Since the days of Cain and his building of the city of Enoch, man has endeavored to create his own utopia without God. Man’s hope for such a city reached a crescendo in the secularistically orchestrated city of Babel during the third and fourth generations after the Flood. This hopeful utopia was founded by the rebellious father-and-son team of Cush and Nimrod. Their ungodly ambition was to leave the godly (as did Cain) and to create their own civilization in the land of Shinar. It was at Babel that there was a union of speech (Genesis 11:1), a union of labor (11:3), a union of politic (11:4a), a union of purpose (11:4b), and a union of religion (11:4c). God thwarted their plan, however, by touching the one language and producing a diversity of languages, thus scattering the people.

In the Aramaic the term babel appears to suggest the meaning “the gate of God”; Assyrian inscriptions verify this meaning. The consonants are the same as those of the Hebrew root meaning “confusion.” These two meanings suggest that what to the heathen world is viewed as the gate to God becomes to the Christian confusion. The name Babylon is the Greek form of Babel. Though Babel was the greatest attempt of the Devil to bring about a utopia, there have been others through the centuries who have longed for it, such as in the Shangri-La of Oriental legend, the Republic of Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More. The Bible reveals that this city of Babylon is coming back; its religious utopia is depicted in Revelation 17, and its city-state utopia prophetically is revealed in Revelation 18.

This present article in Straightway is one of several articles that will unfold the end-time movement for the rise of the State over man through the oppressive powers of “political correctness” and the growing parallel ecumenical powers of the end time in “religious correctness.” The city (political) and the tower (religious) are to be built forcing all people of the world to come under the mighty arm of the State and its counterpart in religion. We truly are at the time when the “city” and the “tower” are being philosophically and religiously built.

George Orwell back in 1948 wrote the socialistic novel entitled Nineteen Eighty-four that spoke of “Big Brother” monitoring all that we do and say, a one-world language called “Newspeak,” a unisex of the genders, a control of life and death, and how the State would even control the thoughts and conscience of men universally. Every day now, steps are being taken governmentally to bring us under absolute control of the State even in what we say, believe, and do. The judicial court system heretofore dealt with litigations in the actions of men in crime. However, in 1984, the Supreme Court introduced “public policy” as the new means of interpreting the Constitution of the United States. No doubt, we will soon witness in our country forced litigation against what individuals “believe” and the persuasion of their conscience. It is one thing for law to force toleration of the homosexual’s lifestyle; it is another to witness as we do now laws against any word that condemns homosexuality (as in various “hate crime bills”). The sodomite community will not be content with toleration of their immorality; they will force by law all the citizens to verbally “agree” with the lifestyle. Belief and conscience will be brought to the courts for trial in the near future. “Political correctness” is now the psychological and philosophical tactic to force all men to yield to the State.

In this first article we want to explore the philosophical views of the State throughout early history and how man has approached his individuality in the light of the State and its existence at that time. In the next issue of Straightway, we want to observe the candid powers and the State’s presupposition of “political correctness.” A third article will then unveil the hidden agenda for the “religious correctness” that must come in religion to bring us to the universalism which is fast approaching Neo-Christianity and knocking at the door of Fundamentalism. These truly are signs that reinforce the sobering reality that we are in the last hour of the Last Day of the Last Days.

The State in Greek Philosophy

To begin the historical journey of the State in Western Civilization and the obligation of the individual to the State, we must turn to the early Greek philosophers. The Pythagoreans were some of the earliest Greeks who taught that the individual should subordinate himself to the whole and should act at all times for the good of the State. Thus they taught their members respect for authority and the ideal of sacrifice for the good of the whole. This same general position was taken by Democritus. He held that each one should devote himself wholly to the good of the State because “a well-administered state is our greatest safeguard.” In another place he wrote, “When the state is in a healthy condition, all things prosper; when it is corrupt, all things go to ruin.” He argued that since the ultimate welfare of everyone depended upon the State, it was but reasonable to hold that the welfare of the State was man’s first concern.

After the Persian Wars (500-449 b.c.), Athens became the center of ancient Greek culture. The events leading up to these wars and the developments during the wars instilled in the Athenians an interest in the problems of government and an interest in the democratic form of human living. This led naturally to a growth of independent thinking, which eventually resulted in a growing concern for theories of government. Men began to question the older blind loyalty to the powers of the State, and many began to assert their own independence and their right to a life more or less free from the dominance of the established government. Individualism was in the air. Some suggested that man should divorce himself from the authority of the group and hold himself free to challenge the group and criticize freely the older traditions.

The Sophists led this advance into individualism. They centered attention not on the group, but upon the individual member of the group. They asserted his ultimate worth and independence. They proposed to teach the individual how to succeed, how to gain his own ends, under the law, and even to dodge the law by skillful argument. Indeed, there were Sophists who argued that the laws were mere inventions of the weaker members of the group, of society, to enslave and hold down the stronger. In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, a well-known Sophist contends the following:

The makers of the laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them.

He goes on to assert that the great men of history have been those who refused to obey the laws of the weak majority who have organized to hold them down. It is obvious that this position might easily be interpreted as a call to anarchy, an incentive to rebellion against all authority. And many individuals took it for just that. Thus, much of the Sophist influence led to unreasoned refusal to be subject to the dictates of the group and thus threatened the solidarity of the Athenian state.

Socrates first asked the important questions involved in the problem of the State. Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, recounts that Socrates never tired of asking of everyone he met, “What is a State? What is a statesman? What is a ruler over men? What is a ruling character?” Although he did not answer these questions, he laid the basis for answering them in his major position that the greatest concern of any citizen should be knowledge. The good citizen was one who constantly searched for true knowledge, who was forever questioning. Socrates argued, “When a man discovers true knowledge, he will act on it and will conduct himself rightly in all his relations with his fellows.”

Although Socrates saw defects in the Athenian state and spent a good deal of his time pointing to them and criticizing the rulers for their mistaken ideas about government, he was intensely loyal to Athens. When he had been condemned to death by the Athenian courts, a condemnation that he with many others believed to be wholly unjust, he refused the offer of his friends to bribe the guards and escape. His argument was that by breaking the laws of the State he was thus making it that much weaker. The State, despite its mistakes, was to him a mother who had given him life and had made him what he was. He could no more betray the State than he could betray his mother. His method was not that of rebellion. Nor would he accept exile and turn away from the State. Rather, he counseled his followers to remain loyal to the State, and through this loyalty to help the State correct its faults and mistakes.

Socrates’ student Plato took up the problem where Socrates had left it and endeavored to find a solution. He held that the State was necessary for the highest development of the individual. Goodness was not goodness in isolation, but was goodness in the group. The good man was the good citizen who yielded to the State. Thus, the State should be so constructed that it would make possible the good life for all. Plato argued that the individual should subordinate himself to the State, but that this was simply a means by which the individual could reach his most perfect development. He believed the good of each man was tied up with the good of the group. Laws were necessary only because some people refused to cooperate with the good State. They served to bring these people in line and thus make the whole good.

According to Plato, within the State the best minds should rule. They formed a class of philosopher-rulers whose authority should not be questioned by the rest of the group. Plato believed that since they were philosopher-rulers, their rule would be good and just. They could understand the right and would do it without question. The rest of the members of the State he would place in classes suited to their talents. Those who had a talent for war should be placed in the warrior class. Those who had a talent for mercantile pursuits would be the trade and merchant class. The slaves should be placed in the slave class. Plato believed that such an organization would give the best possible State and that in it each individual, doing his assigned job to the best of his ability, would be happy and would develop to his fullest.

This ideal State is developed in Plato’s famous book, the Republic. In a book written somewhat later, the Laws, he argues that all citizens would have a voice in the government and that all work should be turned over to the slaves. This theory of the State is fundamentally aristocratic. Plato was wealthy, a son of the most favored class in Athens. Being such, he never was able to be wholly democratic but aligned himself with the more aristocratic thought of his day. Further, his theory was strongly socialistic in that it provided for complete control by the State of the lives of its members. The wealth of all was to be devoted to the use of all as they needed and deserved it, and the rulers could say in what class each individual should work and live. The State was supreme, but his doctrine was robbed of its sting by his added argument that in such a State each person would be happy and develop to his fullest.

Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, developed a philosophy of the State which very much resembled that of his teacher. He held that man is by nature a social animal and, as such, can realize his truest self only in society and among his kind. Although the earliest forms of social living were the family and later the local community, the goal of social evolution was, according to Aristotle, the city-state such as was known in Greece during his lifetime. Since Aristotle believed that the whole is prior to its parts, he held that the State was prior to the individual member of the State. The individual is born into the State that existed long before he became a member. But the goal of the State is to produce good citizens in complete obedience. He believed that all men are not equal, and therefore, the State must confer unequal rights. Among the inequalities that he recognized were those of personal abilities, property, birth, and freedom. Slaves are to be treated differently from free men and those born of slaves differently from those born of free men. Aristotle held that a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a “polity” in which the members are nearly equal, are the best forms of the State. On the other hand he condemned as evil a tyranny, an oligarchy, and a democracy.

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all unable to solve the problem of the State and the individual. Their theories were interesting on paper. But the spirit of individualism as championed by the Sophists was sweeping Greece, and each man was concerned primarily with himself and his own success. Slowly but surely the unity of the State was destroyed. Individualism was no pathway to unity against the enemies of Athens and other Greek city-states. As a result, these enemies were successful, and the Greek city-states fell under their yoke one after another. Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, the three great Greek city-states, fell, and eventually all Greece came under the domination of Philip of Macedon at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 b.c.

Amid the gradual crumbling of the city-states of Greece, the Epicureans sought to develop a theory of the State which would fit the situation. They taught that all social life is based on the self-interest of the individual. We become members of a social group simply because we find that in such a group we can get more for ourselves, because the group will give us better protection from our enemies. The Epicureans did not believe that participation in public life would contribute to the happiness of the individual; therefore, they held that the wise man would shun public office and public responsibility as much as possible.

In contrast, the Stoics took a position totally opposite to that of the Epicureans regarding man’s relationship to the group. Man is an individual with an inborn social impulse, which makes necessary group life. Indeed, all men are members of a great cosmic society, the universal State. We all have duties and obligations in this State, and its laws are the natural laws which we must all obey, whether we like it or not. The Stoic State is universal and thus dominates every individual completely. Indeed, each member must be willing at all times to sacrifice himself for the good of the State. Individual interests are always subordinate to the interests of the whole, and the State must be preserved at all cost. The Stoic, then, was to be a universal citizen, a member of the Great Society which includes all men and the laws of which are the universal laws of nature itself. Each man must subordinate himself to the universal ideal and live in such a way as to serve the good of all men wherever they might be. A world society rooted in nature was their ideal. The Stoic ideal of universal brotherhood was the highest point to which the thought of the Greek period arose, and to which other thinkers in days to come were to strive.

Conclusion

Our beloved country of America was born as a republic. A republic protected individualism. But over the years we declined into a democracy. The difference between the two can be seen in the example of a lynch mob coming to hang an individual who may be innocent. In a republic the individual has a right, whereas in a democracy the lynch mob is the majority who will rule the matter. But America is fast plummeting even from a democracy into a socialistic government, the final posture before a communistic, dictatorial government. We are witnessing the “powers that be” taking us into a political dungeon that will destroy individual rights, conscience, belief, and expression of such a belief. Our present leadership is openly denouncing the historical legacy of our country and its Christian heritage. But it is also dismantling the privilege of individualism in belief and conscience. When President John F. Kennedy declared, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” his rhetoric was the grounds for a socialistic and communistic State. A government is established to protect the rights of the individual rather than the individual existing for the State. Thus we are already witnessing the destruction of our “Declaration of Independence” from other countries (as in the American Revolution) and are being deceptively forced into a “Declaration of Interdependence” among the countries of the world, forming the universal brotherhood of a soon-to-be one-world government. It is not so much that George Orwell predicted such a slavery of mankind to one universal State; the Bible, long before Orwell, revealed such a decadence to come where the world would be ruled by one man and a city-state would control the world (Revelation 18).

As government grows in its power and control over our banks, jobs, schools, finances, possessions, and even our freedom of speech, worship, and conscience, we must see that such things must come to pass in God’s scheme of history. A man will arise in history, empowered by the Devil Himself, and will force the world into his “political correctness.” The Christian must prepare his heart and soul for these pressures and distresses that are to come upon the earth. Though we do not believe the Antichrist has personally appeared, yet his forerunners are in their prime and preparing for his coming in establishing the political correctness that will control his agenda. Are we at the crucial hour in the end time when God is declaring to the Devil and his rulers as Christ declared to Judas, “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27b)?

May the Lord prepare us for what lies ahead.