Fire in the Minds of Men
In the course of his second inaugural address President Bush described the power of “freedom” as…”a fire in the minds of men.” The phrase is dated by its now “politically incorrect” usage of the term men, and in fact is the title of a book by James H. Billington, published 25 years ago [James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 677 pages ]. We may imagine that Mr. Bush was unaware of quoting a book title in the recitation of this phrase, though we should be careful not to “misunderestimate” him. However, we cannot imagine that his speechwriter did not knowingly lift the phrase from the book.
Dr. Billington’s book chronicles the “origins of the revolutionary faith,” including the nationalist and socialist revolutions through the 18th and 19th centuries, typified in the French and Russian revolutions. He in turn adopted the phrase “fire in the minds of men” from Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, a fictional portrayal of the spread of revolutionary ideology: “He depicted a stagnant (tranquil?) provincial town that was suddenly inspired (infected?) by new ideas. Shortly after a turbulent literary evening, a mysterious fire broke out; and a local official shouted out into the nocturnal confusion: ‘The fire is in the minds of men, not in the roofs of buildings’” (p.5) Dr. Billington suggests that fire is a suitable metaphor for the “revolutionary faith” because, “modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were the Christians or Muslims of an earlier era.” (p.3) This revolutionary faith is, he conjectures, “perhaps the faith of our time.” (p.3)
The “revolutionary faith” is motivated by a deep-set desire for “freedom,” which specifically meant freedom from the authority of monarchy, tradition, and church. Though there was indeed plenty of corruption in monarchy, tradition and church, the revolutionary sought not to correct it, but used it as a pretext for his cause of “liberation” from all authority. This revolutionary spirit originated in a secular rebellion against the social and political order engendered by the Reformation. If the Enlightenment pretended to set men free scientifically from Christian dogma concerning the origin and nature of man, revolutionary ideology pretended to free men socially and politically from Christian dogma concerning authority and duty. “The grounds for a new approach were prepared by the exhaustion with religious conflict and by the enthusiasm over the scientific method that produced a ‘crisis of the European consciousness’ at the end of the seventeenth century. In the ensuing Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, a critical spirit began to regard Greco-Roman antiquity as a kind of secular alternative to Christianity.” (p.18) The “revolutionary faith” may be characterized as Promethean inasmuch as fire stolen from the gods now becomes a powerful force in the hands - and in the minds - of men.
Of course, Dr. Billington’s whole point is to show how the revolutions so nobly conceived ended in the most totalitarian and repressive regimes the world has ever seen. Surely, President Bush does not, nor his speechwriter, intend by this allusion to Dr. Billington’s book, and through him to Dostoevsky, to indicate a plan to return to such repression in the name of “freedom.” Rather, we suppose, his intent is finally to shepherd the world into full realization of the ideal of “freedom.” For Dr. Billington’s message is not one warning of the inevitable failure of a quest for “freedom” independently of Christian truth. Instead he holds out hope that the Promethean fire in the minds of men yet may be fruitful. “I am further disposed to wonder if this secular creed, which arose in Judaeo-Christian culture, might not ultimately prove to be only a stage in the continuing metamorphosis of older forms of faith and to speculate that the belief in secular revolution, which has legitimized so much authoritarianism in the twentieth century, might dialectically prefigure some rediscovery of religious evolution to revalidate democracy in the twenty-first. (p.14) In this vision we have the crux of President Bush’s message. He does not expose and invalidate the rhetoric of “liberation” by cataloging the repression into which “liberation” movements always devolve. Rather, he would rescue “liberation” rhetoric by maintaining that “the force of human freedom” is the greatest force in human history. He ascribes an inevitability to this power with such slogans as, “Liberty will come to those who love it.” He adulates “ideals” by casting Christianity as on a par with Judaism and Islam and describing their common “ideals” in words that in the Bible are employed to describe Jesus Christ (Heb 13:8): “…the same yesterday, today and forever.” In this we see clearly a religious faith and a religious zeal. A grave difficulty consists in the fact that the religion exhibited is not Christianity.
President Bush immerses himself willingly and deeply into Dr. Billington’s dialectic of liberalism vs. libertarianism. His vision cannot succeed because it is contrary to Christian truth. A libertarian idea of “freedom” is negative. Modern dictionary definitions of “freedom” are negative expressions, e.g. “not subject to external constraint.” In this conception “freedom” is not a thing itself, but the absence of other things, such as rule or constraint. As such, “freedom” cannot be any kind of force in history, least of all the greatest force. It cannot come under attack, and can have no enemies. There is no way in which the Bushian, libertarian idea of “freedom” can be made into a positive concept. However, at the same time it is only natural that men should reach out toward freedom as though it were something positive to grasp. Rightly, it should be so. In Christian truth - and only in Christian truth - it is so. Men are prone to approach freedom as a positive concept because in their basic nature they are exactly what Christianity says they are. But since they are sinners they would rather indulge in the foolishness of grasping at the void that is the libertarian idea of “freedom” than to admit the Christian truth of things.
In context of a controversy regarding taxation, in Matthew 17:25 Jesus asked Peter, “From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax; from their sons or from strangers?” Peter correctly answered, “from strangers,” and Jesus replied, “Consequently the sons are exempt.” (A footnote in the New American Standard translation indicates that the original word literally is “free”). Social and political freedom was rare in the ancient world, and was enjoyed mainly by the families of those in power. The reality of this comes down to us in the etymology of our terms. Of “free” the Oxford English Dictionary says, “The primary sense of the adjective is ‘dear’; the Germanic and Celtic sense comes of its having been applied as the distinctive epithet of those members of the household who were connected by ties of kindred with the head, as opposed to the slaves. The converse process of sense development appears in the Latin ‘liberi’ ‘children,’ literally the ‘free’ members of the household.” This same contrast is elaborated in a number of places in the New Testament. In Romans 8:15-16 Paul says, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…” And again in Galatians 4:6-7 we read, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son then an heir through God.” The opposite of a slave is a son.
The freedom of God consists not in the absence of constraints, for God does not exist in comparison to anything else. He does not act in response to or in context of anything else. He is “self-contained.” He never was constrained by anything and so never was “freed” from any constraint. His freedom is a positive and creative freedom. Man always existed vis-à-vis a Creator and a surrounding universe of creation. Man by his nature always was constrained by many things external to himself. Man never was, is not now, and never will be “self-contained.” True freedom for man consists not in ridding himself of external constraints; true freedom consists only in adoption as sons of God. In a finite and temporal way we can enter into the positive thing that is freedom in God. But this comes to us only through repentance. A man must bow in humility as a sinner before the ultimate authority of his Creator and Judge. This is precisely that which the both the liberal and the libertarian never will do. In their minds “freedom” means fleeing authority in sundry forms. It especially means fleeing the authority of God in the Bible. The tragic irony is that the Humanistic quest for “freedom” involves in its basic motive the denial of everything that freedom truly is.
President Bush has denied that the God of Christianity is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that His truth is the greatest force in history. He has denied these truths by taking these attributes of God and ascribing them instead to a Humanistic ideal of “freedom.” His heart burns with a Promethean Fire, which he is zealous to spread and to kindle in the whole world. This vision of “freedom” can at best consist of the loosening of all bands to release Man forth into a void to act out his will. Men have been striving for millennia to make good this vision, but the results always are ugly. Other men then take charge to send anarchical libertarianism back toward big-brother liberalism, and this dialectical process is irresolvable. Only in the Christian Doctrine of Adoption into sonship can human freedom realize a solid and positive reality of social and political order in the Kingdom and Freedom of God.
Dr. Billington’s book chronicles the “origins of the revolutionary faith,” including the nationalist and socialist revolutions through the 18th and 19th centuries, typified in the French and Russian revolutions. He in turn adopted the phrase “fire in the minds of men” from Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, a fictional portrayal of the spread of revolutionary ideology: “He depicted a stagnant (tranquil?) provincial town that was suddenly inspired (infected?) by new ideas. Shortly after a turbulent literary evening, a mysterious fire broke out; and a local official shouted out into the nocturnal confusion: ‘The fire is in the minds of men, not in the roofs of buildings’” (p.5) Dr. Billington suggests that fire is a suitable metaphor for the “revolutionary faith” because, “modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were the Christians or Muslims of an earlier era.” (p.3) This revolutionary faith is, he conjectures, “perhaps the faith of our time.” (p.3)
The “revolutionary faith” is motivated by a deep-set desire for “freedom,” which specifically meant freedom from the authority of monarchy, tradition, and church. Though there was indeed plenty of corruption in monarchy, tradition and church, the revolutionary sought not to correct it, but used it as a pretext for his cause of “liberation” from all authority. This revolutionary spirit originated in a secular rebellion against the social and political order engendered by the Reformation. If the Enlightenment pretended to set men free scientifically from Christian dogma concerning the origin and nature of man, revolutionary ideology pretended to free men socially and politically from Christian dogma concerning authority and duty. “The grounds for a new approach were prepared by the exhaustion with religious conflict and by the enthusiasm over the scientific method that produced a ‘crisis of the European consciousness’ at the end of the seventeenth century. In the ensuing Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, a critical spirit began to regard Greco-Roman antiquity as a kind of secular alternative to Christianity.” (p.18) The “revolutionary faith” may be characterized as Promethean inasmuch as fire stolen from the gods now becomes a powerful force in the hands - and in the minds - of men.
Of course, Dr. Billington’s whole point is to show how the revolutions so nobly conceived ended in the most totalitarian and repressive regimes the world has ever seen. Surely, President Bush does not, nor his speechwriter, intend by this allusion to Dr. Billington’s book, and through him to Dostoevsky, to indicate a plan to return to such repression in the name of “freedom.” Rather, we suppose, his intent is finally to shepherd the world into full realization of the ideal of “freedom.” For Dr. Billington’s message is not one warning of the inevitable failure of a quest for “freedom” independently of Christian truth. Instead he holds out hope that the Promethean fire in the minds of men yet may be fruitful. “I am further disposed to wonder if this secular creed, which arose in Judaeo-Christian culture, might not ultimately prove to be only a stage in the continuing metamorphosis of older forms of faith and to speculate that the belief in secular revolution, which has legitimized so much authoritarianism in the twentieth century, might dialectically prefigure some rediscovery of religious evolution to revalidate democracy in the twenty-first. (p.14) In this vision we have the crux of President Bush’s message. He does not expose and invalidate the rhetoric of “liberation” by cataloging the repression into which “liberation” movements always devolve. Rather, he would rescue “liberation” rhetoric by maintaining that “the force of human freedom” is the greatest force in human history. He ascribes an inevitability to this power with such slogans as, “Liberty will come to those who love it.” He adulates “ideals” by casting Christianity as on a par with Judaism and Islam and describing their common “ideals” in words that in the Bible are employed to describe Jesus Christ (Heb 13:8): “…the same yesterday, today and forever.” In this we see clearly a religious faith and a religious zeal. A grave difficulty consists in the fact that the religion exhibited is not Christianity.
President Bush immerses himself willingly and deeply into Dr. Billington’s dialectic of liberalism vs. libertarianism. His vision cannot succeed because it is contrary to Christian truth. A libertarian idea of “freedom” is negative. Modern dictionary definitions of “freedom” are negative expressions, e.g. “not subject to external constraint.” In this conception “freedom” is not a thing itself, but the absence of other things, such as rule or constraint. As such, “freedom” cannot be any kind of force in history, least of all the greatest force. It cannot come under attack, and can have no enemies. There is no way in which the Bushian, libertarian idea of “freedom” can be made into a positive concept. However, at the same time it is only natural that men should reach out toward freedom as though it were something positive to grasp. Rightly, it should be so. In Christian truth - and only in Christian truth - it is so. Men are prone to approach freedom as a positive concept because in their basic nature they are exactly what Christianity says they are. But since they are sinners they would rather indulge in the foolishness of grasping at the void that is the libertarian idea of “freedom” than to admit the Christian truth of things.
In context of a controversy regarding taxation, in Matthew 17:25 Jesus asked Peter, “From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax; from their sons or from strangers?” Peter correctly answered, “from strangers,” and Jesus replied, “Consequently the sons are exempt.” (A footnote in the New American Standard translation indicates that the original word literally is “free”). Social and political freedom was rare in the ancient world, and was enjoyed mainly by the families of those in power. The reality of this comes down to us in the etymology of our terms. Of “free” the Oxford English Dictionary says, “The primary sense of the adjective is ‘dear’; the Germanic and Celtic sense comes of its having been applied as the distinctive epithet of those members of the household who were connected by ties of kindred with the head, as opposed to the slaves. The converse process of sense development appears in the Latin ‘liberi’ ‘children,’ literally the ‘free’ members of the household.” This same contrast is elaborated in a number of places in the New Testament. In Romans 8:15-16 Paul says, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…” And again in Galatians 4:6-7 we read, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son then an heir through God.” The opposite of a slave is a son.
The freedom of God consists not in the absence of constraints, for God does not exist in comparison to anything else. He does not act in response to or in context of anything else. He is “self-contained.” He never was constrained by anything and so never was “freed” from any constraint. His freedom is a positive and creative freedom. Man always existed vis-à-vis a Creator and a surrounding universe of creation. Man by his nature always was constrained by many things external to himself. Man never was, is not now, and never will be “self-contained.” True freedom for man consists not in ridding himself of external constraints; true freedom consists only in adoption as sons of God. In a finite and temporal way we can enter into the positive thing that is freedom in God. But this comes to us only through repentance. A man must bow in humility as a sinner before the ultimate authority of his Creator and Judge. This is precisely that which the both the liberal and the libertarian never will do. In their minds “freedom” means fleeing authority in sundry forms. It especially means fleeing the authority of God in the Bible. The tragic irony is that the Humanistic quest for “freedom” involves in its basic motive the denial of everything that freedom truly is.
President Bush has denied that the God of Christianity is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that His truth is the greatest force in history. He has denied these truths by taking these attributes of God and ascribing them instead to a Humanistic ideal of “freedom.” His heart burns with a Promethean Fire, which he is zealous to spread and to kindle in the whole world. This vision of “freedom” can at best consist of the loosening of all bands to release Man forth into a void to act out his will. Men have been striving for millennia to make good this vision, but the results always are ugly. Other men then take charge to send anarchical libertarianism back toward big-brother liberalism, and this dialectical process is irresolvable. Only in the Christian Doctrine of Adoption into sonship can human freedom realize a solid and positive reality of social and political order in the Kingdom and Freedom of God.
