The Problem of “Common Sense”
In late 2006 I co-authored an article for a group out of Australia1. In it I set out the reasoning for my opposition to the abortion of a viable pregnancy. It was based upon an earlier article I published locally that was more directly pointed at Roe v. Wade. However, since the Australian article was published internationally, it had to be revised a bit for a global audience. In that effort, I had substantial help from some very fine and well-educated minds at CMI. In my opinion, their names should have been on the article too because of their extensive efforts over many days.
As such, I do not think I would change a word of it even today, just two days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The article has a much wider importance than just abortion and Roe. It cuts to the heart of many other issues society faces by asking us to confront our assumptions about epistemology (“the study of the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge”) and so, by extension, frames discussions of alethiology (“the study of the nature of truth”), logic (“the study of reasoning”), ethics (“the study of morality”), and jurisprudence (“the study of law”). It does that by framing the discussion within the bounds of the Bible and in light of history.
But is there really any point in considering these “big words”? Don’t we already have an inherent understanding of knowledge, truth, reasoning, morality, and how laws ought to work? After all, isn’t America founded upon the belief that the People can arrive at a right and moral decision by vote? Isn’t common sense sufficient? Then why is it so many believe the nation is coming apart?
To me this is reminiscent of something I learned long ago about statistics. Everyone thinks they understand statistics, almost everyone thinks everyone else misuses statistics, but Las Vegas and the Lottery keep raking in cash while mobs of people gamble, drive motorcycles without a helmet, smoke cigarettes, eat fast food daily, get drunk, don’t wear a seatbelt, and/or think speed limits are arbitrary and can be safely ignored. The human judgement of “risk” and “reward” is badly broken for the world we find ourselves in.
In the same way our innate understanding of knowledge, truth, reasoning, morality and law is also broken and largely unsuitable for the world we live in. We think what is intuitive, what we call “common sense”, must be equally obvious to everyone except the most stupid. So, only the morons and the evil disagree with we who are enlightened, righteous and wise. However, much like the balance book of a casino and the actuary tables of the insurance salesman, all other evidence suggests that those assumptions are not the case.
As this is my first Substack post, I invite you to click the link to the article in the first paragraph to get an idea of where I intend to take this small endeavor. Because what is common is not sensical and what is sensical is rarely common.
“ Creation Ministries International is a group of non-profit ministries in several countries. Though each is a legally and financially autonomous body, we have formally unified our efforts as a federation of ministries under the banner ‘CMI-Worldwide’ that helps to ensure unity, harmony, and efficiency of outreach.
Our role is to support the church in proclaiming the truth of the Bible and thus its Gospel message. We provide real-world answers to the most-asked questions in the vital area of creation/evolution, where the Bible is most under attack today—Genesis.” https://creation.com/what-we-are