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The Contest of Ideas
Dick Smith

We are engaged in a great struggle. Terrorism has advanced its cause at a terrible price to us. Paul Berman, author of "Terrorism and Liberalism" (W. W. Norton), wrote an essay that appeared on the NY Times.com website. Titled, "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror," Paul discusses an Islamic thinker, one Sayyid Qutb, who wrote a 15 volume commentary on the Koran called "In the Shade of the Qur'an." His thinking has become the foundational thinking of the terrorist movement. (It was Sayyid's brother, Muhammad Qutb, who had as a student none other than Osama bin Laden!) Berman writes, "President George W. Bush, in his speech to Congress a few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks announced that he was going to wage a war of ideas."

President Bush has driven to the heart of the issue. The conflict is one of ideas and it will be won or lost on that level. It is not military might that ultimately will determine the outcome. It is ideas that shape and mold the world.

The present conflict posits a raw and direct concept of free will over against the Apostle Paul's exposure of free will for the myth that it is. Sayyid Qutb argues from the position that one can choose to do good or evil. St. Paul exposes that lie in Romans chapter 7 where he writes, "The good that I would I do not. The evil that I would not I do. I can will to go the right, but I CANNOT DO IT! For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.(Rom. 7:15-19 My emphasis) Martin Luther put it this way in Thesis 13 of his Heidelberg Disputation: "Free Will since the Fall exists in name only. And as long as it does what it is able it COMMITS A MORTAL SIN!" (My emphasis)

One might say, "what difference does it make? It's just a difference of opinion." My answer is, "it makes all the difference in the world!" If one believes in free will then our "enemy is outside of us. Evil is somewhere else. Since we can do the good there is no reason for evil to be within.

On the other hand, if we cannot choose between good and evil, if there is no free will and we are in bondage to sin, then evil is not somewhere else but rather it is right inside of us.
Sayyid and his free will followers see the evil elsewhere and seek to destroy it. Sayyid Qutb writes that evil is so to be opposed and destroyed that giving ones own life in the process is a great and good work. Martyrdom such as suicide bombers are performing a great and good deed because they are destroying evil.

In opposition to this is St. Paul who argues that Evil is first and foremost within ourselves. As Walt Kelly, the creator of "Pogo", the cartoon character, had Pogo say, "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US!" The bondage to sin means that there is nothing good within us. No matter what we do it is always distorted by sin. As Martin Luther said, the entire life of a Christian is one of repentance. That is, our whole life is one of awareness that we are always and only sinners who do nothing but sin and therefore must stand at the foot of the cross with empty hands. For it is in the cross that Christ meets us with His forgiveness and grace. That "while we were yet enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son". (Rom. 5:10).

If we reject St. Paul's thinking we do so at our own peril for then we have accepted Sayyid Qutb's playing field and his rules for the contest. Free Will is a hoax and is exposed as such by St. Paul for all to see.

Rev. Dick Smith, serves Heart River Lutheran Church, bringing Christ to youth at the Youth Correctional Center in Mandan, North Dakota. You may write directly to Rev. Smith at dicksmith9@bis.midco.net

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