The New Flat-Earthers
And the Center of the Universe
This is in some ways the most profound and yet the most incoherent thing I’ve ever written. It comes out of a study of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and tries to make sense of, well, everything. Perhaps the more poetic tone wasn’t the best choice for such an endeavor. Enjoy.
As soon as humanity left their Mesopotamian habitat at the beginning of civilization, traveling from its fertile soil to more aggressive topographies, they began to construct a theory of meaning. And every theory of this kind must answer the same question: what is the center of the universe?
These biped omnivores charted rivers, studied seasons, and raised livestock. The most important aspect of reality was the land upon which you live.
The flat earth nursed them from below and the flat heavens gave rain and a sense of regulation from above. Between these plains they looked at each other, finding that humanity was the center of all that exists.
But this relic idea was replaced. Both 18th-century deists and 21st-century atheists knew better — our sphere revolves around the sun, the sun spins round in its galaxy, and that galaxy is just one of many. The enchanted cosmos became the known universe, as Charles Taylor says.1
The center point, against the naivety of flat-earthers, was far away. An objective reference point existed but it was unreachable — and so too was everything meaningful, since how could a collection of atoms on a speck of a planet amidst the dust particles of our galaxy mean anything in the vast array of nothingness?
Image credit: ActionVance on Unsplash
That was then. This is now. We’ve entered a third phase. Gone are the days of traversing terrains to find the land of humanity’s fulfillment. Far gone too, is that far-off meaning, ungraspable by human hands.
We now live in a world where the center of the universe is the Self. Our reason for existence is not found geographically or through a shared humanity, nor objectively, but by an inner search that each discovers on their own terms.
This third phase has more problems than its predecessors. The first phase was at least two-dimensional. The second phase availed us to a third, however small it made us feel, as plains became spheres. But now there is only one dimension of meaning which cannot be observed, reasoned with, or co-experienced.
In our day meaning is found in disconnected dots, ethereal pontifications of each human heart, acting as their own center-point. Nothing is shared, all is singular. Never mind how one answer to why we exist might contradict another, there is no Truth here.
This third phase is lonely, immoral, and ugly. Other people exist only for the Self. Right and wrong exist only for the Self. Beauty exists only for the Self. There is no such thing as the Good, or the Right, or the Beautiful — only goods to fulfill the desires of the Self, only rights with ever-changing definitions to fit the wishes of each Self, and only beauty in a weaker, subjective sense.
We have problems.
And that’s why there are new flat-earthers.
They’ve noticed the third phase is filled with inequality as some Selves manipulate or enslave others with their self-determination unhindered. Do the rich not keep getting disproportionately richer? Do the powerful not yield more power over the weak? Must we allow individuals to self-actuate at the expense of the neighbor beside them and the land below them?
And so the new flat-earthers see the necessity of hierarchy. They know something is objectively wrong with the third phase; we cannot live as disconnected centers of meaning — there must be a law above by which to judge, condemn, and cancel the wrongs of some Selves. Yes, more judgment and less tolerance, they say.
I have my sympathies with their views. I want a world with rights rooted in what’s Right, where Good can be taught and followed, and where Beauty is more than a personal feeling and is something to be shared.
I desire poverty to be alleviated, for the abused to be redeemed, and for enslavers to be rightly persecuted.
I have a lot in common with the new flat-earthers.
But we disagree on an essential matter. The center of the universe is not distant, nor is it found in humanity, the earth, or in the Self. The center of the universe and the source of all meaning is found in Jesus Christ.
He is the Logos by which the world was created, the embodiment of the law, and the reconciler of all things.
Hope for our anxiety is found in a promise beyond our subjectivity, in the Kingdom of God where Christ reigns as our King; a place existing outside the confines of the clock, not even limited by those four dimensions. Yes, this world is much bigger than we ever dared imagine, and yet the center of it all is so near as to tell us his name.
And so I’ll work alongside those who critique phase three. I will condemn those who enslave and I will do my part to take care of the land. I will agree there must be a de-centering of people in power as I too wish to see the weak made strong and a diversity where each unique person has intrinsic value.
But I will still correct them on at least one thing — the earth is not flat.
This entire post was inspired by Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.