Lux Lucet

Summary:
Because it presents problems that we cannot ignore, history is a good place to start the study of philosophy. For example, in the aftermath of World War II different groups advanced radically different ideas about how to handle Germany. Some advocated severe sanctions, others held that a prosperous Germany was necessary for European stability. Both sides claimed that the lessons of history supported them. Who was right? How do we know? This leads us to the general problem of history: what law of history will allow us to understand the past and make some reasonable guess about the course of future events? In light of the stakes involved, this is not a small question.

It may seem odd to some people to think that philosophy has anything to do with history. Isn’t history simply a matter of accurately recording events that took place in a “Just the facts, ma’am” sort of way? At first blush this sounds plausible, at least until we consider the problem of recording all the information about even a single event. A witness recounting the events of a bank robbery to the police may report what the robber or robbers looked like, the time of day the robbery took place, whether they used a gun, the license plate of the getaway car etc., but even the best eyewitness possessed of a photographic memory would not report everything about the scene of the robbery. While he would report those things pertinent to catching the robbers, he likely would omit mentioning the color of the bank’s wallpaper or the brand of chewing gum he was using at the time. In short, the eyewitness would select the information he reports to the police. And just as a witness must select the details he reports to the police, so too must a historian choose what events to discuss and what events to omit. John Robbins made this point in his forward to Clark’s Historiography, Secular and Religious when he wrote,

“Every historian must make a selection and construct a narrative based on many principles, some of which he may not even be aware.” (p. ix)

Even the writers of inspired Scripture were not immune from the necessity of selection. In his Gospel account the Apostle John wrote, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the would itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

But there is a further problem facing the historian beyond deciding what to discuss, he also must make a judgment about the meaning of the events he has selected. As Robbins put it above, he must, “construct a narrative.” That is to say, he must tell a story with a point to it. Another example from John’s Gospel is in order here, for writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle tells us that he constructed his Gospel narrative, “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).

But while John had the distinct advantage of divine inspiration to guide him, what about other historians not so blessed? Is there any hope for them to properly select and interpret events? To illustrate the problems facing secular historians, Clark posed a problem that was a pressing matter at the time he wrote A Christian View of Men and Things (CVMT) in 1952: the reconstruction of Europe after WW II. Some believed that the lessons of history taught that Germany never again should be allowed to prosper. Others, adducing the lessons of history, held that a strong Germany was critical to the stability of post-war Europe. Who was right?

I recall being confronted with a similar dilemma when I first started to read about politics. It was the late seventies and US News and World Report – I read it religiously – contained story after story about the Great Society programs that had been put in place during the prior decade. Enough time had passed to observe the effects the Johnson administration’s anti-poverty programs, and things were not going as promised. Not only were the welfare programs not working, but in many cases it was reported that they actually were making worse the very problems they were meant to fix. This baffled me. But what I found even more confusing was the fact that there was disagreement among experts about the interpretation of the apparent failure of the enormously expensive war on poverty. One camp said that the failure of the Great Society proved that socialism didn’t work. Another camp argued that the failure was not one of socialism, but of inept execution of the anti-poverty programs on the part of the responsible agencies and lack of adequate funding. Both sides made powerful yet contrary arguments based on the same evidence. What was I to think? It wasn’t until years later that I was able to properly address this conflict. The short version of the answer is that both sides were wrong. Those pushing the Great Society model were advancing a vision of government that was unconstitutional and unbiblical. Those who supported limited government, although on the right track, were generally incompetent in their defense of a free society, relying on arguments from tradition and common sense rather than making a proper systematic case for liberty from the Bible.

Clark points out that while many in the mid-20th century expressed doubts about the general futures of the West, Americans tended to be optimistic about their own country. Clark held that there was good ground for at least some of this American optimism when he wrote,

“This thoughtless confidence in our land has some basis in fact. Before the late war both Germany and Russia underestimated our ability to produce. Perhaps we ourselves underestimated it, for the building of a Navy after the inexcusable disaster at Pearl Harbor and the enormous production of all the goods of war needed by Britain and Russia were nothing less than phenomenal. Could not this miracle of management be repeated in another time and danger? Does not the executive ability of our country’s industrial leaders guarantee America’s perpetuity?” (CVMT, 33, 34)

Here, Clark correctly lays stress on the managerial ability of US business executives as a major contributor to the allied victory in WWII. I found Clark’s point interesting in light of a book I am reading titled The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream Amidst Global Financial Chaos by Kenneth and William Hopper. This is a secular book, and the authors make some theological mistakes, but their central thesis is both sound and fascinating: Puritan virtues were the foundation for the world-class, pre-1970 managerial culture of American business; our business and economic problems today are the result of our rejection of these ideas; if we hope to revive our economy, we must once again embrace the Puritan model. The very first page of the book has a picture of Puritan John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, with a caption that describes him as, “The first American chief executive officer.” Interesting insight, that. Worthy of a Scripturalist. Further, it’s nice to read a book that actually has something positive to say about the Puritans rather than tagging them with the root-of-all-evil-in-the-world-today label as is normally the case with in secular books when discussion turns to the Puritans.

Continuing his discussion of America’s strengths, Clark writes,

“There are deeper reasons for confidence in our land. Underlying managerial ability is the individual freedom protected by our Constitution. In no other land have private citizens enjoyed such freedom. The absence of a venal, tax-consuming bureaucracy with its arbitrary and inelastic regulations has encouraged individual initiative.” (CVMT, 34)

Clark wrote these words sixty years ago in 1952, and a lot has happened since then. If you go the website for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), you can find official government data on federal spending going back to around 1940. In 2005 inflation adjusted dollars, 1952 federal spending was $649.6 billion or 19.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In those same 2005 inflation adjusted dollars, the proposed 2013 budget for the US federal government is $3,157.4 billion – that’s $3,157,400,000,000 – or 23.3% of GDP. This means federal spending has grown at a faster rate than the economy. Federal tax receipts in 1952 were 19% of GDP and are estimated to be 17.8% of GDP for 2013. This means tax receipts have not kept up either with the increase in spending or the growth of the economy. This implies fiscal problems for the US.

Keep in mind that according to the Bible, taxes of 10% or greater are considered oppressive, so even the 1952 numbers are nothing to brag about. FDR oversaw a massive expansion of the federal government in the 1930s, and these programs were still going strong when Clark wrote CVMT. Also, the numbers I have given are for federal taxes only. They do not include state and local income taxes, sales taxes, inflation, licenses and other sundry fees and expenses that burden the American people today. In all, it’s estimated that the average American pays about 40% of his income in taxes to governments at various levels. With this background in mind, I suspect that if Clark were writing today, he would not have made the statement about America no having a tax consuming bureaucracy or a lenient regulatory environment. Bureaucracy and regulations have grown tremendously since Clark wrote and the trend is for more of the same.

Clark made his about the US in the context of a larger discussion about the direction of history. As many do today, people in 1952 were asking the question whether Western civilization was at an end. Clark put it this way,

“Is there anything inherent in our culture and civilization that protects this nation from decay? Throughout the past, cultures have arisen and have crumbled to ruins. If this is the lesson of history, it becomes a real question whether or not our world, our Western civilization, has already come to its inglorious end.” (CVMT, 34)

This leads Clark to state the general problem facing the historian, a problem which Clark will answer throughout the rest of the chapter. But before outlining Clark’s argument, I would like to point out an important feature of Clark’s method to the reader. Clark likes to structure his chapters by first stating a problem, next he will follow up with various incorrect responses by important, representative figures and refute their ideas as he goes, finally he will present the correct, Christian answer. You will see Clark use this pattern throughout A
Christian View of Men and Things and in his other works, so this is something worth noting. In this chapter, Clark presents us with a history problem. He writes,

“The general problem of history, of which such matters as the reconstruction of Europe and the decay of Western civilization are subsidiary parts, is the formulation of a law which will enable us to understand the course of events and to make a probable guess about the future.” (CVMT, 34)

In subsequent sections, Clark will look at attempts to solve this problem by writers as diverse as Karl Marx, the French advocates of progress, Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. When analyzing the condition of American society, Clark will cull important evidence from a book called The Crisis of Our Age by Pitirim Sorokin. Sorokin’s book was relatively new in 1952 and is now considered a classic. Readers should find Sorokin’s comments interesting, for in it he explodes the idea that American cultural decline is something relatively recent. Today, and many people seem to think that our current problems didn’t start until the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. Others, showing a greater historical perspective, may date the decline as far back as Elvis. Sorokin, however, shows that by the 1940s America was already in the midst of a serious cultural decline.

Leaving the special case of the US, Clark goes on to raise an interesting question about the significance of history. In the end, he asks, do the great events shaping the destinies of nations really matter? We might tend to answer, “of course they matter,” without much thought, but some very influential people have been of the opinion that they do not.

Finally, Clark wraps up the chapter by formulating a Christian philosophy of history and stating three important principles of history deduced from the Bible. While these principles are almost universally ignored by professional historians, believers will find in them great comfort and insight. Lord willing, we will take a closer look at Clark’s analysis of history over the next few posts.