The "Engine" of Atheism

Abstract: The following is taken from A. A. Hodge's Evangelical Theology (first published in 1890).  This particular excerpt comes from the lecture on "The Kingly Office of Christ."  Dr. Hodge has just finished expounding the implication of Christ's kingship for the civil government stating that the State has the obligation to be Christian, acknowledging Christ's Lordship and following His Word.  He now draws out this obligation further as it relates to State-controlled education (the public school system) showing that it is impossible for a system under a supposedly "neutral" State to be anything other than a vicious engine of atheism.  This is precisely what we have lived to see the Public School system become in our day.  Dr. Hodge saw it coming over 100 years ago.

The situation, therefore, stands thus:

1^st.  The tendency of the entire system, in which already vast progress has been made(In 1890's ??), is to centralization.  Each State governs her own system of common schools by a central agency, which brings them, for the sake of greater efficiency, into uniformity of method and rules.  These schools are graded and supplemented by normal schools, high schools, and crowned by the State university.  The tendency is to unite all these school systems of the several States in one uniform national system, providing with all the abundant resources of the nation for the entire education of its citizens in every department of human knowledge, and in doing this to establish a uniform curriculum of study, uniform standards for the selection of teachers, and a uniform school literary apparatus of text-books, etc.. (Did the DOE and NEA get its platform, goals and resolutions here!!)

2^nd   The tendency is to hold that this system must be altogether secular . (now by Supreme Court decree!). The atheistic doctrine ( The Doctrine of Denial (DOD))is gaining currency, even among professed Christians (the baby, carnal or backslidden) and even among some bewildered Christian ministers, that an education provided by the common government for the children of diverse religious parties should be entirely emptied of all religious character. (!)  The Protestants object to the government schools being used for the purpose of inculcating the doctrines of the Catholic church, and Romanists object to the use of the Protestant version of the Bible and to the inculcation of the peculiar doctrines of the Protestant churches.  The Jews protest against the schools being used to inculcate Christianity in any form, and the atheists and agnostics protest against any teaching that implies the existence and moral government of God.  It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him the believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists and the agnostics may be. ( Then those that believe nothing will be those who make evil legal!)  It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen.   (Dummed Down for 100+ years!  Who would have guessed that the great educational riches of discipleship of the early American Church and culture would have enough "righteousness" to give up or give away for over 100 years!  Every American PS family (and church) is dozing here in utter spiritual poverty not even able to comprehend the totality of the loss. We've all been cheated.) ( What would Dr. Hodge have said of the United Nations, an atheistic, non sovereign, foreign government being the author and initiator of  Goals 2000, the USA's Education Mandate that was approved by Congress?!)

3^rd. The claim of impartiality between positions as directly contradictory as that of Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians, and especially as that of theists and of atheists, is evidently absurd. And no less is the claim absurd and impossible that a system of education can be indifferent on these fundamental subjects.  There is no possible branch of human knowledge which is not purely formal, like abstract logic or mathematics, which can be known or taught in a spirit of entire indifferency between theism and atheism.  Every department which deals with realities, either principles, objective things, or substances, or with events, must be in reality one or the other: if it be not positively and confessedly theistic, it must be really and in full effect atheistic.  The physical as well as the moral universe must be conceived either in a theistic or an atheistic light.  It must originate in and develop through intelligent will - that is, in a person - or in atoms, force or chance.  Teleology ^1. must be acknowledged everywhere or be denied everywhere.  Philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence, political and social science, can be conceived of and treated only from a theistic or from an atheistic point of view.  The proposal to treat them from a neutral point of view is ignorant and absurd… (Reality, Absolute Truth and scientific truth cannot coexist with the atheist's Doctrine of Denial (DOD).)

The prevalent superstition  (Anti Christian Theory (ACT)) that men can be educated for good citizenship, or for any other use under heaven, without religion, is as unscientific and unphilosophical as it is irreligious.  It (ACT) deliberately leaves out of view (denies) the most essential and controlling elements of human character: that man is constitutionally as religious (that is, loyally or disloyally) as he is rational; that morals are impossible when dissociated from the religious basis out of which they grow; that, as a matter of fact, human liberty and stable republican institutions, and every practically successful scheme of universal education in all past history, have originated in the active ministries of the Christian religion, and in these alone.  This miserable superstition (ACT) rests upon no facts of experience, and, on the contrary, is maintained on purely theoretical grounds in opposition to all the lessons which the past history of our race furnishes on the subject.  ( This ACT relies on the atheist's DOD of the Truth of History. )

It is no answer to say that the deficiency of the national system of education in this regard will be adequately supplied by the activities of the Christian churches.  No court would admit in excuse for the diffusion of poison the pleas that the poisoner knew of another agent actively employed in diffusing an antidote.  Moreover, the churches, divided and without national recognition, would be able very inadequately to counteract the deadly evil done by the public schools of the State with all the resources and prestige of the government. But more than all, atheism taught in the school cannot be counteracted by theism taught in the Church.^{2. & 3.}   Theism and atheism cannot coalesce to make anything. All truth in all spheres is organically one and vitally inseparable.  It is impossible for different agencies independently to discuss and inculcate the religious and the purely naturalistic sides of truth respectively.  They cannot be separated.  In some degree they must recognize each other, and be taught together, as they are experienced in their natural relations.   (  All disbelief cannot be eliminated from classrooms because kids by birth are ignorant and are born into a vacuum of facts and ignorant of Truth.  Both adults and kids who are seeking Absolute Truth must get out of denial, acknowledge God and  [Repent ] .  Salvation comes by faith that Jesus is the Christ and by repentance of one's sin, hence acknowledging and rejecting our own individual Doctrine Of Denial(DOD).  There is no reconciliation of relationships until all involved: reject their denial, and face the truth, and accept personal responsibility for their actions and their state of being.)

I am as sure as I am of the fact of Christ's reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed,will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social, nihilistic ^4. ethics, individual, social, and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.  Dr. A.A. Hodge (see rewrites below by ed.)

     1. In other words the Doctrine Of Denial (DOD) as currently practiced in the USA is: outrageous rebellion against all things of God, Country, Life and every authoritative and traditional ideal.  This leads to social, political, civil and governmental chaos.  Note also that the word "terrorism" is used TWICE in Webster's  definition above!.

    2. [Sectarian is defined here to show that the word "sects" as used in certain Supreme Court decisions should not be narrowly interpreted as Christian denominations, but can also apply to the religious faith of the secularist!  And the Religion of Secularism! - ed.]