What causes nations and empires to decline?
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Awenwonder
Puritan Board Freshman
Ultimately, the sovereignty of God. But are you really asking what practical means does God use to bring down nations and empires?
Quote from historian Will Durant:
A certain tension between religion and society marks the highest stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a “conflict between science and religion” Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and — after some hesitation — the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike, to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end, a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile, among the oppressed, another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization.
I agree--except to say that Christianity will survive the fall of Western Civilization.
A certain tension between religion and society marks the highest stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a “conflict between science and religion” Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and — after some hesitation — the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike, to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end, a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile, among the oppressed, another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization.
I agree--except to say that Christianity will survive the fall of Western Civilization.
Rich Coffeen
Puritan Board Freshman
Biblical Philosophy of History
Some classic reasons offered by historians: plague, famine, external invasion, declining birthrate, weather changes, exhausted local resources, adoption of a destructive worldview (fatalism, relativism, master-race-ness, cyclical time, etc.), STD's, animal migrations, currency debasement, hedonism.
Biblical philosophy of history comes from Deut 28: nations that obey are blessed, nations that disobey are cursed. Since God applies these promises to nations other than Israel (Sodom, Canaan, Tyre, Babylon, etc.), as well as to Israel herself (most especially in 586 BC and AD 70), I am inclined to think that this is still how we are to interpret history.
As the centuries go by, cultures that obey the external terms of the covenant should be expected to receive the external blessings of the covenant, and vice-versa.
Some classic reasons offered by historians: plague, famine, external invasion, declining birthrate, weather changes, exhausted local resources, adoption of a destructive worldview (fatalism, relativism, master-race-ness, cyclical time, etc.), STD's, animal migrations, currency debasement, hedonism.
Biblical philosophy of history comes from Deut 28: nations that obey are blessed, nations that disobey are cursed. Since God applies these promises to nations other than Israel (Sodom, Canaan, Tyre, Babylon, etc.), as well as to Israel herself (most especially in 586 BC and AD 70), I am inclined to think that this is still how we are to interpret history.
As the centuries go by, cultures that obey the external terms of the covenant should be expected to receive the external blessings of the covenant, and vice-versa.
Most of the most successful empires have been the most evil.
I think the clip only applies to Western cultures which possess changing philosophies as they decline (Greek, Roman, maybe Western)....but there is a lot more of the world that Schaeffer's theory does not apply to.
Also, Will Durant's quote speaks of "religion" but his quote cannot be as easily applied to Islamic Empires, Hindu Empires, etc.
I think the clip only applies to Western cultures which possess changing philosophies as they decline (Greek, Roman, maybe Western)....but there is a lot more of the world that Schaeffer's theory does not apply to.
Also, Will Durant's quote speaks of "religion" but his quote cannot be as easily applied to Islamic Empires, Hindu Empires, etc.
Osage Bluestem
Puritan Board Junior
Electing Democrats to office.
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
I believe that the answer may be found in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. This would appear to be the general rule, while exceptions may occasionally be found.
Calvin's sermons on Deuteronomy 27 and 28 flesh this out in detail. Here is an excerpt:
Cheers,
Calvin's sermons on Deuteronomy 27 and 28 flesh this out in detail. Here is an excerpt:
Cheers,
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
The Confession cites Leviticus 26 (and by implication, Deut. 28) as showing what sorts of curses God gives in this life for sin. This was Calvin's view as well, though obviously stripped of some of the typical aspects which were proper to Israel.
Also, it is significant that the Land of Canaan vomitted out the Canaanites for their sins, demonstrating that this is nothing unique to Israel:
These things having nothing typical in them.
Cheers,
Adam
But if this OT rule is applied more broadly to all nations rather than OT Israel and those nations which God commanded Israel during this era to kill (all their women and children too), then I do not see this rule being fulfilled today or even at that time among other nations outside of that specific time and geographical region.
It is not an obvious rule of nations. It is not self-evident. Evil empires often seem to prosper more.
God chooses to vomit out some sinners from some lands, but he prospers other sinners in other lands and there does not even seem to be a correlation high enough to say that this is a general rule.
Yes, the Confession cites OT passages which seem to say that bad things happen to sinners. And the Proverbs also give general outlines as well regarding the consequences of sin, i.e., that lazy people will be poor, etc.
But we cannot apply this as a general rule for how nations have risen and fallen in history because the NT often speaks of God calling the poor, and evil people being in power. There is a theme in Scripture of God having mercy on the poor, persecuted, down-trodden. And in the history of nations, it is usually the evil that do the trodding down.
It is not an obvious rule of nations. It is not self-evident. Evil empires often seem to prosper more.
God chooses to vomit out some sinners from some lands, but he prospers other sinners in other lands and there does not even seem to be a correlation high enough to say that this is a general rule.
Yes, the Confession cites OT passages which seem to say that bad things happen to sinners. And the Proverbs also give general outlines as well regarding the consequences of sin, i.e., that lazy people will be poor, etc.
But we cannot apply this as a general rule for how nations have risen and fallen in history because the NT often speaks of God calling the poor, and evil people being in power. There is a theme in Scripture of God having mercy on the poor, persecuted, down-trodden. And in the history of nations, it is usually the evil that do the trodding down.
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
There is no mention of holy war in the passages. Different subject. No one should presume to invade another's land without a voice from heaven telling him to do so. Again, different subject.
Evil empires quake and fall. What sort of history books are you reading?
God stated that the land vomits certain types of nations out of their lands. It is built into the fabric of creation. If the land does not, it is mercy, but mercy will not endure forever for the unrepentant.
Then your problem is with Scripture, and its general rules, not with me.
Please produce specific examples covering the topic of the fall of nations. I can cite dozens from the NT dealing with the fall of a nation for its sin.
Adam
There is a tension in Scripture:
---One tension is that if we follow the proverbs and righteousness, you will live well.
---And also, that not many wise, etc, are called, and that the people of God were often the poor and the oppressed.
What I have a problem with is an attempt to formulize the reasons why God has set the boundaries of nations as he has. The race is not to the swift so often under the sun, and the wicked often prosper under the sun. And God raises up evil regimes while the church is ordained to be persecuted in many lands.
---One tension is that if we follow the proverbs and righteousness, you will live well.
---And also, that not many wise, etc, are called, and that the people of God were often the poor and the oppressed.
What I have a problem with is an attempt to formulize the reasons why God has set the boundaries of nations as he has. The race is not to the swift so often under the sun, and the wicked often prosper under the sun. And God raises up evil regimes while the church is ordained to be persecuted in many lands.
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
I was not formulizing the reasons why God did this or that. God already formulized that. I was simply speaking of God's revealed will in the matter. And I'm not sorry I did. I'm not binding God in a box, I'm simply seeking to understand how His declarations concerning such matters apply to us.
Israel was destroyed by their wickedness, Rome fell when they plunged themselves into debauchery, pleasure seeking idolary: panem et circences. Even civil virtues keep nations alive. The Canaanites were not ready for judgment in Abraham's day, but by the time Israel was delivered out of Egypt, the iniquity of the Amorites was full. God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone from heaven. The Fertile Crescent was turned into a huge desert once Islam overcame it. Christendom builty Europe from a howling wilderness to a fruitful and pleasant land. The loss of Christendom has depopulated Europe. It's not rocket science.
TaylorOtwell
Puritan Board Junior
Forgetting God.
I am not sure any divine formula is as tight as you would make it.
The Muslim empires flourished while Europe sat as a stinking cesspool for a thousand years and the Greek philosophers had to be rediscovered, many times from Muslim sources. Today, Norway, Sweden, Japan are among some of the most prosperous and Godless nations.
Rome was sinful when it fell, but also was sinful during its climb to power, some of its intrigues and conspiracies helped to cement power for the Empire in many cases.
Among the wealthiest in the US include secular Jewish people and homosexuals.
I do grant that monotheism helps develop individualism and a belief in a rational God helps develop the sciences. Also, winter seasons seem to help develop foresight and planning that many of the hot, tropical countries never developed.
But there are many variables.
Solomon could look at the world in its appearances as apparent chance. If Solomon could not find a rigid formula, then neither can I.
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
This is simply not true. This is the Enlightenment's revisionist history of the "dark ages."
Are you familiar with the current economic crisis? Are you aware of Japan's monetary problems? The general rule is not accomplished in a day. From Abraham to Moses was a few hundred years before the iniquity of the Amorites was full. God is patient, but this does not invalidate what He has declared in Scripture.
All recognize the sins of Rome from the beginning. But they also had much more civil virtue at the inception than in the end. This is indisputable.
They flourish so that God may cut them down; what of it?
Precisely. There is no chance, and therefore, it is only apparent.
Cheers,
Adam
But it is apparent, so apparent that Solomon could note it in Ecclesiastes and make it a major theme.
God will cut down the wicked, but at the Last Day. Many individuals and nations that are wicked flourish right up until that day.
There are general truths that, if followed, may lead to a better physical life or more wealth, but there is not a rigid formula (more godly equals a more successful nation, less godly equals a decline in the nation). This appears to be just the wealth and Health Gospel writ-large and applied to nations.
The OP concerns what causes nations to rise or decline, and Schaeffer often proposes many philosphical reasons. Yet, military might, geographical resources, the "chance" events of plague and disaster, the number and strength of one's enemies at the borders, are all factors which get ignored by Scaeffer. The brightest and morally best do not always rise to the top in this world, exactly as is told us in Ecclesiastes, and - even if some general truths can generally lead to a better physical life on earth (i.e., the proverbs' wisdom concerning hard work), there is not a rigid formulaic cause-effect between morality and the rise and fall of nations.
God will cut down the wicked, but at the Last Day. Many individuals and nations that are wicked flourish right up until that day.
There are general truths that, if followed, may lead to a better physical life or more wealth, but there is not a rigid formula (more godly equals a more successful nation, less godly equals a decline in the nation). This appears to be just the wealth and Health Gospel writ-large and applied to nations.
The OP concerns what causes nations to rise or decline, and Schaeffer often proposes many philosphical reasons. Yet, military might, geographical resources, the "chance" events of plague and disaster, the number and strength of one's enemies at the borders, are all factors which get ignored by Scaeffer. The brightest and morally best do not always rise to the top in this world, exactly as is told us in Ecclesiastes, and - even if some general truths can generally lead to a better physical life on earth (i.e., the proverbs' wisdom concerning hard work), there is not a rigid formulaic cause-effect between morality and the rise and fall of nations.
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
This is not what Psalm 73 argues. While this can happen, and we must not expect poetic justice, yet that does not alter the rule, it merely establishes an exception to the rule.
Cheers,
Adam
More thoughts on the video clip:
--Schaeffer seems to admit that a general theism by a rational Creator who gives rights to man is sufficient, and admits that the founding fathers were not all Christian (many were deists). This monotheism - also held by deism and jews - thus seems to be one of the main factors in promoting the prospering of the individual in the West.
Thus, we should not necessarily expect greater theological correctness to correspond in a one-to-one relationship to freedom and prosperity, but we would see a general rule that, where the individual is allowed to prosper, which has happened in the West due to a believe in a good, rational God, then that nation will experience more freedoms. And also technology, too, will advance because a rational God would beget rational creational laws, which we can discover and manipulate.
Also, Schaeffer seems to speak of the superiority of our "form" and "balance of gov't." He thus appears to say that our Christian worldview has led us to our present American gov't (3 branches, separation of powers, etc). Thus, I guess he would conclude that monarchy is sub-biblical and incompatiable with the prospering of a nation.
Finally, I would assume that one of those freedoms that make a nation prosper would be freedom to worship without coercion by the State, right?
--Schaeffer seems to admit that a general theism by a rational Creator who gives rights to man is sufficient, and admits that the founding fathers were not all Christian (many were deists). This monotheism - also held by deism and jews - thus seems to be one of the main factors in promoting the prospering of the individual in the West.
Thus, we should not necessarily expect greater theological correctness to correspond in a one-to-one relationship to freedom and prosperity, but we would see a general rule that, where the individual is allowed to prosper, which has happened in the West due to a believe in a good, rational God, then that nation will experience more freedoms. And also technology, too, will advance because a rational God would beget rational creational laws, which we can discover and manipulate.
Also, Schaeffer seems to speak of the superiority of our "form" and "balance of gov't." He thus appears to say that our Christian worldview has led us to our present American gov't (3 branches, separation of powers, etc). Thus, I guess he would conclude that monarchy is sub-biblical and incompatiable with the prospering of a nation.
Finally, I would assume that one of those freedoms that make a nation prosper would be freedom to worship without coercion by the State, right?
Matthew Henry on Psalm 73:
It would appear that Psalm 73 speaks of that which occurs after this dream of life is past and the true estate of all things becomes clear.
Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
The dream of which he speaks appears to be the prosperity of the wicked, not this life. That serves to prove my point. Thanks!
The dream of which he speaks appears to be the prosperity of the wicked, not this life. That serves to prove my point. Thanks!
But, the ending of the prosperity of the wicked often does not end until this life is over. I.e., there is not a rigid formula of be godly=prosper physically. The wicked prosper in this life, but are shown to be spiritually poor in the next.
Sgt Grit
Puritan Board Freshman
While I don’t believe there is a formula that gives nations blessings. I do know for certain that Gods wrath does eventually fall on those nations who reject Him and do evil in His eyes. However, if a nation were to truly repent of their sins, and as a nation turn to Christ I believe that nation would receive innumerable blessings. Why? God is sovereign in repentance, and if He calls us to repent its not onto destruction.
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