Postmodernism

The Perspicuity of Scripture

I’ve always enjoyed secret codes. As a fourth-grader, I remember creating secret alphabets made of code to utilize in “top secret” communication between me and my friends. There was a great sense of satisfaction in decrypting one of our codes and reading the covert message. Like many other childhood adventures, secret codes faded from my interest over time.

Some societies have perished because of anarchy, and some have perished because of tyranny. A just society must avoid both. It must escape anarchy by refusing to tolerate at least some activities in which at least some people would like to engage. It must avoid tyranny by tolerating at least some ideas and activities that at least some people find objectionable.

Every society, voluntary or not, must achieve some balance between tolerance and intolerance. Without this balance a society either sinks into tyranny or spins into anarchy. In order to preserve itself every society must find the requisite combination of a tolerance and intolerance.

For voluntary societies, this balance is essentially a matter of articulating a reason for being. At the point of its purpose, a voluntary society cannot tolerate divergence. A different purpose necessarily creates a different society.