The Blatchford Controversies, 4 - The Eternal Heroism Of The Slums

The knock on Christianity is its sordid history of sin and crime.  But there is nothing in that sin and crime unique to Christianity.  All human institutions have histories riddled with crime, for crime is what happens when humans cling to their strongly held views and try for them to win the day.  The worst offender in theis arena is the State itself, the inventor of all the tools of torture.

The difference is that Christianity acknowledges its sin.  Its tale of its own origin, in fact, originates in human sin.  That sin is the starting point on which the edifice of redemption is built.  Unlike many other institutions, Christianity at least offers a remedy for sin.

The rationalists, on the other hand, offer only one solution to the state of humanity: the denial of any personal responsibility for any action at all.  Taken in full, this solution will ruin all of human experience.  For while it absolves the wrongdoer from any responsibility for wrongs done, it also excludes the good man from any responsibility for virtuous acts.  Moreover, the adoption of the materialist philosophy contradicts itself almost instantly:

[A]lthough people ought not to be blamed for their actions... they ought to be trained to do better.  They ought, he said, to be given better conditions of heredity and environment, and then they would be good, and the problem would be solved.  The primary answer is obvious.  How can one say that a man ought not to be held responsible, but ought to be well trained?  For if he "ought" to be well trained, there must be somebody who "ought" to train him.  And that man must be held responsible for training him.  The proposition has killed itself in three sentences.

Even if it fell to some to set up conditions to make all others virtuous there is not a soul who can tell you what the correct, perfect conditions would be.  And the reason is simple enough: the proper Utopia could only be built by perfect men.  Where are they?

But the attitude is even more sinister than this.  If the rationalist thinks it is up to the upper class to build a society to repair the sin arising out of the lower class, what does this imply?  Obviously, that the lower class is morally deficient, incapable of exercising virtue.  What a wicked thought.  We know that virtue is available to all men-- at times, the knowledge that he is still capable is all that will keep a man going under difficult circumstances.  And now the rationalist wants to take away even that hopeful thought, by telling him he bears no responsibility.  "So pants this strange comforter, from cell to cell."

Such a philosophy will never last.  In time, men will cast it aside in favor of the philosophy that treats them their freedom as men.  Christianity correctly offers that philosophy.