I) Introduction
1) The items that we will be discovering in this and the other studies that we will
cover can be used in almost any debate.
A) It can be used to debate doctrine
B) It can be used to debate How people interpret the Bible
C) It can be used to discuss any moral issues with success.
2) What we need to be able to do is to critical think about what the other view says
about things and also about the assumptions that are necessary for logical discourse.
3) The evolution and creation debate is the best example that can show this
A) It is the best because the opponents are at such extreme odds with each other
B) It is the best because we can clearly see the impact of the things that we will go
over.
4) It is amazing when you think about it, 2 PhD scientists can work side by side and
examine the same piece of evidence and yet draw two radically different conclusions
about the evidence.
A) In universities around the USA, this happens all the time
B) The evolutionist sees a lot of evidence for an old earth.
C) The creationist sees a lot of evidence for a young earth.
D) They each think that the other is being irrational in their interpretation of the
evidence.
E) They ask the question, “Why can they not see all the evidence for the big bang
and the vast age of the universe?”
5) As we saw in our last study, the evidence is always interpreted to be consistent with
their world view.
6) Creationists and evolutionists will interpret the same facts differently, each in
accordance with their world view.
7) Therefore, scientific evidence by itself will never resolve the debate since each side
believe’s the evidence is on their side.
8) In order for this debate to have resolution, we must deal with the competing world
views and not just the isolated evidence.
9) In order to see which world view is better than the other, then we must first learn
what each view believes.
II) The Biblical Creation World View
1) The consistent Biblical creationist is one whose world view is based on the Bible.
This is their ultimate standard.
2) The Biblical creationist occurs
A) In an all powerful (Matt. 19:26), all knowing (Col. 2:2&3),
all loving (John 3:16) God.
B) That God created the universe in 6 ordinary days (Ex. 20:11) thousands
not billions of years ago (based on geneoogies such as Gen. 5:4-32).
C) Today God upholds the universe by His sustaining power (Heb. 1:3) in
a logical and consistent way that we call the “laws of nature” or the “laws of
science” (Jer. 33:25).
D) The method in which God created the universe is not the same method that
He upholds the universe today , God ended His work of creation by the
seventh day.
E) The world was a paradise when first created (Gen. 1:31)
F) God created the first man, Adam, out of the ground and gave him charge over
all the earth (Gen. 1:26-31; 2:7-15).
G) God created woman out of man (Gen. 2:21-22).
H) Man rebelled against God (Gen 3:1-14)
I) Because of this God cursed the entire earth (Gen. 3:17)
J) Death was passed onto all mankind (Rom. 5:12)
K) Since that time all men have sinned (Rom. 3:23)
L) Since we all sin, we deserve death and eternal separation from God.
M) This is why God became a man (John 1:1,14) and died on the cross.
N) Jesus took our place out of mercy and love for His creation and has offered
forgiveness upon obedience to the Gospel.
O) God created the original animals and plants “after his kind” (Gen 1:11), “after
their kind” (Gen. 1:21). This indicates that there are discrete barriers between
basic animal and plant kinds, but variation has occurred because of the curse.
P) God once flooded the entire world in response to man’s wickedness
(Gen. 5:5-7,17) but spared 8 people (I Peter 3:20).
Q) Creationists believe that most of the fossils found on earth today are a result
of this global flood.
3) This is a brief summary of what the Biblical creationist believes. More could be added
but this should be enough for our study.
III) The Evolution World View
1) There is no single world view for us to summarize. Different ones hold to slightly
different views.
2) However, they all have certain features which are common among them all.
3) Evolutionists believe,
A) They reject the straightforward record of Genesis.
B) The ultimate standard for the evolutionist varies from person to person,
but they all have one, just like we all do.
C) The ultimate standard is often either naturalism (the belief that nature is all
there is) or empiricism (the idea that all knowledge is gained from
observations).
D) As a result, evolutionists believe that the universe is billions of years old.
E) It originated with the big bang, the rapid expansion of space, time, and energy
from a single infinitesimally small point.
F) Energy cooled and became matter, which condensed into stars and galaxies.
G) Stars made of heavier elements condensed to become planets.
H) The solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a collapsing gas
cloud. The stars and planets are all the result of natural laws working over vast
amounts of time.
I) On earth, certain chemicals came together to form the first cell and began to
replicate itself. In the process, copying mistakes happened (mutations). This
produced variations.
J) Most of the variations were not fit for the environment which resulted in the
death of the organism and the mutation was not passed on.
K) Some mutations did benefit the organism and enhanced it and made it more
able to survive and passed the mutation on.
L) The organism began to gradually evolve which resulted in the tremendous
variety of life that we see today.
M) A god is not necessary for the process.
N) They do not believe in any type of global flood. Fossils were laid down over
millions of years.
O) They tend to hold to the philosophy of uniforitarianism. This is the
assumption that present rates and processes are representative of those that
have happened in the past.
4) This is just a brief summary of a typical evolutionist position.
IV) Competing World Views
1) As we can see, the evolutionist and the creationist have completely different
world views, a different ultimate standard by which each interprets the evidence.
2) Now that we can see the differences that exist, we should be able to see why people
draw such different conclusions from the same data.
3) It seems to make sense why the evolutionist would believe that a certain fossil is
millions of years old, all the while the creationist believe the same fossil is only
thousands of years old.
4) The point being, evidence does not “speak for itself”, rather, it requires interpretation
5) Again we interpret the evidence in light of our world view.
6) So can we resolve this issue?
V) The Pretended Neutrality Fallacy
1) Now that we understand what we are dealing with as far as world views, one may be
tempted to conclude that the debate can be settled by meeting on neutral ground.
2) Maybe there is a position in between the two in which both parties can have
agreement, an intermediate world view in which contains things in which both
the evolutionist and creationist can agree upon.
3) Once they agree upon the rules of interpretation, they should be able to come to an
agreement on which view is better supported by the evidence.
4) This would seem reasonable at first glance. Yet upon closer examination we find
that this is not sustainable.
5) Logically flawed
A) Both sides have positive world views.
B) Each person believes that their view provides the correct way in which to
interpret the evidence.
C) This third neutral view will necessarily provide a different interpretation of
some of the evidence, otherwise it would not be distinguishable from one of
the others.
D) Also, if the neutral view offered an incorrect interpretation of some of the data,
then why would we trust it to reliably point to on or the other? In other words,
why would we trust a faulty view to point to a correct view?
E) Conversely, if the neutral view is correct, then both of the other world views
would be incorrect.
F) Everyone must have an ultimate standard by which evidence is evaluated. That
ultimate standard cannot itself be judged by a lesser neutral standard, otherwise
it would not be the ultimate standard.
G) This position is clearly logically flawed.
6) Biblically flawed
A) Matt. 12:30 clearly indicates that, for the consistent Christian, there is no
neutral position. (Romans 8:7, James 4:4).
B) On the surface, it may seem that this position only applies to the Christian,
since it is only the Christian that regards the Bible as an infallible source of
truth.
C) The nature of the claim actually forces the unbeliever to be non-neutral as well
D) The Bible indicates that there is no neutral ground, anyone that says that there
is neutral ground is in fact stating that the Bible is wrong.
E) Any one who says that the Bible is wrong is not being neutral because they
have taken the position that the Bible is wrong.
F) It is impossible to be neutral in regards to Bible authority.
VI) Resolving the Debate
1) The need to be consistent
A) Review
1) Scientific evidence alone will not settle anything. We all interpret
the evidence according and to match our world view.
2) Everyone has a world view whether they realize it or not. It is
unavoidable.
3) It is impossible to be neutral, such a position cannot exist.
B) We need to realize that world views have consequences. Whatever a person
chooses as their ultimate standard will lead to other beliefs, which will lead to
others, etc...
C) A good world view must be logically consistent
1) If a world view has internal contradictions, then it cannot be correct.
2) Some world views lead to the strange consequence that it is impossible
to know anything at all. Such a world view is rationally defective since
it would be impossible to know that it is true.
3) Everyone has an ultimate standard, but not all ultimate standards will
provide a self-consistent world view in which knowledge is possible.
4) If a world view is self-contradictory, or has absurd consequences, then
it cannot be correct.
D) Example of the philosophy of relativism
1) Relativists believe that truth is relative, that it varies from person to
person.
2) It includes the idea that there are no absolutes.
3) The position the “there are no absolute” is itself an absolute proposition
4) They assert that it is absolutely true that truth is not absolute.
5) This position is self defeating. If it were true, it would lead to the
consequence that it cannot be absolutely true and if that were true, it
would be false; therefore relativism is false.
E) Example of the philosophy of empiricism
1) Empiricism is the view that all knowledge is gained through
observation.
2) It is a fact that some knowledge is gained in this way. In fact this is
perfectly consistent with Scripture.
3) There is nothing wrong with empirical methods, but the philosophy
of empiricism goes much further than this.
4) They believe that ALL knowledge is acquired by observation.
5) Observation is the ultimate standard by which all truth claims are
tested.
6) The flaw in this view can be shown by asking how they know that
all knowledge is gained through observation? Knowledge is not
something that can be observed.
7) How can someone possibly know that empiricism itself is true if
all things are indeed know by observation?
8) If it is proved in some other way other than observation, then it refutes
itself.
9) If the empiricist’s ultimate standard did happen to be true, they could
never prove it
10) If a person’s ultimate standard is uncertain, then all their other
beliefs which are based on that standard are called into question.
11) The reality of empiricism is the fact that it actually destroys the
possibility of KNOWING anything!
F) A correct world view MUST be internally consistent to be correct.
2) The preconditions of intelligibility
A) Just because a world view is internally consistent does not of necessity mean
that it is correct.
B) A rational world view must provide the preconditions of intelligibility
C) These are conditions that must be accepted as true BEFORE we can know
anything about reality.
D) These preconditions most persons take for granted.
E) Example of the reliability of memory
1) We all assume that our memory is basically reliable, but when pressed
this turns out to be rather difficult to prove.
2) How do we really know that our memory is really reliable?
3) Just because we remember something doesn’t prove that it happened
unless we already knew that our memory was reliable.
4) This is something that we assume BEFORE we begin to investigate
the universe.
F) Example of the reliability of our senses
1) We all suppose that our ears, eyes, and other senses reliably report
the details about the universe.
2) Without this assumption, science would not be possible.
3) We could draw no reliable conclusions from any experiment if our
observation of the experiment are unreliable.
4) Think Matrix trilogy
G) Example of laws of logic
1) We all presume that there are laws of logic that govern correct thinking.
2) Earlier we said that contradictions cannot be true, yet it probably did
not occur to anyone to question that claim, it is a law of logic that we
all take for granted.
3) How do we prove that there is such a thing as a law of logic? We
would have to first assume that there were laws of logic in order
to begin a logical proof.
4) They must be assumed before we can even begin to reason about
anything, including reasoning about the laws of logic.
H) We take these things for granted, yet most people do not stop to think why
these things are so.
I) A logically correct view must provide these preconditions, because without
them we could not know anything at all.
J) Both sides must assume these preconditions at the onset in order to know
anything.
K) It is only the Biblical creation world view that can give justification, a sound
reason, for these things. Without justification for the things that we take for
granted, we can’t really know that any of our thinking or observations of the
world are correct.
L) If our thinking and observations are unreliable, then we really can’t be certain
about anything at all. So only in the Biblical creationist universe is it possible
to actually know anything about anything.
M) Proverbs 1:7 indicates that knowledge begins with a respectful submission to
the Biblical God and that rejection of wisdom and Biblical instruction leads to
foolishness or irrationality.
N) This is key to understand, if Biblical creation were not true, we could not know
anything at all.
O) This is not to say that those who do not hold to the Biblical account of the
origin of the universe cannot know anything. No one is arguing that they must
believe in creation to know things. The argument is that the Bible’s account of
origins must be true. Only the God described in the Bible can provide the
foundation for the things we take for granted.
P) Without God’s Word, we would not have a good reason to believe in these
preconditions of intelligibility, the uniformity of nature, morality, personal
dignity and freedom, etc...
3) The necessity of being non- arbitrary
A) In response, someone may say, “It is not important that we have a reason
for things like logic and the reliability of senses and memory. It is enough
that we are able to act upon them. We can know lots of things, even though
we may not have a reason for those things we take for granted.”
B) This kind of reasoning is arbitrary, believing in something is not the same as
knowing something. Kids believe in Santa Clause, but they clearly do not
know this.
C) A belief must be true in order for it to be considered genuine knowledge. Yet
if a belief happens to be true it does not follow that the person really has
knowledge of it. If a person has enough arbitrary beliefs, a few may be true,
but if the person does not have a good reason for those beliefs, it would be
inappropriate to say that they actually have knowledge since they have no
basis for that belief.
D) Without a base, the belief becomes a personal opinion only and not a reflection
of knowledge. In order for a belief to count as knowledge, there has to be a
good reason for it. Therefore, it is not possible to have knowledge of
something without having a reason for it.
E) Example of
1) The statement “I just KNOW it is going to be warm and sunny for the
church picnic next month.”
2) Question, does this person really know this? Clearly not. They may
believe that it will be, but there is no guarantee that their belief is true.
3) What if it turned out to be true? Would this indicate that all along they
had knowledge of the future?
4) Even though their belief turned out to be true, it is wrong to say that
they had knowledge of the future.
5) They did not really know that is would be sunny because they did not
have justification; that is, did not have a good reason for the belief.
6) Knowledge is true, JUSTIFIED belief.
F) Evolutionists rightly expect the creationist to be non-arbitrary or to have a
reason for their beliefs.
G) Yet many evolutionist feel no need to have a reason for their own beliefs. This
is a double standard and should never be acceptable.
H) We will discuss these issues in more clarity at a latter time in our study.
I) It should be clear that in order to know something we must have justification
or a reason for our beliefs. If not then we really do not know it to be true
J) Those who deny Biblical creation do not have a reason for the things that they
take for granted (within their world view), and thus they could not really know
any of these things.
K) To the extant that evolutionists know anything, it is because they are ultimately
relying on biblical creation, as we shall see.
L) The fact that they act upon their beliefs is not the question at hand.
M) The point here is in the fact that if their world view were correct, they have no
justification for their most basic convictions. Although they happen to believe
some things that are true, they can never really know that those things are true
unless they appeal to biblical creation.
4) In our next study we will see specifically how the Bible accounts for these things, and
why evolutionary world views cannot account for them.
A) We will concentrate on three of the preconditions of intelligibility: laws of
logic, uniformity in nature, and morality
B) Only in the Biblical creation world view can these things make sense.
C) The Bible must be true because if it were not, we could not actually know
anything as all.
D) For this reason, non-biblical world views such os evolution are necessarily
ultimately irrational
Saturday, April 20, 2013
The Transendental Argument fot the Existence of God Part 1
Introduction
1) We have studied a little about this subject in the past.
A) Age of the Earth
B) Species
C) Natural Selection
D) Genetic Mutations
2) These constitute the major problems that are in evolutionism. I invite you to review
those lessons at your convenience to refresh our memories.
3) The purpose of this investigation is to get a real handle on what the issues really are
and how we can show that Biblical creationism (the fact that the accounts in Genesis
chapters 1 and 2 are true) is the only world view that can make sense of what we see
in nature.
4) In this study, we will not be concentrating on the evidence per say. We will look at
the concept of world views and how they are foundational to how we interpret
the evidence.
5) I believe it will surprise you to see that it is the Biblical Creation world view that
enables us to know anything.
6) In fact, I believe, that we can show the ultimate proof for a literal Genesis.
I) The place of scientific evidence
1) What is the place of scientific evidence in the origins debate?
2) Do things like DNA, fossils, rock layers, age of the earth really support evolution
or do they support creation as described in Genesis?
3) Many people think that an unbias investigation of the evidence is the absolute
standard by which the origins debate can be settled.
4) However, such a view does not stand up to careful scrutiny for reasons that we will
discuss later.
5) Some take the opposite approach to the origins issue. They believe that scientific
evidence is utterly irrelevant to the debate. The issue being more a matter of faith
than reason.
6) However, this is overly simplistic and will not stand up to rational investigation.
7) Scientific evidence by itself will not settle this matter as we shall examine.
8) Nonetheless, it is important to be aware of a few of the best scientific arguments
for Biblical creation, however this is not the ULTIMATE PROOF.
II) Scientific arguments for Biblical Creation
1) Information Science
A) This is one of the most compelling, commonly used scientific arguments
for creation. It involves the field of INFORMATION SCIENCE.
1) In this technological age, we are inundated with all sorts of
information. But few people stop to consider what information
really is, and where it comes from.
2) We can define information scientifically as a coded message
containing an expected action and intent.
3) Under this definition, the words on this paper qualify as information.
That is to say they are encoded, the words represent ideas.
4) The expected action is that the you, the reader, will read and act
upon the words, and the intended purpose is that you will become
better at defending the Genesis account.
B) DNA also contains information.
1) The DNA molecule is a long molecule found within living cells and
resembles a twisted ladder. The rungs of the ladder form a pattern
of base pair triplets that represent amino acid sequences or the
building blocks of proteins.
2) DNA contains the “instructions” to build the organism.
3) So different organisms have different DNA patterns.
4) DNA qualifies under the definition of information
a) It contains an encoded message, the base pair triplets represent
amino acids.
b) It has an expected action, the formation of proteins
c) It has an intended purpose, life.
C) Theorems
1) Whenever we find any sort of information there are certain rules that
apply, these are called theorems. Here are 2
a) “There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no
known sequence of events that can cause information to
originate by itself in matter.”
b) “When its progress along the chain of transmission events
is traced backward, every piece of information leads to a
mental source, the mind of the sender.”
2)The first tells us that matter does not spontaneously generate
information.
3) The second tells us that only a mental source can generate new
information.
4) In one sense, these theorems are hardly profound; we take for granted
that when we read a book it has an author. No one reading this study
would conclude that it was generated by a sequence of typos that
gradually accumulated over time. We take for granted that a mind
(No matter how small) is ultimately responsible for the information
that it contains. The theorems of information science confirms this.
D) Life could not have come about in an evolutionary sense
1) These theorems tell us that life cannot have come about as it is stated
by the evolutionists.
2) The information in DNA cannot have come about by mutations and
selection because the laws of information science tell us that all
information comes from a mind.
3) Yet this makes sense in light of Biblical Creation. It was by the mind of
God that the initial information was placed in the DNA sequence.
4) This information has been copied many times, and some of it has been
lost. But the information in our DNA ultimately comes from God
5) The laws of information science confirm creation.
2) Irreducible Complexity
A) This is one of the items that we have studied in the past.
B) It was under the study of Genetic Mutations
C) You may refer to that study.
3) Age Indicators
A) We covered this quite extensively when we discussed the age of the earth.
B) Again, you may refer to this study to refresh your memory.
C) On item that we did not discus in that study was the evidence that comes
from comets.
1) Comets are made of ice and dirt, and they orbit in elliptical paths
that occasionally bring them close to the sun.
2) When a comet passed close to the sun, solar radiation heats the
comet, causing the icy material to vaporize and disperse into space.
3) Since comets are constantly losing material, they cannot exist forever.
4) It has been estimated that a typical comet can last for a maximum of
about 100,000 years before completely running out of material.
5) This is not a problem for the Biblical creationist who believes in a
literal reading of Genesis 1.
6) If the universe is billions of years old, then why do we still see comets
today? They would have disappeared a long time ago.
III) Evidence and Rescuing Devices
1) The scientific evidence that we have just looked at certainly confirms Biblical creation.
A lot more evidence could have been given, but this shall do for our study.
2) Because of this, evolution would seem to stand refuted. It may seem that we have
proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that scientific evidence proves Biblical
creation and disproves the notion of evolution. However, this is not the case.
3) The above examples are very good arguments indeed. But they are not the
ULTIMATE PROOF. They do not actually prove biblical creation, nor do they utterly
refute evolution.
4) Rescuing devices
A) When faced with these kinds of evidences, the evolutionist can always invoke
what is called a “rescuing device”. That is, an evolutionist can invent a story
to explain away apparently contrary evidence. Let’s see how this works with
the comets argument for a young solar system.
1) Evolutionary astronomers believe that the solar system is billions of
years old.
2) Yet they see comets within it.
3) He can observe that comets disintegrate quite rapidly, and they compute
that they can only last 100,000 years or so.
4) How are they to resolve this dilemma?
a) There must be a source that generates new comets to replace the
old ones.
b) So they have proposed on “Oort cloud (named after its inventor
Jan Oort).
c) This cloud is an enormous hypothetical sphere of icy masses
that surround our solar system. It is supposedly far beyond the
most distant planets, beyond the range of our most powerful
Telescopes.
d) They suppose that on occasion, objects in the Oort cloud are
dislodged from their distant orbit and thrown into the inner solar
system to become brand new comets. Since these new comets
continually replace the old ones, the solar system could be
billions of years old.
5) No one has ever seen the Oort cloud. It is supposedly much to far away
to detect the small objects within it. Currently, there is no
observational evidence of any kind for the cloud.
6) This is a rescuing device that “saves” the evolutionist’s view from
evidence that would otherwise seem to refute it.
B) Is a rescuing device unacceptable?
1) The answer might surprise you. It is NO, a rescuing device is not
necessarily wrong. In fact we all use these devices, even the
Biblical creationist.
a) The distant starlight problem is a great example that we also
use rescuing devices.
b) This is the argument that the universe must be billions of years
old since it apparently takes a very long time for light from the
most distant galaxies to reach earth.
c) This would seem to be irrefutable evidence that the universe is
in fact billions of years old. How does the Biblical creationist
account for this. A rescuing device.
d) There is no definitive, verified solution to this problem.
e) Several models have been proposed to explain this problem yet
they to (just like the Oort cloud) are rescuing devices.
2) Is this arbitrary? No, the creationist and the evolutionist both have a
reason to believe what they believe. It is called a world view.
3) World view
a) We all have a way of thinking about the world, a world view.
b) Our world view contains our most strongly held convictions
about how the world works, how it came to be, the nature of
reality, the nature of truth, and how we should live.
c) Most people today have not given much thought to their own
world view. In fact many do not even realize that they have one
d) Such people tend to think that all knowledge is acquired by
unbiased observation of the evidence. This is called
“Empiricism” and it is itself a kind of world view.
e) We cannot help but have some beliefs about how the world
works, how we obtain knowledge, and how we should live.
f) Even if we believe that we have no such beliefs, this is a belief
itself. There’s no escaping it. It is inevitable to have one.
A rational world view is not.
g) A wold view is like mental glasses. It affects the way that we
look at the world.
f) A person wearing red glasses sees everything as being red. A
person wearing evolution glasses sees evolution everywhere.
I) The world if not really red everywhere, but the glasses do affect
our perception of the world and the conclusions that we draw.
j) The evolutionist sees the world differently then does the Biblical
creationist. We have the exact same facts, but what we make of
those facts is colored by our world view. Thus, we interpret the
same evidence differently.
k) This point cannot be overstated. Much of the frustration that
exists in the evolution-creation debate is due to this fact, that
the evolutionist and creationists must interpret the same data
differently due to their different world views.
C) All have one
1) Many people do not want to accept the fact that all evidence must be
interpreted in light of prior beliefs-a faith commitment of some kind.
2) Many have the assumption that evidence should be approached in a
neutral and unbiased fashion. That is without any previous beliefs.
3) This is impossible to do.
a) This view is itself a belief.
b) It is a belief about how we should look at the evidence,
c) One more thing to remember, in order for our observations of
evidence to the meaningful, we would already have to believe
that our senses are reliable. It would do no good to observe the
evidence if we did not believe that our observations were real
and reliable.
4) We cannot avoid wearing mental glasses, having a world view,
5) What is important to make sure that we have on the right pair.
a) An incorrect world view will draw out incorrect conclusions
about the universe.
b) A correct world view will prevent us from drawing the wrong
conclusions and can improve our understanding about the
universe.
D) Examples of such
1) Magic acts
a) You see a magician saw a woman in half.
b) Your senses tell you that you saw this and that it happened
c) But the conclusion that you draw from it is not based on what
you have seen.
d) You draw the conclusion that it is a trick because your world
view prevents you from drawing the wrong conclusion, that
the woman was actually cut in half.
2) UFO’s
a) Your neighbor tells you that she saw a UFO last night.
b) Your world view will immediately kicks in and helps you to
process and interpret the evidence.
c) As additional information is given, you begin forming hypothese
based on your world view.
d) Perhaps they saw an alien spacecraft, a top secret government
aircraft, or maybe they have been drinking again last night.
e) The conclusion that you draw will be influenced not only by the
evidence, but also by your general understanding of the universe
f) If you are convinced that ET’s do not exist, you will not draw the
conclusion that you neighbor did.
E) Our world view restrains us
1) Our world view constrains us and guides us in the interpretation of the
evidence.
2) This is true in every aspect of life from origins to our view of the Bible.
3) Our world view tells us what to make of the evidence.
4) This aspect should be clear now, everyone does this.
5) The creationist looking at comets concludes that the solar system
is young. The evolutionist looking at comets concludes that there must
be an Oort cloud. A creationist examining the information in DNA
concludes that there is a creator. The evolutionist looking at the same
evidence concludes that mutations or some unknown mechanism has
generated the information.
6) We all interpret the facts in light of our world view. Any evidence that
seems to challenge our world view can always be explained by
invoking a rescuing device.
7) Many of the debates about origins are not very effective because the
opposing sides do not understand the nature of world views, evidence,
and rescuing devices.
8) This is the reason that the parties always leave the debate so frustrated.
The creationist leave the debate wondering why the other person could
not see the evidence for a young earth. The evolutionist like wise
leaves the debate in the same frustrated way, not understanding why
the creationist cannot see the evidence for an old earth.
9) This frustration stems from a failure to consider the real issue; people
always interpret evidence in a way that is compatible with their
world view.
10) Thus, evidence by itself will never settle the debate.
IV) A Mexican standoff?
1) Since evidence will never settle the issue, it would appear that there is no rational
resolution to the issue of origins. After all, no matter how compelling the evidence
for either side may be, the opponent will always interpret that evidence in light
of their world view.
2) Since this is the case, that evolutionist and creationist have different world views,
is there any way to rational resolve the issue?
3) There is, and that will be the topic we will begin to discuss at our next class.
4) What we will discover is that the Biblical creation world view must be true, because
it is the only rational possibility.
1) We have studied a little about this subject in the past.
A) Age of the Earth
B) Species
C) Natural Selection
D) Genetic Mutations
2) These constitute the major problems that are in evolutionism. I invite you to review
those lessons at your convenience to refresh our memories.
3) The purpose of this investigation is to get a real handle on what the issues really are
and how we can show that Biblical creationism (the fact that the accounts in Genesis
chapters 1 and 2 are true) is the only world view that can make sense of what we see
in nature.
4) In this study, we will not be concentrating on the evidence per say. We will look at
the concept of world views and how they are foundational to how we interpret
the evidence.
5) I believe it will surprise you to see that it is the Biblical Creation world view that
enables us to know anything.
6) In fact, I believe, that we can show the ultimate proof for a literal Genesis.
I) The place of scientific evidence
1) What is the place of scientific evidence in the origins debate?
2) Do things like DNA, fossils, rock layers, age of the earth really support evolution
or do they support creation as described in Genesis?
3) Many people think that an unbias investigation of the evidence is the absolute
standard by which the origins debate can be settled.
4) However, such a view does not stand up to careful scrutiny for reasons that we will
discuss later.
5) Some take the opposite approach to the origins issue. They believe that scientific
evidence is utterly irrelevant to the debate. The issue being more a matter of faith
than reason.
6) However, this is overly simplistic and will not stand up to rational investigation.
7) Scientific evidence by itself will not settle this matter as we shall examine.
8) Nonetheless, it is important to be aware of a few of the best scientific arguments
for Biblical creation, however this is not the ULTIMATE PROOF.
II) Scientific arguments for Biblical Creation
1) Information Science
A) This is one of the most compelling, commonly used scientific arguments
for creation. It involves the field of INFORMATION SCIENCE.
1) In this technological age, we are inundated with all sorts of
information. But few people stop to consider what information
really is, and where it comes from.
2) We can define information scientifically as a coded message
containing an expected action and intent.
3) Under this definition, the words on this paper qualify as information.
That is to say they are encoded, the words represent ideas.
4) The expected action is that the you, the reader, will read and act
upon the words, and the intended purpose is that you will become
better at defending the Genesis account.
B) DNA also contains information.
1) The DNA molecule is a long molecule found within living cells and
resembles a twisted ladder. The rungs of the ladder form a pattern
of base pair triplets that represent amino acid sequences or the
building blocks of proteins.
2) DNA contains the “instructions” to build the organism.
3) So different organisms have different DNA patterns.
4) DNA qualifies under the definition of information
a) It contains an encoded message, the base pair triplets represent
amino acids.
b) It has an expected action, the formation of proteins
c) It has an intended purpose, life.
C) Theorems
1) Whenever we find any sort of information there are certain rules that
apply, these are called theorems. Here are 2
a) “There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no
known sequence of events that can cause information to
originate by itself in matter.”
b) “When its progress along the chain of transmission events
is traced backward, every piece of information leads to a
mental source, the mind of the sender.”
2)The first tells us that matter does not spontaneously generate
information.
3) The second tells us that only a mental source can generate new
information.
4) In one sense, these theorems are hardly profound; we take for granted
that when we read a book it has an author. No one reading this study
would conclude that it was generated by a sequence of typos that
gradually accumulated over time. We take for granted that a mind
(No matter how small) is ultimately responsible for the information
that it contains. The theorems of information science confirms this.
D) Life could not have come about in an evolutionary sense
1) These theorems tell us that life cannot have come about as it is stated
by the evolutionists.
2) The information in DNA cannot have come about by mutations and
selection because the laws of information science tell us that all
information comes from a mind.
3) Yet this makes sense in light of Biblical Creation. It was by the mind of
God that the initial information was placed in the DNA sequence.
4) This information has been copied many times, and some of it has been
lost. But the information in our DNA ultimately comes from God
5) The laws of information science confirm creation.
2) Irreducible Complexity
A) This is one of the items that we have studied in the past.
B) It was under the study of Genetic Mutations
C) You may refer to that study.
3) Age Indicators
A) We covered this quite extensively when we discussed the age of the earth.
B) Again, you may refer to this study to refresh your memory.
C) On item that we did not discus in that study was the evidence that comes
from comets.
1) Comets are made of ice and dirt, and they orbit in elliptical paths
that occasionally bring them close to the sun.
2) When a comet passed close to the sun, solar radiation heats the
comet, causing the icy material to vaporize and disperse into space.
3) Since comets are constantly losing material, they cannot exist forever.
4) It has been estimated that a typical comet can last for a maximum of
about 100,000 years before completely running out of material.
5) This is not a problem for the Biblical creationist who believes in a
literal reading of Genesis 1.
6) If the universe is billions of years old, then why do we still see comets
today? They would have disappeared a long time ago.
III) Evidence and Rescuing Devices
1) The scientific evidence that we have just looked at certainly confirms Biblical creation.
A lot more evidence could have been given, but this shall do for our study.
2) Because of this, evolution would seem to stand refuted. It may seem that we have
proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that scientific evidence proves Biblical
creation and disproves the notion of evolution. However, this is not the case.
3) The above examples are very good arguments indeed. But they are not the
ULTIMATE PROOF. They do not actually prove biblical creation, nor do they utterly
refute evolution.
4) Rescuing devices
A) When faced with these kinds of evidences, the evolutionist can always invoke
what is called a “rescuing device”. That is, an evolutionist can invent a story
to explain away apparently contrary evidence. Let’s see how this works with
the comets argument for a young solar system.
1) Evolutionary astronomers believe that the solar system is billions of
years old.
2) Yet they see comets within it.
3) He can observe that comets disintegrate quite rapidly, and they compute
that they can only last 100,000 years or so.
4) How are they to resolve this dilemma?
a) There must be a source that generates new comets to replace the
old ones.
b) So they have proposed on “Oort cloud (named after its inventor
Jan Oort).
c) This cloud is an enormous hypothetical sphere of icy masses
that surround our solar system. It is supposedly far beyond the
most distant planets, beyond the range of our most powerful
Telescopes.
d) They suppose that on occasion, objects in the Oort cloud are
dislodged from their distant orbit and thrown into the inner solar
system to become brand new comets. Since these new comets
continually replace the old ones, the solar system could be
billions of years old.
5) No one has ever seen the Oort cloud. It is supposedly much to far away
to detect the small objects within it. Currently, there is no
observational evidence of any kind for the cloud.
6) This is a rescuing device that “saves” the evolutionist’s view from
evidence that would otherwise seem to refute it.
B) Is a rescuing device unacceptable?
1) The answer might surprise you. It is NO, a rescuing device is not
necessarily wrong. In fact we all use these devices, even the
Biblical creationist.
a) The distant starlight problem is a great example that we also
use rescuing devices.
b) This is the argument that the universe must be billions of years
old since it apparently takes a very long time for light from the
most distant galaxies to reach earth.
c) This would seem to be irrefutable evidence that the universe is
in fact billions of years old. How does the Biblical creationist
account for this. A rescuing device.
d) There is no definitive, verified solution to this problem.
e) Several models have been proposed to explain this problem yet
they to (just like the Oort cloud) are rescuing devices.
2) Is this arbitrary? No, the creationist and the evolutionist both have a
reason to believe what they believe. It is called a world view.
3) World view
a) We all have a way of thinking about the world, a world view.
b) Our world view contains our most strongly held convictions
about how the world works, how it came to be, the nature of
reality, the nature of truth, and how we should live.
c) Most people today have not given much thought to their own
world view. In fact many do not even realize that they have one
d) Such people tend to think that all knowledge is acquired by
unbiased observation of the evidence. This is called
“Empiricism” and it is itself a kind of world view.
e) We cannot help but have some beliefs about how the world
works, how we obtain knowledge, and how we should live.
f) Even if we believe that we have no such beliefs, this is a belief
itself. There’s no escaping it. It is inevitable to have one.
A rational world view is not.
g) A wold view is like mental glasses. It affects the way that we
look at the world.
f) A person wearing red glasses sees everything as being red. A
person wearing evolution glasses sees evolution everywhere.
I) The world if not really red everywhere, but the glasses do affect
our perception of the world and the conclusions that we draw.
j) The evolutionist sees the world differently then does the Biblical
creationist. We have the exact same facts, but what we make of
those facts is colored by our world view. Thus, we interpret the
same evidence differently.
k) This point cannot be overstated. Much of the frustration that
exists in the evolution-creation debate is due to this fact, that
the evolutionist and creationists must interpret the same data
differently due to their different world views.
C) All have one
1) Many people do not want to accept the fact that all evidence must be
interpreted in light of prior beliefs-a faith commitment of some kind.
2) Many have the assumption that evidence should be approached in a
neutral and unbiased fashion. That is without any previous beliefs.
3) This is impossible to do.
a) This view is itself a belief.
b) It is a belief about how we should look at the evidence,
c) One more thing to remember, in order for our observations of
evidence to the meaningful, we would already have to believe
that our senses are reliable. It would do no good to observe the
evidence if we did not believe that our observations were real
and reliable.
4) We cannot avoid wearing mental glasses, having a world view,
5) What is important to make sure that we have on the right pair.
a) An incorrect world view will draw out incorrect conclusions
about the universe.
b) A correct world view will prevent us from drawing the wrong
conclusions and can improve our understanding about the
universe.
D) Examples of such
1) Magic acts
a) You see a magician saw a woman in half.
b) Your senses tell you that you saw this and that it happened
c) But the conclusion that you draw from it is not based on what
you have seen.
d) You draw the conclusion that it is a trick because your world
view prevents you from drawing the wrong conclusion, that
the woman was actually cut in half.
2) UFO’s
a) Your neighbor tells you that she saw a UFO last night.
b) Your world view will immediately kicks in and helps you to
process and interpret the evidence.
c) As additional information is given, you begin forming hypothese
based on your world view.
d) Perhaps they saw an alien spacecraft, a top secret government
aircraft, or maybe they have been drinking again last night.
e) The conclusion that you draw will be influenced not only by the
evidence, but also by your general understanding of the universe
f) If you are convinced that ET’s do not exist, you will not draw the
conclusion that you neighbor did.
E) Our world view restrains us
1) Our world view constrains us and guides us in the interpretation of the
evidence.
2) This is true in every aspect of life from origins to our view of the Bible.
3) Our world view tells us what to make of the evidence.
4) This aspect should be clear now, everyone does this.
5) The creationist looking at comets concludes that the solar system
is young. The evolutionist looking at comets concludes that there must
be an Oort cloud. A creationist examining the information in DNA
concludes that there is a creator. The evolutionist looking at the same
evidence concludes that mutations or some unknown mechanism has
generated the information.
6) We all interpret the facts in light of our world view. Any evidence that
seems to challenge our world view can always be explained by
invoking a rescuing device.
7) Many of the debates about origins are not very effective because the
opposing sides do not understand the nature of world views, evidence,
and rescuing devices.
8) This is the reason that the parties always leave the debate so frustrated.
The creationist leave the debate wondering why the other person could
not see the evidence for a young earth. The evolutionist like wise
leaves the debate in the same frustrated way, not understanding why
the creationist cannot see the evidence for an old earth.
9) This frustration stems from a failure to consider the real issue; people
always interpret evidence in a way that is compatible with their
world view.
10) Thus, evidence by itself will never settle the debate.
IV) A Mexican standoff?
1) Since evidence will never settle the issue, it would appear that there is no rational
resolution to the issue of origins. After all, no matter how compelling the evidence
for either side may be, the opponent will always interpret that evidence in light
of their world view.
2) Since this is the case, that evolutionist and creationist have different world views,
is there any way to rational resolve the issue?
3) There is, and that will be the topic we will begin to discuss at our next class.
4) What we will discover is that the Biblical creation world view must be true, because
it is the only rational possibility.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
The Family What it Means to America Part 2
The Family What it Means to America Pt 2
Andy Robison
Romans
1:18-32, as noted in part 1 of this article, is a synopsis of the
degradation of societies who deny the existence of God. Their
regression from truth and high moral standards spirals them toward the
depths of moral depravity in every conceivable arena—sexual immorality,
violence, gossip, hatred, disobedience to authority, and a simple lack
of loving concern.
While
most societies have to endure some profligates who participate in these
kinds of sins, when such becomes the norm for a society, there is major
trouble, inviting the wrath of God (Romans 1:18). God, who still reigns
over nations (Jeremiah 18:7-10; Acts 17:26; Romans 13:1-7), pronounces
judgment on those who, as a culture, turn against Him (Ezekiel 14:13).
It would seem even more trouble ensues when a society is so corrupt that
all such immorality is enshrined into law.
Let
American citizenry, especially Christians, be done with such talk of the
government not being in the business of legislating morality. If the
government does not legislate morality, then take off the books all laws
against drug use, public drunkenness, and murder. In many areas, if
the government does not legislate morality, it legislates immorality.
This is the case in America where abortions have progressed from the
first trimester to the second trimester to the third, and then to
partially born and even out of the womb (many “born-alive protection”
bills seek to protect babies who survive abortions from being left to
die in the operating room, yet some politicians vehemently stand against
these protections and thus in favor of this infanticide). What could
one think of such a violent government, where the right to kill children
is enshrined into law? It makes no difference that other nations do
it, or that its practice has been around for centuries. It is
“unloving” (Romans 1:31), “violent” (Romans 1:30), and an affront to
everything that is holy. It deserves the righteous judgment of God
(Romans 1:32), yet many Christians still approve of those who practice
it (Romans 1:32).
The
Romans’ passage, in the midst of a list concise in brevity, still spends
considerable time on another anti-family issue that is ever becoming
more enshrined in American law. Men and women accepting and seeking
members of the same gender for sexual fulfillment, partnering, and
rearing of children is thereby designated as one of the last stops
toward the fullness of degradation. When God “gives up” on a people,
this is the kind of behavior they aggressively purport.
Harold Voth knew it in 1978, when he observed,
Homosexuality
is on the increase as could have been predicted. This condition is
abnormal; the cause has been unequivocally traced to childhood
experiences within the family and to the personalities of the parents
and the nature of their relationship. One’s biology does not cause the
condition. The increase in this form of psychopathology is directly
related to the faulty psychological development of the child within his
disturbed family. It is an ominous fact that the gay movement is having
its way of life redefined as a simple variant of normal human sexuality
and woven into the fabric of society. Dr. Abram Kardiner, a
distinguished physician, psychoanalyst and anthropologist, notes that homosexuality reaches an epidemic level in societies in crises or in a state of collapse……The
increasing component of psychopathology which has crept into the
American character is causing our society to overimplement social
legislation to such an extent that it is rapidly becoming a taboo, if
not an outright crime, to acknowledge the difference between male and
female. (Voth—emp. added)
This
author knows not if Voth lived to see the social legislation of the
last few years, including first the compromising implementation of the
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and then the further-pressing repeal of
it. Was he witness to the repeal of anti-sodomy laws? Did he live to
see a president endorse homosexual marriage? Will we live to see
enshrinement of such into law?
This agenda of the homosexual community was no imagined figment of one zealot doctor. The plan was well-laid-out in the book, After the Ball, written,
by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen in 1989. Their manifesto for
homosexual acceptance in the community included a plan for desensitizing
a heterosexually based society and silencing those who would not be
converted to their beliefs. Labeling such traditionalists as
“homohaters” and “intransigent,” their designs included advertising and
celebrity endorsements to promulgate their doctrines.
Their deceptive, anti-logical approach was planned to be purposeful:
Moreover, we cannot disprove
the validity of the Bible, or of other authoritative sources of moral
judgment, nor even attempt to do so without arousing tremendous
antagonism. For us to attempt to argue with homohaters is to risk
carrying the argument onto their turf, which gives attention and,
implicitly, credence to many of their basic assumptions. Thus, if we’re
going to enter into arguments with them, we’d better have a strong
emotional appeal in our back pocket (Kirk, Madsen 139-140).
The desensitization plan was as follows:
When you’re very different, and people hate you for it, this is what you do: first you get your foot in the door, by being as similar
as possible; then, and only then—when your one little difference is
finally accepted—can you start dragging in your other peculiarities, one
by one. You hammer in the wedge narrow end first. As the saying goes,
allow the camel’s nose beneath your tent, and his whole body will soon
follow. (Kirk, Madsen 140).
Their
plan outlines “propagandistic advertising” (Kirk, Madsen 147) to
achieve their effect “without reference to fact, logic, or proof”
(147). They are even so bold as to affirm, “But it makes no difference
that the ads are lies” (154).
Aiming
for acceptance by society, and property rights through marriage, they
realize not everyone will be converted. Thus, they state, “Our primary
objective regarding diehard homohaters of this sort is to cow and
silence them as far as possible” (176).
Truth
does not matter to those willing to rebel against God at the moral
level. All they can think of is their end goals. Achievement of these
verifies as legitimate, in their minds, whatever ends they have
employed.
Going
back and reading their objectives after twenty years of watching them
unfold is quite chilling. The observers of the past two decades have
witnessed the “coming out” of several stars, feature movies alleging the
nobility of gay cowboys, and a media obsessed with crimes against
homosexuals but saying nothing about the crimes by homosexuals against
their straight neighbors and children (compare the case of Matthew
Shepard and that of Jesse Dirkhising [Farah]).
This
would be a good point to insert a clarification, reminder, and call.
Christians will necessarily always object to the legal sanctioning of
homosexuality. Christians will always need to preach it as sin. But,
in the fight against evil, never forget that many, especially young
ones, are taken in by a sin due to its temptation and are most
definitely not part of a militant movement. They’re struggling with a
behavior which can be overcome. They were not born that way, no matter
how much worldly adults want them to so believe (see Miller, Harrub
2004). But they struggle. They deserve all the compassion of the
Christ, and loving exposure to the saving gospel, that can, as it had in
New Testament times, convert homosexuals into God-fearing, converted,
washed, and sanctified saints (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Christians fight
against a militant movement, not struggling individuals. And even in
the fight, Christians must never resort to carnal weapons (2 Corinthians
10:4-5), but “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19-21).
Still,
the militant movement must be understood and met in the elective and
legislative processes. The goals of this movement, if reflected
accurately by Kirk and Madsen, include a society modeled after ancient
Greece and other societies, where young boys at puberty were recruited
by older men as male lovers. Lest the claim seem too outlandish, their
quote follows:
The
ancient Greek model seems to have worked something like this. As an
attractive boy—of, say, sixteen or so—passed through puberty (which, for
nutritional reasons, occurred much later in those days than it does
now) into youth, his boyish looks would attract the attention of an
older, presumably more mature and established, man—of, say, thirty or
so. The adult—following the youth about, observing him at his work and
play, and so forth—would form an estimation of whether the youth’s
character were as attractive as his body and face. If it were not so,
it would be dishonorable to favor the youth with further attentions. If
it were so, the adult would begin to ‘court’ the youth, with
conversation, presents, and the like, of whose meaning the youth would
be readily aware. During this courtship, the youth would, in turn, form
an estimation of the adult’s character, as to honesty, integrity,
maturity, courage—in short, the age-old virtues we all (should) admire.
Should the adult not come up to snuff, the youth would refuse his
presents and send him packing. (Or not—but failure to do so would be a
sign that the youth’s motivation was mercenary—a state of affairs
tantamount, for the Greeks, to male prostitution, which was legally
punishable.) If, however, the youth found the adult as worthy as the
adult found him, he might agree to become the beloved (eromenos) of his adult lover (erastes)—an
alliance partaking equally of the qualities of father-son,
teacher-student, and big brother-little brother relationships…with the
superadded bond of explicitly sexual love. As with all relationships,
that of the erastes and the eromenos entailed
an understood exchange:…” the youth would share his beauty and
enthusiasm, the adult his strength, security, and guidance—as well as
more tangible assets, including training in arms, a position in the
adult’s business, and so forth. From the point of view of the
community, as well, this arrangement discharged a natural need—for
homosexual gratification—in a manner advantageous to public character
and morality” (Kirk, Madsen 367-368).
Similarly, it was understood that when the eromenos became a full-fledged man—and had absorbed all the (socially valuable) teaching that the erastes could impart—he would cease to be a lover, and would marry a woman and sire children. Neither his nor his former erastes’
marriage, however, would end their friendship, nor prevent either one
of them from forming a fresh alliance, in turn, with a younger male…and
so on. Something like this, suitably updated (that is, without the wife
and kids), is what we tentatively recommend as a new ideal for gay
men—a family structure of their own” (Kirk, Madsen 368)
Of
course, those are the goals of Kirk and Madsen. The goals of everyone
in the homosexual community would be too complex to incorporate here,
but they have aggressively made it clear that these include legal
marriage, adoption, and a host of other special protections. They base
their desires on the fulfillment of these privileges in ancient
societies (Kirk, Madsen 366). It never seems to occur to them that
these societies, in accord with Scripture, ended up falling (Romans
1:18-32; Jeremiah 18:7-10). They cry for tolerance, but tolerance is
their code word for endorsement. If they cannot achieve endorsement,
their angry outbursts flare.
Preservation of the American Family
While,
as earlier observed, it is axiomatic that legislation along these lines
is either legislating morality or immorality, it is also true that
morality cannot be forced upon free-will human beings. The first line
of defense for Christians, therefore, is the preaching of the gospel.
And the first course in preaching the gospel to a postmodern,
post-Christian age is the defense of the existence of the God of the
Bible.
This
author had occasion to have correspondence with a recently
out-of-the-closet homosexual. The conversations were always cordial.
The avowed homosexual would persist in wanting to discuss the social
aspects of fairness, pressing for the legislative enactment of rights.
This author kept trying to steer the conversation in a different
direction—past social recognition, prior to supposed scientific
justification, and even before biblical arguments (for if one does not
believe in the Bible, what good would these do?). The question of
interest was this and only this for the primal point of that
conversation:
Is there a God?
The
discussion must begin there. If there is a God, and it can be proven,
then a lot of things follow. The Bible has no other explanation than to
be His word. Being His word, that would authorize its morals and
ethics as applicable to all men (cf. Acts 17:30-31). If the Bible is
God’s word, then homosexual behavior is wrong (Romans 1:24-27; 1
Corinthians 6:9-11). If homosexual behavior is wrong, then God did not
create people to be that way (what kind of God would condemn a practice,
then create people with an irresistible urge toward it?). If God did
not create anyone that way, then it follows that God would not approve
of the antagonism toward His divine will and way that is imposed by man
via legislation. It all hinges on whether there is a God. The old
cliché is cliché for a reason: it is right. “If there is no God,
nothing matters; if there is a God, nothing else matters.”
Christians
wanting to save the American family do so first and foremost by
preaching the gospel of Christ, beginning with the defense of the
existence of God, then moving to the discussion of the Bible and
culminating with the Deity of the authoritative (Matthew 28:18) Christ.
But,
Christians can also do more. Christians, in view of Jesus’ teaching in
Matthew 22:21-22 (“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…”),
and by example of Paul’s political intercession (Acts 16:35-40),
apparently on behalf of the Philippian brethren, can be involved
politically and use their rights for the good of the cause of Christ.
One should respect the governing authorities (Romans 13:1), but in a
government ostensibly “of the people, by the people, and for the people”
the people exercise their governing power with their votes. How, then,
can Christians justify the approval (by their participation in the
polls) of those who practice such sins (Romans 1:32), defend such sins,
and legislate in favor of such sins? Such is not defensible under some
imagined, individual separation of church from state. It is
incomprehensible for the one who is a “partaker of Christ” (Hebrews
3:14).
Harold
Voth made this rallying cry toward the end of his 1978 speech: “This
means, above all, preventing the passage of laws which ignore the
difference between a male and a female, and which undermine the security
and stability of the family and the nation. Strong pioneer families
created this country; strong families and strong leaders will save it”
(Voth). This challenge is echoed in the following quote, attributed
widely to James A. Garfield (1876):
Now,
more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of
their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is
because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If
it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand
these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. If
the next centennial does not find us a great nation, it will be because
those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the
nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.
And,
Providence
has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the
duty…of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their
rulers. (John Jay, First Chief Justice, in Price 49)
Of
course, rare is it that New Testament Christians run for office. Even
if they did and when they do, they would still not be perfect people.
The point is that Christians exercise their rights for the prevailing of
Christian principles and protections.
For that
reason, it might not be overstatement to assert that the preservation
of the American family begins with me. Will I be a defendant of the
American tradition? Much more importantly, will I be a proponent of the
biblical design? Will I be an evangelist of the gospel? Will I
prepare myself to defend the existence of God?
Societal peace and eternal salvation hang in the balance.
Works Cited
Amato, Paul R., Alan Booth, David R. Johnson, and Stacy J. Rogers. Alone Together: How Marriage in America is Changing. Cambridge: Harvard, 2007.Farah, Joseph. “Jesse Dirkhising’s Deliverance.” World Net Daily, 15 Nov. 1999. Web. 9 Sept. 2012. http://www.wnd.com/1999/11/1482/.
Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madseon. After the Ball. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Miller, Dave and Brad Harrub. “‘This is the Way God Made Me’—A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the ‘Gay Gene.’” Apologetics Press 2004. Web. 9 Sept. 2012. http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1388
Price, Scott Todd. In God We Trust: Why God Belongs in the Past, Present, and Future of the United States. Nashville: 21st Century Christian, 2004.
Voth, Harold M. “The Family and the Future of America.” Alabama Journal of Medical Sciences. Vol. 15, No. 3 (1978).
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Family What It Means To America
The Family What it Means to America
Andy Robison
Not
in recent political machinations, but way back in 1978, Dr. Harold
Voth, then Senior Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst of the Menninger
Foundation, Topeka, Kansas, spoke these words at a National Defense
Luncheon:
This
is a grave time in the history of our nation. Changes are taking place
in our way of life and in our national character which have lowered,
and will continue to lower, the vitality of our people, the quality of
our institutions, and our basic values. The inevitable result is that
we will undergo a progressive disintegration and possibly the eventual
collapse of our democracy. When sufficiently disintegrated, forces
either within our borders of a revolutionary nature or external forces
will overwhelm what is left of America. The American Dream will be
over.
People
tend to believe that America, the invincible, will always be, that
generous and stalwart Americans will always exist, that our way of life
is forever safe. This is an illusion, a self-deception. An internal
process is at work which poses a far greater danger to us than our
dwindling natural resources, the energy crisis, our huge national debt,
or the trade deficit (Voth).
The American family had its roots not in a Puritan tradition, or Quaker methodology, or any ecclesiastical authority, but in the heart and mind of God. The values of a strong and providing father, a helping wife, and obedient children were then revealed to man.
The Family’s Biblical Roots
From the very beginning, God made a man and, seeing it was not good that he be alone, then fashioned his glorious companion, woman (Genesis 2:18-25; cf. Matthew 19:4). He made this fortress of committed love (Genesis 2:25; Ephesians 5:22-33) the authorized institution for the fulfillment of sexual desire (1 Corinthians 7:1-9), and the procreation and rearing of children (Genesis 1:26-28; Proverbs 1:8; Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Though it became quite corrupted by man, as the inspired Old Testament record attests (Genesis 4:19ff.; Deuteronomy 24:1-4; 1 Kings 11:1-4, et al.), Jesus, in new covenant anticipation, restated the original design (Matthew 19:1-12). Since then, casual observation attests to the happiness of individuals when God’s plan is followed. History and sociology attest to the strength of societies when the Ruler of nations’ (Psalm 47:8) blueprint is respected and practiced. Indeed, the Psalmist’s words apply broadly, “Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it…”
American History’s Changes
In 2007, Harvard University Press published the findings of multiple studies in the volume, Alone Together: How Marriage in America is Changing. Their synopsis begins,
Throughout
most of American history, marriage has been the social arrangement
that, more than any other, provided structure and meaning in people’s
lives. Matrimony served as a marker for leaving the parental home,
forming one’s own household, becoming economically independent of
parents, initiating regular sexual activity, and having children.
Moreover, the roles of husband and wife provided scripts that guided and
organized everyday activities such as bread-winning, household labor,
and child rearing. Spousal roles also were core features of people’s
identities. Many people did not feel that they had reached adulthood
until they accepted the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood.
Because matrimony was a central feature of adult life, the great
majority of people in the United States married, married relatively
early in life, and stayed continuously married until the death of one
spouse. And remarriage following the death of a spouse (or the
occasional divorce) was the norm (Amato et al. 1-2).
But
times have changed. The growing popularity of nonmarital cohabitation,
the increase in the percentage of children born outside marriage, the
rise in age at first marriage, the continuing high divorce rate, and the
declining marriage rate indicate that marriage has become a more
voluntary and less permanent part of adult life now than in the past.
Changes in public attitudes—involving more positive evaluations of
single lifestyles and other alternatives to marriage, such as nonmarital
cohabitation—also reflect a decline in the centrality of marriage.
After centuries of being the bedrock of the American family system,
marriage is losing its privileged status and is becoming one life-style
choice among many (Amato et al. 2)
I
have worked as a psychiatrist for 30 years and as a psychoanalyst for
nearly 20, and the evidence that I have seen, as have many of my
colleagues, is overwhelming as regards what it takes to turn out
healthy, mature men and women who can take hold of life, do something
constructive with it, and embrace values, traditions, and institutions
which advance the society. The crucible from which all life springs is the family.
The events within the family can make or break the individual and,
collectively, civilization. This fundamental unit is the building block
and was the building block of all social organizations from the tribe,
village, and on to the most highly developed societies and
civilizations. Will Durant said the family can survive without the
state, but without the family all is lost. Therefore, not only must the
family survive, but its internal workings must function in ways that
turn out strong men and women—not weak ones who eventually become
casualties of one form or another or who may work actively against the
best values and traditions of our country (Voth, emphasis mine, AR).
Perhaps that is why many actually, as Voth predicted, fight against it.
The Opponents of the Family
Linking family with faith is axiomatic. Family springs from the origins of the universe as described in God’s word. There are, and have been, the enemies of faith through all the ages, simply because the darkness hates the light (John 3:19-21; Ephesians 6:12; cf. 1 Timothy 1:9, 10). To think those enemies are not at work in America is to fly in the face of all observation and reason.
A long train of abuses (with apologies to Jefferson) toward the family could be cited. Postmodernism’s denial of truth strikes at the very core of the Judeo-Christian system that regulates family for the world. Communism’s denial of God seems often dependent upon the state’s usurpation of family roles, rights, and responsibilities. Marxist leaders were infamous for their railings against a belief in God; their regimes have actively fought Christianity at large. Without God, their foundational answers for the origins of the universe, documents Dr. Henry Morris in his tome, The Long War Against God, are left to teach resurgent microbe-to-man macroevolution:
Marxism
is a current problem in every sense of the word! In its imperialistic
form, as in Russian Communism, with its effective control over many
other nations beyond its Iron Curtain, it is every bit as militaristic,
totalitarian, and xenophobic (with “class” substituted for “race” as the
struggling evolutionary unit) as Hitler and his Nazis were at their
worse. The millions of people slaughtered in promoting this class
struggle in communistic nations far exceed—by a factor of ten or
more—the victims of Hitler’s genocidal aggressions.
All of this is well known to most readers of this book. What may not
be so well known, however, is the fact that Marxism, socialism, and
communism, no less than Nazism, are squarely based on evolutionism
(Morris 82-83).
Such evolutionary theory—taught in schools more vehemently over the last few generations—leaves its victims (the students who swallow it) not only feeling worthless and meaningless, but also without any sort of social grounding in a family unit. After all, according to such theory, humanity and all its associations were merely the accidental byproduct of random mutations.
Robbed of meaning, then, individuals begin to act with no morality. This is the pattern manifest of ancient Gentile societies in Romans 1. In the following passage, note the progression (or, rather, regression) from a denial of God to the continuing corruption of moral behavior, which is always to the detriment of its practitioners, and the conclusion with the final judgment of God.
For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has
shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like
corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Therefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to
dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of
God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For
this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women
exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the
men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for
one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in
themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things
which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual
immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy,
murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers,
backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil
things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving,
unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God,
that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do
the same but also approve of those who practice them (Romans 1:18-32).
Once God is eliminated (atheism), truth is made subjective (postmodernism). Once truth is so disregarded, the search for an alternative to origins is engaged (evolutionism). Once evolutionism is embraced, humanism (man is his own god) is exalted. In this theory, whether springing from academics in ivory towers or the common man in the streets, morality suffers. It is subjective; each person can do his own thing. In this godless morality, the family is regarding as nothing, an ancient relic with no relevancy to the modern world. Marriage has no purpose, and cohabitation or serial one-night stands rule lives. Children are expendable, and abortion and infanticide soon follow. Violence grows (compare Genesis 6:5). And the consequences continue.
A world without God is a world devoid of family. And a world without family is a collapse of civilized culture.
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