Imperishable Inheritance

What does the phrase “com­mon sense” truly mean? I hear many use it (I just heard it again, and it prompted me to rant); but few know the mag­ni­tude of the state­ment they are mak­ing. Is there such a thing as “com­mon sense?” There are great Epis­te­mo­log­i­cal (phi­los­o­phy of knowl­edge) ram­i­fi­ca­tions in this discussion.

“Com­mon sense is not so com­mon.“
Voltaire

Com­mon sense is often held to be some­thing that is a part of our eso­teric knowl­edge which is knowl­edge that many believe to be true but is actu­ally not widely accepted. I see this most preva­lent in views of our cul­ture; to some­one in their cul­ture, some­thing (such as drive on the right side of the road) may not be “com­mon sense” to dri­vers in China (please not that I am not set­ting up an argu­ment for rel­a­tivism by any means).

Two Views on The Nature of “Com­mon Sense”

First, some define com­mon sense as that which is com­mon or “known” for others/certain group. Another camp defines com­mon sense as that which encom­passes all of human­ity. The mis­take that most make in attribut­ing the phrase com­mon sense to knowl­edge is usu­ally used (unknow­ingly) to the lat­ter definition.

‘Of course I wouldn’t eat a cat, that’s just plain com­mon sense.’

Well, East­ern coun­tries do.

“Yes, I showed up at the meet­ing when my boss told me too. Duh, that’s com­mon sense.”

Despite the fact that many coun­tries do not attempt to avoid ambi­gu­ity and use times as “guidelines.”

“Don’t you know that the two-pronged fork is the shrimp fork? Come on, that’s com­mon sense.”

Uh, I didn’t know that.

Ok, from those few bad exam­ples we can see how we can inad­ver­tently ascribe cul­tural dif­fer­ences (the last is attrib­uted to class dif­fer­ence within the same cul­ture) to “com­mon sense.” But when Thomas Reid talks of com­mon sense, he talks of it being that which is accepted uni­ver­sally (the sec­ond def­i­n­i­tion); and if I were con­fined to make a def­i­n­i­tion of [earthly/secular] com­mon sense, this is where I would fall as well.

Exam­ples of Uni­ver­sal Com­mon Sense

(Please not that even mak­ing the seem­ingly “uni­ver­sal” exam­ples of com­mon sense there are still great philo­soph­i­cal, onto­log­i­cal, meta­phys­i­cal, and sci­en­tific ques­tions that still arise.)

• “If I let go of this stone [from a lad­der] it will fall until it reaches the ground.”
• “No human can lift a two-ton weight.”
• “If I shoot myself in the head, I will die.” (At least I would hope that would be a uni­ver­sal understanding.)

Ok, you get the idea.

“Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate.”

The fol­low­ing is a quote from John Locke’s An Essay Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing. Fol­low­ing this state­ment he writes:

“Another rea­son that makes me doubt of any innate prac­ti­cal prin­ci­ples is, that I think there can­not any one moral rule be pro­posed whereof a man may not justly demand a rea­son: which would be per­fectly ridicu­lous and absurd if they were innate; or so much as self-evident, which every innate prin­ci­ple must needs be, and not need any proof to ascer­tain its truth, nor want any rea­son to gain it appro­ba­tion. He would be thought void of com­mon sense who asked on the one side, or on the other side went to give a rea­son why “it is impos­si­ble for the same thing to be and not to be.” It car­ries its own light and evi­dence with it, and needs no other proof: he that under­stands the terms assents to it for its own sake or else noth­ing will ever be able to pre­vail with him to do it.“
John Locke, An Essay Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing (Chap­ter II: No Innate Prac­ti­cal Principles)

I wonder…is there any­thing that is innate? Is there “com­mon sense”/collective knowl­edge that we do hold as a race? Was Carl Gus­tav Jung wrong?

Bib­li­cal Examination

Now, I like philoso­phers; but I sub­mit myself to the author­ity of the Scrip­tures (Colos­sians 2:8), and this is where I shall con­tinue my exam­i­na­tion of whether such innate knowl­edge does in fact exist.

While the world tends to empha­size our innate “good­ness” and in New Age our divin­ity (yes, I did believe that at one time); the Bible has less than a pretty pic­ture of us as humans. From these verses, is it clear that what might be “com­mon sense” to God (inter­est­ing state­ment) is not quite “com­mon” to us. Now I could go on a Total Deprav­ity rant, but I feel that most peo­ple that will read this will be famil­iar with the doctrine.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own under­stand­ing.
Proverbs 3:5

My point from this is that what we see as com­mon sense, and I hope you see my empha­sis is on mat­ters of knowl­edge much more impor­tant than how many prongs are in a shrimp fork or that no human can lift a two-ton weight. Pure and holy knowl­edge comes only from God.

This wis­dom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, nat­ural, demonic. For where jeal­ousy and self­ish ambi­tion exist, there is dis­or­der and every evil thing. But the wis­dom from above is first pure, then peace­able, gen­tle, rea­son­able, full of mercy and good fruits, unwa­ver­ing, with­out hypocrisy.
James 3:15–17

Man, I love James! Oh sorry, talk­ing out loud.

Any­way, we can see that we is true “com­mon sense” comes only from the enlight­en­ing work of the Holy Spirit. Now, let me say one thing so as not to con­tra­dict myself. This enlight­en­ing com­mon sense does not find its way to all (Exo­dus 33:19); so do not take my argu­ment to mean that this “com­mon sense” is com­mon to every­one. There are many that are blind and are not enlight­ened by God (Deuteron­omy 29:2–4, Romans 11:8).

The Point

Basi­cally, I’m say­ing the only “sense” (not com­mon in any sense of the word) comes only from God. Men in their iniq­uity fool them­selves into think­ing that there are uni­ver­sal “com­mon” prin­ci­ples to rea­son and knowl­edge, but in fact that is only a farce.

Do not say, “Why is it that the for­mer days were bet­ter than these?” For it is not from wis­dom that you ask about this. Wis­dom along with an inher­i­tance is good And an advan­tage to those who see the sun. For wis­dom is pro­tec­tion just as money is pro­tec­tion, But the advan­tage of knowl­edge is that wis­dom pre­serves the lives of its pos­ses­sors.
Eccle­si­astes 7:10–12

I made the point to clar­ify what com­mon sense means in an objec­tive, uni­ver­sal, and earthly sense; but this last state­ment affirms that the true knowl­edge is not com­mon. So, the next time some­one uses the phrase: “it’s com­mon sense.” Be wary. My homey Al will close us out…

“Com­mon sense is the col­lec­tion of prej­u­dices acquired by age eigh­teen.“
Albert Ein­stein