“We’ve come a long way.” It is the unspoken creed of modernity — assumed, not demonstrated. Political speeches invoke it, advertising trades on it, and Hollywood scripts it into every arc of character growth. The myth whispers that each decade leaves humanity wiser, kinder, and more virtuous than the last.
But this is illusion. Progress in technique is not progress in truth. Airplanes fly faster, phones shrink thinner, economies run larger — yet human hearts remain as they were: restless, covetous, deceitful, violent.
Applied Ontology sharpens the distinction: we deny moral evolution (a change of kind), not local moral improvement (better conformity to fixed kinds). Societies may conform more closely to justice through repentance and reform, but goodness itself does not evolve with the clock. Morality is static, ontological, grounded in the being of God. Good is always good; evil is always evil. Sin does not soften with time.
The myth of progress is the background assumption behind every claim to neutrality. Governments, corporations, and cultural institutions operate as if history itself carries morality upward by default. In reality, Scripture confronts us with the opposite: time does not sanctify. Only repentance does. “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16).
At its core, the myth of progress asserts that human morality improves as history advances. It treats the passage of time as a moral agent, as though the clock itself generates virtue.
Key smuggled premises:
Time = telos: the future defines the good, simply because it is future.
Novelty = virtue: the new is better by definition.
History = authority: whatever replaces the old is assumed truer, kinder, more just.
This myth depends on several subtle confusions:
Technological advance ≠ moral advance. Tools improve; motives remain corrupt. The printing press spread both Scripture and propaganda. The internet delivers Bibles and pornography alike.
Policy reform ≠ repentance. Abolishing slavery did not abolish greed, pride, or racial hatred. Law may restrain, but only grace transforms.
Institutional complexity ≠ justice. Courts, agencies, and bureaucracies multiply, yet miscarriage of justice remains as perennial as in Israel’s gate.
We gladly affirm that just reforms remain just. Our critique is not anti-reform but anti-chronology-as-morality. A law is righteous because it aligns with God’s order, not because it was passed in 2025.
The biblical witness is unequivocal: morality does not evolve with time. It is fixed because God’s character is fixed.
Jeremiah 6:16 — “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein.” Moral life is not about charting new futures but returning to ancient fidelity.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 — “There is no new thing under the sun.” Human schemes and sins repeat in endless cycles.
Genesis 6:5 — “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” From the beginning, sin has been static in kind.
Romans 3:23 — “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Time does not erase this condition.
Romans 1:18–32 — Societies regress, calling darkness light, until judgment falls.
2 Timothy 3:1–5 — “In the last days perilous times shall come…” The trajectory is toward lawlessness, not upward moral refinement.
Matthew 24:12 — “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Christ declares that history ends not in virtue’s triumph but in love’s decline.
The biblical pattern is not progress but cycle: rebellion, judgment, renewal, relapse. Israel’s judges illustrate it; the seven churches of Revelation repeat it. Renewal comes not by the calendar but by repentance.
The myth of progress operates less as a logical argument and more as a cultural atmosphere. It persuades by tone, images, and assumptions rather than syllogisms. Several recurring mechanisms sustain it:
A. Chronological snobbery.As C. S. Lewis observed, the newest idea is assumed superior simply because it is newest. “We’ve outgrown that” is treated as a rebuttal in itself, without argument.
B. Technicism.Moral problems are recast as technical problems. Crime is reduced to resource allocation, vice to lack of education, injustice to inefficiency. If the machine is fixed, the heart will follow.
C. Inevitabilism.Rhetoric about “the arc of history” casts moral outcomes as foregone conclusions. Debate is short-circuited: resistance is futile, for progress is destiny.
D. Narrative pedagogy.Film, television, school curricula, political speeches, and corporate advertising reinforce the myth through story and symbol. Character growth is depicted as rejecting tradition and embracing novelty. Happy endings reward transgression rebranded as enlightenment. Dystopias, when imagined, are resolved not by repentance but by innovation or inclusion.
E. Statistical laundering.Aggregates disguise losses. Rising literacy rates mask what is read. Rising lifespans conceal what lives are lived for. Averages smooth over moral collapse, presenting decline as progress through numbers. This is a form of moral numerism: reducing judgment to net arithmetic while ignoring covenantal kinds.
These mechanisms ensure the myth works on the gut level. It feels true before anyone asks whether it is.
Applied Ontology requires concrete tests to expose counterfeit claims. The myth of progress shows itself in predictable linguistic and cultural markers:
A. Novelty as virtue.Anything “new” is treated as inherently good. Anything “old” is framed as oppressive, backward, or irrelevant.
B. Dissent rebranded as hatred.To question the latest trend is to be labeled bigoted, ignorant, or fearful. Refusal of novelty is equated with malice.
C. Net-good arithmetic.Wrongdoing is minimized by appealing to overall gains: “Yes, there are problems, but look how far we’ve come.” This is moral numerism in action.
D. Vocabulary drift.Vice is renamed until it appears enlightened: adultery becomes an “open relationship,” lies become “spin,” theft becomes “redistribution.” These rebrandings often constitute typophoric fraud: invoking the type of “justice,” “care,” or “equity” without ontic warrant.
E. Proof by progress.Arguments are framed by the date stamp: “It’s 2025 — how can you still believe that?” This is scale exceptionalismmasquerading as authority: as if time itself changes kinds.
F. Change celebrated in itself.Policies or movements are hailed not because they are just or true, but because they mark a break from the past. Change becomes its own justification.
By these markers, the myth reveals its emptiness. It does not argue; it presumes. It does not prove; it asserts. Its only foundation is the passing of time — a shaky ground for eternity.
The myth is not abstract; it plays out across key cultural domains, each of which baptizes drift as development.
A. Speech and Conscience.“Progress” is invoked to narrow dissent. Views once tolerated are rebranded as harmful and therefore excluded from the “enlightened” public square. Free speech becomes restricted speech, framed as inevitable evolution toward inclusion. Neutrality vanishes; ideology advances under the guise of progress.
B. Sex and Family.Moral collapse is marketed as liberation. Hollywood and streaming culture script sexual transgression as character growth, while fidelity is portrayed as stagnation. Divorce, cohabitation, and redefinition of marriage are cast as milestones of cultural maturity. Yet the wreckage — broken homes, abandoned children, cold intimacy — is ignored in the rush to hail “freedom” as progress.
C. Bioethics and Technology.Technological breakthroughs are equated with moral advancement. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and medical interventions are sold as evolutionary steps forward. The question shifts from “Should we?” to “Can we?” Capability masquerades as moral legitimacy, leaving covenantal limits trampled under the weight of innovation.
D. Economics and Justice.Efficiency is exalted as if it were virtue. GDP growth is mistaken for justice, productivity for stewardship, redistribution optics for restitution. Meanwhile, exploitation, systemic debt, and dispossession are concealed beneath statistical progress.
E. State Neutrality.Governments invoke “progress” to canonize new orthodoxies. Yesterday’s consensus is declared bigotry; today’s novelty is enshrined as policy. Law itself becomes pedagogy for the myth: “we’ve moved past that” becomes the rationale for reordering consciences by decree.
In each domain, the myth of progress conceals regression. What Scripture calls rebellion is rebranded as maturity; what God names fidelity is dismissed as obsolete.
To expose the myth of progress, Applied Ontology deploys litmus tests. These diagnostics reveal whether claims of “progress” are genuine or counterfeit.
A. Household Mirror.Would the supposed advance look virtuous at family scale? If “open marriage” is progress in society, would it stabilize or destroy a household? If redistribution by theft is just, should a sibling empty your wallet for the sake of “equity”?
B. Scale-Shift Audit.Has meaning been altered simply because the group is larger or the time later? What is immoral for one remains immoral for a thousand; what is false yesterday is false today. Clocks and crowds do not alter kinds.
C. Divine Double Prerogative (DDP) Gate.Who authorized the redefinition? Only God defines kinds and instantiates legitimacy. If an institution claims to alter marriage, life, or truth itself, the gate test exposes the counterfeit.
D. Fidelity Equivalence.Does the change maintain covenantal fidelity, or does it hollow it into contract? Applied Ontology asks not whether something is “new,” but whether it honors the relational kind God ordained.
E. Proportionality and Restitution.Does the supposed progress repair wrongs proportionately, or simply rename them? Biblical justice requires restitution (Exod. 22:1). Statistical improvement without restoration is effigiation — counterfeit instantiation.
These tests unmask progress as myth whenever novelty pretends to be virtue, or when time itself is treated as moral authority.
Believing in moral progress does not ennoble society; it anesthetizes it. Several predictable outcomes follow when novelty is mistaken for virtue:
A. Moral anesthesia.Vice is renamed, not repented of. The sting of conscience dulls as language softens. Sin remains static, but its recognition erodes.
B. Institutional fragility.Technological sophistication grows, while moral integrity withers. Trust collapses beneath the weight of complexity, and institutions that look advanced crumble from within.
C. Persecution drift.Yesterday’s virtue becomes today’s vice. Fidelity to covenant truth is recast as hatred or ignorance. “Progress” legitimizes the punishment of dissenters who refuse novelty.
D. Cultural gaslighting.Collective memory is rewritten. The wisdom of past generations is vilified as backward, while present failures are hailed as enlightenment. The myth enforces forgetfulness to secure obedience.
Objection: But haven’t we progressed — abolition, civil rights, reduced violence?Reply: We give thanks for just reforms, yet note:
Law restrains without renewing hearts. Greed and pride adapt even as legislation changes.
Harm migrates. Plantation slavery yields to prison-industrial exploitation; public violence yields to bureaucratized neglect.
Statistics launder kinds. Lower homicide rates can coexist with industrialized abortion, elder abandonment, or digital exploitation.
Progress is reversible. Gains in one domain are offset by regress in fidelity, covenant, and truth.
Thus even real reforms do not vindicate the myth. They display God’s common grace, not time’s moral power.
Scripture offers a counter-vision. True progress is not chronological but covenantal: fidelity renewed by repentance.
A. Progress redefined.Advancement is measured not by novelty but by repentance → fidelity → restitution → stewardship. This cycle — not the passage of time — marks real renewal.
B. Formation over novelty.The goal is not to invent new moral kinds, but to be formed in the kinds God has already ordained: personhood, covenant, family, community.
C. Practices of renewal.
Truth-telling: integrity of word over spin (Eph. 4:25).
Promise-keeping: covenant faithfulness over contractual escape (Matt. 5:37).
Proportionate repair: restitution that restores rather than rebrands (Exod. 22:1; Luke 19:8).
D. Metrics that matter.
Restitution rate: percentage of adjudicated wrongs with proportionate restitution completed.
Covenant durability: survival of marriages beyond ten years, adjusted for socioeconomic factors.
Truth integrity: ratio of public retractions to proven misstatements in institutions.
Stewardship fidelity: whether debt growth exceeds asset maintenance in public bodies.
These metrics do not claim exhaustiveness, but they offer concrete ways of discerning fidelity over novelty.
The old paths are not nostalgia but reality. They are the fixed ground to which every generation must return if it would flourish.
To dismantle the myth of progress in public discourse, several rhetorical moves sharpen clarity and unmask assumption:
A. Contrast pairs.
Innovation vs. integrity
Novelty vs. fidelity
Speed vs. wisdom
Efficiency vs. stewardship
B. Stock rebuttals.
“It’s new” ≠ “It’s good.”
“It’s popular” ≠ “It’s just.”
“It’s 2025” ≠ “It’s true.”
C. Pull-quotes for emphasis.
“Time sanctifies nothing; truth does.”
“Form constant, scope variable; clocks don’t change kinds.”
“Progress is not the passage of time but the practice of fidelity.”
“Ask for the old paths, and walk therein” (Jer. 6:16).
These rhetorical devices make the critique memorable and portable. They turn abstract ontology into practical speech acts that resist the cultural current.
The deconstruction of the myth of progress follows a deliberate arc:
Hook & Thesis — unmasking “We’ve come a long way” as creed, not truth.
Define the Myth — exposing its smuggled premises: time = telos, novelty = virtue.
Biblical Counter-Frame — grounding morality in the old paths (Jer. 6:16) and showing its static nature.
Mechanics — chronological snobbery, technicism, inevitabilism, narrative pedagogy, statistical laundering.
Diagnostic Markers — linguistic and cultural cues that reveal the myth in action.
Case Domains — speech/conscience, sex/family, bioethics/technology, economics/justice, state neutrality.
Tests — Household Mirror, Scale-Shift Audit, DDP Gate, Fidelity Equivalence, Proportionality/Restitution.
Consequences — moral anesthesia, institutional fragility, persecution drift, cultural gaslighting.
Alternative — the old paths, repentance → fidelity → restitution → stewardship.
Rhetorical Toolkit — contrasts, rebuttals, pull-quotes for public argument.
This flow ensures clarity: beginning with definition, grounding in Scripture, unmasking mechanisms, diagnosing expressions, applying litmus tests, exposing consequences, and finally offering the biblical alternative.
A. Verse Index
Jer. 6:16 — “Ask for the old paths.”
Eccl. 1:9 — “Nothing new under the sun.”
Gen. 6:5 — “Every imagination… only evil continually.”
Rom. 3:23 — “All have sinned…”
Rom. 1:18–32 — regression of civilizations.
2 Tim. 3:1–5 — perilous last days.
Matt. 24:12 — love grown cold.
Exod. 22:1 — fourfold/fivefold restitution.
Luke 19:8 — Zacchaeus promises fourfold restitution.
Prov. 6:31 — “sevenfold” repayment as proverbial human maximum.
Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, 28 — “seven times” divine punitive escalation.
B. Hollywood Tropes
Tradition Rejection Arc: Hero matures by abandoning the “old ways.”
Liberation Ending: Freedom defined as release from covenantal bonds.
Tech-Savior Narrative: Problems solved by invention, not repentance.
Inevitable Future Frame: “It’s the way the world is going.”
C. Mini Case Cards
Speech: from “free expression” to compelled affirmation.
Family: divorce normalized as growth.
Technology: AI praised as moral agent.
Economics: GDP growth celebrated while inequity deepens.
State: laws codify novelty as virtue.
The myth of progress is not a neutral safeguard but a cultural narcotic. It numbs repentance, baptizes novelty, and canonizes decline as enlightenment. Applied Ontology exposes its fraud: morality does not evolve — it endures. True progress is not chronological but covenantal: to ask for the old paths, to walk in them, and to find rest for our souls.
Series link-out. This chapter completes the arc set by the
Liberty of Conscience
essay and should be read alongside:
Myth of Neutral Culture
· Myth of Neutral Expression
· Myth of Neutral Origins
