RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 3, 2011 at 8:34 am
(This post was last modified: December 3, 2011 at 8:36 am by lucent.)
(December 1, 2011 at 9:20 pm)Elihu Wrote: I am new here on the boards, so greetings to anyone who reads. I have been reading "Orthodoxy" by G. K. Chesterton and would like to present some of his thoughts on rationalism as I have processed them.
Opening Statement: Pure rationalism leads to both determinism and materialism which ultimately deprive us of our humanity.
Pure Rationalism Defined: Nothing can be accepted as fact which cannot be explained and observed from its first principle in its entirety.
Big Idea: Pure rationalism is a trap that can only be escaped by allowing for that which is mysterious. "Man can only understand everything else by what he does not understand... The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid." (47)
Body: My argument is simple. If you are a pure rationalist and cannot accept as fact anything not observable and explainable, then you are trapped in a box that no longer allows for the existence of common humanity as a greater principle. You can be kind, but there is no such thing as kindness. Because nothing beyond the rational box exists, kindness itself, which is really beyond the box, cannot exist except in your own imaginings.
In order to be freed from this box, you must accept a mystery; something you cannot fully understand. Only then can humanity be restored.
"...when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force." (42)
I think Dawkins takes this to its logical conclusion:
The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference
A purely materialistic view of reality is also a purely determinalistic one. The arrangement of atoms at the beginning of Universe has already determined every thought you will ever have. Our consciousness being based on unconscious processes that precede it, and our rationality derived from irrational forces. The inevitable conclusion to this is nihilism, that there is no meaning to any of it, nor could there be.
Freedom of will is only ever something which could be given by God, and without God, no such thing exists. As dawkins says, no good, no evil, no meaning, no purpose. Humans in this view are just chemicals and clockwork, moving from point a to point b with no meaningful awareness. And the Universe as well..its ultimate destiny inevitable and irrevocable. In short, total futility.
