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"As for the gods, I am unable to know whether they are, or whether they are not: for
there is much that prevents us from knowing these things, as well the obscurity of the
subject as the shortness of the life of man."
Having resolved all knowledge down to that which we obtain by the senses, and
having made man himself the arbiter of good and evil, the practical outcome could be
nothing else than the gratification of the senses. This being granted, and coupled with it
the fact that perception and sensation are with countless people countlessly diverse, the
result was moral chaos. If "A" said a thing was blue, and "B" that it was green, both
were true. According to the Sophists nothing is by nature good or bad; only laws makes
them so. And we are at liberty to make as many laws as we wish, according to what will
be to our advantage.
In contrast with this, let us think for a moment of the statutes and commandments, the
laws and precepts given to Israel. No wonder Moses said:
"What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this
law, which I set before you this day?" (Deut. 4: 8).
No wonder the Psalmist spoke of his love for the law, and how that it was more to him
than fine gold. We are apt to think so much about the condemnation of the law, and the
glorious liberty of the gospel, that it is difficult for us to put ourselves in the position of
those who lived in the lawless atmosphere created by Sophism.
After Protagoras, the next and most celebrated of the Sophists was GORGIAS
(B.C.483). His work bore the characteristic title, "Of the Non-existent, or of Nature". He
argued that (1) nothing exists, or (2) if something does exist, it cannot be known, or
(3) if it can be known, it cannot be communicated. If the reader wonders what sense
there can be in the statement that "nothing exists", Gorgias would have explained in
terms of origin. Whatever is assumed to exist, he would have said, must either have
originated, or not originated. If it originated, this supposes non-existence previously; if
it did not originate, it would not exist now. And so, with a grimace, he would have left
you on the horns of a dialetic dilemma. The great omission in the scheme was a personal
Creator. In the light of this revealed truth, all such speculations become absurd.
The Sophists that succeeded Gorgias became more audacious. Nothing was sacred to
them. Laws, observances, customs, all were destroyed. Might was the law of nature, and
unrespecting gratification of desire the natural right of the stronger. Restrictive laws
were the cunning invention of the weaker.
Some of our readers will recognize the same spirit here as found expression in the
teaching of Nietzsche, a German philosopher of the last century. He acclaimed
Darwinism and its doctrine of the "survival of the fittest" as the gospel of eternal struggle
and triumph of the strong. He attacked pity, humanitarianism and Christianity, and
looked forward to the production of "super-men" who would be free from what he called
"slave-morality".