‘Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: …

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.‘ (Matt. 7:24, 26-27)

Is it really possible to think outside the box, and still be educated? You may have heard it said, ‘they can’t control what we think, but they CAN control what we think about.’

There is a philosophical concept called Hegel’s dialectic which largely defines for us – whether we are familiar with, or aware of the dialectic – HOW we think. It is possible to use the dialectic to also – to a very large extent – control WHAT we think.

The basic concept of Hegel’s dialectic is used in political propoganda, general media, and by secret societies – anyone who seeks to control the public narrative. The dialectic is in place as a constant – a ‘for granted’ principal in our thinking – and largely defines the public narrative, that is, our worldview or paradigm.

The concept of Hegel’s dialectic is very simple; it is this: Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis [compromise].

The idea is that someone puts forth a concept or idea (thesis), then that idea is contradicted by an opposing view (antithesis), and the conclusion is a synthesis (or a ‘blending’) of the thesis and antithesis; a compromise: meeting in the middle somewhere at a point agreeable to both sides.

One automatic result of applying the dialectic is partisaned thinking. The idea of he philosophy is to create a paradigm of thought: create a plausible thesis, whether or not that thesis is true, or valid and contradict it with an opposing thought (antithesis). The opposing thought validates the thesis, meaning whether or not the original thesis was plausible, or valid to begin with, he momment it is opposed it has the semblance of being a valid perspective because it is argued agaist in he form of he antithesis. Those who are not liable to agree with he first thesis (perhaps because it wzs not valid to begin with) now have an intellectual escape route from it in the form of the antithesis. If the thesis was not valid to begin with, the antithesis creates the framework of acceptable opposition to it. The process railroads people’s perspective into one or two intellectual standpoints on the basis of a thesis which may never have been valid to begin with.

How often have we heard in cases of debate: ‘There are valid points on both sides of this argument, but the real truth must lie in the middle somewhere.’? That is the automatic intellectual result of Hegel’s dialectic. The idea ignore the fact that the entire paradigm of the two perspectives may be a false one, and the truth is actually nowhere near either ‘side’ of he argument though each side may make valid points about their perspective on the basis of an invalid thesis.

Under the principal of Hegel’s dialectic the thesis has the power to create an entire paradigm of thought, meaning: it controls HOW we think about something. The thesis, having been validated by the antithesis, we handed a worldview which seems complete, then the only question is: ‘which side are we on?’

In theatre (& film) there is a principal called ‘the willing suspension of disbelief.’ That’s pretty self-explanatory, we willingly suspend our disbelief in order to watch a movie. There aren’t poeple who can fly like Superman, but in the interest of enjoying the film, we ignore that fact, and take for granted the paradigm given to us in the fictional story. With Hegel’s dialectic, any fictional paradigm which seems plausible can be boxed and handed to society, and since it seems rational, and there are argumenta for and against we settle on whatever we decide to believe somewhere in the middle of the two perspectives (synthesis).

It is said that secret socketies employ the dialectic in order to gain power; one group will take a stance on something (thesis), while an affiliate of theirs takes a stance which appears to be the polar opposite (antithesis), effectively creating the full cycle of drawing whole communities into their predetermined paradigm all while the communities assume the two groups are at odds.

Not only does this principal when practically applied create a synthetic worldview which may be utterly false, but, as I’ve mentioned, it polarizes people to different causes to such a degree that they can see no other perspective than their own, or that of the antihetical party. Anyone who comes along who is unaware of the thesis, and antithesis is either assumed to be sided, or is forced to choose sides by those who have entered the conceptual paradigm.

A perfect example of this is the political arena (need I say more?). But is also found in theology, and nearly every other aspect of life.

I was speaking to a friend of mine who was telling me about a certain theologian who believed that Jesus did not have a human will, but only a divine will (i.e. His will was only expressly God’s will, and was not seperate from the Father’s). Immediately I pointed out that Jesus said to the Father, “Not my will, but yours be done.” (Matt. 26:39) which conclusively precludes the theologian to be wrong by plain statement scripture. My friend began to respond, something about how he concept was more spiritually complex than that, and so the heologian in question did not take that passage to mean Jesus had a seperate will from the Father.

I looked my friend in the eye, and said: “Mark;” [not his real name] “some peoples arguments are just stupid.”

In fact the power of a stupid argument like that is that it takes an established doctrine for a thesis, raher than an evident Truth, then it establishes an antithesis on its basis. The antithesis in this case has the power because even though it is obviously wrong, it is challenging the existing thesis (the Truth). The argument – regardless of how erroneous it is – establishes a new synthesis (compromise): we listen to the perspective because it is new; we may still dissagree with it but we give allowance to some of the logic behind it and end on the synthesis that the idea is wrong, but maybe the truth is really somewhere between the thesis and antithesis. But it isn’t; the supplier of the antithesis has merely drawn those who enter the argument’s paradigm further from the Truth.

In order to present a thesis, or antithesis people seek to attract our intellectual engagement in the thesis, because if they can do that, they will draw you into the paradigm of the argument and you may well come to the conclusion that they’re wrong, but you’ll be absorbed in the paradigm they’ve created. Its a complete exercise in intellectual fiction, and while you may feel like you’ve accomplished something – like disproving someone’s obviously wrong thesis, and coming closer to the truth, your senthesis has in fact taken you steps further from reality.

This is one of the ways our society is being controlled. Hegel’s dialectic does not only work on the individual scale, nor only on the scale of community, but on the whole of society. One example I will use from polotics is that of the gay rights agenda; the thesis is made that homosexuality is genetic predisposition and tied with the identity of the person, rather than a moral issue. Now that such a thesis is made any attempt to argue it from within the paradigm set by the thesis ends only in compromise with the thesis setting the parameters of the worlview which has now been adopted almost universally. Frankly the agenda in question has enforced its paradigm through the means of our favorite entertainment: television, media, etc.

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, our long hours of exposure to media ammounts to discipleship. Our entire society is being drawn into a paradigm from which it cannot extract itself, and which is ultimately being controlled by Satan.

One of the early things the Lord convicted me of was watching TV. He had to speak to me about it three times before I obeyed (yes, I was slow to obey… but how many times did He have to speak to you about it before you obeyed?); I haven’t seen a movie in seven years, I no longer own a TV. Now I am begining to understand why, and I wish I had obeyed the first time. On the corporate level – not he individual level only – our society is incorporating fictional paradigms into its thinking, and basing its conclusions, and further knowledge upon those paradigms.

If I pointed out a few other political examples I’d likely offend many who are partisoned to either the thesis, or antithesis, but I’m sure you can think of a few yourself. The problem on the societal level is that those adhering to he thesis or antithesis create litmus tests for others, and if you don’t exactly agree with them, or at least pass their litmus test, then you are ‘one of them,‘ even if you have managed to avoid being pulled into the paradigm completely – in which case (which happens often to me) you find yourself outside of groups who may at least come to the conclusion that you are not against them, but don’t see your value as ‘for them’ since you don’t join their bandwagon.

Do you know that the Messiah told us the only one way to avoid getting sucked into thies worldy entrapment was to build our lives upon His Word (Matt. 7:24-27). But even this can be tricky if we heed to particularly the doctines of men. It is essential that we allow the Holy Ghost to teach us, rather than men, this is the express job, and purpose of the Holy Spirit as according to Jesus Christ (John 14:26; 16:13, etc.).

In fact, Hegel’s dialectic is used frequently (as I mentioned) in theology. A thesis is made which can either be argued, or accepted, there are no other options given – for instance when I point out I am no Calvinist, all Calvinists seem to assume that means I am either Arminian, or an open theist. However, we can be taught of the Holy Ghost OUTSIDE of the paradigms of man (theologies). it could be that I never cared to study the perspectives of men on matters which God promised His Spirit would teach me.

Little children, walk in the Truth, and heed not the doctines of men; study the word, and heed the Spirit of God.