In Genesis chapter 11, we are told the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. At first glance, this story may appear on the surface to be little more than a good story to tell our children in Sunday School. However, if you take the time to dive beneath the surface and to plunge down into the depths of the profound insights this story provides, you will find yourself enlightened about all of the dark goings-on in this fallen world, those that have happened in the past, those that are happening in the present, and those that the Bible predicts will happen in the future.
To truly understand this incredibly important chapter of God’s Word, we need to begin with a brief look at a most insidious human philosophy. Utopianism is the belief that mankind is capable of creating a future utopian civilization; in other words, utopians believe in fallen man’s ability to create his own heaven on earth. Although the idea is strewn throughout literature, it is the ancient Greek philosopher Plato who is credited with its origin. In his Critias and Timaeus, Plato wrote of the mythical Lost City of Atlantis, a highly intelligent utopian civilization that sank into the sea “in a single day and night of misfortune.” While some insist that the Lost City of Atlantis actually existed, most concede that it was fabricated by Plato for the purpose of adding credence to his Republic, a work within which Plato proposes the possibility of an ideal civilization ruled by a Philosopher class, protected by a Warrior class, and served by a Producer class.
Although the idea is generally believed to date back to Plato, the term “utopia” appears to have been coined by the English statesman and humanist Thomas More, who wrote an essay by that title in 1516. More’s essay tells a fanciful tale of a fictitious explorer’s discovery of a rationally organized society. In a strange twist of irony, More’s essay is attributed with the birth of modern utopianism; despite the fact that it appears to have been More’s intention to repudiate rather than substantiate utopian thinking.
More constructed the term “utopia” from Greek words meaning “no place.” His insinuation is unmistakable; there is no place in this fallen world where utopia or heaven on earth will ever be found. While many, such as Francis Bacon,1 the author of The New Atlantis, disagreed with More and continued to maintain the possibility of a manmade utopia, others, such as Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, and George Orwell, the author of 1984, became dystopians, writing of the hell on earth that would be created by utopians’ pursuit of heaven on earth. Though today’s world would do well to heed the warnings of Huxley and Orwell, the Bible foretells our unfortunate and ultimate failure to do so.
Contrary to popular belief, the true roots of utopianism can be traced back to a much older and far more ominous source than utopianism’s initial musings in the mind of Plato. Indeed, as Scripture clearly reveals, the real roots of utopianism are found in the dark shade beneath the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Furthermore, fallen humanity’s first attempt at manmade utopia was the Tower of Babel, which predated Plato and his fanciful Lost City of Atlantis by almost 2,000 years.
It was in the dark shade beneath Eden's Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that man joined league with Lucifer in usurping God’s place and substituting himself for God. This is the sin that got Lucifer thrown out of heaven and resulted in the fall of angels. It is also the sin that got Adam and Eve thrown out of the Garden of Eden and resulted in the fall of man. It was here that the greatest tragedy in all of human history occurred, when our original parents, Adam and Eve, usurped the place of God in their lives, by replacing God with themselves as the final arbiter of good and evil. In other words, they decided not to live by God’s Word, as God had created them to live (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4), but to live by their wits, independent of God and indifferent to His Word.
Now, this sin of fallen angels and fallen men was incorporated into a corporate crime when the whole world came together to erect the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar (Genesis 11:1-9). Babel was fallen man’s first attempt, in affiliation and association with fallen angels, to form a one world government. Mankind’s towering and diabolical aspirations at Babel were threefold. First, he aspired to create his own heaven on earth, by forming a one world government. Second, he aspired to make his own way into heaven, by inventing his own religion. And third, he aspired to do it all, independent of God and in defiance of God, so that he could glorify himself rather than God.
The diabolical aspirations of Babel’s ancient tower builders have lived in the hearts of fallen men ever since, which explains fallen man’s perpetual and demonic obsession with forming a one world government and forging and fostering a profusion of false religions. It all boils down to fallen man’s satanically inspired aspiration to make a name for himself rather than to magnify the name of God’s Son Jesus Christ. Fallen men, just like fallen angels, seek to prove their own deity and that God is dispensable by devising for themselves, in defiance of God, a paradisiacal planet. If they can pull it off, then, the fallen have won, God has fallen, and the defiers of God have been proven divine.
As the Bible teaches, beginning with the Tower of Babel and going all the way through to the book of Revelation, fallen men and fallen angels have no hope of ever creating their own heaven on earth. Instead, as thirty-five hundred years of recorded human history proves, no matter how much or how hard they try, their joint efforts always result in the opposite, hell on earth rather than heaven on earth. It’s simply impossible for the no-good to produce good apart from God, who alone is good and apart from whom no good is possible (Mark 10:18).
1. Francis Bacon is considered by some to be “the real and true founder of America,” as well as “the godfather of America’s Founding Fathers.” As the first Grand Master of modern Freemasonry, Bacon believed America to be the new Atlantis. He envisioned America rising to become a utopian society that would usher in a new world order by exporting democracy all over the world. His confidence in America serving as a future catalyst to worldwide utopia led him to become a leading proponent of Europe’s colonization of America. In honor of his advocacy on behalf of American colonization, a 1910 Newfoundland stamp bore Bacon’s image and read, “Lord Bacon: the Guiding Spirit in the Colonization Scheme.”
Despite the fact that he died 150 years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, many believe that Francis Bacon’s fingerprints are all over the founding of our nation. Many of our Founding Fathers were Deists and freemasons who revered Bacon as the first Grand Master of modern Freemasonry. For instance, Thomas Jefferson praised Francis Bacon, along with John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, as the “three greatest men the world had ever produced.” In addition, many insist that the influence of Bacon’s writings on our Founding Fathers is proven by the Great Seal of the United States. Designed and adopted by our Founding Fathers in 1782, the Great Seal bears the inscription: NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, which is Latin for “New World Order.”
