My father, a product of the emergence of modern American life in the early twentieth century, died in 1929, of tuberculosis at 36 years of age. He was not educated beyond some high school, was something of a dandy of the age, leaving six children to the care of others as his only legacy. He remains a distant shadow in my life. The last five years of his life he lived away from my mother and the three infants she bore him. It proved beneficial in that we did not contract his disease, the #1 killer at the time. There were hospices (sanatoriums) at the time that took in only tubercular patients. About two years after his death, I inherited a stepfather. He was a good man, but never really became a father in the meaning of what a child needs. This may have occurred because my mother rejected his offer to adopt her children. I have often thought of him. He had a philosophy of life that was as simple as one might imagine. For him it was incomplete, but acceptable. He would not know how to spell philosophy much less understand what was asked for if someone requested his life philosophy. But, like all other persons, he had a silent philosophy he lived by, with everything judged by its honesty and usefulness in every-day life. I never heard him use the word, God. I put my mother in a box of great respect in our home, but she was not consciously forming my life.
When I became a Christian, at seventeen years of age, I wanted to form a context of meaning for life. Life seemed contradictory to me. My search was full of pulling first one way then another. I wanted to be good, but I would often be bad. I decided to study Christian life, and remain fully interested in humanistic education. I carried this through Christian and secular education, noting along the way that Christians, even with their contradictions, were doing better in the unity of their lives than I found among persons in humanistic contexts. Professors in the same departments in some universities were so differentiated in the contexts of thought and life that they might not relate to each other, and on some occasions would argue vehemently, not just for their intellectual concepts but for their emotional differences. Philosophy’s promises, from ancients to moderns did not serve direction enough for hoped-for peace.
During the decades of my life the Christian philosophy formed in me, and took over. I have been satisfied in its fullness for me through my years. I learned much from professors, both Christians and Naturalists in their views. There were some factors all of them seemed to espouse firmly. One of these was source. What is your source for this or that? For example, in preparing my doctoral dissertation a couple of the profs on the committee wanted to know what I found in the research that either supported or amended the views of Aristotle. Not only did I need to know what Aristotle wrote about the field, but what context that made sense or nonsense, for Aristotle’s meaning. The procedure is a valid one. It surprises me somewhat, when a person will find greatness in the thoughts of our predecessors, ancient and modern, then presume Christians are mired in a buried past when they base faith views on ancient Scripture. Life began there.
Tests may relate to feasibility and workability. Are the conclusions true, or once true do they remain so? For example in rhetoric, the ancient Romans believed that the strongest point in a rhetorical presentation ought to be the first point of the address. Modern rhetoricians have followed various research studies to prove the ancient theory and practice – or to disprove it. They found that the idea is sound, proven through the application of scientific search methodology (statistics) in the 1960s. (It may have changed since, so we replicate the study.) It remains that philosophy is usually made through exposures that appeal to persons. They like this one, think less of that one, and deplore the third. They choose the one they like and then build an intellectual structure that ultimately touches conduct. In that faith they move on to do whatever they choose to advance that context. The point to be made then is to ask what is effective in the context. One of the reasons for authoring these Pages is to present the factors that honor Christian life, faith and conduct. Christian life and thought proves orderly and effective. List life principles from Scripture and ask their value – even as humanistic concepts. Even pagans improve in their adoption. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020