Thread: The Dialectic, Hard For Christians To Understand
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The Dialectic, Hard For Christians To Understand
Posted : 8 Mar, 2013 05:20 AM
The Dialectic, Hard For Christians To Understand
Th world has, during the period the falling away of II Thessalonians
2: 3-4 has gone on and the leavening of the church has been in
progress (Luke 13: 21), shifted its paradigm. The West of Northern
Europe and North America shifted from a mostly absolute truth to
shades of grey, to opinion, to how do you feel about it, what do you
think?
During and for a time before the falling away and leavening by man made doctrines, the "church" especially in North America, brought into itself more and more of what is in the world. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." I John 2: 15-16
"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3: 5-6
The church, being part of the world has also shifted its way
of viewing absolute truth, though it has to teach scripture to some
extent to preserve its standing as a supposed spiritual institution.
The church doesn't support the absolute truth that Paul and Barnabas,
for example, in Acts 15: 2, contended for against the leaven of the
Pharisees. It says there was "no small dissension and disputation
with them," that is, with the Pharisees, some of whom now claimed to
be Christians, but were promoting the leaven of the Pharisees (Luke
12: 1, Mark 8: 15)
The dialectic as an argument, a way of changing the absolute truth
that one's opponent holds to, historically has come out of a system of
thought which teaches that there is no God.. It comes out of Hegel
and Marx. But before Hegel and Marx it came out of the Dragon of
Revelation 13: 11, whose use of the dialectic was on Eve in Genesis 3
to fix her obedience to the absolute authority of God over her.
The tactics of the dialectic argument vary, but it often avoids a
direct focus upon the main teachings of whatever absolute truth - from
Scripture - is the issue, and hits at it from the side.
The dialectic as used by many Christians is a deceptive and subtle way of arguing against the doctrines of the New Testament. And it can also be a disguised way of arguing against many of the doctrines taught by the prophets in the Old Testament, which line up with the doctrines of the New Testament.
There are some limits to how far "non-violent" Transformational Marxism can go without becoming pretty much the same as old time Bolshevism. I am talking about violent Marxism in this country, not just wars going on in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
What is sometimes called Western Marxism - which is really "non-violent" Transformational Marxism - was developed in Western Europe by intellectuals such as Georg Luk�cs, Antonio Gramsci and Karl Korsch.
"Yet, at the 5th Congress of the Communist International (July 1924), Grigory Zinoviev formally denounced Georg Luk�cs's heterodox definition of orthodox Marxism as exclusively derived from fidelity to the "Marxist method", and not to Communist party dogmas; and denounced the Marxism developments of the German theorist Karl Korsch."
In other words, Soviet Communist Party ideology rejected the Transformational Marxism of Gramsci, Lukacs and Korsch in 1924. For the Communist Party, Marxism must be violent and not the gradual takeover of the institutions of the West as advocated by the Transformational Marxists. Gramsci talked about the long march through the institutions.
But - the ideas of Gramsci, Lukacs and Korsch went into the Institute For Social Research, more widely known as the Frankfurt School which mixed Marx with Freud and later in the U.S. with the Group Dynamics Movement, the T-Group work of the National Training Labs, personality-social psychology, the encounter group movement and several American psychologist and psychiatrist change agents. These people operated from within our major universities and did not call their movement Marxist, and so it was accepted and much more. It went viral and ballistic. The first American generation it changed were the Baby Boomers. The "church", being now more open to influences from the world, was influenced by Transformational Marxism.
What some call the II Timothy church is this church under forms of humanism, and influenced by Transformational Marxism, with American personality-social psychology and self psychology mixed in, since the sixties. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy......Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away....... Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth............But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." II Timothy 3: 1-13
What is known as the dialectic is an important part of this transformation from fixed truth and fixed morality to what Dean Gotcher calls a "shifty" paradigm.. The dialectic is a procedure of argument which undermines fixed truths and fixed morality. But some Christians who use the dialectic in quarrels (Romans 1: 29) and bickering, often on forums, may not know that they are trying to overthrow the absolute authority of the word of God.
"The dialectic as an argument, a way of changing the absolute truth
that one's opponent holds to, historically has come out of a system of
thought which teaches that there is no God.. It comes out of Hegel
and Marx. But before Hegel and Marx it came out of the Dragon of
Revelation 13: 11, whose use of the dialectic was on Eve in Genesis 3
to fix her obedience to the absolute authority of God over her."
God, as absolute authority, told Adam he could eat of all the trees in
the Garden, except one, and that if he ate of that one tree, he would
die. This applied also to Eve. Satan used the dialectic to argue
against the absolute authority or truth of God. In Genesis 3: 4-5
Satan said to Eve "Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
In Revelation 13: 11 it says "And I beheld another beast coming up out
of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a
dragon."
This second beast of Revelation 13 has often been called the False
Prophet, but it represents many False Prophets. The False Prophets,
inspired by the Dragon, try to appear to be lambs, i.e. Christians,
but they speak the language of Satan, which is or includes the
dialectic, an argument against the absolute authority and truth of
God.
Hegel said in an argument there is the starting position, which is the
thesis, and the opposing position, which is the anti-thesis. In
Hegel's system, the desired outcome is the synthesis, some form of
compromise between the thesis and the anti-thesis. Marx, who was even
more anti-Christian that Hegel, made use of this system of Hegel to
attack the absolute truths of the Bible, "it is written." Marxism also
attacked the family and its traditional patriarchal structure. In the
Frankfurt School, Marxism was mixed with Freud, who was also
dialectic, in that he rejected the absolute truths of the Bible and
the Father as the authority in the family. In the U.S. the
Frankfurters found followers within American psychologists and
psychiatrists, in the Group Dynamics movement, in personality-social
psychology, in self psychology, humanistic psychology, the encounter
group movement and with some individual change agents. These guys
developed the dialectic to the point where it spread to the entire
society.
The traditional patriarchal structure of the family in the West - North America and Northern Europe - has been severely diminished during the time since Transformational Marxism began its march through the institutions. The beginning of this march can be dated to 1950, with the publication of the book, The Authoritarian Personality, by Frankfurter Theodore W. Adorno, in which he said that fascism is caused by Christianity and the family. He meant the family with the Father as head.
God made the Father the head of the family.
"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man......Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." I Corinthians 11: 8-11
In the flesh of two part man, body and mind, without spirit, the male is of the female, since all men were physically born from women. Therefore, in feminism, which was sort of allied with the counterculture when it arrived in about 1969-1970 on the scene in the watering holes of the hippies and drug movements, the patriarchal family with the Father as head was rejected. Transformational Marxism which fed into the counterculture and most of its allied movements, like feminism, feminized men, especially those of the Baby Boomer generation.
Women as a group tend to be more relationship oriented, and men, as a group have in North America, have been more position oriented. This means that more women than men will place their relationships with people, groups, ideologies, theologies, etc above absolute truths.
But then there is always the exceptional woman, like the case of a very few women who can ran much faster than the average man, though on the average men can run faster than women. So, a few women are also position oriented, they put truth and morality before their feelings about relationships. To do so, does not necessarily mean you abandon a relationship with a loved on, only that you do not allow your feelings to dominate your positions
In the dialectic as seen by Hegel, there is first the thesis and then its opposition, the anti-thesis, and finally the synthesis.
This opposition can be seen also as absolute truth or absolute morality being the thesis, and emotional attachments to relationships the anti-thesis. The synthesis in Transformational Marxism is a victory for feelings, for relationships over absolute truth and absolute morality.
The absolute truth given to us in scripture by God the Holy Spirit is fact. But facts, as the thesis in a debate, can threaten people's relationships. And people have strong feelings about their relationships. Many Christians have strong feelings toward their churches, their pastors and priests, and have loved ones in their congregations.
When truth conflicts with feelings, the feelings are the anti-thesis. Among the movements within American psychology of the fifties and sixties that the Transformational Marxism led by the professors of the German Frankfurt School made use of was the self psychology of Carl R. Rogers and A.H. Maslow. Carl Rogers taught that feelings are most important, and are more important than knowing or cognitive competence. Rogers always referred his clients back to "what do you feel?"
When the feelings of relationships with theologies, with denominations, churches and people in these structures conflict with the facts of scripture, then the dialectic process of argument against the facts often begins.
In Genesis 3: 4-5 the serpent used the dialectic to argue against the fact that God had told Adam not to eat of that one tree, and if he did, he would die, a truth and fact which also applied to Eve. The Christian user of the dialectic in arguing against facts of scripture may believe he or she is being faithful to God in arguing against an "opinion" or "interpretation" of a scripture, when in fact, he or she, is arguing against what God said in scripture.
When a Christian uses the dialectic to defend a relationship against a fact of scripture he seeks to justify himself in that defense of what he may think is "truth," but is a defense of a relationship against "it is written" as fact.
And the Christian who argues against the facts of scripture often tries to avoid a direct attack upon a doctrine in scripture. He will often sidestep a direct clash with scripture, by making an argument that does not clearly focus on an opposition to the doctrine, but nevertheless in a subtle way opposes it. There are many ways of sidestepping a direct opposition to a doctrine of the Bible, but at the same time opposing it in a subtle way.
The majority of people in North America have had their thinking and ways of debating so changed by the dialectic process that it keeps on going in the culture. One of the reasons the dialectic keeps on going is that it is not easy to understand what it is.
Within the churches, which are not at all immune from influences from the world, the dialectic now prevents the Christians from returning to sound doctrine (II Timothy 4: 3). When a very small number of Christians in the churches began to return to sound doctrine, they also return to a didactic, or absolute interpretation of the meanings of scripture and in doing so move away from the dialectic. Only the inspiration of the Holy Spirit can led the few away from the dialectic to sound doctrine - because it is not likely that the dialectic can be removed from the worldly culture.
And - one of the reasons many in the churches do not return to sound doctrine is because they have a feelings relationship with the man-made theology of their churches. They may believe that their salvation is somehow tied up in acceptance of this man-made theology, so they are afraid to give it up.
