Lux Lucet

Karl Marx

Christians can lean lessons in the oddest places, even from the likes of Karl Marx. Marx, of course, was the 19th communist radical whose ideas have proven to be one of the dominant forces in the world over the past 100 years. Now before you think I’ve gone off the deep end, I can assure you I’m not sporting a Che Guevara T-shirt or making plans to visit to Fidel Castro. No, my praise for Marx has nothing to do with his ideology, with which I vehemently disagree. But if not for his ideology, why would I praise him? What would a Christian writer find praiseworthy about a militant atheist whose considerable body of work was radically opposed to Christianity and has proven to be the cause so much misery in the world? The short answer to that question is this, Marx was a systematic thinker.

It was a Christian video series on worldviews that started me thinking about this. Marx was an atheist, and his atheism imbued every aspect of this thinking. Marxist views in the fields of politics, history, economics, sociology, psychology, ethics, etc. all can be traced back to atheist assumptions. Marxist ideas about a particular subject, economics for example, are not divorced from Marxist ideas on other subjects. Marxism is not a random collection of ideas, but a system of things thought out together. This is what gives Marxism much of its appeal. It provides, or at least seems to provide, people with a unified worldview. And this unified worldview is a powerful motivating force.

Like Marxism, Christianity is also a system of thought. But Christianity begins with a very different foundational axiom and proceeds to very different conclusions. The axiom, the first principle, of Christianity is: The Bible alone is the Word of God. But unlike the Marxists, many Christians do not seem to understand that Christianity is a system of thought. As a result, their worldview is inconsistent, being filled with contradictions. To a large degree, this has robbed Evangelicals of the power to proclaim truth to a lost and dying world.

I can use my own experience as an example here. Growing up, I was pretty much a political conservative. But my political beliefs were not well rooted in Scripture. The Bible, so I thought, was good for Sundays and for learning about God and salvation. But if you wanted to answer tough questions about, say, foreign policy or economics, you had to turn to the experts and read U.S. News and World Report, or the National Review, or something by Russell Kirk or another conservative intellectual light. The suggestion that the answers I sought could be found in Scripture alone would have seemed very odd to me. In short, I was a double-minded man.

It wasn’t until I came in contact with the work of Gordon Clark and John Robbins that I learned the importance and the

John Robbins

power of systematic, non-contradictory Christian thought. It is, of course, true that the Bible is good for Sundays and learning about God and salvation. But it is also the sole basis, the only foundation, on which to build a true, unified view of the world. In his tract, What is Christian Philosophy?, John Robbins wrote,

Within its 66 books, the Bible contains a complete system of thought. Paul tells us that “All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ Jesus,” “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The Bible tells us how we may know truth, what reality is like, how we should think and act, and even what governments should do. Philosophers usually call these studies (1) epistemology: the theory of knowing; (2) metaphysics: the theory of reality; (3) ethics: the theory of conduct; and (4) politics: the theory of government. The first of these, epistemology, is the most important, for it is the most basic.

Robbins summarizes the Christian view of these four main philosophic disciplines as follows,

Epistemology (theory of knowing): The Bible tells me so.

Metaphysics (theory of reality): In Him, not matter, we live.

Ethics (theory of conduct): We ought to obey God rather than men.

Politics (theory of government): Proclaim liberty throughout the land.

There are many authors who claim to champion the Christian worldview. But there are none who have done a better job of this than John Robbins. I highly recommend his books and essays. They are Biblical, logically sound, and readable. If you haven’t read his work, prepare to have your mind opened.

Some may be put off by the above statements about epistemology and metaphysics, finding them too heady, too intellectual, too impractical. If so, I would ask you to reconsider. As Americans Christians, we like to be practical. But practice is always the practice of some theory. Please consider that it is only by having a proper Biblical understanding of the Biblical theories of knowledge, reality, conduct and government that one can correctly answer a practical question such as whether laws allowing gay marriage should be enacted.

There are many ways one could oppose gay marriage. For example, one could argue that it is against tradition and should on that basis be disallowed. Or perhaps one could invoke nature and say that since homosexual unions cannot produce children, there is no basis for the state to legalize them. But these arguments are easily shredded. After all, many things have been traditional at some time in the past that most people today, including Christians, would rightly find horrifying. Tradition is hardly a defense against the homosexual agenda. Arguments from nature also fail, for artificial insemination and changes in adoption laws have allowed homosexual couples to have families. Tradition and nature are no defense against rampant immorality.

Christians can know that the homosexual agenda and those who support it in government, business, universities and entertainment are in the wrong, for the simple reason that homosexuality is revealed in the Word of God as contrary to the law of God. And further, it is revealed that all men everywhere – this includes magistrates, professors, business executives and entertainers – ought to obey the moral law and will be responsible to Christ himself for their actions, thoughts and words. No president, no senator, no judge has a right to declare legal what God has condemned in his Word as sinful.

If Christians are to have any hope of fulfilling their call to be salt and light to a lost and dying world, we must first learn to bring all our thoughts into captivity to Christ. This means learning to think systematically as Christians. After all, if the Marxists can take confidence in the systematic outworking of their bankrupt ideas, how much more should Christians be bold to systematically bring every thought every thought into captivity to Christ?