On the Value of Intelligence and Satan's Big Idea

Let’s get back to Chesterton’s claim that both reason and religion are “methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved.” 

Let us stipulate up front that Chesterton was no one’s idea of a proper philosopher, but rather, the opposite: a man with common sense. And what is common sense?

the father’s house to which philosophy returns, every so often, feeble and emaciated.

Now, because we are always stalking the miracle of unity — i.e., simultaneously looking toward and through the One in One Cosmos — we are drawn to the Idea that there are ideas about which we should all be able to agree, so long as we value intelligence. This has to do with the very nature of intelligence as such, and let Sr. Dávila explain what I mean; first, that

Agreement is eventually possible between intelligent men because intelligence is a conviction they share.

Well, do we? Or do we not? This is the first question to sort out. But let me get to the second aphorism, which adverts to the promise that 

In each moment, each person is capable of possessing the truths that matter.

Is this true, or even possibly true? Yes, and I want to say it is because we are persons (change my mind), and that our mysterious ability to *possess* truth is precisely one of the essential attributes of persons as such. 

Put conversely, who else but a person has this potential? And who else but a person could be so stupid as to disagree with Bob, let alone Petey?

Having said that, despite Petey’s quasi-omniscience, “possess” makes me wince just a little, because it is a good rule of thumb that when someone claims to be in possession of Truth, it’s time to reach for one’s revolver. Others insist that there is no such thing as "truth," in which case it is time to reach for one’s machine gun. 

As we know, it’s all about the philo in philosophy: a love of wisdom, never its ownership. We have both a right and an obligation to wisdom, but this presupposes a source and ground that is not us. 

The first and most consequential error of which we know is man’s presumption that he is this source, and the rest is history, 32 feet per second per second, which is to say, the speed of our vertical plunge. It's like the expansion of the cosmos, which is always happening.

Vis-a-vis Chesterton’s comment above, reason is a method, while religion is usually thought of as a content. But a method is not a recipe, and content is not arbitrary. Moreover, we are able to reason about religion, while reason elevated to rationalism becomes a pseudo-religion. It is religion stripped of intelligence, precisely. 

It is also possible to have the intelligence of religion without the reason, but this betrayal ends in fundamentalist nonsense. I suppose it’s less deadly than atheistic nonsense, but I wouldn’t want to live in either form of stupidity. 

Ideas that matter. Do they exist? What are they? You will have noticed that left and right can be defined by the ideas that matter to them. 

For example, what the left calls “diversity” not only doesn’t matter to me, but I regard it as literally diabolical (as in the devil as scatterer-in-chief). 

The same can be said of other Important Ideas such as relativism, multiculturalism, equity, materialism, feminism, queer theory, transgenderism, socialism, ablism, atheism, fascism, racism, “antiracism" (but I repeat myself) and many more.

Is there a common thread that unites these diabolical ideas, besides their author? Or, put another way, what is Satan’s Big Idea?

Before getting to that, another aphorism: 

In certain eras the intelligence has to devote itself merely to restoring definition.

Here I have to disagree with my Colombian friend, because this must occur in every era.

How did it get to be 11:30? I have to go, but one last point: above I said that religion is a "content." But what if the ultimate content is Personhood and all it implies? Let's save something for tomorrow.