American Thinker | AWR Hawkins | Jun. 7, 2008
Watching young people compile and try to display knowledge in a college classroom is similar to watching an epistemological famine. I can say this as an adjunct professor in college and university systems since 2002.
Their lack of knowledge is not a reflection on any one college or university but on the overall political and intellectual climate of late 20th and early 21st centuries.
My students, and with few exceptions the students of my colleagues, are the fruits of a garden planted with the intention of producing only identical fruit. As a guarantee to that end, the plants in this garden have been pruned of their trust in innate knowledge, i.e., common sense.
Since common sense was not something the 20th century Left could easily regulate or control in academia, they took the path their ideological heroes had always taken when they came upon a nonconforming person or idea: they sought to eliminate it altogether. This effort, the war on common sense has tempted people of all ages and from all walks of life to question the validity of conscience and the greatness of this nation.
A Darwinian worldview now dominates the classroom. When was the last time the word “teleology” was used in a university classroom in a non-pejorative sense? Teleology, the study of the evidence of order or design in nature, was once a staple in classic Western education. Perhaps it is still used in philosophy when studying the thought of Thomas Aquinas or by the rare but much needed conservative professor, but usually the word is not employed unless it is being used to mock the ignorance of someone who claims to see design (and by extension the evidence of a Designer) in nature.
While much of the precise scientific work that goes into teleological writing and evaluation is beyond those of us who lack a mind gifted for such thought, the basics of teleology are ingrained in each and every man and are present through common sense. The Apostle Paul said as much with these words: “For what can be known about God is plain to [men], because God has shown it to them.” (Romans 1:19, ESV) Paul was simply re-stating a truth that others before him had set forth at various times and in various ways: namely, that the natural world points beyond itself to a first cause, or Designer, and that this witness “in the things that have been made” is so evident that the man who rejects it is “without excuse.” (Romans 1:20, ESV)
In approximately 1000 B.C., Israel’s King David wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2, ESV) This knowledge, identified by Paul and King David among others, appeals to the consciences of men through the faculty of common sense: it is not esoteric but plain to all, even to those who suppress it. (Romans 1:18, ESV) One of the chief reasons why the Left wars against common sense is because they wish to extinguish our innate ability to intellectually comprehend the fact that nature is pointing beyond itself to a Designer. And this is because the existence of a Designer is an anathema to ideological vehicles like communism, socialism, and humanism and Darwinism.
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