Naturalists hold to the ideology that the natural universe is the only reality and that the scientific method is the only key to understanding the world we live in. This would mean that nothing exists that is unseen. It means that humans have bodies, but not souls, and that there is no life after death. One of their own loved to declare that the universe is all that ever was, all that is, and all that ever will be. It’s interesting to note that this famous scientist’s claim can itself not be scientifically tested! Yet this is how naturalism dismisses anything supernatural, and that the universe could be reflecting the power and the intelligence of God.

Moral relativism is the ill-begotten offspring of naturalism. The point is clear. Without God there are no absolute moral guiding principles. Believe whatever you will. Truth is mere personal preference, without concern for right or wrong. It is doing what seems pleasurable or advantageous at the time, at least if you can expect to get away with it.

The first thing we’ll note is that the justification for the naturalist/moral relativist position is Darwinian evolution. Darwin had two things going for him in his time. He could believe in an eternal universe. That way, he didn’t need to wrestle with the issue of how matter could come from nothing. He could also believe in the spontaneous generation of life. Wasn’t it obvious that “simple” forms of life sprang “naturally” out of dead matter (for example—living worms from dead carcasses)? Darwin’s “contribution” then, was to provide the mechanism that accounts for all living things to evolve from a common ancestor over eons of time. In this, he has persuaded generations of scientists to believe in a universe without God. But this was, after all, before the scientific understanding that the universe did have a beginning, and before the belief in spontaneous generation of life was discredited. And yes, it was well before the knowledge of the incredible complexity and intelligence encoded in DNA. So in Darwin’s day, the foundation of his theory was not the intellectual/scientific insult that it is today.

Thus, naturalism faces an awful quandary. The Darwinian simplistic two-point foundation, by which he left God out of the picture, is now behind us. First we know that in actual science, every effect has a sufficient cause. So how could something (matter) come from nothing? Secondly, lifeless matter never yields a single living cell. How then could life and intelligence come from nonliving matter? This then leaves naturalism in the lurch of blind determination. Naturalism must crash these two major barricades of science to even connect to Darwin’s theory. It’s like claiming, “The cow jumped over the moon,” before first having either the moon (matter), or the cow (life). The “common ancestry” theory must be counted stolen by the naturalist camp because it fails at the very foundation.

But let’s watch naturalism’s attempt to launch the missing cow over the missing moon. The wishful propulsion mechanism is called “natural selection,” a term founded on wishful nothingness. Mindless nature owns no selecting mechanism. If by chance a new generation of cow could jump a bit higher than the old, nature has no interest or means to keep raising the bar for promoting ever-higher jumping cows. Nature cannot side with Darwin’s expectations and never lends a selecting hand to improving anything. Random happenings like tornadoes, earthquakes, lighting bolts, and gene mutations certainly do cause change. But, like cancer, they lack the programing and the intelligence to make a positive difference.

But let’s now try nature with intelligence (things consciously alive, such as animals or birds). Here again, we face an insurmountable barrier. We don’t hear anyone claiming that serpents had some intrinsic mechanism toward a reptile-to-bird development of wings and feathers. The same could be said for whales turning into land animals or apes into humans. This brings no hope of adding rungs to the imaginary evolutionary ladder through animal intelligence. How then could anyone expect “unnatural unselection” to arrange such a feat?

But we still have one more living option for the naturalists, do we not? Human intelligence has indeed made notable differences on our planet. Consider the wonders of scientific research and development in the increased varieties and yields of grains, of fruits, of vegetables, and in the breeding of high production dairy cows and meat animals. By means of intelligent selectivity, food production has soared well ahead of dire predictions of scarcity in the face of population growth. But where are the actual new species? It doesn’t happen. The possible range of development is locked into the DNA code of the particular species.

Unfortunately, what really stands out in the past century is the misguided zeal and the tragic consequences of trying to guide improvement of the human race. These aspirations of human evolution have proved to be negative and deadly to the extreme. Left to human manipulation, the way forward has always been backward. The desire to produce “superior” human tendencies gravitates to saving the “best” through the genocidal elimination of the “inferior.” Adolph Hitler eliminated six million Jews, considering Aryan races superior. Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), along with the naturalist elitists of her day, targeted blacks, illiterates, and people with low IQ’s with birth control, sterilizations, and abortions. (And yes, it has been “successful,” in numbers that Hitler could not have imagined).

We will now see that the naturalist claim of reality is easily refuted in what we know best—the human experience. It goes like this: A surgeon opens the skull of a man. He can now confirm scientifically that the patient before him possesses a brain. But he cannot discover the experiences of the patient before him, what he loves or hates, what he fears, or what brings him pleasure. This is the deeper, greater reality beyond the reach of science. It is personality and character. If the physical properties encompassed all there is to being human, there would be no individual choices, nor freedoms. The brain would simply dictate every choice. In short, the essence of being human is decidedly beyond naturalist explanations. To be human carries the knowable yet unseen fact that life and consciousness consist of more than a body packed with organs and clothed in skin. The reality of the soul is not merely outside the reach of science. It is also greater than science.

The fact that the greater reality of being human is unseen should prepare us for that great Biblical truth of the universe itself. Yes, the universe contains galaxies, stars, and planets. It includes a habitable earth teeming with life and intelligence. But there is, beyond the seen realm, the power that called it all into existence. Though unseen, it is greater than the universe itself. This is none other than the infinite wisdom, power, and intelligence, attributable only to the Lord God Almighty. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Further . . . “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The heavens themselves bear witness to the truth.

There ought to be a collective sigh of relief from around the globe and in every scientific community for such plain yet profound answers to the mystery of life on this planet. Why be surprised that the Creator is unseen, when the greater aspect of being human is itself unseen? But this is worrisome to naturalists because it flings wide open the door to God’s ownership and control and warns of human accountability to divine authority. Such an admission sounds the death-knell of moral relativism.

Now let’s crack the empty shell of moral relativism. First of all, you cannot do any science without a healthy dose of moral absolutes. One can claim nothing is right or wrong, but in practice you cannot trust the results. Science is viable only where it is approached with an unyielding standard of integrity, which is outside of and prior to the science itself. It should be obvious to any ten-year-old that science infused with lies fails its own test.

In the medical lab, the technician must follow absolute principles with exactly the right formulas going into the test tube, and with total integrity and impartiality in evaluating and recording the results. The same goes for NASA engineers building a space capsule. The fact that all the needed technology and materials are available means nothing, except as the engineers pursue uncompromising standards all the way to the glory of a perfect launch. The reason for the absolutist, though unseen, standard is simple. It’s hard to get away with cheating when lives are on the line. Except for such absolutist standards in science and industry, I would never take another flu shot nor fly on another plane.

But because of deeply ingrained moral relativism, the technician can shed the integrity of the day’s labors right along with his lab coat. So with the engineer who, aside of his career, can imagine himself free from the constraints of moral law. These can spend their free time without a care for morals while cheating with another man’s wife. Why do they do it? Unlike a lost spacecraft, the harm is a hidden malignancy, while it spreads its tentacles throughout our culture.

It’s time to face the sobering, even terrifying truth. Naturalism/moral relativism has neither science nor the good of humanity on its side. It’s serious enough when men rob men of that which is good, but the natural universe is clearly the property of God and is clearly marked with the ink of God’s directives and divine signature. Is the rebellion of men not treason against the Sovereign of the universe?

From: Reaching Out

Language

English

Author

Lester Troyer

Publisher

Reaching Out

Topics

Science and the Bible