What Is History? Part 17
by Clyde N. Wilson
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Satan knew what he was doing when he aided and abetted the fall in the Garden. —Robert M. Peters
As we consider the world’s rulers, one question overshadows all others: are they fools or charlatans? . . . I lean toward the view that they are both. —Robert Higgs
It must be noted to that it was not only to the working classes that the industrial revolution brought suffering. The entrepreneurs had their troubles too. —J.D. Mackie
All deprivation is relative . . . —J.D. Mackie
The degree of human stupidity is truly immeasurable. . . . —“Ilya Pavlovich”
Mark my words, those Social Security numbers will follow you from cradle to grave. —Alf Landon, 1936
A main aim of globalization was to dislodge particular loyalties and patterns of life and replace them with . . . a financial system in which the consequences of economic actions were difficult to discern. —Patrick J. Deneen
. . . what market capitalism excels at producing: short-term thinking. —Patrick J. Deneen
In the history of the world there are only two or three stories, which keep recurring forever. —Willa Cather
Power is always stealing from the many to the few. —Duff Green
And now the U.S., like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on earth? —Peter Hitchens
All political lives end in failure. —Enoch Powell
Very few men who have helped determine the direction of society are remembered in their true character . . . Every great statesman must necessarily fail. Only the politician succeeds. The very material of great statecraft precludes success. It is creative. Its ideologies propose for society ideal patterns of conduct. The stubborn imperfectibility of man foretells the failure, but without these patterns there would be no civilization. —Andrew Lytle, “John C. Calhoun”
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1 Comment by Rob on 27 December 2008:
The point from the late Prof. Lytle rings very true. Looking at the main statesmen in American history and most do seem like tragedies-Jefferson, Davis, Calhoun, Randolph, even James Monroe. The only possible exception I can come up with is Washington.
2 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 27 December 2008:
No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
* * * *
Politics under democracy consists almost wholly of the discovery, chase and scotching of bugaboos. The statesman becomes, in the last analysis, a mere witch-hunter, a glorified smeller and snooper, eternally chanting ‘Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum!’ It has been so in the United States since the earliest days. The whole history of the country has been a history of melodramatic pursuits of horrendous monsters, most of them imaginary: the red-coats, the Hessians, the monocrats, again the red-coats, the Bank, the Catholics, Simon Legree, the Slave Power, Jeff Davis, Mormonism, Wall Street, the rum demon . . . the hell hounds of plutocracy, the trusts . . . Pancho Villa, German spies, hyphenates, the Kaiser, Bolshevism.
–H.L. Mencken
3 Comment by John Q. Reb on 27 December 2008:
The finest President this nation ever had was James Polk.
4 Comment by robert m. peters on 27 December 2008:
“Satan knew what he was doing when he aided and abetted the fall in the Garden. —Robert M. Peters”
Satan stroked the egos of Adam and Eve and therewith tempted them with that sin which we know as envy. Politicians continue his work as they transfer the wealth of those who actually produce it to those who do not. While many “conservatives” scold the traditional welfare class for collusion with the political class in this envy-based transfer of wealth, those same “conservatives” recast the much more egregious manifestation of this evil as a “virtue” when it shows itself in agricultural subsidies, paper-wealth rescues, and government contracts, including but not limited to those associated with the Defense Department.
5 Comment by SKR on 27 December 2008:
Mr. Peters,
I respectfully disagree. Satan knew not what he was doing in the Garden. He thought he was throwing a wrench into the works of the Father, but in fact was performing a necessary role. Adam and Eve had to partake of the fruit, but it also had to be their own decision. As it says in Timothy, Adam was not deceived. He chose to partake of the fruit anyway. No fall, no mortality, no redemption, no judgement, no salvation, in short, no need for Christ.
How many times does the New Testament use the phrase “from the foundation of the world?” The fall was not a surprise nor an obstacle to man’s salvation, but rather a necessary condition.
6 Comment by george on 27 December 2008:
Satan knew what he was doing when he aided and abetted the fall in the Garden. —Robert M. Peters
Isn’t that a given.
The question is why did God allow the devil the snake in the garden in the first place and not tell Adam and Eve about him.
A warning would have given them more reason not to eat from the tree.
Maybe you could compare that to 9/11.
Warnings were ignored and US has went downhill since then with disastrous foreign policies.
But who was the snake or snakes in the Whitehouse or the Pentagon that let it happen Cheney, Dov Zakheim?
They did call for an aggressive foreign policy in there PNAC document for expansionist foreign wars which policy could be implemented through a “new Pearl Harbour” shock assault.
And now the U.S., like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on earth? —Peter Hitchens
This coming from one of the Marx brothers his other Christopher being former Marxist communists who decided to become conservatives later on when the political winds were blowing away from the left.
7 Comment by PcH on 27 December 2008:
Ge 2:17 – But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Ge 3:4 – And the serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall not surely die.”
So if SKR is right,
(1) God is a liar: man got salvation by the tree, not death;
(2) God’s commandments must be disobeyed since God will not judge man;
(3) Man should obey Satan out of respect for his necessary role;
(4) The horrific death and suffering that followed the fall are forgettable;
(5) Man must sin so he can get saved.
8 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 27 December 2008:
The serpent posed a negative question, “Did God not say …?”
It’s a trait I see among the sneaky liberals who creep on to this website.
9 Comment by SKR on 28 December 2008:
@ PCH
My how you leap to illogical conclusions.
Again, Adam was not deceived (Timothy 2:14) he chose to disobey God’s commandment, he did not do it to obey Satan. Salvation is obviously through Christ, not by “the tree.” Romans 5 makes it quite clear that Adam’s transgression brought death and sin into the world and Christ’s atonement brings the possibility of redemption.
As for unnecessary suffering–if even God’s Son was only made perfect through his sufferings (Hebrews 2:10) can we really believe that God intended a world for us without any?
It is your argument, not mine, that gives power to Satan and denies it to God. For you are saying that, unforseen to God, Satan was able to cause the fall, death, unnecessary suffering, and that God was then forced to come up with a new inferior plan for man’s salvation.
My argument is that the fall, redemption, and salvation of man, through Jesus Christ, were all prepared “from the foundation of the world.” God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden knowing exactly what they would do. Yes, He commanded them to not partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He, God, let them choose for themselves; that they would be responsible for their own fall. He also allowed Satan to tempt them, again knowing full well what Satan would do. Satan tried to thwart God’s will, but of course couldn’t (that would make him more powerful than God).
It is the same today. God allows Satan to tempt man, Satan tries to thwart God’s will but cannot. Satan can ultimately only do what God allows him. Thus it does not follow that we should obey Satan.
The fall can be a difficult doctrine. How could God, being God, bring death and sin into the world. Could He have commanded Adam and Eve to do it? Could He have created an imperfect world, already full of sin? The way it is presented in the Bible seems to be the only way.
10 Comment by EE Roberts on 28 December 2008:
“The finest President this nation ever had was James Polk.”
This may be true, and if it is, it is a tragic indictment of our history as a people.
11 Comment by John Q. Reb on 28 December 2008:
Robert Peters # 4
No; Satan tempted the pair with that greatest of all human temptations: he said that if they would but heed him they could be as God. All human folly that we record as history originates from this primordial temptation and our greedy acceptance of it: the delusion that we can become as gods and remake man’s nature. This is the destructive vanity behind every ism.
12 Comment by robert m. peters on 28 December 2008:
John Q. Reb 11
Behind man’s desire to be a god or the god is his envy of God; man envies God as Creator and desires out of that envy to become god Satan, as another poster’s theological position suggests, may have well been playing a role in God’s ultimately plan; but that role entailed his leveraging Adam’s envy. My initial post to this thread was not theological but political: politicians continue to leverage envy Envy has become a “virtue” to serve the aggregate of “god-like selves” by giving them their whims, compulsions and desires at the expense of others. Every entity and institution which stands in the way of these realizations is leveled: God, family, Church, local polity, etc.
13 Comment by John Q. Reb on 28 December 2008:
“When the love of self becomes the ruling passion and the golden calf the only divinity, then will this majestic fabric of Freedom crumble to pieces, and from its ruin will arise a hideous monster with Liberty in its mouth and Despotism in its heart.”
—Kirk Paulding
14 Comment by robert m. peters on 28 December 2008:
JQR @ 13
In much agreement with the quote which you provided, very much! So “it has been and is: “…Liberty in its mouth and Despotism in its heart.”
15 Comment by J Meng on 28 December 2008:
“Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
Jesus saith to him: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (John 14: 5-6)
“Then Jesus said to those Jews, who believed in him: if you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8: 31-32)
16 Comment by PcH on 28 December 2008:
J Meng-
Exactly right. The all-good God foreknew, but does not foreordain sin nor death. The all-good God did not create nor does he want sin, suffering, nor death. They are the consequences of failing to “continue in [his] word.” God meant what he said when he commanded Adam and Eve not to take of the tree. Instead, they were commanded to take dominion over the whole earth, including the reptiles, and at the tree that meant to judge the serpent and beat it with a club. All God’s commandments are binding. Believe in anything else and face eternal death.
But what a wonderful quote JQReb shared:
17 Comment by Iliya Pavlovich on 30 December 2008:
What an honor. To be include in anything Dr. Wilson ever said allows me to pat myself on the back.
I was being too generous, lenient and somewhat forgiving when I said “The degree of human stupidity is truly immeasurable.
There has always been a stand that any one person can be smart, but put three smart persons together and you get a load for the turnip truck (myself included).
What our leaders are doing to us compares only to the Roman rule of their distant provinces. Bread and games. Lottery, flashy scantily clad females, news that are not newsworthy, scandal after scandal (anybody remembers Tawana Brawley?). And it is the collective US that allows it. We, ourselves, allow the history to play this three card monty on us. It’s about 100 times the effort to correct these injustices at some future time. It’s so much healthier and wiser to nip it in the bud. But we need another 289 million of Dr. Wilson’s clones.