Prompt 48: April 1, 2025
As the materialist worldview of our enlightenment-era founders fades from our cultural convictions, a deeper fog awaits us in the meaning crisis. Feminism has proven the most revolutionary force in the space of values, but as a coherent worldview, it lacks any connection to nature or to our implicit experiences in the world. If they had their way, feminists would reshape all creation to ensure nothing fertile, free, or abundant were in the way of our liberation from nature. If this sounds dramatic, read their literature. If Judith Butler’s gender philosophy doesn’t disturb, read fictitious representations of this ideology like in C.S. Lewis’ dystopian novel That Hideous Strength or review any of your old fairy-tales with witch-like characters.[1] The point here is not to dispute the tenets of postmodernism or the deconstructionists, but to note the violent revolutionary nature of these ideologies.
There is another path in which we can recover both the enlightenment-era tools and a traditional enchantment to saturate the world with meaning [2]. In the attached pages, you will find a brief commentary on the Genesis account of creation which describes the lost cosmology of ancient stories. Pageau argues that the biblical cosmology is a different form of understanding than the scientific worldview. Instead of identifying objects through the questions of “what is this made of?” or “how does this work?” the traditional worldview identifies objects by the questions of “what does this mean?” or “what higher principle is embodied?”
What does it mean to saturate the world with meaning?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:1-5
The thread is open. Create boldly, and may the Spirit guide us all.
Notes
- Two other sources came to mind as female responses to fourth-wave feminist ideology.
- Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey
- In various interviews, comedian Rosanne Barr rejects her previous affiliation with feminism. When asked if she still considers herself a feminist, Rosanne says she “identifies as a grandmother.” When further questioned on where feminism went wrong, she mentioned “they [postmodern feminists] hate all human life…they hate themselves… they hate reality…and they hate God.”
- Here’s another wonderful talk on how logos exists within all things.