From abstract art to the ruination of science; the history of Rationalism

Is there any reason to believe that science isn't as debased as the arts are in our day? We can see how Rationalism has destroyed artists who bought into it (e.g. John Cage, Jackson Pollack, etc.) but is there reason to believe this hasn't happened in the sciences?

I think we must assume the same negative (destructive, corrosive) process has been affecting scientists... but do we see any evidence of this? A big difference here is that while art deals with small c. creation; science deals with discovery. This means we have to be careful in our analysis.

I think it's when they come to dealing with specifically human issues that scientists have been affected by Rationalism. (It doesn't require a great deal of spiritual acumen to deal with inert matter, but it takes true wisdom to be able to deal with human issues correctly.) This is even more the case when these issues cross major biblical doctrines.

In my opinion ideas like a universe coming from nothing without cause is as absurd as a Pollack painting. The idea life came from non-life as absurd as a Cage silent sonata. The idea man 'evolved' from the animals as absurd as Duchamp exhibiting a urinal as art. In these examples (and there are storehouses full of others) we see that ideas trump art; that the idea art should be about representing the creation has been supplanted by the idea of art as the expression of individual ideas and feelings.

The new artist (having imbibed of Rationalism) claims that art is anything he says it is. He forces his view of things onto the world. Is a urinal really art? Is someone sitting with folded hands at a piano really music? Is a can with holes in it dripping onto a canvas below really art? It wouldn't appear so. People in previous eras would have mocked such a notion. But yet we're told (very seriously) that this is indeed art, and that we're too simple minded to understand (if we should dare to disagree). So who's right? Is it art or not?

What has happened is that a complex of ideas called Rationalism has trumped all other views in the last century or so. This basic idea has determined how artists and scientists (etc) view the world. The rational trumps the real as they say. The Rationalist (materialist, atheist) knows a priori that no creator god exists, and therefore there has to be a materialistic explanation for everything. (Even for himself.)

This insistence on materialism affects even the scientist (though it affects the artist more) as he endeavors to make discoveries about the universe. ie. he knows in advance (he thinks) what he can and cannot discover. e.g. if he sees something that appears to be Design, he knows it cannot be evidence of design... and so his 'eyes' are deceiving him; what he sees can only be the appearance of design. The result is that we have a new definition of science. As art was redefined so now is science. Science we're told isn't about discovering the truth, but it's about finding materialistic explanations for everything in the universe. Truth has been displaced by Materialism. This new definition limits what the scientist can discover, and it means he will be forced to formulate theories that have little or nothing to do with reality. (If we assume materialism is a false notion.)

A key idea behind modern art is that truth doesn't exist. If all is merely matter in motion the idea of truth is obsolete. This means that art is anything one says it is. This idea can't help infecting scientists as well. I see more and more people interested in telling accepted or desired stories rather than caring about truth. (The modern artist and the modern materialist in science are basically telling the same story. ie. all is merely matter in motion, and this means that traditional ideas of man and truth are obsolete. Science is becoming less a field involved in discovery, and more a field that's engaged in creating various models that fit with materialist assumptions.)

One could make the argument that a painter like Rembrandt was more of a scientist than some of our cosmologists who speak of a universe coming from nothing or who talk about many universes and the like. He at least was concerned with giving a representation of reality; an order he took to be God created.

It's interesting to me that the faithful rendering of human beings is absent from abstract art. Why? Isn't it because Materialism has murdered man? turned him into chemicals and particles. He's as absent from these paintings as God is. The scientist tells us there was no God behind creation, and the artist shows us a world where man has disappeared as well. Rationalism has led to the death of god and then to the death of man.) Of course this isn't the case with popular culture, where the human form is exploited with a heartless gusto unparalled in our history. But the human forms of popular (porno) culture aren't the men and women of traditional culture. The concept of man that christianity presented to the world has been replaced by something new; the trousered (or not) ape of Rationalism. (Not exactly the kind of fellow who would paint himself into the crowd at a crucifixion scene.)

It's in the human sciences that we see the most horrific influence of Rationalism. (Defined as man as the only starting point for knowledge. i.e. the universe is what man determines that it is.) Here we see the obscenities of modern art as in a mirror. e.g. man has no mind, but only a brain. Thought is an excretion of the brain. (Now do you understand why artists have hung bags of their own waste on gallery walls and called it art?)

We see the 'Skinnerian' notion that man is just an animal and should be treated as one. (And so all the art featuring man as animal, and Picasso grotesqueries.) Man has no soul. (And thus the blank canvas as art.) There is no truth and no meaning. (Random drippings on a canvas.) Beauty is an illusion. (Painted soup cans.)

If man is just matter in motion then he can be best explained by the methods of the hard sciences; thus the obsession with measurement and chemical levels of this and that. In the end the dream is to treat man in mathematical terms. (We see the beginnings of such a program in various quota systems.) In the end (as Da Vinci feared) man will be treated like a number. So when we come to the end of the road Rationalism has turned man into an animal, then a collection of chemicals, and finally a number. (Should we say thanks?)

If all is matter in motion there can be no meaning (in a transcendent sense) this means that people must try to find some individual meaning in things. (An individual meaning isn't really meaning at all, but we'll let that pass.) This means he must impress his meaning upon a meaningless universe. He thus knows ultimate meaning doesn't exist, but must create some substitute meaning to cover up this naked fact. What this means is that an illusion must substitute for reality. We already see this playing out in art, but as scientists move further away from basic discoveries (we might date the modern advance from Galileo) they move further into areas of theory and speculation... and its here that the influence of Rationalism comes into play.

The assumption of materialism cannot allow certain ideas (or claims) about the universe to be true. This means there are some avenues the rationalist can't go down. This means he must come up with models of the universe (and its workings) that are attractive to the postulates of his wview. Thus story will trump discovery if the data appear contrary to the basic materialist assumption.

As art is more and more about ideas (as opposed to representing the creation) so science is becoming more and more about ideas. (I realize this notion runs counter to the common conception of scientists getting ever closer to a true view of reality as time passes.) I fear that as art has 'gone off the deep end' as we say, so science will do the same. (I see this as already happening in various fields and specialties. e.g. so called neuro-psychology; the rejection of sin for chemical imbalance; speculations like multiverses; Darwinian views of literature and justice; and so on.) We've seen art become painted philosophy; will we see science become painted philosophy as well? (eg. The idea there cannot be a creator god isn't science, but philosophy masquerading as science.)

The rationalist doesn't know what art is all about; neither does he know what life is all about. If man is but matter in motion, then it follows that man's life isn't about anything at all. (This is as certain a conclusion as there is no god.) In biblical terms art and science are ways of taking dominion over the earth, and of responding to the negative effects of the fall. Life is about communion (relationship) with god; and this means living in conformity with God's commandments. Since that's what life is all about; that's what art and science are all about. (Religion, art and science are separate spheres of man's life; but all have a similar impetus or source.)

Notes;
1. A good example of rationalist thinking is Kant's rejection of the atonement. He rejects it solely on the basis of his own thinking. He finds the idea absurd and so rejects it. i.e. nothing can be true if it violates his idea of what must be the case. [Religion within the limits of reason alone]
2. Notes on true art;
'In all Liberal Arts, in the most as well as in the least important, the praise and glory of God are to be enhanced. The arts, says he, have been given us for our comfort, in this our depressed estate of life. They react against the corruption of life and nature by the curse. - Kuyper/Lectures on Calvinism/#5/153
- The modern' art of our day is comfort to no one - except maybe Satan himself.
- This connection between the Fall and art is a fascinating one. It would seem that the modern (rationalist) artist in rejecting the idea of the fall, has lost a major source of motivation to produce great (beautious) art. ie. since he sees our world as 'normal' (ie. unfallen) he sees beauty as unreal, as a kind of sentimentalist yearning for illusions... rather than as a longing for an unfallen state (or for a redemption to come). We might look at art (in its christian sense) as a longing for redemption... as enjoying a glimpse of our redeemed state as it were. (In beautiful art we see ourselves as unfallen, and living in an unfallen world. (Not that this is all art is; true art can also show us our fallenness; it shows both sides or all sides. True art then shows us creation, the fall, and redemption.)
3. 'In view of all this we may say that Calvin esteemed art, in all its ramifications, as a gift of God, or, more especially, as a gift of the Holy Ghost; that he fully grasped the profound effects worked by art upon the life of the emotions ; that he appreciated the end for which art has been given, viz., that by it we
might glorify God, and ennoble human life, and drink at the fountain of higher pleasures, yea even of common sport ; and finally, that so far from considering art as a mere imitation of nature, he attributed to it the noble vocation of disclosing to man a higher reality than was offered to us by this sinful and corrupted world.' ibid
4. 'But if you confess that the world once was beautiful, but by the curse has become undone, and by a final catastrophe is to pass to its full state of glory, excelling even the beautiful of paradise, then art has the mystical task of reminding us in its productions of the beautiful that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster. ibid/p.155
- the Christian lives (spiritually) in 3 worlds; the perfect world of creation, the fallen world of today, and the redeemed world of the new heavens and the new earth. He goes wrong when he denies or ignores any of these three.