The Technical God is Dead.

"When man is fragmentary and no longer integrated, it is no wonder in the endless crisis of our own disordering that men snatch at tendered pancreas-vitamin pills for the body and quack religions for the soul.  We are so used to a ready-made world that many ask for a ready-made religion to save their souls and even to comfort their bodies."
-Viscount Lymington


I read an article yesterday that perplexed and perturbed me simultaneously.  I assure you that it was not because the author struck an American nerve when he claimed that America was “slowing down,” “going soft,” and losing her “edge.”  No, he would be hard-pressed to rouse a patriot in this man’s heart.  Rather, it was his explanation for the claim that fueled my indignation.  America’s plight, he said, was due to her abandonment of her Protestant roots—roots the author described as fostering a “strong work ethic” and an ability to cope with “delayed gratification.”  What rubbish!  The reason that America is going down the tubes isn’t because it has abandoned her Protestant roots, but, in fact, because she has ever-embraced them!  She hasn’t lost her edge or her work ethic because she is no longer Protestant, but because she is a full-blown Protestant.  If ever the evils and ills of this world could be attributed to any one factor it would be precisely and unequivocably the world’s lackluster passionate embrace with the vile theology of John Calvin.

           

           If ever there was a more dangerous situation than the Devil using Scripture to coerce the world into its own demise, it would have to be when he hijacks theology for a diabolic pursuit.  This is what the former Angel of Light did through his agent, John Calvin, in my humble opinion.  Some say I am too hard on Calvinists.  Maybe.  However, I am convinced of two things concerning this critique: first, that I certainly have much to do to grow in charity regarding these folks; and, second, that the world has much to do to grow evermore critical of these folks.  Where I must retreat, the world must advance.  My contempt is likely compounded by the world’s complacency.  Therefore, as I resolve to do better through love, I invite the world to do better through critical judgment.

            What I find so bitter about the so-called “Protestant work ethic,” is what it represents.  Remember how Protestants began their whole destructive theology—the rejection of “works,” by the general confession, “Faith alone.”  It certainly seems odd to grapple with Protestants having a work ethic at all, in light of their “new-and-improved” “theological” “revelation,” but they do.  It would make more sense to imagine Protestants becoming on-the-spot contemplative Trappists who hit their knees immediately and begin reading the Bible, over and over.  But they don’t.  They continue to work.  And they continue to work hard.  The reason they do is telling.  At about the same time that Work was divorced from Faith, the question of destiny was found frolicking to the forefront of the theological debate.  It is here that Satan struck a mighty blow as the pump was already primed and his platform already erected.  He had but to step-out.  He did.  Over the past five centuries he has managed to kick-up a deadly frightening pace. 

            With Luther, Work was not abolished, but merely divorced from Faith.  Work was rejected as having any moral or eternal significance, whatsoever.  This half-baked theory made work a merely ‘technical’ endeavor.  Until this schism, the whole life of man had moral and eternal significance; but now, it appeared there was a part of man’s life that didn’t really matter—a “minor technical part” which quickly develops that carefree and ho-hum character which technicalities often foster.  Finding his footing, the Accuser steps in, continuing to promote the “technical view” of man’s existence—a view which creeps further and further into the heart and life of each individual—even into the life of God, at least, according to John Calvin.

            A god that damns and saves before the soul is even brought into the world is the pinnacle of technicality.  Calvin’s god has no basis upon which to form this eternal judgment except his own musing or mood.  He pulls one of two levers for each soul, damning and saving as if working a shoddy assembly-line job of making “men;” as if a man were so mechanically constructed.  And once this cold and malicious theology is pronounced to a world recently reeling from a new “technical” side of life, the Darwinian rat-race begins.  What once marked man’s existence as moral was sunk into the filth of mechanism.  If our salvation was predetermined and our time on earth was merely a technical formality, then life begins to bleed any semblance of moral significance and is further galvanized into a robotic, destructive, non-transcendental cesspool.  As soon as the Trinity is bastardized into a fabrication scene dooming man, the whole point of the Trinity is lost, because Love is lost.  And when this ultimate pervasive reality is rejected, one cannot help but find himself situated in unreality.

            Hard work is only embraced by Protestants for two poignant reasons: First, if you believe no matter what you do, that you are already doomed or saved, then you have a very skewed picture of what your earthly life is all about.  Not sure what lever Cavlin's god pulled when he plucked you into the world, and not sure how to know, then you are suddenly incentivized to make the absolute best of your time here on earth, because if you are doomed, well, then “eat, drink, and be merry” while you may; but, even better...if you are saved, “eat, drink, and be merry” while you may, because nothing you do can change the lever that is already pulled.  Your actions, remember, are simply technical, unmoral deeds.   Second, the whole theory of hard work which develops from a technical view of work is done for no other reason than material gain premised on the hope of avoiding hard work in the future.  Protestant work ethic is not an embrace of the penitential life where suffering is a necessary and an absolute good (thus, making hard work an end-in-itself), it is merely a means to an end—avoidance of hard work in the future.  Ironically, it is the resolve to do in this world precisely what the Reformation said was not possible to do in the next—to save oneself by hard work. 

Our friendly author who then faults the downfall of society on Sloth needs to go one step further—he needs to fault its demise on the bogus premise that suffering is to be avoided as an end and he needs to recognize his own inability to see the moral aspect (or lack thereof) of a vice when he himself mentions it!  'Sloth' is not a technical term, it is a vice, which is a moral term—'hard work,' conversely, is a virtue, and, likewise, a moral term.  It seems to me, the moral-amnesia concerning this fact began with Luther, was perfectly systematized by Calvin, is wholeheartedly embraced by the Protestant churches, and whose emptiness is now being most fully realized.

Further, we have been led to believe by the article that Protestant theology is to be credited with fostering a sense of "delayed gratification."  What asininity!  Wasn’t it the ultimatum of Luther that spawned the whole defunct and fractured sect?   Our author who romanticizes Protestantism to the point of non-sensical hilarity and outright inaccuracy forgets that it is Protestantism that bred the foolish notion which has been pounded into the heads of men that they have a right or expectation of gratification, period.  It is not that Christianity is without its joys, but these remain surprises and blessings, not entitlements.  And this is what Protestantism has refused to cope with—they simply rob Heaven of its eternal bliss that it might be temporarily experienced with certainty here on earth.  They trade a temporary satisfaction for an eternal one.  Catholics, on the other hand, believe in trading a temporary suffering for an eternal joy.  That is what underscores both the penitential life and the whole doctrine of Purgatory.  Gratification in this world, whether it be instant or delayed, is an import of Protestant theology that seeks to turn the whole created Order on its head simply to advance a foolhardy illusion that we can be crowned kings of the universe…right now. 

I take great comfort in modern-day mystical babble and Marian apparitions that articulate a great act of mercy on the horizon.  It seems it will take an Act of God to retroactively abort the mutant Calvinistic brainchild.  It has been the on-going slogan of his decrepit and evil progeny that “God helps those that help themselves.”  Nothing can be further from the truth.  God helps the helpless.  That is why Christ had to come.  And that is why grace remains evermore fundamental and elementary than all else.  If there were ever good news in the dire times we find ourselves, it is this: that the further we move into a self-induced and blind paralysis by embracing untruth and unreality, we ourselves have become evermore helpless as we have also forced others to share out plight.  Perhaps now the fields of history are fertile enough with the blood of those down-trodden under the immorality of Calvin to be susceptible to the coming Act of God.  And it will not be because we embrace our Protestant roots, but because we emphatically reject them.  Seeking a better world is a moral endeavor.  As such, it is going to require a moral authority and a moral embrace.  At the risk of sounding like my former drinking buddy, Nietzsche, “the technical God is dead.”  And may he not rest in peace.