The Man & the Message

“…for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” -Matt. 12:34

Ad hominem is a Latin phrase that simply means “to the man.” It has come into clichéd usage to refer to an attack upon someone’s work or body of ideas because of a character flaw within the author of that work. We all have an expectation that others will practice what they preach or else we feel somewhat free to ignore what they say. While this is true up to a point, some have hidden behind the inconsistencies of men to deny the truth of God as if that is excuse enough. Hardly so, as Paul would exclaim that God’s truth still stands even though all men be liars. So it is that the earth is still round even should my 6th grade science teacher be found to be a scoundrel, thief, and a wastrel.

Nevertheless, the ad hominem test is one which is still valid and needful today. There is a very strong undertow in our society today that says that a man’s professional life and personal life are two entirely different matters. What a person does in his personal life is none of our business. As a result, we can find college professors who parade by day as respected scholars and by night are producers of pornography with not a blush of inconsistency or shame. How far we have come from Harry Truman who wouldn’t knowingly hire a man who had cheated on his wife: “You know, if a man will lie to his wife, he'll lie to me. And if he'll break his oath of marriage, he'll break his oath of office.”

And in the area of scholarship, I want to know the personal credentials of an author as well as any honors and degrees he might hold. It can often be quite revealing. It tells me of what bent that writer or thinker is and if they have been able to live consistently with the ideas they are propounding. I remember very distinctly sitting in a history of education class as we were exposed to a lengthy exposition of the Emile by Jean Jaques Rousseau. To his credit, it was one of the first major treatises upon the subject of education other than the Bible and described in great detail the ideal education of a child at the hearthside of his parents. What they did not tell me in that class was that Rousseau fathered several children and turned them all over to an orphanage as soon as they were born. I was never able to read that book again without total contempt.

It is long recognized that in all the social sciences and literature that the prejudices and predilections of an author will easily color the results of his research and writings. In knowing these preconceptions, we can understand so much more fully the product of that person’s scholarship and be apprised of his intentions. I was recently interested to discover that, even in the field of economics, morality matters. John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was a giant in matters of macro-economics, the finance of nations. He still casts a strong shadow upon the thinking of world leaders including our own. He advocated powerful central governments promoting prosperity through inflationary policies and spending on public works. In his view, a severe public crisis called for deliberate public deficits. Sound familiar? It turns out he was a deeply rebellious intellectual who imbibed a severe atheism in his youth. In his Cambridge days, he was part of a group who “entirely repudiated a personal liability … to obey general rules. We claimed the right to judge every individual case on its merits, and the wisdom to do so successfully. This was a very important part of our faith, violently and aggressively held, and for the outer world it was our most obvious and dangerous characteristic. We repudiated entirely customary morals, conventions, and traditional wisdom.” Part of the wisdom that Keynes repudiated was classical economics which emphasized work and savings in an environment of economic freedom and sound money. He trashed it simply as “Puritanism.”

Do we really want to follow someone who rejects tradition simply because it is old, who violently reacts to anything Christian because it smacks of God, who is totally conceited with his own wisdom because it is “superior”? And then should we trust him with the treasure of nations and the fate of peoples to say nothing of our 401-K’s? Apparently we have, and we will undoubtedly face the consequences whatever those may be. Did no one check this man’s credentials at the door before we gave him the keys to the kingdom? Ad hominem, I say.

Mercy and Truth,

Mr. Moe