It Began With One Academic Falsehood: The Descent into Hell

Last updated on: February 9, 2017 at 4:07 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

It Began With One Academic Falsehood: The Descent into Hell 2017-02-09T16:07:51-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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The road to hell is a broad, paved, smooth gradual slope. By the time a man must abandon hope of redemption, his little graft, his passive aggressive anger, or his little bigotries have become monstrous.

Does it really matter if I tell that racist joke? Is it so important that I gossip a bit or imply something that is not quite right about my competitor?

Decent people go wrong, but often in small steps over little disappointments. A businessperson might reduce product quality to juice profits he needs. The politician peddles a rumor that might be true to a reporter as if he knows it is true.

Academics also face small temptations that become big sins. Why not get a dubious doctorate and get a credential? Or perhaps, overlooking the real author of a book to promote the celebrity “author” is not so bad. Isn’t everyone paid?

Modern academia, even Christian colleges, are awash in these small lies for the greater good. Sadly, you cannot always trust us without verifying what we say, not even the smallest details, especially the smallest details. If the greater good of the triumph of our preferred narrative is at stake, or at least career advancement, many will jiggle the truth, setting over just a bit. This temptation is especially great for “public intellectuals” who can bypass normal academic checks and balances.

Why not? We are only human.

The festering, repeated little lie, juggling the research, inflating a claim, is small, but ends up repeated so often. Every time the audience applauds the doctor, the expert, the researcher or colleagues compliment the career, the lie grows.

Soon it is monstrous.

Charles Williams, the oddest Inkling, warned of this in Descent into Hell. Here a great scholar is corrupted by one lie. He has an academic foe, but he learns that his academic enemy is right about an issue and that he is wrong. Instead of telling the truth, he decides to defend his (wrong) position anyway. God help this man, because soon only God can help him. His small lie eats at him and he descends within himself to Hell. He wishes to be thought right more than he wants to be right.

The man who damns himself does so, according to Williams, when he creates a false image of himself: scholar when he is not, expert when he does not know, and sage when he is a fool. He cannot be saved, because he soon does not know himself. Before long, the practice of living a lie is applied to other people. Nobody can reject the man descending to Hell, because he will recreate you in the image he wishes you were. You become a loser or a secret admirer. No, never means no as a man slides to Hell.

It began by the self-serving whopper, but it does not end there.

God help us, but in the service of a good cause, a little sin is tempting. We will tell a bit of a lie about our opponent or shade the truth about our research.

Yet this much is true: however far down we descend, while there is life there is hope. We can be reached. Jesus came down from the Cross, descended to the pits, harrowed Hell, and broke the power of evil over us. By His grace, we can choose to be free. We can choose liberation if we look from our fakery to His truth. We can ascend with Jesus to Heaven if we choose.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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I am thankful for the students at The Saint Constantine School for the discussion Thursday that motivated these tentative thoughts.

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