

Sounds good so far, right? Many of you can’t see anything wrong with this formulation. You have heard some variation of this concept all of your life. And that is exactly the problem. Church doctrine has, since Augustine, advanced the exact same premise: Man is metaphysically corrupt, and epistemologically impotent, and ethically bankrupt. All arguments that agree in principle are merely conversations over how much. The church accepted the premise but held out one caveat: man could have value as long as he deferred the obtaining of that value into the afterlife. But now Kant posed the implicit question: “But what if even desiring to go to heaven was immoral?” And after three hundred years of John Calvin’s metastasized version of Christianity, Kant’s question didn’t seem all that strange. So virtually, no church intellectual substantively challenged Kant’s conclusion because the conclusion followed from the historic premise. And as I said, the most consistent philosophical formulation wins.

To our profound detriment, no one grasped the implications. But Kant fully understood what he was saying. Since man gains no moral credit for choosing to act moral (because moral action is only done from duty), there was only one way for man to have some (because he cannot really know himself) insight to his moral action. Man’s desires must collide with this duty, and he must rebel against his desire. He must feel the pain of this conflict.

In his words:

“. . . many persons so sympathetically constituted that without any motive of vanity or selfishness they find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy.

“. . . that kind of action has no true moral worth . . . but assume that the mind of that friend to mankind was clouded by sorrow of his own which extinguished all sympathy with the lot of others . . . and now suppose him to tear himself unsolicited by inclination, out of this dead insensibility and to perform this action only from duty and without any inclination—then for the first time his action has genuine moral worth.”

Now you must stop and think about what he just said. The thing that defines moral action is that man submits himself to perpetual torture. Whatsoever man values, he must destroy that value such that he feels pain. Man must bear the burdens of his loss, then and only then can he be said to have moral worth. It is man’s pain and suffering over destroying a value that confirms his attainment of moral action.

Do you get it? Do you see how ruthlessly consistent Kant’s formulation is? Do you see how it exploits the foundations of Christian doctrine all the while eradicating the longstanding doctrinal that man can defer the acquisition of values in the afterlife?

Man is no longer praiseworthy for acting such that he gains values in the after life. Man can take no action that is moral unless that action is self destruction.

Do you see how vicious this ethical formulation is?

This means that morality is man’s executioner. Man can never, ever, ever hold a value. Man must sacrifice his values in the most painful means possible, which means that Kant closed the door on human value with ruthless precision. He elevated selflessness to pure destruction. And for this achievement, Immanuel Kant is the true destroyer of humanity.

And now you, dear reader, can begin to grasp why there is NO morality in American culture. America’s intellectuals are committed to Kantian sacrifice as the definition of moral action. It doesn’t matter if we are speaking of secular thinkers or Church thinkers. They both accept the premise: man must sacrifice himself first, last, and always. And they both conclude that if man will not sacrifice himself then the force of Government must be brought to bear to compel moral action.

So now man is confronted with only three options: masochism, sadism or dissolution. Masochism for sacrificing  himself. Sadism for letting others sacrifice him in behalf of the collective. Dissolution as an act of self preservation. If man must destroy his values, then why have values at all?

No one is better than anyone else. No action is better than any other action. No idea is better than any other idea. Let us capitulate to pragmatism and then there is now nothing to sacrifice. There is no reality. There is no reason. There is no causality. So who cares? We banish judgment  so we can banish values, so we will suffer no loss.

Alakazam! Poof! Moral Equivalency.

So now read Joe Carter’s two sentences again:

The truly Christian position is to never forget that evil comes not just from the actions of “terrorists” or “enemies” but from the heart of fallen, sacred yet degraded, human beings. If we are to preserve our own humanity we must not forget that our enemy differs from us in degree, not in kind.

Do you see the moral equivalency?

Sure you do.

Now the moral equivalency reaches off the page and slaps you in the face defying you to resist. Joe Carter is proclaiming that there are no values, no means to judge the moral superiority of American actions versus the moral actions of “terrorists,” because there are no values as such. We are all just sinners.

For decades Neo-Calvinists have been masquerading as man’s last best hope for morality. They weep, wail, and moan about the permissive nature of American culture and the evils of Postmodernism, decrying her lack of values. But the reality is that they represent the moral corruption of humanity. They advocate ideas that rob man of all values under the guise of defending God. This is a vile conceit that should be condemned with impunity. These men are NOT the embodiment of virtue; they are the personification of vice.

Make no mistake, dear reader. America is slouching towards destruction because we have been persuaded to accept Joe Carter’s moral equivalency. This moral equivalency saturates the whole of our cultural discussion. Being asked to accept that Americans and “terrorists” are really morally equal is but one example. We are just like our enemies, so how dare we presume the right to defend ourselves with every tool available to us? How dare we “torture” men? Are we not just as fallen? Are we not just as morally depraved?

The answer that should roar out of your soul should be NO!

The ideas undergirding America’s founding are superior in every way. These ideas are what hold “humanity” in highest esteem because humanity is the collection of sovereign individuals living in accord with natural rights. The individual living in accord with natural rights is peaceable, industrious, and happy. His virtue is shown through his ongoing commitment to produce values consistent with his life. This man is committed to reality and manipulates causality for his own highest and best purpose. This man is a worthy heir of Jefferson, and Hancock, and Franklin and Locke, and Newton, and Bacon, and Aristotle. It is this man that must be defended at all cost because this man is the embodiment of human existence. It is for this man that political contracts are enacted, and government is given delimited powers to defend and revenge his every encroachment.

So make no mistake. Joe Carter is muttering madness when he speaks of Pyrrhic victories. Civilizations are not magically plopped down in a historical timeline. Civilizations are the direct consequence of specific ideas. The question is which version of “humanity” will allow the civilization to rise. Will it be a “humanity” obsessed with God’s kingdom and demand the intellectual subordination of all members in service to the Massachusetts theocracy as it attempt to purge witches from its midst? Will it be “humanity” so consumed with covetousness that they demand the sacrifice of the individual and turn Russia into a slaughterhouse in the name of economic equality? Will it be “humanity” so consumed with its genetic pedigree that they demand the sacrifice of the individual to pure genetic code and purge the undesirables from the bloodlines? Will it be a “humanity” committed to crushing the infidel and delivering the world into Allah’s hands, Islam’s open stated goal since its inception in the 7th century?

Humanity shapes civilization because Man is the one creature that shapes his life by ideas. The only culture on the planet that has ever held the individual as the moral starting point is the United States of America. It is our civilization that defends humanity. If we lose America—its founding philosophical premise—then the world will lose “humanity.”

Do you see how Augustinian and Kantian doctrine disconnect Joe Carter from reality and causality? Do you see how thoroughly destructive Joe Carte’s moral equivalency is to human values? Do you see his moral bankruptcy?

“But, John, he is just trying to advocate a humane standard. Torture is a hideous practice. Shouldn’t it be beneath our higher moral standard?”

Actually, no, Joe Carter was not advocating a “humane standard.” There is no moral equivalency between American culture and Jihadist Islam. We are not qualitatively or quantitatively the same. Nor do we err in mere degrees sharing moral culpability born from a “fallen heart.” This is a vile assertion done for the sole purpose of advancing Augustinian doctrine. Joe Carter is more interested in offering “correct” doctrine than “humane” values. Under the Augustine/Calvin/Kant axis of evil, man has no value. Joe Carter is not offering a mediating position between extremes: political leftist vs. Sarah Palin. He is offering a worldview that stands diametrically opposed to America’s founding premise. John Locke’s Natural Rights are at metaphysical odds with Calvin’s Pervasive Depravity or Kant’s Categorical Imperative. America, you can’t have both. You must pick one.

The issue is not torture but the proper role of government instituted among free men living in accord with reason. It is precisely because of our higher moral standard that we must wage quick, brutal, decisive war against those who foreswear our destruction. Natural rights are not a suicide pact that demands we extend political sanction to every human being no matter their moral bankruptcy. Remember that Locke said:

“. . . political power . . . is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it.”

Consent and reasoned agreement is what gives political organization its power of enforcement. That consent and agreement are done for the express purpose of enjoying individual property and greater security. So those who reject the foundation of natural rights have by definition exempted themselves from their protections. Natural rights banishes force as the primary tool of social organization. Free men are free to choose with whom they will interact. It is precisely because some men demonstrate moral inferiority that self-defense and justice are essential. It is precisely because man can pursue and attain values that the intentionally valueless men should suffer retribution. Natural rights guarantees that the morally superior man is empowered to prevail against the morally inferior man who uses force to achieve his ends. Retribution against such men is the proper role of government, and war is the proper collective action taken to compel unconditional surrender of a political entity who engages in the systematic violation of natural rights.

• No ideology declaring the extermination of men can then demand the right of self-determination.
• No tyrant denying liberty to the people he oppresses can demand the right of liberty for his despotism.
• No mystic despot appealing to revelations to justify war can demand restraint from the unbeliever to protect his life.

So what then of “torture” as a tool to achieve unconditional surrender in a war for our existence?

The answer is absolutely!

War’s only function is to kill people and break things until the opposing sides give up without reservation, without caveat or hedge. That is the only moral war. And America, under the guiding principles of John Locke’s natural rights, is morally correct to fight that war. Our civilization was founded on morally superior ideas, and it is the morally correct course to defend that civilization with every tool at its disposal, minimizing our loss of life and maximizing the destruction of our enemies.

Full stop.

. . .

. . .

Americans owe John Locke a debt. But we are defaulting on the debt because we are abandoning the ideas that gave us Liberty. We are scurrying back to the collectivist ideologies of ages past that have proved to be a blight on human existence. We are casually accepting the moral equivalency deeply embedded in Joe Carter’s vile heart and entertaining the roots of true inhumanity. If we default on our debt, we will get what we deserve because every culture that abandons the principles of Natural Rights deserves its destruction.