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The Common People Can’t Know: A Very Bad Idea

The Common People Can’t Know: A Very Bad Idea

Last updated on: May 12, 2018 at 1:09 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Common People Can’t Know: A Very Bad Idea 2018-05-12T13:09:05-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Reading Ibn Rushd (Averroes) is good: He is a careful reasoner and a chief cause for the Mediterranean revival of Aristotelian philosophy. Factor in the work of Thomas Aquinas and other medieval thinkers and you have a major reason the great monotheistic faiths produced science.

The Islamic philosopher is illuminating even when wrong and he makes a similar mistake to the Athenian philosophers. He comes up with truth that he thinks the elite should hide from the common folk.*

This is not good for religion and is even worse practically: disarming the commons and arming the foe.

Christ came and revealed Himself to all who would see, including many who could not understand all he said. In the Gospel of John chapter 6, Jesus gave a hard saying to all and many left Him, because He refused to shortcircuit their learning. Jesus wants us to dialog with Him, ask questions, grow into maturity. Obviously this does not mean that every teaching has to be understood by every student: our school teaches Greek, though not every student is capable of passing it and most cannot understand the upper division lessons! We do not, however, hide Greek from any student or any truth we have found there.

If you care enough to listen, our professors will make what she can clear to you.

AIbn Rushd demonstrates that some teachings of religion (in his case Islam) are to be understood allegorically if one wishes to find the deepest reasons for their truth. These deep meanings are hard to understand, easy to confuse with error, and might undermine the faith of the people hearing them. A particular saying or story may produce good results without the listener or reader knowing why. The story may be “false” historically, but if the listener is told this, even if one tries to explain why the allegorical truth makes the story true, the folk will not get it.

He will give up on what should help him. The philosophical soul should keep his deep truth to himself for the good of his simple neighbor.

As a child of West Virginia, where the slavocrats spent centuries lying to us for our good, I have trouble not simply despising this argument. The slavers told us noble lies, because we were mountain people and we could not understand the deep truth that slavery was good for the slaves.

We just kept thinking slavery was vile.

The pastor who has become an atheist because he believes reason has led him in that direction and obfuscates, dodges, lies to “help us” is a condescending snob who also lives on our money. Tell us the truth as you know it. The commons are better than you think.

As for the liberal pastor who believes that the simple minded cannot stand the truth, then know this: some Socratic gadfly will come to your parish and tell the truth. He will pose questions you dare not answer.

This happened to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill when Paul came (Acts 17). He attacked idolatry, but the Stoics and Epicureans were not idolaters. They should have been able to make common cause with Paul against idols, but they had lied.

They pretended the idols were gods while allegorizing them.

Paul called them on their intellectual deception. They could not admit that they taught their students the idols were not gods without admitting the centuries of graft where they made money on traditional religion. They knew the old stories were false, but kept repeating them.

Paul swept the people, because he knew Jesus rose from the dead. He did not preach what he did not mean, because he was honest and so Christianity won. Hiding what you think is the truth makes you fragile.

So here is the truth: Jesus rose from the dead. This has an allegorical meaning, but it also happened. Or if it did not happen, if you believe it is only allegory, then tell us. We can handle it. If we cannot handle it, then have the courage of our convictions like Socrates.

If you have an atheist pastor using code language to lie to you, he is taking your money under false pretenses. He is a sad man. He cannot tell you the truth or he will face first-world pain and have to get a job where he can tell the truth. If you discover this, give him a generous severance package (love your enemies!) so he can get a new job and get someone (even an atheist!) who will tell you what he really thinks.

Another name for not telling us what you think is lying. If you are getting our money, rationalize all you want, but you are a grifter.

Preach the truth as you know it to everyone.

—————————————

Averroes, On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy translated by George F. Hourani (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015)

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