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‘Individualism’ has a bad rap, even among Christians.  To be fair, there are things in ‘individualism’ that I think are unhealthy or even immoral, too, but the key thing to remember is that any opposite of ‘individualism’ is not necessarily preferable.  If we’re going to raise up ‘inter-connectedness’ (a neutral term, I hope) it must be done thoughtfully, and it cannot obliterate that which is moral or good in ‘individualism.’

The only folks that I’ve ever heard defend ‘individualism’ are the Objectivists- the offspring of Ayn Rand, that spunky atheist who escaped the clutches of communism.  Rand’s views on the individual seem to be expressed most succinctly, and passionately, in her little book Anthem, which is a favorite of mine.   There is a flaw in her book however:  the intrinsic value of the individual is assumed;  no basis for it is provided.

And no wonder.  In atheism, no basis for the value of the individual human can be provided.  At best, the individual human values himself, and then out of concern for his own interests forges a social compact with other individual humans not hurt him.  That is secular humanism at its core.  But this can only go so far.  Once ‘social compacts’ are on the table, the ‘good of society’ becomes an obvious next step.  “The most good for the most people.”

I won’t explore the inevitable progression from there (“Someone must decide what that good is”) and discuss the history of abuse that consistently emerged within these systems.  These are not the point of this post, but you can find comments on it on this blog and the issue is discussed in my fictional book series, Birth Pangs.

The point, here, is that within secular humanism and atheistic systems, the only thing that lasts from one generation to the next is the State.  Society and the State become the ‘highest’ level organism, and the individual a mere cell within it.   From the point of view of the State, the individual has as much value as a skin cell which can be scraped off and safely discarded.  Naturally, more valuable cells you want to keep around- while they have utility- but the ‘brain cells’ never lose sight of the fact that the cell’s value is strictly in what it can contribute to the ‘body.’

You don’t keep old, dying, disfigured, disabled, and dead cells around just for sentimental value.  If a ‘cell’ is to stick around and be embraced by the State, it must explain how it adds somehow to the health of the ‘body.’   For an illustration,  I have heard secular humanists recoil in horror at the prospect of eliminating expensive-to-society disabled children… but not because the disabled have some sort of intrinsic value.  Instead, you might hear something more aesthetic, something about how diversity within society (read:  within the State) is something valuable in itself.

This is lucky.  If instead the only thing the disabled could put on the table is the fact that they require massive investments of capital that could otherwise go to those with more ‘Quality-Adjusted Life Years‘ or that their genes are potentially a menace to the species, they’d probably be toast.

The value of the individual, when the State is the highest level ‘organism’ is judged exclusively against the interests of the State itself.

In Christianity, by contrast, concepts such as ‘individual’ and ‘community’ are evaluated differently.  There are occasionally overlaps, such as with Rand’s view of the individual and the genuine interest of many secular humanists for the down trodden within our society.  However, it is critical to understand how the different perspectives work when things get dicey.  For the secular humanist, there may come a point where one has to dispense with some individuals for the sake of the State.

True, the unborn are the best place to start, because they can in no way resist or speak out on behalf for their own existence, but as my link to Sanger’s document above illustrates, we should not deceive ourselves into thinking it is limited to them.

For the Christian, such an approach is impossible and unacceptable.  Each individual has intrinsic value and no other individual can deny it, or by declaration obliterate it.

When individuals must be sacrificed (say, in what is hopefully a just war), it is a tragedy of infinite proportions for any single person to die or to take a life.  A Christian ‘general’ who sends his men into certain death grieves for each one of them for what is lost was of momentous value, not because of what it contributed to society, but for its own sake.

Unlike the atheist who perceives that there is nothing apart from the world, the Christian understands that this is emphatically not the case.  Indeed, while the secular humanist behaves as though the only lasting institution is the transgenerational State, the raw fact is that even on their own view, the State is doomed.  This will be either by an asteroid strike, the death of the Sun, or universal heat death.

But the Christian knows that that the Individual will outlast it all.  Only the individual will survive the ultimate fate of the universe.

In the afterlife, there will be no Venezuela, Cuba, or Soviet Union.  There will not even be a United States of America.   These will all fail and fade,  as indeed many already have.  But not the individual.

Besides the fact that the Individual survives it all, unlike the Objectivists, the Christian can offer a robust basis for why the individual has the value it does.  First (in chronology) of all, humans are not the result of mindless processes bound up with the universe but rather are created by the Eternal Artisan.  Secondly, this Artisan has doubled down on the human race by redeeming it at great and painful cost and bestowing everlasting life on a New Earth.

We interact every day with immortals, not fodder for the machinations of the State.

Ironically, secular humanists try to portray themselves as the ones who are genuinely interested in mankind.   They believe with contempt that it is the Christian who cares little for the weak, the poor, the sick, the aging, and so on.  It is not so.  Given the high view of humanity that the Christian possesses which I have described, the real distinction is this:  The Christian understands that you cannot in good conscience work on the behalf of one individual at the expense of another individual.  Christians cannot engage in Malthusian trade offs.

In pursuit of the good for one individual or class of individuals you are not permitted to oppress another individual or class of individuals.  Not for the State.  Not even for ‘The Most Good for the Most People.’

The Christian must honor every human life, even the unborn human life, and in no ways can the Christian blissfully accept the proposition that it is ok to dispense with some in order to rescue others, and it is no use soothing your conscience by declaring that the ‘some’ simply aren’t persons.  When such decisions must be made, as is sometimes necessary, it is heart wrenching and tragic;  the people who most grapple with the problem of pain and suffering are not the atheists, but Christians.

If it is within the Christian’s power, he must advocate for the rights and value of all humans, even those it is easy to target (ie, in America, ‘the rich.’)  And he must oppose those other humans who would reduce them to utilitarian cogs in the machine.  Not those who believe that, per se, but those who actively attempt to implement that world view.

It should be clear from this that it does not follow that any given individual has the right to impose himself at the expense of other individuals, and certainly Christians cannot take that view.  One supposes, for example, that Rand, as an atheist who adopted the evolutionary framework, would have endorsed such a tactic if it was believed the individual could get away with it.  Survival of the fittest, and all.  The Christian Individualist is always conscience of the impact of his actions on others, and hopes very much that he can achieve his desires, but not at the expense of others.  The Way of the Survival of the Fittest is not open to him.

Moreover, the same source for our information about the Eternal Artisan’s creative and redemptive efforts tells us some important things about the nature and kinds of community that individuals should value.  The first and and most important institution is telling on many levels:  the family.

For the secular humanist (and even Plato) the family is really just an arbitrary social construct.  But for the Christian, it is recognized that the family is divinely constructed (Gen. 2:21-25, Malachi 2:13-16).

See how individualism is manifested within the family:  in this small society, there are different roles to be played and questions of sustainability are certainly considered.  And yet, a father- a good father, that is- would not dream of subjecting one child to a life of hard labor in order that another (or himself) could have a life of leisure.  True, especially in agrarian societies, a family has many children in order to survive on the land, but even here there is no avoiding the fact that the ‘investment’ in years while the child is helpless and a ‘liability’ is filled with its own pleasures; for indeed, the child himself is the result of a loving and pleasurable embrace.

In the Christian view, new life is begotten within a network of loving individuals that cherishes it for its own sake and not merely for what it can add to the family’s bottom line.  On the Christian view, the new life is added as much for the joy it adds to the community as anything else.  In the secularist view, it may as well be hatched.

Today, here in America, we live in a society where all roads currently lead to Society.  It is a society that has families in it;  it ought to be a society of families.

The family is constructed in just such a way, from beginning to end, that individualism is respected within proper boundaries.  It is no surprise that the attack on the family as an institution is so fierce and that the secularists so heartily embrace Family Planning and defend abortion so adamantly.   In the secularist mindset, to the extent that individuals are valued and welcomed, it is done so in consideration relative to the highest level organism as they perceive it, the Society.   Individuals should be spared the burden of unexpected pregnancies, and the expense that these may put on ‘society’ is to be avoided.

But in the family, the individual is not the sole measure of things.  The Christian, in fact, recognizes that most of us know- intuitively (after all, this is how we were made) that we simply are not complete and at peace in the world without little kids biting at our heels.  An ‘unexpected pregnancy’ is just one more unexpected event in a life that we know is already filled with unexpected events.  The people in our family enhance the satisfaction within the family, bringing new joys even as they bring new difficulties.

In this defense of the individual it should be evident, then, that the individualism is not an absolute.  More than that, it is recognized that the individual himself is not complete apart the community.  The community of family is threatened in many levels in our society, and it should not be believed that I think they are all intentional or deliberate.  The rise of the Automobile and the Interstate, for example, has delivered harsh blows against the institution of the Family, with parents and grand parents and aunts and uncles and cousins etc spread around to kingdom come.

The point, though, is that within the community of the family, the individual’s welfare is never pursued at the expense of some other individual’s welfare.  Indeed, when sacrifices are made (eg, by a parent working 2 shifts in order that all may eat), it is done willfully and deliberately by the parent, out of his or her own love for his family.  It is not done because the State has said, “Pay these taxes in order that these may eat.”  (and under its breath, “And so that we can fund this other program you know nothing about…”)

One further thing needs to be mentioned, and applies most specifically to other Christians:  the individual will outlive even the institution of family.  We already have clues:  in the afterlife, we will be like the angels, who do not marry.  But this is not without community:  only, the critical thing is that our communion is with Christ, in whom we are literally joined (Romans 6).  There isn’t even the promise in Scriptures that we will commune with others- this is sentimental myth.  We have no promise of seeing our loved ones in ‘heaven.’  We are assured only that we will be with Christ.

I say that not because I believe that we will be separated from our loved ones in the afterlife though joined with Christ, but because it is clear that when we relate to these, it will be in and through our relation in Christ.

So besides the Individual, there is in fact one other institution that will last forever:  the community of the Church.

It is a shame and a devastating tragedy that our churches are among the most fragmented and impersonal institutions that we interact with as Christians.  It could be so much more.  Attempts to focus on the importance of the community, in some quarters, is dismissed, and then with hostility.  The idea that you can present the Gospel and be indifferent to the need for genuine community is simply wrong.

Of course, it is critical to hasten to add that this is not saying you can have ‘community’ apart from the Gospel, as though the Gospel’s purpose is merely to bring about community, and you can bend the Gospel as necessary to facilitate that community.  It is the community in Christ that will last.  Obviously, then, it would be stupid to have community for the simple sake of having community, indifferent to the Gospel of Christ.    Let the secularists pursue that;  it is not for us.

In short, dear Christian, I contend that we already have in front of us all the ‘higher level organisms’ we need:  the community of the family and the community of the faithful.  Here and only here are individuals respected, welcomed, and free.  Here only are individuals understood to be forever, and here only do we see the context in which they will be forever- in community through Christ.

It is therefore with great caution that we must approach the efforts of the Statists.  True, very often they propose programs that we can in good conscience get behind.  However, even then they do not share our views about the individual, and so, they can, quite unexpectedly, change things.  They would only be acting on their own values, and so we should not be shocked.  Thus it should be evident that the more power we give them to help us the more power we give to them to hurt us.

As such, it is worth positing that we should give them no power at all, and the power that we do give them come with very robust checks and balances.  Our trust in their sincere intentions seems, increasingly, to be poised to do us all great harm- or at least, the weakest among us, and those who are the heaviest burden on society.  In the name of the “Most good for the most people” great evil is being inflicted, and history tells us a great deal more is possible.

I am afraid to say the blogger needs to go back to the drawing board.  He was greatly confused about what I actually said and so much of his reply just doesn’t fit what I was saying.

For example, he said that I presented Toy Story as a Christian allegory.  I did no such thing.  I said that it had theological themes.  There is a big difference there.  So, the blogger kept thinking I was trying to interpret the whole movie as some sort of intentional Christian metanarrative.  This just isn’t the case.  I detected one particular theme… and recognized that it was theological in nature.

This alone would shave about 8 paragraphs off his response. 

Another confusion is in his assessment of my assessment of Objectivism.  Here I suppose there may have been a lack of clarity on my part- or he just read too fast.  The part in question is where I said:

“If Toy Story were written to reflect modern secular humanistic relativistic atheistic worldviews, Buzz would have decided that he was a real Buzz Lightyear if he said he was… ie, prestigious in his own eyes, if the important thing is that we value our individual selves (ala Objectivism).”

The blogger seems to think that my entire post was framed against Objectivism.  In fact, the only think the Objectivism reference was related to is the supreme value that Objectivists give to ‘our individual selves.’  See Rand’s Anthem as the epitome of just that.

The rest of my post discussing value assignment, reality, etc, is not meant to be constrasted with Objectivism.  Objectivism is simply a subclass of atheism where I thought the ‘final value regress’ issue was highlighted with clarity.

So that’s another 8 paragraphs off his response. 

The substantial claims of my post remain unaddressed.  Or if they are addressed, they are embedded in the confusions named above.

For example, one of my central claims was:

In the ‘First Mover’ argument, cause and effect is tracked back to a final regress.  ….  This argument is similar.  If who assigns value can regress infinitely, then value and meaning are fundamentally meaningless terms.  Eventually you must come to a point where a thing has value without it being assigned by someone else or some other entity.

As far as objections to the Prime Mover argument goes, the response as far back as Hume is that if one must posit such a thing for cause and effect, why not simply stop with the universe?  Why go on to ‘God.’  Can the same objection be made to the ‘Prime Value Instiller’ argument?  If so, the final regress would stop in just two possible places:  the individual human himself or the collective society of humans.

The latter sentence is the atheistic situation.  Most atheists choose to ground value and morality in the collective one way or another while a smaller set- the Objectivists- make the individual human the ‘final regress.’

My assertion is that on either view, the value assignment is utterly meaningless.  Humans, individually or collectively, are pitiful places to ground all value, morality, and meaning.  The universe would be better- if it were sentient.  Since it isn’t, why not God? 

This assertion is not taken up by the blogger.  Perhaps now that we have sorted out the real point of my entry, he can return to the question with the same vigor as he did before.

If you don’t know Toy Story, it is simply a story about toys- toys who come alive when you aren’t looking.  In otherwords, a stock ‘toy story.’  In both movies there is a curious perspective presented that I really appreciated.  In the first movie, Buzz Lightyear has to come to terms with not being a ‘real’ Buzz Lightyear.  The realization that he is a mere child’s plaything drives him to drinking.  Woody the Sheriff helps him through this difficult time.  In the second movie, Woody the Sheriff finds out he is a valued collectible after he is separated from Andy, the child who owns him.  Ultimately, it is Buzz who brings Woody the Sheriff back to his senses, using the same arguments that had been deployed by him.  After all, both have Andy’s name written on the bottom of their feet.

Both movies address in their own way the difference between assigning value to yourself and having it assigned to you by someone else, someone more superior, something more real.  Here then is the first valid insight into theology- in both movies, the ‘toys’ come to the understanding that their self-assigning was less valid and less meaningful than the meaning they would have relative to Andy, the child that loves them.  If Toy Story were written to reflect modern secular humanistic relativistic atheistic worldviews, Buzz would have decided that he was a real Buzz Lightyear if he said he was.  And Woody the Sheriff would have decided that being a collectible, ie, prestigious in his own eyes, if the important thing is that we value our individual selves (ala Objectivism).

That the movies end with the toys coming to terms with the fact that they are toys and finding immense satisfaction in their created purpose is one of those wholesome lessons that proves that however much Hollywood and secular humanists try, theological messages resonate.  (See also Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty)

So, are we toys?

We don’t like to think so.  We would like to think that if we merely declared that we were completely independent and autonomous from any creator it would be so.  We would like to think that assigning ourselves whatever value we like means that we really have that value.  There is the theory and then there is the reality.  Buzz tried to fly to prove he really was the ‘real’ Buzz Lightyear and lost an arm.  You can only mock reality so long before you get hurt.  And like Woody the Sheriff discovers, coming to terms with your created purpose means that your value is found relative to a Lover but this is more ‘real’ and satisfying than the vaporous self-adulation apart from anyone else’s considerations.

So, are we toys?

The thing about meaning and value is that these concepts are inherently relative- relative in the sense that are relative to some entity.  A dollar bill has value- relative to the billions of humans who would like to have one.  It is humans which impart the value to the dollar bill.  The dollar bill is otherwise just a piece of paper, and if inflation does its worst, even humans may disregard it.  If the dollar bill were sentient, it would still just be a piece of paper.  Under the atheistic framework, we have no more value than a wadded up piece of paper, or a scrap of iron.  Nonetheless, something gnaws on us constantly, alerting us to the fact that we are something more than the mere matter that litters our existence.

In the ‘First Mover’ argument, cause and effect is tracked back to a final regress.  The argument is that if cause and effect could go on forever, it never would have started at all.  In short, there had to be a point where there is an unmovable mover who is able to cause without that cause itself being the result of an effect.  This argument is similar.  If who assigns value can regress infinitely, then value and meaning are fundamentally meaningless terms.  Eventually you must come to a point where a thing has value without it being assigned by someone else or some other entity.

As far as objections to the Prime Mover argument goes, the response as far back as Hume is that if one must posit such a thing for cause and effect, why not simply stop with the universe?  Why go on to ‘God.’  Can the same objection be made to the ‘Prime Value Instiller’ argument?  If so, the final regress would stop in just two possible places:  the individual human himself or the collective society of humans.

This is in fact what philosophical naturalists think.  But does it work?  Can you have such a view without, like Buzz testing his ‘realness,’ having broken ‘arms’?   And then the important question:  is it true?

For you see, Buzz and Woody the Sheriff may not have liked the fact that they were toys at various times in their existence, but they did not cease, for this reason, to be toys.

In fact, they found great pleasure in returning to their created purpose, and recognizing that their greatest value and highest satisfaction was found relative to the Child, Andy.  And being repulsed by the notion that they were a child’s plaything does not by any means serve as an argument that Andy doesn’t exist.  You see, this isn’t an intellectual objection to Andy’s existence at all.  It is an understandable objection- but it is not intellectual.  It is something else entirely.

I am a toy, and I have been sealed with God’s name, and frankly I love it.   I invite you, not to become a toy, because you have no power to change what you are, but to recognize that you are a ‘toy,’ and come to terms with it, and so enter into the “joy that was set before him.”

Fix your Eyes on Jesus, the Author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:2.

And we are that joy.

But I think he got it pretty wrong since  that author looked at being stamped with Andy’s name as being stamped by God’s name and I’d say Andy’s eventual farewell leaving behind the toys invalidates that.

Although in my defense, Toy Story 3 has only just now come out and I could not have known this when writing this post. Even so, even if I find a ‘Christian element’ in the movie, it doesn’t follow that the whole of the movie should continue in that pattern, especially when the movie itself isn’t set up as being a Christian movie. Besides, I had other arguments besides the stamping of the name.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist… I can’t let the claim that I was ‘pretty wrong’ pass without comment.

You may say that this was a cheap trick and doesn’t really find the slope of a ‘vertical’ line.  You might say that we are required, by assumption, to take the graph in a certain way.  I might reply that that is only an assumption and there is nothing that says I can’t rotate the grid back and forth as it suits my fancy.  If I want to find the slope of the vertical line I can change the grid for a moment and then change it back.  To this you might say that this is all well and good but the net result of such an approach is that you couldn’t trust any slope measurement and moreover, the whole program seems designed specifically to attack one particular mathematical proposition (ie, a vertical line has an undefined slope).

Such an exercise illustrates what anyone worth their salt already understands:  most of what we believe is true rests on assumptions which can’t themselves be demonstrated.   The data of our experience is set upon a particular ‘grid’ or ‘graph’ which by convention we accept and adopt.

In order to make any progress at all, we have to posit a certain ‘alignment’ of our graph.  Here now is the problem:  What if in the course of talking someone they begin by having the same alignment as you but halfway through they ‘rotate’ their grid – specifically to undermine a particular assertion you’ve just made- and then hoping you don’t notice, rotate it back?  And how if you call them on this, they denied that they performed such a rotation and/or that there was never an agreed upon frame of reference in the first place?

Or, how if you don’t begin with the same ‘alignment’ in hand at all?  Now the two people are setting their data in different frames of references and their calculations may be using the same formulas but the conclusions will be different?  How could it be that either individual could say that the other is ‘wrong’ in their ‘calculations’?

This is precisely what transpires every day in debates between theists and atheists.  I can produce no better example than a recent thread on my discussion forum titled:  “Is Christianity inherently immoral?”  Inherently. From Merriam-Webster:  Inherently:  involved in the constitution or essential character of something : belonging by nature or habit.  The argument put forward then asks whether or not there is something  wrong about Christianity by the very nature of the thing- in other words, absolutely!

But the idea that there can be things ‘absolutely wrong’ is not a proposition that most atheists will agree on because it would then quite obviously beg the question as to the source and nature of the absolute frame of reference that would need to exist if there are things right, and things wrong.  The atheist in the thread cited does not believe there exists an absolute right or wrong but he asks if there is something ‘inherently’ wrong with Christianity.  This is an example of assuming a frame of reference in order to make the point and then when asked to justify taking on that frame of reference, the atheist denies that any frame of reference is ultimate.  That should render his accusations empty and idiosyncratic, even in his own mind.

It does not, and the reason why is that whatever our words are, we all nonetheless believe there is an objective, absolute frame of reference, and as such there are conclusions inherent to that.

Another example is also frequently expounded on my discussion forum is the atheistic scheme of interpreting religions on evolutionary lines.  Evolution is assumed to be true in their analysis, of course, and naturally atheism is assumed to be true in their analysis, and this of course requires that many religious claims can’t be true.  They then plunk their data down on their frame of reference and begin making bold assertions about the evolutionary history of religions and put those conclusions up against others as facts.  But they are only ‘facts’ when on their particular grid.

Here the question is not whether or not their facts are facts but whether or not we should accept their presuppositions.  The problem is that atheists, almost every single one of them, want to have their cake and it too.  They want to rotate their grid around however it pleases them.  They want to make moral pronouncements (ie, like, ‘it is wrong to tell a woman what to do with her own body’ or ‘saying people are bad before they are even born is wrong’) but deny that there is no absolute moral framework.  This allows them to look down their nose at your moral positions but evade the implication that there are transcending realities.

You might be saying, “Ok, but we still have to figure out how we decide to align our grids.  If it is mere convention even if the resulting conclusions have significant, then those conclusions are only relatively significant.”

If, if, if, it is all mere convention, that is certainly true.  And atheists almost uniformly believe that truth statements rest on ‘grids’ aligned on convention.  This then is what sets the two systems apart:  both agree that you must have your grid aligned, but only Christianity insists that there is an inherent alignment.  It is the only way that moral questions have force.  It is the only way that science- real science- works.  On and on it goes.  Both atheists and Christians act as though there is an inherent alignment, but only Christians admit that there actually is one.

Atheists want to have their cake and eat it, too.  They want to find certain things morally repugnant but not be held accountable to the implications.  They want to raise logic and reason as superior to ‘faith’ and religion but don’t want to admit the implications inherent in saying something is ‘superior’. They want to find Christians ‘arrogant’ as though ‘arrogance’ is inherently recognizable as bad (and it is) but not admit that there are absolute claims.

And the proof of all that I have said will be validated once atheists begin objecting to this post.  They will want to declare themselves innocent of the charges!  As if there was some sort of universal basis for those charges to have weight…  In defending themselves, they prove the point.