The Well of Babel
Where definitions go to die
May, 2023
Genesis chapter 11 describes the infamous story of the Tower of Babel. God saw the danger of humanity united behind evil purposes. So, He muddled our words—splitting us into multiple languages—to derail easy communication. A core lesson of the Tower of Babel is that humanity tends towards sin, so mass cooperation often trends towards mass evil. Separate groups vying over separate interests provides a natural brake against atrocity. The second lesson is the chaos which spreads when words suddenly lose meaning.
Whether humanity learned those lessons, the Devil certainly did. God razed Babel to the ground; Satan seems intent on taking that even further, digging a "Well of Babel" that continues to confuse language while making it easier for men to cooperate in sin.
Sudden redefinition of words is among the most dangerous trends in modern culture. Of course, words change meaning over time. But that happens gradually, with a relatively low impact on our ability to understand each other. Yet recent years have seen words stretched beyond recognition to leverage emotional impact. Words like "hate," "racism," "terrorism," "communism" and "socialism" are being applied to situations without meaningful connection to the real meaning of the terms. Too often, instead of pushing back against the misuse of a scary word, humanity runs from it.
The worst expression of this trend is words being instantly redefined, with others being expected to apply new meanings to old uses, including laws, writings, Scripture, and culture. This is true of words like "violence," which some now apply to almost any challenging or unpleasant experience. The clearest example is terminology related to sex and gender. Effectively overnight, a small group began to insist that terms like "woman" or "boy" meant something other than how they'd been understood for generations. Worse, laws and principles described by those words are being forced to accommodate the new definitions.
False definitions always make communication difficult. Whether that's a matter of accident, ignorance, or propaganda, it's detrimental to productive conversations. Terms like "Christian," "faith," "moral," "truth," "evolution," "evil," and "right" already suffer from vague meanings in most people's minds. Today, even more fundamental ideas are thrown into the "Well of Babel," then pulled back into the world with entirely new meanings. If culture and law won't approve of something, all one needs do now is redefine what's allowed to include what's not, then scream and threaten those who saw the words being dragged out of the Well. Rather than refusing to cooperate with that trend, most people go along to avoid trouble. That's not an accidental occurrence: it's a deliberate tactic meant to break down any meaningful understanding of truth or reason.
Paradoxically, the Well of Babel also unites people through easier communication. For all the good done by modern technologies such as the internet, it's never been easier for sin to erode truth. Like-minded persons can much more easily find those who agree, and more simply ignore those who do not. This turns what used to be self-strangling nonsense into self-sustaining communities. Those then become "identities." Then self-contained realities, contributing to the erosion of meaning and reason. Bizarre falsehoods that once died from a lack of interest find enough support online to survive. Like weeds, they choke out established truths and uncomfortable realism.
Of course, ours is a ministry using the internet for evangelism. The point is not that communications technology is always evil. Everything God created, including the capabilities of human invention, has a good use (1 Timothy 4:4). Nor is it suggesting that any shift in the use of a word represents some Satanic conspiracy (Isaiah 8:12). But there's no question that the dangers God saw at the Tower of Babel are re-emerging today. Worse, those same principles are being used to further confuse, even as they further connect. What seems like an accelerating plunge into irrationality is not the cause of those flaws; it's their direct result.
As believers, we can't act surprised by these developments. Some are repeats of prior history. Some are old news, but in new forms. And some, of course, are entirely novel to human experience. Yet Scripture already indicates that the world at large is destined to become less reasonable, less loving, and less truthful (Matthew 24:10–12; Romans 1:28–32; 2 Timothy 3:13; 4:3). All we can do is stand on what's true, and what's reasonable (Acts 17:11; 1 John 4:1; 1 Peter 3:15; Philippians 4:5). Being anchored in truth will earn us the hatred of a world teetering on the edge of the Well of Babel (1 Peter 4:4), but the ultimate cure for that will be accomplished by God, Himself (1 Peter 4:5).
-- Editor
