day no. 17,501: entropy and novelty

"We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. The corruption in things is not only the best argument for being progressive; it is also the only argument against being conservative. The conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post." — G. K. Chesterton. Orthodoxy

Entropy and atrophy are the best arguments for being progressive. In other words, we have to advance and change or we will be worse off. If we don't apply a new coat of paint to the white fence, we will have a gray fence, which is bad news for those who loved the old white fence. So, in order to keep the old white fence, we must have a new one; otherwise we will be left with a dull, gray one.

Entropy and atrophy are also the best arguments against being conservative. In other words, we cannot merely seek to keep what we once had because it won't stay the thing we had if we do not do something. You cannot keep the manna overnight. It becomes worms. A living dog is better than a dead lion because a living dog is constantly regenerating itself by breathing, eating, barking, chasing, digging, napping, etc... but a dead dog is merely becoming a pile of maggots.

Christians must be progressive and conservative. We must retain the work of the Spirit and we must by the Spirit go forward. We must preserve the Bible, but not by keeping it quarantined. We keep it by reading it and keeping to it. If we treat its doctrines like dead things perfectly organized like a bunch of dead butterflies, it will look nice, but it won't do anything. On the other hand, if we seek to go ahead Spirit led never knowing what comes next or what we'll do about it, we will end up reinventing some of the oldest heresies without even realizing it. There is nothing new under the Sunday service and blasphemies are especially easy to invent when you haven't read the manual. Novelty can kill just as easily as entropy.

So, all of that to say, we must preserve the good works and movements of the Spirit in our history and we have strive ahead in the Spirit to achieve the good works prepared beforehand for us tomorrow. We must look back on our justification and look forward to our sanctification. This requires a Christ-centered conservatism and progressiveness.