1295. The meaning of a man said to his companion as the fact that it began, or that these things started, follows from the context.
This verse deals with the third phase of the church, when falsity, and specifically greed-driven falsity, started to predominate.
Falsity has two origins; one is ignorance of the truth, the other is corrupt desire. Falsity that springs from ignorance of the truth is not as harmful as falsity that rises out of corrupt desires. We fall into the errors of ignorance when we are taught that way from childhood onward, or when business matters of various kinds distract us from inquiring into the truth, or when we lack the ability to discriminate between truth and falsity. This kind of misinformation does not do much damage, as long as we avoid entrenching ourselves in it with multiple arguments and convincing ourselves — under the goading of some selfish desire — to lend it our support. To do this is to thicken the cloud of ignorance and make it so dark that we cannot see the truth.
[2] But falsity is greed-driven when it starts with corrupt desires, or in other words, with self-love and materialism. We might take up a certain tenet of doctrine, for instance, and avow it publicly in order to seize hold of the popular mind and become a leader. We might interpret or distort that doctrine to our own advantage, arguing from factual evidence and at the same time quoting from the letter of the Word to confirm our views. Worship stemming from such behavior is profane, no matter how pious it seems on the outside, because on the inside it is not worship of the Lord but of ourselves. Furthermore, we fail to acknowledge anything that really is true, except to the extent that we can explain it to our own advantage. This kind of worship is what Babel symbolizes.
The case is different, however, with those who have been born and brought up to this kind of worship, who do not know that the thinking is wrong, and who live a life of love for others. Their ignorance holds innocence inside it, and their worship contains the goodness born of charity. It is not so much the worship itself as the quality of the person worshiping that determines whether it should be described as profane.
