day no. 16,842: men cannot honor a past that indicts their present failures

"Men cannot give a meaning to history that they themselves lack, nor can they honor a past which indicts them for their present failures." — Rousas John Rushdoony, The Biblical Philosophy of History

Man cannot create meaning. He cannot extend to history what he doesn't have. Man cannot manufacture and export existential value. He doesn't have the ability to produce it or the authority to confer it. He also cannot import the meaning of history into the present without being tongue-lashed by the past. He cannot be a prodigal who runs home unrepentant. He cannot return to the past without reforming his present behaviors. And since man has no intention of being humbled, he doubles down on his pride and invents religions as though they were meaning machines and ignores the past as though it were not meaningful.

Psalm 78:1-11

Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law; And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them.

History tells us of some fathers who forgot God and fell and others who lived to report it. Our faithful fathers differentiate themselves from our false fathers by living to tell the stories of God's faithfulness of our false father's unfaithfulness. Our covenant keeping kin have survived to relay the tales of our covenant breaking brothers.

“People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.” — Thomas Babington Macaulay

We must honor our covenant keeping kindred while heeding their warning regarding our covenant breaking forebearers.

"Men who raise families that remain in fidelity to tradition will end up with descendants ruling the world.” – E.H. Looney (cf. Psalm 112:1-2)

We must not keep the traditions of our false fathers, but we must keep the traditions of the patriarchs who endured the disdain of our covenant breaking brothers in order to preserve for us the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.