Inherit the Wind
My client Chief Architect, Tony, a 63 year old intelligent soft-natured Texan, when I asked him the usual question I ask many people, 'What is your favorite movie?' said 'Inherit the Wind'. It’s been about a year since he said it and only a few days back I got a chance to see the movie. Actually the last part of the movie in MGM channel.
Gosh!!! It was great. It about the Creationism Vs Darwinism controversy. Actually its based on a real court case called 'Money Trail' in 1925 in Tennesse where it was prohibited by law to teach Darwinism in schools. But a teacher taught Darwinism and was pulled into court.
At the court, Darwinism does an intellectual coup during the arguments, but Creationism wins the case. And creationism though has won the case, is not vindicated by the intelligentsia as represented by the press.
The lead Creationism witness is a respected Presbyterian who had run for the presidential election thrice. After all, what could a good man who had never trained his mind to be critical or cynical of anything good in life, do in the face of such a (pseudo)intellectual challenge.
As the trail wears on and the incredulity of the Presbyterian becomes obvious, the lawyer representing Darwinism instead of reveling in the intellectual victory is, on the contrary, haunted by a loss of meaning. In spite of the humiliation and the intellectual ineptness of the Christian witness to counter his arguments, the lawyer finds in him an inexplicable zeal and passion which he himself lacked, and realizes that there is something beyond the intellectual from which the Presbyterian drew his value and meaning from.
Consequently what one would expect to be moments of exuberance about impending victory becomes moments of intense poignancy for the Lawyer. He wonders what it was that he was missing which the Presbyterian didn’t, and from which the Presbyterian could draw all his strength. The lawyer had a gnawing feeling in his heart that it wasn’t the impersonal reason, which was the Lawyer’s driving force, that the Presbyterian missed. The Presbyterian seemed to have something much more unphantomable and strong, something much better than intellect or reason.
After the whole thing is over, when the lead reporter, an inexorable atheist, declares that press would declare the Darwinian side the winner, the Darwinism lawyer looks at him and asks if he, at the end of everything, if he didn’t feel that there was something more to life than reason or intellect, and that value and meaning in life was lost without that something.
Whenever physical theories of physical sciences are extrapolated into metaphysical truths of religion and life, value and meaning are lost and the truth in the last words of the lead Darwinism lawyer exemplifies it
He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart Proverbs 11:29
This movie was made way back in 1960, back at that time Nihilism and Postmoderism weren't yet the order of the day, you'll be surprised to see how the arguments of the lead Darwinism lawyer rests on the optimism of 'renaissance reason' completely devoid of the nihilistic delusion about human reason.
As I was listening to his arguments, my mind was reeling with what Peter Kreeft, C.S.Lewis, James W. Sire had to say.
The Darwinism Lawyer makes his case that it is reason that is superior to revelation. But he some how never seems to wonder how something so beautiful as reason would exist without a maker when ‘Mona Lisa’ something much less beautiful needs One.
He also somehow seems to forget the point made by the man who was the first to hail reason was the arbiter of Truth, Des Cartes, when he said that there had to be a good God for reason to be good enough. Without a good God, there is no way one can trust reason to be good.
Withoug a good God, the snake of reason begins to eat its own tail.
Gosh!!! It was great. It about the Creationism Vs Darwinism controversy. Actually its based on a real court case called 'Money Trail' in 1925 in Tennesse where it was prohibited by law to teach Darwinism in schools. But a teacher taught Darwinism and was pulled into court.
At the court, Darwinism does an intellectual coup during the arguments, but Creationism wins the case. And creationism though has won the case, is not vindicated by the intelligentsia as represented by the press.
The lead Creationism witness is a respected Presbyterian who had run for the presidential election thrice. After all, what could a good man who had never trained his mind to be critical or cynical of anything good in life, do in the face of such a (pseudo)intellectual challenge.
As the trail wears on and the incredulity of the Presbyterian becomes obvious, the lawyer representing Darwinism instead of reveling in the intellectual victory is, on the contrary, haunted by a loss of meaning. In spite of the humiliation and the intellectual ineptness of the Christian witness to counter his arguments, the lawyer finds in him an inexplicable zeal and passion which he himself lacked, and realizes that there is something beyond the intellectual from which the Presbyterian drew his value and meaning from.
Consequently what one would expect to be moments of exuberance about impending victory becomes moments of intense poignancy for the Lawyer. He wonders what it was that he was missing which the Presbyterian didn’t, and from which the Presbyterian could draw all his strength. The lawyer had a gnawing feeling in his heart that it wasn’t the impersonal reason, which was the Lawyer’s driving force, that the Presbyterian missed. The Presbyterian seemed to have something much more unphantomable and strong, something much better than intellect or reason.
After the whole thing is over, when the lead reporter, an inexorable atheist, declares that press would declare the Darwinian side the winner, the Darwinism lawyer looks at him and asks if he, at the end of everything, if he didn’t feel that there was something more to life than reason or intellect, and that value and meaning in life was lost without that something.
Whenever physical theories of physical sciences are extrapolated into metaphysical truths of religion and life, value and meaning are lost and the truth in the last words of the lead Darwinism lawyer exemplifies it
He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart Proverbs 11:29
This movie was made way back in 1960, back at that time Nihilism and Postmoderism weren't yet the order of the day, you'll be surprised to see how the arguments of the lead Darwinism lawyer rests on the optimism of 'renaissance reason' completely devoid of the nihilistic delusion about human reason.
As I was listening to his arguments, my mind was reeling with what Peter Kreeft, C.S.Lewis, James W. Sire had to say.
The Darwinism Lawyer makes his case that it is reason that is superior to revelation. But he some how never seems to wonder how something so beautiful as reason would exist without a maker when ‘Mona Lisa’ something much less beautiful needs One.
He also somehow seems to forget the point made by the man who was the first to hail reason was the arbiter of Truth, Des Cartes, when he said that there had to be a good God for reason to be good enough. Without a good God, there is no way one can trust reason to be good.
Withoug a good God, the snake of reason begins to eat its own tail.