Uncharted Seas

"Having come loose from our moral moorings in this brave new world, we find ourselves adrift in uncharted seas and have decided to toss away the compass. Boston college professor Peter Kreeft, in this Three Philosophies of Life, stated it very succinctly:

Ancient ethics always dealt with three questions. Modern ethics deals with only one, or at the most, two. The three questions are like the three things a fleet of ships is told by its sailing orders. [The metaphor is from C.S. Lewis.] First, the ships must know how to avoid bumping into each other. This is social ethics, and modern as well as ancient ethicists deal with it. Second, they must know how to stay shipshape and avoid sinking. This is individual ethics, virtues and vices, character-building, and we hear very little about this from our modern ethical philosophies. Third, and more important of all, they must know why the fleet is at sea in the first place...I think I know why modern philosophers dare not raise this greatest of questions: because they have no answer to it."

Ravi Zacharias The Real Face of Atheism

The more observant of you will note that there is a distinction made between morals and ethics above. Some may be familiar with the distinction while others may not. Essentially, ethics come from man while morals come from God.

Now, we have abandoned most of the ancient questions. Regarding them as outdated we banish them to those books dealing with history, ancient philosophy and classic psychology. Today we deal with the why and if of ethics as opposed to the what and how. This creates some serious issues. How as a society do we deal with individuals and how do we come to agreement upon where to "steer" society? How do we determine what we stand for? You see, without a solid foundation you have nothing to build upon. Does anyone else agree this is the reason our culture slides into ruin around us?

Now, we actually have and had the foundation in place for millennia although we choose to ignore it today. Without that ageless foundation the building would have come down long ago. In the meantime we have chosen to construct poorly upon it and are moving closer daily to a time where a large enough gust of wind will blow it all down and all we will have left is the bare foundation to rebuild upon.

We have two options: tear out a variety of walls, undo some of our current framing and reframe with suitable reinforcements or wait for the storm to come full force and start from scratch. Do we follow the paths of the Greeks and Romans before us into ruin or do we pull the compass back out and re-chart our course midway?

Sculpture Garden across from Houston MFA

Sculpture Garden across from Houston MFA

Dog on porch along Montrose

Pillar Fountain near Houston MFA

Annunciation Orthodox School