Free-writing Notes: TTANC Volume 2
The bottom line for the artisan is to be fulfilled by whatever his contribution is to society. To mind that business and no other business, and to trust the dictates of those who know while ever acknowledging that he knows nothing. The result is unity of soul and society. For the Protestant artisan, New Calvinist Mark Driscoll stated it plainly:
“Shut up and do what you are told.”[45]
That may seem harsh, but Protestant philosopher kings, like any well-meaning Platonist philosopher, endeavor to show the artisans the way of happiness. The way is to live according to the primary shape of their soul. The producer’s life destiny, yea, the paramount purpose of his life, is his specific contribution to society, or the group. In this, he is happy and fulfilled. It’s Plato’s “attending to your own business and nobody else’s,” and it’s Luther’s “emptying of self,” “taking up one’s cross,” or “self-death.”
Hence, be sure of it, the vast majority of sermons on any given Sunday morning in this era of New Calvinism are going to be geared towards the perpetual reinforcement of human incompetence and dependence on orthodoxy. Theology will not be taught; Bible study skills will not be taught; precepts will not be taught; application will not be taught, only “the cross” will be taught; ie., the reality that the common man cannot know truth and is totally worthless save his contribution to societal unity.
The gateway to happiness is the Reformation’s epistemology of the cross: man is fulfilled when he endeavors to gain a deeper and deeper understanding of his inability to know. He must know that he cannot know in a deeper and deeper way, and the Reformed philosopher kings are his Bhramins that lead him into a deeper and deeper knowledge of his own depravity. This is Plato’s mythology that enables the artisan to be content in his predestined role. He is utterly worthless to God, but can find redemption in his contribution to Plato’s just society.
All in all, this is Reformed thought: it is a rejoicing in evil and human ignorance.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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The problem with this philosophy is that it denies any valid definition of SELF. You cannot know YOU, and so how can you know God? Know anything?
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You can know self according to the philosophy–you are a sinner, but that is all you can know. Socrates believed the wise man knows that he knows nothing. Same deal. Athenian incompetence became Protestant sin. The Athenian true forms became Jesus. New Calvinists teach Christ as the summation of all reality. Life events are a gospel narrative written and preordained by God. It’s all the same deal.
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