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“Who Decides What Is Best?”
Thomas Sowell’s ideas have taken root in the soil of the next generation. Sowell has written over thirty books over forty years of weekly writings. Hundreds of Sowell’s interviews can be found everywhere on YouTube. Jason Riley, himself a prolific writer, has done the world a service by reviewing the lifetime impact of Thomas Sowell in Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell.
Maverick should be read by everyone everywhere. Everyone in the sciences or the humanities needs exposure to the intellectual history and ideas that Maverick provides. Not only does Riley give an exceptional review of Sowell’s life and thought, but he also shows how the Hoover Institution fellow establishes the basis for how to think. Every person on the planet asks enduring questions about philosophy, knowledge, interpretation, and justice. Sowell always approaches his subjects with our views of human nature in mind. Summarizing Sowell, you either believe in the tension between human depravity and human dignity or you believe that you can make humans perfectible by human rules.
As a matter of full disclosure, I have been reading Thomas Sowell’s books and columns and watching his videos for decades. Sowell’s thinking has been influential to my own intellectual processing for most of my teaching life. As Hebraic-Christian thinkers know, it is important to weave biblical, doctrinal thinking through an explanation of Sowell’s visions. Essential to biblical understanding is the origin of ideas, acknowledging that The Personal Eternal Triune Creator of all things has set the stage for human understanding of everything.
Sowell’s concern should be the concern for all citizens of all countries everywhere,
“The most basic question is not what is best but who shall decide what is best”
Answering the question, “Who says?” should be at the center of our concern as well. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.
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Published in General
Yes. But we don’t get to be our own infallible interpreters.
Yes, the Bible is not subject to personal interpretation. But to paraphrase: Who decides what is the interpretation?
But ultimately, we must humbly answer to our own consciences.
Well, yes. But doesn’t that only come in after interpretation? To do the actual interpretation, we must answer humbly to the facts.
Every man gives a personal account to God. God’s Word, through Paul, says regarding obedience and conscience, from memory: Who are you to judge another man’s servant?
The context iirc is that one man believes that eating meat sacrificed to idols is sinful, and another man believes it is not. In this instance God reiterates that we will be judged or exonerated by our obedience to our consciences which He says are informed by the Holy Spirit; if God’s law and judgment applied equally to all men, then there is apparently merciful room for individual interpretation even if it may be wrong.
Ok, sounds good.
Is this supposed to be an objection to anything I said?
Not at all, it’s just an explanation of my thinking in answer to your question. I don’t go much for sequencing and chicken/egg thinking. I’ve always thought this order is sequentially true: fact>faith>feeling. But nowadays, I think they can even all happen at once. For example, functionally, faith may not be based on the fact, but the faith actually clarifies the fact.
It seems to me, that in much the same way, the conscience clarifies and establishes the interpretation.
Well said! Yes, you are right: Conscience does play into getting the right interpretation. Belief affects what we see, and the state of our hearts can make us blind.
Better said, and clearer.
Thanks to you.