JOHN DEWEY AD 1859-1952
Proverbs 16:9 “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”
John Dewy was like so many of our Christian young people who grow up in Christian homes and are sent away to one of our prestigious universities to earn an education that will help them through their life, but come away losing the faith that they once had.
At the time John Dewey started his higher education he joined one of the largest groups on campus called Student Christian Association. One of his first speeches was on ‘THE OBLIGATION TO KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.’ In that speech he acknowledged that belief is “not a privilege, but a duty.” While at Michigan State University he taught a Bible class on ‘The Life of Christ.’ However, John’s faith, like so many of our young people today, was too little to survive.
In his first publication ‘Psychology’ he argued that logic proved God to be a necessity, but G. Stanley Hall his former instructor at John Hopkins University and William James criticized it and made him re-examine his thinking and moved him towards ‘pragmatism’- a naturalistic approach that viewed knowledge as arising from an active adaptation of the human organism to its environment. In other words, pragmatism is gaining knowledge through human reasoning and experience. Somewhere between 1884 and 1900 Dewey abandoned the Christian faith. He counted himself a “religious humanist.” Perhaps Apostle Paul’s description of man who is “ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,” fits John Dewey. (2 Timothy 3:7)
In the end John Dewey, like so many other philosophers, admits that we cannot know anything for certain. Why? Because when we deny the most basic truth of all – the existence of God and His Truth – we cannot come to the knowledge of truth. What a difference with the Lord Himself when He says: “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3) Jesus was certain!!!
John Dewey had – and still does exert – tremendous influence on our educational system. For him education was to enable a person to fit into the social fabric of the state. Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, wanted to replace home education with the state’s education. Dewey would be in agreement with that. For Dewey, “All educational content is subservient to the social element – training the young person to belong to the social unit and pursue the objectives of the social unit.” No matter how unwise, ungodly, and unintelligent the social unit may be. In other words, everything else – academics, character formation and training, fear of God, etc. takes a back seat. So like Kevin Swanson says: “Education becomes the play-ground for faceless planners whose objective is to mold future society in public schools and universities.” This type of system leads to the centralization of our education to the State and the goal is to make sure that the child is in tune with the ‘social consciousness.’
What I thought was interesting about this system is that human individuality is lost. Dewey goes on to say: “The deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a unity of work and thought.” We are taught to move in ‘herds.’ I have seen this in some of the countries that I have ministered in and have had people to actually tell me that the populace moves and acts like a ‘herd.’ I wonder where that came from???
We see this in our entertainment. My wife and I went and saw the film called ‘Divergent’ and saw how in this futuristic scene society is fitted into units (herds) so that there might be peace instead of war, but like so many of our philosophers they do not recognize the ‘fallenness of man.’
When there are no absolutes the pragmatist (out of his own human reasoning) admits that it can never know what is the highest good or what might produce it. So to overcome the problem the social and political leaders choose what they think is the highest good or the goal in what man must seek.
What is interesting is that once the social leaders choose the goal they can then bring in the scientists to explain how they will achieve this goal. Take for example the goal today of “global warming.” The goal is to correct global warming and now the scientists are trying to convince us of the steps that we must take.
When Darwin’s theory of evolution took God as the ultimate Judge of the Universe out of the equation then man has been relieved of all meaning, purpose and absolutes. So, Dr. Will Provine of Cornell University argues that “if evolution is true then there can be no life after death, no transcendent purpose, no morality, and no free will.” He speaks of his own suicide.
What these academic leaders are recognizing is that suicide feels like freedom. When there is no purpose or meaning to life then the logical conclusion of their worldview is suicide. When God fades, truth fades, ethics fade, reality fades and what is man or society left with? Nothing but emptiness, and so post-modern man and his societies commit suicide.
This is where we are moving in the 21st century and the church (the holder of the truth) in the days ahead will have a tremendous opportunity for a great harvest.
Will the church be ready?