Perhaps pride of place in the intellectual pantheon of those who helped give a rationale for the rejection of history goes to Karl Marx. That might strike the reader as rather strange, given that Marx was himself steeped in history. His materialist philosophy was based on his reading of history, how societies change, and how the means of production in each age are critical to understanding the human condition in that age. Yet Marx’s subversion of history is the result of the way he regards the dynamic of history: it is essentially the story of oppression, specifically the oppression represented by the domination of one class by another.
…The point is simple: history is one long story of oppression. And when one hold such a view, the usefulness of history is not so much that it provides positive wisdom for the present as that provides warnings about how people are exploited.
Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 94–95.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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I love Carl Trueman but I would say its a misuse/abuse of history not a total denial.
Marc,
Did Trueman say that?
thank you, you are right he didn’t, i misread what he wrote. when i read it carefully again i see his point.