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Coming:
AWORLD
OF
ENLIGHTENMENT!
S
OME DAY
historians will
look upon the 20th cen–
tury as part of the da rk
ages.
Oh , we think we a r e
e nlightened! Has not the 20th
century seen great strides in
medicine, tra nsportation, com–
munication?
U nd o ubt edl y . But me r e
knowledge and technology is not
en li g ht e nme nt. Our age has
probably less underst anding o f
the bas ic, e terna! truth s tha t
bear on human happiness than
prcceding ages.
The 20th century has indeed
seen a " knowledge explosion. " But
in reality what this means is that
there are now probably more writ–
ers o f learned journals than rcaders
of them. The average univers ity
library conta ins endless volumes
on bor ing, turgid ta pies. And what
good will most of them do? They
will serve as sources for footnotes
in even more endless volumes!
M os t o f them will rem a in ,
deservedly, unread.
l ndisc rimin ate, promiscuou s
knowledge is
not
enlightenment.
M
ueh o f the " knowledgc" con–
t a in ed in unive r sity libra ries
ex is ts to provide work fo r the pro–
fessors who wrote it , and most of
them wouldn ' t have writte n it
except fo r the fact that being
published,
just for its own sake,
May 198 1
by
Jeff Calkins
is importa nt in the acade mic
world. How true the Bible is
when it declares: " Fo r the wis–
dom of this wo rld is foolishness
with God ... "
(1
Cor inthia ns
3:19) .
1
t is not surpris ing that the
20th century should rather con–
ceitedly think of itself as enlight–
ened. To a great degrce, our age
has subs tituted technology for
c ha r acter , a nd tec hn o logy is
something the 20th century has
done well.
The 20th century has given us
word processing machines, cable
television and cheap calculators;
it has also given us Yalium, birth
control pills, chemical weapons,
hydrogen bombs, suction abor–
tions, and thalidomide: technolo–
gy, without cha racte r , is not
usually a blessing.
Enlighte nment as Reactlon
In man's world, "enlighte nment"
usually comes as a
react ion
to
pas t problems. What historians
call the " age of enlightenment ,"
around 1700, was largely a time
of overthrowing the old , and
largely
religious,
dogmas of ear–
lier times. lndeed , man's religions
had
stifled scie nce (Galileo) , had
produced bloody s laughter (the
Thirty Years War) , and terror
(the l nquisition). In reaetion, all
moral and religious traditions–
including the Bible as a source of
r eve a led kno wl edge- became
open to question.
In fact , because it was a reac–
tion to relig ion, t he word
en/ight–
enment
took on a subtle ant i-God ,
antire lig ious meaning. Being en–
lightened became being secular–
not bcing bound by rul es laid
down by a C reator.
And where did this enlightened
secularism lead? Freedom from
re ligion a nd God led to atheist ic,
mate rialis tic philosophies. 1nstead
o f brin g in g fre e d o m , th ey
brought
every part of lije
under
partial or full control of human
governme nt.
Such mate rialistic philosophi es
have provided a ready means for
tyrants to jus tify the slaughter
and imprisonment of milli ons:
Sta lin 's fo rced famine in the
Ukraine in the 1930s, Hitler 's
concentrat ion camps in the I940s,
Poi Pot's brutal s laughter of mil–
lions of Cambod ians in the I970s.
And, while every century had its
tyrants, this century's are armed
with sophis ti cated techno logy:
electronic snooping devices, truth
serums, computers and atom
bombs.
Jumping Track
But the materialistic enlighten–
ment has had other results as
well. Perhaps you've noticed that
the wo rd
enlightened
is oft e n
used to me an some thing like
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