French Revolution: Socialism’s Birth Pangs
Extant Today On the Bodies of Millions
If there his any one event that shows the need to understand philosophy and proper biblical hermeneutics, it is the French Revolution which was a product of ungodly {asebeia} philosophy (Ro 1:18). Continuation of our previous post, Ubermensch Reborn in BLM and Socialism, we will briefly explore the roots of this germinal revolution that very understand even today as its propaganda continues to advertise it as a revolution of freedom like the American Revolution; nothing could be further from the truth. The French Revolution was Satan’s, and Man’s, first attempt at modern absolute Control {Sin: Coveting Control}.
Medievalism was the tyranny of Roman Catholic (RCC) Control over every aspect of life from the castle to the bedroom. RCC was based on gnostic paganistic neo-Platonism and neo-Aristotelian politico-religious-philosophical thoughts so loosely based on the Bible as to defy its association with the true Gospel of the Bible. It was Hermeneutics designed to support the Control goals of the RCC; not the salvation of souls from sin. The Reformation, Protestantism, promised to free societies from RCC tyranny; however, this promise was drowned out in the torrent of war and blood that followed as Protestantism competed with RCC for governmental Control. The resulting 200+ years of war disgusted Western culture with any thought of biblical belief, especially salvation from sin. Out of this morass caused by Satan and sin arose philosophers who offered another solution: a world free from religion; a another lie but promising less bloodshed (Jn 8:44). The reality would be much more horrendous for Western culture and eventual for the entire world. Those who believe that hermeneutics is a worthless endeavor contributed to this bloodshed. Those who dismiss philosophy as a dry exercise of academia devoid of possible use to everyday people became willing slaves of Satan’s Control. This became the birth of Satan’s delusion to finally Control the World and Man (2Th 2:3-12).
The French Revolution’s motto: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity is both contradictory and nihilistic. The thought that storming a government prison would bring peace is akin to thinking that war brings prosperity {the propagandistic myth of how the Great Depression supposedly ended}. But, how did it begin; or, more importantly, why did it begin? Yes, France was nearly bankrupt due to pointless wars. Yes, the aristocracy was isolated from the plight of the citizens it carelessly ruled. And yes, the French RCC exercised tyrannical Control with near impunity. But, what caused the people to rebel, to commit the very sin God condemned and refused to commit Himself in the Bible (1Sa 15:23)?
Goddess of Reason with Phrygian Cap
Guiding Light of Liberty against Tyranny
Philosophy was unleashed during the Renaissance. Originally based on belief in an orderly God making understanding nature a reasonable process, the Enlightenment sought to remove God by substituting Man as God. The heart of the original lie of Satan to Woman (Ge 3:5). Philosophical Foundations of the French Revolution and National Dechristianization, Aspiring Theologian, gives a brief overview of several of these philosophers. We will begin with Baruch Spinoza.
Spinoza, an atheistic Jew {a theme that will frequently appear throughout socialism}, disavowed a personal God of the Bible. He taught that God contained Nature; i.e., panentheism. He believed in a deterministic kosmos dating back to Plato and Aristotle which was in direct opposition to Christianity post-Medieval. Spinoza’s views gave subsequent philosophers permission to view God as an abstract apart from the Bible. God was not the source of morality.
Pierre Bayle went further. His contribution determined, in his own mind, that religion and reason were mutually incompatible. According to Bayle’s analysis or reason, biblical concepts were devoid of truth and all concepts based on these corrupted concepts were likewise devoid of truth. This was possible because of Nicolas Malebranche’s theodicy, God was responsible for evil; though he excuses God by stating that it was an unintended consequence of this Creation. Thus, God is both fallible and capricious as He punishes Man for His errors of judgment. Notice, philosophy moves from God is Nature to God is fallible to religion is incompatible with Man’s Reason. Bayle was a Huguenot, French Protestant, before France, RCC, murderously wiped them out using willing French RCC citizens making murder the norm; a norm that would come back to haunt the RCC during the French Revolution.
Voltaire brought Deism to France from England as a first step to destroying RCC Control. Deism was an attempt of reasonable people to maintain a belief in some God while rejecting the Bible’s God; Thomas Jefferson was such a person; he compared the Bible to a dung heap with a few precious truths in essence. Voltaire championed the separation of State and Church criticizing the contamination of natural philosophy with religious metaphysics. Natural philosophy later split into philosophy and Science, Reason, after the French Revolution. Thus, Voltaire built upon the earlier work of Montequieu who advocated checks and balances and religious tolerance; however, laws should never be based on religious beliefs but on Reason! Again, a reliance on Man, not God.
Like the French Revolution, Socialism Always
Begats Violence Resulting in Deaths of Millions
René Descartes developed the famous maxim of Reason, “I think, therefore I Am” {Capital added}. Building on the work of these earlier anti-Bible thinkers who confused biblical Truth with religious works-based religions, he reached the ultimate conclusion; Man is God because Man Reasons. Man’s morality is totally asunder from God and becomes a floating rationale based on whatever one thinks is right for the moment; America would later develop this into Pragmatism: Ends Justifies the Means.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau would become the Father of the French Revolution. Rousseau legitimized the belief that Man could determine his own morality because Man was basically good but corrupted by social history; notice the emphasis on social, the heart of sociology {Scientism, not Science}. He conceived the idea of The Social Contract whereby each citizen agrees with government as long as it follows the General Will of the people. He never explains how the State will limit its own power or balance the liberty of the individual against the equality of the General Will. This becomes evident in the French Revolution.
France was a perfect example of why government intervention in economics makes a bad problem worse. The monarchy bankrupted the country into economic collapse and destroyed its agriculture infrastructure forcing the powerless common people into Paris, and other major cities looking to the source of their problems for relief; never works. Their incomplete understanding of the implications of RCC religious doctrine and man’s philosophies ignited into the world’s first socialistic revolution with the storming of the Bastille and the beheading of its commander.
An elite group, Committee for Public Safety, purged society of its rejected elements, aristocracy, RCC clerics and others deemed anti-revolutionary. The violence became so wide-spread that it actually killed its own leader, Maximilien Robespierre. This committee was so committed to Reason that it sought to remove ALL religious elements and institute arbitrary structures in its place. The calendar was renamed and restructured. The week was redefined to an arbitrary number from seven days resulting in complete disruption within and without the country. Committee sought to redistribute what goods and foods were available and inevitably brought famine and poverty to all but a few. The French Revolution unleashed human nature resulting not in good but in wholesale degradation and murder down to the lowest level. This so-called liberty revolution produced Napoleon who subdued France with military might and sought to conquer Eurasia. Napoleon was prepared to expend whatever number of soldiers necessary to achieve victory and redefined military strategy just as the French Revolution redefined the State into what would later be known as Socialism.
With the demise of the French Revolution, Socialism did not die. It was redefined and legitimized by Marx who misunderstood the role of the workers and economic forces. It was expanded by Gramsci, Mussolini, Fabian Society and the Frankfurt School, to name a few, to become the foundation of all Western governments today. These can be divided into national socialism and international socialism, current in their regional socialism stage.
And the motto of the Revolution; its Social Contract? The Committee seize the Liberty to forcibly remake society as it determined which was the forced Equality (of outcome) to forge a new society, a Fraternity steeped in propaganda and lies that persist to this day.
And what became of Reason’s triumph over God? While the Committee held worship services in deserted cathedrals to the goddess of Reason, a religious service, The State delegated Reason beneath religion, a weakened form of RCC, to prevent its own destruction. Religion is the means of defining morality. Without morality human nature unveils its evil in debauchery, murder and destruction. Just look at the murder rates of American major cities governed by socialistic Democratic principles.
Reason broke away from philosophy to become Science and remains worshiped today as superior to biblical faith for determining morality and knowledge. During today’s manmade Covid-19 crisis, governments worldwide appealed to Science to justify their forced limitations of individual and economic freedoms even though the data did not support their imposed lockdown and mask mandates! Science morphed into Scientism; that is, Science became the handmaiden of the State to enforce Equality which removes individual Liberty to fashion a new Fraternity of international socialism through a Great Reset, a title of their own choosing!
The red Phrygian Cap, a symbol of a slave’s liberation, has become the symbol of one’s return to slavery through Keynesian economics, scientism and social controls through such groups as BLM. The ultimate goal is to return everyone back to slavery through absolute control via nanotechnology. This is the chilling warning of Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek {Road to Serfdom.} who left Herr Hitler’s national socialistic Germany pre-war. He saw the very same tendencies in so-called democratic Great Britain and America as he experienced in Germany. Those warnings were largely ignored. The Great War, Parts One and Two, solidified socialism in various forms as the dominant government in Western societies. Marxism’s socialism either changed, Communist China, or imploded, USSR, giving rise to the delusion that socialism was defeated.
Instead, social controls and movements are in place to propagandize populations into embracing socialism using Bernays handbook, Propaganda and supported by the scientism of psychology, education, sociology and entertainment/information industries. Critical theory, tearing down the Thesis {biblical morality} by using the Antithesis {man-centered/defined morality} to Synthesize and new, but old, social order of globalized socialism beginning with regional socialisms. These changes are the legacy of the French Revolution. These changes are the chains of enslavement which today’s people embrace; even demand from their governments.
Governments are Surrogates of Control;
Satan’s Emissaries Exercise Control via Him
God is not dead. We have not killed Him. Man has killed himself by freeing himself from God. Theodicy is a false dilemma fallacy. It blames God for evil while demanding God use force to prevent man from doing evil. God has allowed Man to build the society he desires from the beginning (Ro 1:18-28). God gave Man up three times; pulled back His Control so Man, Satan, could exercise his own Control. Te result was increased degradation and violence leading to wholesale deaths imitating the French Revolution. Man is achieving what he has always desired: World without God; enslavement to sin (Ro 6:15-21). Man sought to become the Ubermansch only to become the slave of Satan and sin leading to eternal death (Re 20:11-15). The Bible is correct: everything visible is built on that which is invisible (He 11:3). Science {Reason}, limited to the empirical is forced to rely on scientism to force you into this enslavement. The only hope is the Gospel which fewer believe because they have been propagandized into the logical fallacy that Reason {Science} holds the answer to morality and life via Posthumanism. This choice is nihilism personified for this Creation will pass away (He 1:8-12). What hope is there if not in Christ who lives forever and is ever ready to make intercession for those who come to Him for salvation (Mt 11:28-30; He 7:25-26)?