(from an essay by James Fletcher Baxter*)

Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe.  The balance is a vast void of human ignorance.  Human reason cannot fully function in such a void, thus, the intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it perceives and measures values.  Many problems in human experience are the result of false and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.

Humanism makes man his own standard of measure.  However, as with all measuring systems, a standard must be greater than the value measured.  Based on preponderant ignorance and an egocentric nature, humanism demotes reason to the simpleton task of excuse-making in behalf of the rule of appetites, desires, feelings, emotions, and glands.

Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament, cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist lacks a predictive capability.  Without transcendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with foresight and vision for cultural progress and survival.  Lacking foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and is unwittingly committed to the lowest common denominator.  Humanism is an unworthy worship.

Man is earth's Choicemaker.  He is by nature a creature of Choice—and of Criteria.  His unique and definitive characteristic is, and of right ought to be, the natural foundation of his environments, institutions, and respectful relations to his fellow-man.  Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom whose roots are in the order of the universe.

At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe modern physics indicates a multifarious gap or division in the causal chain; particles to which position cannot be assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy state to another without manifestation in intermediate states, entities without mass, fields whose substance is as insubstantial as "a probability."

Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to deterministic forces.  Singularities do not and are therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in this sense, uncaused.  The finest contribution inanimate reality is capable of making toward choice, without its own selective agencies, is this continuing manifestation of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it defers to the natural action of living forms.

Biological science affirms that each level of life, single-cell to man himself, possesses attributes of sensitivity and selectivity, and in the exclusive and unique nature of each diversified life form.

The survival and progression of life forms has all too often been totally dependent upon the ever-present mutative potential and undeterminative appearance of one unique individual organism within the whole spectrum of a given species.  Only the uniquely equipped individual organism is, like The Golden Wedge of Ophir, capable of traversing the causal gap to survival and progression.  Mere reproductive determinacy would have rendered life forms incapable of such potential.  Only a moving universe of opportunity plus choice enables the present reality.

Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly developed, and sensitive perception of diversity.  Thus aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enacting internal mental and external physical selectivity.  Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.

Man is earth's Choicemaker.  His title describes his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall that his other features are but vehicles of experience intent on the development of perceptive awareness and the following acts of decision.  Note that the products of man cannot define him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-making process and include the cognition of self, the utility of experience, the development of value-measuring systems and language, and the acculturation of civilization.

The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits, customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of his perceptive and selective powers.  Creativity is a choice-making process.  His articles, constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivances, is earth's own highest expression of the creative process.  The sublime and significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the forces of cause and effect to an elected level of quality and diversity.  Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his singular and plural brow.

But in order for man to be the Choicemaker of his world, he is created as a being-aware, an entity that stands apart from the Creator.  As the free agent of the Absolute Source, he can be neither indigenous to it nor the essence of its value.  And therein lies the cosmic principle that mystifies the Western intellect.  So that he may realize the value of his objective experience without the bias of the Source, the sentient core of man's being must be absolutely divided from its essence.  In existential terms, man is a non-entity: self-awareness cannot be localized, quantified, or directly observed.  By all objective standards it does not exist.  The consciousness of man's being-aware has reality only insofar as it borrows the "beingness" it perceives in the natural world for its own biological organism and its proprietary cognizance.  The Choicemaker is an autonomous identity.

The exercise of free choice also requires that the antecedent causes as well as the consequences of man's actions be concealed from awareness at the time decisions are made.  As the free agent, the individual's perspective must be protected from a full knowledge of Ultimate Truth, which is why we are denied empirically verifiable answers to questions having to do with the size and scope of the universe, the nature and proof of God's existence, the teleological meaning of life, and whether or not there is a Hereafter.  There can be no absolutes in the autonomy of existential experience.  The inaccessibility of such "essentially sensitive" information prevents man's choices from being influenced by the Source, thus ensuring independent development of the skills of self-mastery and value judgment that give meaning and direction to our life-experience.

The inherent justice of this existential scenario is evidenced by the personal autonomy that it grants to each of us.  Freedom defines our unique metaphysical identity; it represents both the price and the terms of our lifetime contract with the Creator.  And since there is no personal deity peering over our shoulder to judge our conduct or grant us special privileges by request, we are morally free—as individuals and societies—to pursue whatever course we choose for ourselves, bearing full responsibility for the consequences thereof.  The teleology of this relativistic karma is that Individual Freedom is the means by which Absolute Essence may be valued autonomously and without bias.

Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker, inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based system of measuring human value.  Blunting an awareness of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the selective creative process, they are self-relegated to a passive and circular regression.

Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his survival for it renders him impotent and obsolete by denying the tools of diversity, individuality, perception, discrimination, and judgment.  Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's indeterminate offspring, man the Choicemaker.

Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator, The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.  The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and delimited devices. Such rejection of transcendent criteria denies man the vision and foresight essential to decision-making for survival and advancement.  He is left, instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hindsight, including human institutions characterized by mediocrity and regression.

Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent criteria.  Evidenced by those who do not perceive superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting winds of the human ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires, appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere device for excuse-making and rationalized self-righteousness.

The libidinous ego rejects criteria and self-discipline, for such instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude rather than biological instincts.  The appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the point of contention standards are perceived as alien, restrictive, and inhibiting.  Yet, the very survival of our physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sovereignty of the mind and of the spirit.  Man is thus afforded the prime tool of the intellect—a Transcendent Standard by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.

As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and collectivism, just so long will they be subject and reacting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from others.  That human institution which is structured on the principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with ...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the order of the cosmos.  The autonomy of man as the Choicemaker of this system is the founding principle of Western Civilization and the American way of life.  The opponents of such a system are necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and nature's God.  Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their own choosing.

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                  *This essay is an adaptation of an article entitled "Man is Earth's Choicemaker" ©1997 by  

                   James Fletcher Baxter, the original version of which may be accessed from his  web site at  www.geocities.com/James-Baxter/

 

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