Cloning is the reproduction of mammals and humans without the joint help of males and females. Cloning is a process of carbon-copying or Xeroxing because it’s theoretically possible to recreate an entire animal or human from a single cell.
The clue for the possibility of cloning has been received from asexual reproduction in plants. This has been built into these plants by the creator. During cell division (mitosis) in humans a mistake can occur with the cell completely separated from each other. These cells can grow up to form identical twins. The separation is also asexual and so is a form of cloning. But to mimic these in a laboratory is different. Only certain types of cloning are available in nature hence indicating a boundary for cloning. God says in Genesis that living creatures should reproduce after their kind. Scriptures also indicate these boundaries when it restricts the type of mixing of certain plants and animals as well as sexual relationships between humans and animals which are forbidden. Scriptures does not forbid because they are impossible, but because they are improper morally or technically, or in both ways.
Cloning is possible because each cell of a living organism contains all the information necessary to develop and nurture an entire organism. This information is stored in the DNA found in the chromosomes which are in the nucleus of the cell. All cells contain the same number of chromosomes except the reproductive cells which have half. When the two mixed during sexual reproduction, they make up the complete number of chromosomes necessary for the organism. Even though cloning is possible there are restrictions; even in plants a certain maturity is required. Twins in humans also need a certain favourable condition.
Cloning is only difficult in those plants and animals with no capacity of doing so. In reptiles which undergo asexual reproduction cloning is possible but still difficult. In humans when the cells attain a certain maturity they start specialising (eg. Skin cells, blood cells, etc) and therefore set the other information not necessary into a dormant state; and so skin cells would only multiply skin cells, though they have all the chromosomes. This is what makes cloning in mammals difficult. This specialisation is a barrier kept by the creator in all kinds of organisms. But this barrier has been overcome in some mammals.
The History of Cloning
Cloning is the outcome of reproductive technology which started in the last century by Walter Heape. He transferred an embryo into the uterus of an animal other than its natural mother in 1890 while cloning became popularised in 1932. In 1930 Walter’s approach was used by scientists to commercialise animal breeding; by fertilising ova in glassware and implanting in surrogate animals. This eventually led to “Test Tube Babies” born by surrogate women.
Cloning the same animals was more difficult as Robert Briggs and Thomas King only successfully developed full frogs from tadpole cells in 1952. Several developments came up and plant cloning became a commercial success while animal cloning could not succeed in mammals and other higher organisms. Many scientists secretly kept trying to clone humans. In the nineties many scientists could clone mammals from a single-celled fertilised egg which is allowed to be bi-cellular, then separate them and allow again to multiply to two, and then divide again. So many offsprings were produced from a single fertilised cell just like the twin phenomena. There were still limits on the maximum number of clones from a fertilised egg.
The greatest problem with cloning of mammals by using non reproductive cells was that of specialisation since useless information in specialised cells go to a dormant state and the cell can not remember. Dr. Ian Wilmut of Roslin Institute in Scotland succeeded to “wake up” the sleeping genes, by forcing all the genes in the cell to “sleep” and then allowed to start the process of life in order to “wake up” all the genes. He took cells from the udder of a six-year old pregnant sheep and kept them in salt solution. Almost all of the genes went to a state of “sleep”. He then removed the nucleus from unfertilised ova from another sheep, and then fused each “sleeping” cell with the nucleus-less ovum. The atmosphere of the ovum woke up the sleeping genes and the combination started behaving like an embryo, which was implanted into a third sheep. A sheep named Dolly was born from this after gestation period. Dolly the first mammal to be successfully cloned had just one parent since the other two only gave support not contributing to the genes in Dolly.
As the news of Dolly was on the media, another came that Dr. Don Wolf of Oregon in USA successfully cloned two monkeys. Though scientists are very secretive about their work it is not hard to say that work on human cloning has been going on in secret and illegally. Though scholars all over the world cry against it and the hints of the American president on banning cloning, none might stop cloning as history shows that people continue to make illegal research. For example Wilmut had over Rs 25 000 000 for his research from government. The government of his country announced withdrawal of financial support but the intrigue is that this would be done 14 months after his announcements about the success of cloning. He would certainly use the 14 months for further developments, perhaps things would change after the cut off date. That’s how people are cheated by the scientific community.
The Uses of Cloning
We can only guess the ways in which cloning can be used or might be exploited since it is a very recent breakthrough, and mindful of the fact that scientists are aware of the possible resistance from society. The first use would be to improve animal varieties as the breeders look forward for larger production as high breed embryos are divided many times to produce more. The process is lengthy and has a limit. Cloning would be commercially profitable for breeders as there will be no upper limit upon the number of offsprings that can be produced from a single source.
Cloning could be used to make consumer products from cloned embryos such as tissues from embryos which are used in treating physical disorders and sicknesses. Eg. Brain cells of an embryo used in treating degenerative diseases. Another example is the bone-marrow transplant. People suggest that companies could “grow” human clones to a certain level to extract brain cells and marrow not thinking about moral and ethics as they see the human child just as a chicken in the poultry farm. In developing countries some people mix ground up flesh of aborted babies in some of their most powerful and expensive cosmetic products. Some people also consume aborted babies as food. If cloning is accepted then these practices will become open and widely practiced and for any purpose whatsoever.
Transplantation of body organs has had increasing success these days and the demand for these organs has increased. Traditionally, organs are taken only from accidental deaths with the concern of the dead person’s relative. This high demand and the profit thereof have lead hospitals to look for alternative sources of fresh organ donation. One of these is from babies aborted alive; or those born with incomplete brain. Many doctors argue that we should look at these babies from utilitarian point of view. This is not wide spread because of the opposition from religious and intellectual community. So many are suggesting that cloning should be done, having a cultivator who “grows” the clones to meet the demand for transplantation.
With the grip of monopolistic businesses and criminals over consumer market coupled with decreasing moral commitment in scientific and medical professions one can not tell the direction in which these would lead. We already know of cases where medical doctors and criminals have joined in removing healthy organs from healthy victims which are sold for transplantation in organ black-markets. Saddam Hussein was said to have created several look-alikes of himself, then how much would cloning add to criminality? As history shows criminal and aberrant use of cloning would outweigh good uses.
Implications of Cloning
Though not all the consequences can be predicted, a lot can be done on the basis of available facts. Cloning will be a difficult problem to parents, mates, doctors, lawmakers and ethicists to deal with the needs of clones. Genes are closely related to aging and so would behave accordingly even if placed in a cell of a fresh ovum. Science is unable to reverse the effects of aging on genes since the process of aging recorded in genes is not yet known. So a cloned human (or animal) would have the physical age (age at birth), the genetic age (equivalent to the age of the person donating the genes), and the actual age. So the clone would have conflicts between two internal clocks as the genetic age would be different from the physical age. The physical clock makes the person appear young while the genetic clock functions at the age at which the genes were extracted from the adult. The conflict between the two ages gives the actual age; which will be a complex factor due to this unusual and dangerous conflict.
Because there’s synchronisation between the numerous biological clocks in the body as the child is conceived through the sexual process, a clone will lack this synchronisation since the genes are not resetted to one starting point. This complex system with non-synchronisation of body clocks would put the clone and his family in trouble. Imagine an eight year old child manifesting the sexual desires of a 28-year old adult; or a twenty year old with a slowed down sexual desire like a sixty year old person. Disaster is built into the outcome of cloning.
Normal intelligence is acquired if the physical and mental growths of a person go together in a proper balance. The person is mentally handicapped if the physical is faster than mental and he is physically retarded if the mental growth is faster. Cloning builds into the clone the possibility of physical or mental retardation or even both; and these cannot be corrected overnight; and so this will lead to serious psychological problems.
Many bodily disorders and diseases are related to old age as some are caused by bacteria or viruses or might be genetic. eg; memory and muscular coordination; which do not surprise old persons would not be the same for a young person. Because cloning restarts the stopped clock without taking it from the beginning, the process of aging is built in the clone and this would be disastrous.
With the numerous conflicting clocks, the clone will have difficulties relating with others or adjusting. He might physically look like a baby but radically different from others of his age. At marriage he would have severe restrictions about the partners to choose and a wrong choice can lead to serious genetic disorders in the offsprings.
The spiritual standing of the clones will be peculiar as people have already declared from pulpits that they would not have souls and so will just be like animals. We assume that he or she would have a soul; then the person will face tough spiritual situation when many leaders in the Christian community are not willing to accept; and so many believers will be influenced and the consequence on the clone is beyond imagination. The question of whether the clone needs the gospel arises if the person does not have a soul; hence evangelisation of the clone will suffer. Some churches would refuse them and they would have no scientific or logical proof to show that they are not soulless. A person without mother or father (clone) would have it difficult to convince bureaucrats that he is a normal part of the society. They’ll have similar problems at marriage in some parts of the world where family background is considered vital. It will also be difficult to check if they are related by blood or not during marriage and in addition there’s no test yet on whether clones can give birth to normal children through their union. It will also be difficult to say if the marriage between clones with the same surrogate mother would be harmful or not. This will bring problems to the church as the clones of the same parents raised up in different homes might want to get married. It is just like non-identical twins trying to get married.
Ethical problems arise if we assume that the clone is a real human, with a soul, and is a person in the image of God. How much liberty can scientists and reproductive technicians take with this life; as hundreds or thousands of embryos would be destroyed before a single successful clone is produced? In cloning Dolly (easy as it was an animal other than human) 276 uni-cellular life created perished before they could get a single clone. What more of cloning humans which is more difficult? Even the most reckless sexual union can beget life and that’s man’s limit. He has no right to destroy it because it is made in the image of God. They are not inanimate things that can be destroyed as we please. This will not be temporal and is not only at developmental stages because history shows that the simpler test tube fertilisation has much destruction of embryos before a single one is implanted. What more of the complex and unnatural process of cloning? There would be deliberate destruction even after perfection just as in test-tube fertilisation where some embryos are destroyed because the donors forgot about them, or they die, leaving the embryos orphans. Others default on payment and because of lack of funds to maintain the embryos, they are destroyed. Other problems would arise just as in test-tube fertilisation. Eg. A surrogate mother who carried the embryo for a couple whose wife had problems with her uterus refused to give away the child and went to court. Another case arose where a couple was assured that the sperm donor for their child had the same colour, social background and physique like the husband. But when the child was born to this white couple, they realised that the child was black. This was some mix up in the labelling or distribution of sperms; but they embarrassingly had to explain to their friends and relatives; worse of all to raise the child in a family and social atmosphere. Cloning will face more difficulties as people or companies in need of cells from sportsmen, intellectual giants, wrestlers or even beauty queens might not have it difficult in getting them even through stealing during medical checkups or artificially contrived situation. Who shall then regulate the banks for cloning as per ethical and unethical uses and the type of people to buy. What if a country is ruled by an autocrat who has no value for the law? It is terrible to play with sanctified things for which humans are warned not to play with; as human life, which is in the image of God.
Eschatological view shows that major scientific breakthrough brings us closer to fulfilment of end-time prophecies. The TV and internet fulfilled the prophecy in Revelation that all people on earth saw the dead bodies of two end-time witnesses; as with internet and satellite-based broadcasting, instant information all over the world is now a reality. The Mystery Babylon in Revelation is presented as a woman doing transaction in all kinds of goods as in Greek it says transaction of “bodies” and “souls”. Slave traders do it in small quantity but as commercial establishments are interested in using human cloning, they will cultivate and sell people. Mystery Babylon would do it. The society might raise up resistance but history shows that no long enough this breaks down. The Christian theologians, ethicists, and communicators have to pay attention to this not to encourage such practices by their neglect, apathy, or silence. As Mordecai cautioned Esther, each one should use the occasion properly for the sake of righteousness. God is in control, but he does not excuse or overlook those who neglect their human duties. Neither the Christians nor the religious people are ready to face the consequences of this new development.
Tuesday 4 November 2008
Monday 20 October 2008
HUMAN ESCAPISM
RUNNING AWAY FROM HISTORY
Many people regard Christianity as unhistorical and many who say Jesus never lived, taking it as a myth. These rationalists have written books indicating Christ as a myth while some say the question of whether Jesus ever lived is open. These are seen in the books of J.M. Robertson, Gilbert Murray and John Allegro. The article of Allegro on the Daily mail newspaper in October 1967 shows that the idea of Christ myth is not dead and that some people are anxious to believe that the Christian story is false. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for that. It has been communist policy to deny Jesus Christ’s historical existence reason for the subjection to this propaganda in Eastern Europe and Asia. This became part of communist position in 1842 when the German theologian Bruno Bauer was deprived of his chair on account of his heterodox opinions; which influenced Karl Marx who thought he had been cruelly wronged by the men of religion.History matters to Judiasm and Christianity because if it can be proven that the founder never lived then it will fail to exist. Christianity is good news about a historical person, who was executed under the Roman procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. He matched his teachings with moral miracle of his sinless life and his resurrection from the grave. What makes the Christian claim so challenging is that the historical figure is known by some of the writers of the New Testament document. It is all about the historical Jesus who was God manifest in human flesh. It is a fact not an idea or myth.A non_christian, Pliny the Younger who was sent by the emperor Trajan to govern the province of Bithynia in Northen Turkey, in AD112 wrote in one of his letters to the emperor concerning Christianity. That he found Christians everywhere and that pagan temples had close down, sacred festivals and demand for sacrificial animals ceased. He executed Christians who persisted in their faith but was perplexed about the nature of their crime; as he confessed that no enormities were practiced in the Christian assemblies. Their problem was that they refused to worship the imperial statue and the images of the gods and that they met on a certain fixed day and sang to Christ as God. They took an oath not to commit crime. Cornelius Tacitus, the greatest historian of imperial Rome says Christians were hated and persecuted in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate. He notes that in destroying the temple at Jerusalem in AD70, the Roman general Titus hoped to put an end to both Christianity and Judaism. These writings justify the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The Samaritan historian Thallus, wrote in Rome about AD52 as Julius Africanus tells us the darkness that fell when Jesus died on the cross (Mark 15:33). Thallus says it was an eclipse of the sun, but noted that it is unreasonably as it seems to him. Of course true since these can’t be total eclipse when the moon is full. So Jesus’ death was well known in Rome as early as the middle of the first century as the non_christian historian comments. The inscriptions belonging to the time of Clausius Caesar (AD41-AD54) gives an order that if anyone is found tampering with graves, the person is liable to death penalty. Something which the Roman historians such as prof. Momigliano and Prof. Blaiklock regard as reaction concerning the report on the crucifixion of Jesus and its sequel. Suetonius, a court official under Hadrian records that Clausdius expelled the Jews from Rome for making disturbances at the instigation of chrestus. Orosius dates this to AD49. Aquila and Pricilia were among those expelled (Acts 18:12). Pliny (AD61-140?) wrote about events which took place 30 years before they were born, and their official position gave them access to good historical information; hence establishing the historicity of Jesus.The Jewish after AD70 thought the Christians did not help them in the life and death struggle against Rome. So the relations between Judaism and Christianity by the end of first century were very poor reason why there’s not much about Christ in Jewish writings. Josephus, one of the Jewish commanders in the war with Rome wrote the antiquities of the Jews (Published AD93) and his Jewish war (published AD75-79) to inform Romans of the his fathers religion; Judaism. Josephus wrote about Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas, the Herods, Quirinus, Felix, Festus and others; names familiar in New Testament. He talks of John the Baptist, his preaching, baptising and execution. He talks of James ‘the brother of Jesus, the so_called Christ’ as well. He talks of Jesus in the time of Pilate (AD26-36) as a wise man, doubting if he should be called a man as he did marvellous deeds. He confesses that Jesus appeared to his followers the third day after his death. Mishah, the Jewish law code and Talmuds has evidences such as the unusual birth of Jesus. The Rabbi Eliezer wrote with opposition to Christianity but indirectly attesting to a prophecy of the Gospel story as he refers to Jesus as ‘born of a woman’ and ‘seek to make himself God’ and his return. So the Jews supported the historicity, unusual birth, miracles, teaching, disciples, messianic claims, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the author of the Christian faith.From the discoveries at Qumran, the dead sea scrolls have been used by Edmund Wilson and John Allegro to say that it has disproved Christianity. Their literature shows that the community was non_conformist baptising sect of Judaism, Zealous for purity, antagonistic to marriage, living in monastery disclosed by excavations. Prof. Rowley notes that the dead sea scrolls can only tell us about the sect from which they came, enriching our knowledge of the Jewish world at the time of Christ and in the proceeding two centuries. They do not overthrow or confirm a single Christian octrine. If Allegro had considered the evidence by Tacitus and Suetonius, Pliny and Josephus he would not have claimed the New Testament stories of Jesus to be a reminiscence of real essene history; getting lost in his created myth. There is not doubt that Jesus lived and died under Pontius Pilate.Christian evidence based un archaeological findings especially from acrostics of ancient world. This show evidences of Christian existence as seen in those found in Pompeii destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. Anagram from the acrostic show the Christian view of Jesus being the alpha and Omega, as well as indicating the cross in the arrangement of the letters. The fish was also symbolic to Christians with each letter in fish representing Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour in Greek. A tomb was discovered outside Jerusalem in 1945 with decoration style and coins indicating approximately AD50. The inscription in Greek said Jesus help and another in Aramais (?’Jesus, let him arise’). These indicate the historical figure of Jesus. The pool of Bethesda was discovered around the church of st. Anne in Jerusalem with five porticos. Bethesda is also mentioned in one of the dead sea scrolls confirming the gospels of John. The French archaeologist Pere Vincent also dug out the pavement (Gabbatha) in 1930’s. this measures fifty yards square ,and was buried under piles of rubble in the fall of Jerusalem in AD70. This confirms John’s gospel (John19:13). The same vindication was seen with the accuracy of Luke’s gospel and Acts until discoveries show them to be accurate, reliable historical material for the understanding of first century world. Inscriptions have confirmed him accurate in the nomenclature of local officials and others such as proofs that Gallio was proconsul in AD51.In looking at New Testament evidence we note that its reliability is well attested. Also in like manner as classical scholars accept the writing of Thucydides ‘History’ and the case of Tacitus with gap from oldest manuscript of 1500 and 800 years so shall it be for the exceptionally attested New Testament. With variant readings in these manuscripts, no single point of doctrine hangs on disputed reading. In addition the extant manuscripts do not have large gaps from autograph copies. Paul who was a violent opponent of Christianity testify for the resurrection as he tells us in 1Corinthians 15; as he says at the time he wrote the letter ‘AD53), most of the people who so Christ after resurrection were still alive.The gospels are not biographies of Jesus as it concentrates up to half of its account on his death. They are not histories as it brings God and his actions into the story lacking the interest in chronology or what is happening in the outside world. But the gospels are proclamations of good news about Jesus; God’s way of rescue for men. Reason why it took some time for the Christians to write down their gospels as they were busy preaching this gospel. The teaching of Jesus falls into a poetic form when retranslated to Aramaic reason why the people could remember the Gospels. The New Testament offer reasonable grounds for belief; it does not induce people to believe: Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees had the evidence but did not believe. Atheists runaway from truth, neglecting the evidence while some escape it by intentionally running away from Christian living as Aldous Huxley testifies of himself. We find that the Jews came to conclusion that Jesus was God almighty accommodating himself to human nature and living in their midst; as we find in the gospels.
RUNNING AWAY FROM SCIENCE
The astonishing advances in science has opened up vistas to the human spirit and have induced a feeling of self confidence in many like sir Richard Gregory such that they consider the God hypothesis dated and unreal. The man on the street things scientific humanism has killed religion. The free thinkers at the congress of liege in 1865 concluded that science does not deny God but that she makes Him unnecessary. Martin Heidegger says God’s absence is not even noticed. They claim that Christians are running away from science to persist in their beliefs.The scientific pioneers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were Christian men. All these discoveries took place in Christian era. Men like Francis Bacon, Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus who glorified God despite the obscurantism of the Catholic church of the day; were devout Christians. Newton, Robert Boyle with Ward, Wallis, Wilkins and Barrow all of the royal society were all sincere Christians.In science we have both Christians and atheists just as in other fields. So it wasn’t new to have the Russian authorities decree that the last relics of religious faith be wiped. But we find scientists these days who have written extensively both in science and Christianity. Men like Prof. Coulson, Prof. MacKay and Prof. Boyd are examples. The misunderstanding is the way the Christian church has adopted a dogmatic attitude when it concerns science while forgetting that God of grace is the God of nature who made man and gave him dominion over his universe. The bible is not a science book, it speaks of total relationship of man to man, to the universe and to God. When it speaks of science it does so in ordinary everyday language and so its interpretation of science cannot be imposed to a scientist. There shouldn’t be discrepancies in the teaching of scriptures but if it does, one has to re-examine the implications as well as his own interpretation of scripture. Bertrand Russell judges Christianity with science and prescribe that those teachings that cannot be scientifically assessed should be discarded. With technology men have tamed the physical world, but haven’t begun to tame human nature.The relation of science to religion and God’s claim only in areas where knowledge had not yet reached; is misleading and blasphemous because God is not there just to close the gap in our knowledge but He is immanent in every part of His universe. Prof. CA Coulson writes that a God of the gaps has been disastrous in history; noting that Newton is guilty of this view. Either God is there in the whole Universe or He is not there at all. Prof. Mackay notes in his book that God holds the whole universe in being by His own power (Heb.1:3). Acts 17:25,28,29; Col. 1:16,17 tell us much about God.Prof. Boyd wrote in “Can God be known?” that there are three senses of knowledge. Mathematical knowledge which requires the assumption of axioms and of meaningfulness, scientific knowledge which assumes the existence of an external world and the uniformity of nature, and the personal knowledge which requires the assumption of other minds and personalities like our own. Science is concerned with description and material aspect of things while religion is concerned with encounter and belongs to the aspect of mind. Christianity belongs to personal knowledge. So the argument of science and human potentiality is that between those who see man as the product of a personal creator, and those who see him as the product of an entirely random collocation of atoms, a giant fluke.On the side of human values scientific humanists are extremely enthusiastic about man hence keen on social and educational reforms, relief of need and the support of the aged, the hungry, the underprivileged and those suffering from war and discrimination. The church has been sometimes on the side of the status quo due to the lead of men in power who profess Christian states but not personally committed to the program and the standards of Christ. But this is not a generality as some Christians have the other side of the story such as the emancipation of women and slaves, the pioneer work in education and medicine, foundation of the trade unions, worldwide concern for underprivileged people and underdeveloped countries and the preaching of the gospel of peace, integration and forgiveness. If not of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it would not have driven men like Wilberforce and Newton to battle against slavery in Europe. Christianity has always been against totalitarianism because of the conviction that the state is accountable to God, and that men matter because they are made in the image of God. Being made in the image of God human values are derived from God who made them and so Christian values because they matter to God. Atheistic humanism is illogical and absurd as they profess such deep regard for the random products of a universe where chance is king; no surprise why they are ruthless in torturing and eliminating unwanted people such as in Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or communist Russia. Atheist like Dr. Isaacs and Democritius look at the universe and even man as a composition of ultimate particles which develop in complexity by a process that is self sustaining with no intervention hence no place for God. This is absurd because they’ve not explained the existence of the ultimate particles. What gives them the remarkable possibilities? Science has no answer for such materialism. This advocates for a mind behind the universe. This view of Russell and Isaacs is not satisfactory to explain how you get ethics out of an unfeeling concourse of atoms, how you get personal being from impersonal and how you get freedom or an illusion of freedom from a determinist world. If the theory of scientific humanist were true it would be no more than the product of wandering atoms, as meaningless as everything else in a world devoid of meaning and purpose. Who would believe such a theory to be true? The value of human beings depends upon being made in God’s image and this is what gives man dignity and worth.On human behaviour, love is a common concern for both Christians and scientific humanists. With some humanists and some Christians who are unashamedly selfish others have shown considerable love. There’s an escape from truth, from social concern, and from freedom in different areas. This is not a characteristic Christian attitude, and it was not the attitude of Jesus. Jesus came to bring abundant life in contrast to John the Baptist he has no austere (Luke 7:33). Jesus graced a marriage and even supplied fresh wine (John 2:1-11) as Paul notes that opposition to marriage is devil-inspired doctrine (1Timothy 4:3-5). Why bother about love if there is no God and no future life? Many who hold the view of humanists are good and generous men as their loving actions speak louder than their rationalistic words because man is made in the image of God. When men turn their back on God’s revelation in scripture he still sets the truth of it in their hearts. Christians know that lasting love to your neighbour is grounded in the recognition of God’s love for you. “We love, because he first loved us.” For the humanist’s view morality is relative, there’s no absolute since it’s in an impersonal and mechanistic world. The society is manipulated in the way the majority thinks fits and the individual ceases to matter. On Christian view it’s the individual who matters to God, and society is improved by changed individuals who have been reconciled to God. On the humanists view, how is morality to be achieved? Education and effort will not make any man better. We see that the last two world wars took place between the most highly educated countries in the world. Education can’t erase the tendency to evil in human nature neither would effort do. What is needed is not good advice but practical assistance. Paul said ‘I do not do good I want but the evil I do not want is what I do.” This is due to the human nature, the original sin. Jesus taught the highest standards and kept them. The God of love expects love from us and came in the person of Jesus Christ to show how love works out in a human life.In looking at human destiny, scientific humanists think science is the key to making men good. But Martin Buber exclaimed in disillusionment at the end of his life that, “who can change the intractable thing, human nature? There is tragedy at the heart of things.” Colin Wilson wrote in “The Outsider” of how science has changed with the possibility of human technical progress but concerns about the danger, the boredom, the sheer hell of the evolving human situation. Existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and others without doubt have taken to this attitude. It is due to the enormous power for destruction that is placed into human hands by scientific discovery. Only a religious mind can find an alternative and a hope by relying on God who is above history.Jesus shared the optimism of the hopeful humanists but taught extensively about the “Kingdom of God”. He said an unaided man can not produce this utopia as evil is external and extrinsic; and that what defiles a man is what comes out of him (Mark 7:20ff). Jesus was also pessimistic as he spoke about the awful reality of hell than anyone else in the whole Bible. Jesus did not misplaced faith in human nature as we see in John 2:24f. Jesus also showed that human nature can be changed in his matchless life right to the cross and his resurrection. His resurrection guarantees that Christianity is not escapism; we see the destiny of redeemed mankind.
RUNNING AWAY FROM REALITY
Christianity asserts that God immersed himself in human existence for thirty years; it makes a difference to the way ordinary people behave in their daily lives and so it’s not an illusion. Psychologists and communists say it is; that Christians are running away from the stark realities of everyday life. The church has a quota of escapists, just like any other group of people. There are many weak characters that can’t face the reality of their position. There are many Christians in psychiatric wards, many who call Jesus “lord, lord” but have no intention of involving themselves in costly discipleship. Jesus says they are “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. This escapism among Christians does not invalidate Christianity.Karl Marx considered Christianity as an opiate administered by the bourgeoisie to keep the workers docile. For him it was the illusory compensation offered to the oppressed, hence that religion will die a natural death as soon as true socialism came in. It’s true that there was hypocrisy in Victorian religion but the best preachers were just as vehement as Marx in denouncing this state of affairs; as with Charles Spurgeon.In the days of Jesus, there was a religion which was the opiate of the people as we find Jesus denouncing it; “you devour widows houses and for a pretence you make long prayers”. “Woe to you, hypocrites… how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” Marx ought to have remembered that man’s nature without the power of Christ is likely to become self-centred. This is equally evident in capitalist and in communist societies as we see in the atrocities of Russian leaders. The Christian truth is that all men suffer the disease of self-will to which Christ provides total cure. Karl Marx was wilfully blind, to the historical evidence but swallowed the absurd theories about Christian origins by Strauss and Bauer which have many times been decisively refuted. It is a gaffe for Marx to view Christianity as a mass movement arising from the frustrations of the common man in the war-wearing world of the mid-second century because that age was one of the most prosperous; contented and stable periods in history. Christianity gave the ancient world a powerful injection of social equality. Communist like Lenin took on to the view of Marx on Christianity that it offered “cheap justification for all their exploiting” and “low price tickets to heavenly bliss”. The reason for communist hatred arises from the Russian Orthodox Church in the beginning of the twentieth century as it appeared to be a tool in the hands of Czar, and was implicated in appalling abuses of government and oppression of the poor. In 1918 all church property was confiscated, priests disenfranchised, seminaries closed, religious teaching forbidden except inside church, Christian marriage replaced by civil ceremony but the church refused to die. In 1921 persecution was added and in 1929 it was one of the first five year plans. During the rigours of German invasion in the Second World War churches were reopened and museums of atheism closed. Despite all these with intense atheistic propaganda the church is still stronger as we find Baptists and the orthodox flourishing. Stalin’s daughter returned to religious faith just as Martin Bormann’s (Hitler’s Lieutenant) children to Christians with one missionary speaks a lot; that the communists are running away from reality. The communists are escaping by forbidding Bibles, frowning at debates with believers as Michael Bordeaux notes that “no atheist ringleader has ever dared allow those under him to study the Bible, even for the purpose of spying out the enemy’s territory in order to conquer it”. The Marxist attack on religion and intensity of persecution of Christians is a form of escapism from reality.In the future of an illusion; Freud believed that when Christians talk about their heavenly Father, all they are doing is to project into the empty skies their image of their own father. Freud was ignorant of genuine Christianity and spent all his time among the abnormal and mentally ill which influenced his judgment. He failed to distinguish between religious fantasy as observed in the mentally sick, and religion as a reasonable attitude to life adopted by healthy and intelligent people. W.B. Selbie wrote in “Christianity and the New psychology” that ‘many of the psychologists are living in a fantasy world of their own, and the kind of religion they are dealing with is largely the product of their own not very healthy imagination.’ Freud says Christianity is a wish-fulfilment and obsessional neurosis, but he fails to note that this could be applied to his own pan-sexual theory of psychoanalysis. In his ‘Future of an illusion’ Freud said ‘science is no illusion. But it would be an illusion to suppose that we could get anywhere else what it cannot give us.’ He had an obsessional illusion that science and psychoanalysis were omnicompetent. The destruction caused by science is due to selfish human nature which is never transformed into love by any scientific process. This hope of a religionless scientific utopia was criticised as ‘the illusion of a future’ by Theodor Reik in his book ‘From Thirty Tears with Freud’.The limitations of psychoanalysis is that the analyst unconsciously attempts to establish a new and rival religion. This had been recognised by many psychologists as they realised that scientific optimism and infallibility of analysis were Freud’s illusions. The same was true with ‘Lenin’ and H. L. Philip says Freud’s “concept of reality was so narrow” in his book ‘Freud and Religious Belief’. The professor of psychology H.C. Rumke in ‘The psychology of unbelief’ rebutted Freud’s claim that religion is an illusion and gave reasons to show that unbelief is a symptom of arrested development. All these men gave value to psychoanalysis but they wanted to make clear that psychoanalysis can bring out, under favourable circumstances, the best in a patient, but it cannot supply anything extra to support weak personalities. The patient finds no comfort and no solace in this final attempt at self-sufficiency as Stafford Clark puts it. He says he knows no answer to this as a psychiatrist, but as a man he can only say with humility that he believes in God. This shows that when making judgments about God psychologists give their own opinion not the findings of their science. Psychology is a descriptive and not a prescriptive discipline; so it analyses the nature and origin of people’s beliefs, but cannot dogmatised upon their truth or falsity.In order to validly show that God is real and so is Christianity, we’ve to use the test of history. Christianity is a historical religion. It has been shown that Jesus is not a myth as the historical nature of Jesus of Nazareth is true and his impact on the world; right from the dating of our era which is derived from his birth; his love, courage, insight, integrity etc. his death and resurrection were real. The character is another test of validity as seen over the ages that this faith has made the immoral chaste, the greedy generous, the selfish loving, the cheat honest. Charles Darwin testifies about the transformation of character as he commends on the work of the preacher Mr Fegan in his own village; ‘Your services have done more for the village in a few months than all our efforts for many years. We have never been able to reclaim a single drunkard, but through your services I do not know that there is a drunkard left in the village’. Delusions tend towards disintegration of character, unbalanced behaviour, and either the inability to achieve one’s aims, or else the dissipation of energy in some strange byway of living Christianity on the other hand makes men whole. The next test to see that most illusions fade at the approach of death. Christians are convinced that death is a defeated enemy that’s why ‘they die well’. They are confident that because their master rose, they will share his life. They fear no death. Perfect love casts out fear. Note the letter Hermann Lange wrote to his parents in prison before he was to die ‘I am, first, in a joyous mood; and second, I filled with great anticipation.’ The victory over fear of death is one of the great moral triumphs of Christianity. It is inexplicable on the theory of illusion or auto-suggestion. Christ is at work on the side of fearlessness. He is real, alive, able to help, control and empower the Christian through out his life right up to the end and beyond it. Christianity is the key to life at its best.
RUNNING AWAY FROM ADVENTURE
Many people just as the sociologist Dr K. Busia complained that the church has an inward orientation, it is awfully dull and of an upper class; as Busia notes in his book ‘Urban churches in Britain’. Because the church in Britain is established by law, it isn’t endearing to a young man full of reforming zeal, radical ideas, and a disposition to react against all that is old, conventional and dull. The church going is occasional by the older generation showing the Englishman’s unwillingness to be extreme in any respect, as in the years up to the Second World War it was deemed socially improper not to go to church at all; but equally surprising and quaint if one went too often. They go to church but it makes no difference in their lives. It is therefore not surprising for the younger generation to see their churchgoing hypocritical. Since many who go to church do it because ‘it’s good for you’ and others to stock up capital in the bank of heaven and the old to be on the good side of God before they die’.This terrible indictment of the church has tamed Jesus, fossilised him, and imprisoned him inside conventional churches and institutional religion. This is not the spirit Jesus intended to instil in his followers; not to give the impression of a gentle orthodox figure with bourgeois values, less defensive and somewhat conservative. Some of the hymns we sing in churches are not challenging to attract teenagers too. The presentation of the church with emphasis on duty, conformity, accepted patterns of behaviour and speech, being silent while the clergyman preaches and prays, etc is on the death urge while the younger generation looks forth to life urge. This is what makes them think Christianity is dull, boring and useless.Jesus was adventurous as any radical in his teaching and in his attitudes to life though he too was gentle, meek and mild. Jesus assaulted priests who kept the people ‘a little civilized by religion’; a religion which was the opiate of the people. In his day the official religion was on the side of politics and economic conservatism. Not to let go traditions, and not to annoy the Roman forces. Jesus was penniless and was content to be so. He had revolutionary attitude towards wealth; warned men not to lay up ephemeral treasure on earth, but rich towards God, rich in love, in faith, in mercy and prayer. He told men it was happier to give than to take. The rabbi were convinced the Jews were superior to all others, and Pharisees to all Jews, then the Jewish men to all women. This was Judaism, just like Hinduism. Jesus had no time for formalism and hypocrisy, for washing ceremoniously before dinner or wearing special clothes to eat it; he was a radical to his fingertips.The first century Judaism had domesticated God to being merely the God of Israel. He was God of the whole earth in theory. Jesus showed that the devil has had a grip of Israel the chosen people just as the Gentile world. That God was gracious, so loving and merciful and longing to accept all as adopted children. Jesus asserted the value of man and acted on it by helping the poor, the underprivileged, the diseased, etc showing that mankind was made by God, loved by God and sustained by God. Jesus was strongly against the tendency of glorifying man to almost deifying man; something which entered Judaism from the Greek world. The achievements of mankind in the technical sphere has blinded us to the truth taught by Jesus, that evil deeds have their root in the human heart, that the troubles in the world proceed from human nature.Just like Mohammed, Confucius or Buddha has only made claims that they are prophets but Jesus Christ is different. He says ‘No one knows the son but the father, and no one knows the father but the son and those to whom the son may choose to reveal him (Matthew 11:27). The claim is similar to that in John 10:1,9. He was son of God in a different sense from other men who were God’s creation. He called God Abba which in Aramaic is Daddy as used by a child. He never referred to God as ‘Our Father’ as he aligned himself with the disciples but referred to ‘My God and your God, My Father and your Father’. Abba was the heart of the good news he had come to bring. Jesus laid claims to nothing less than sharing God’s essential and eternal nature as we find in John 10:28-30;14:9;1:1;8:58; Heb1:2;Exodus 3:14. Jesus told the Jews that God had committed all judgement to the son (John 5:27). He called to the hearers not to return to God but to him who is the way (matt 11:28; John 14:6; Mark 1:17) not like the Buddha who says this is the way. Jesus proclaimed forgiveness here and now on his authority (mark 2:5). He is the centre of his message, and he alone can bring men to God; because he alone brings God to men.Jesus’ claims were made before the most hostile audience imaginable; where monotheistic were they. He claimed nothing less than deity and got lots of men to believe it. All the earliest converts to Christianity who acknowledge that ‘Jesus is Lord’ were Jews. Jesus was a humble, modest man, a peasant teacher who sought no honour for himself. He liked the underprivilege, the poor and sick, friend of tax collectors and unsuspected of pride. Jesus’ claim played a two camp impact on the people. Either they responded to him with the love and devotion they would accord to God himself, or else they tried to kill him. No one said as many who’ve run away from evidence say ‘Jesus Christ was the best of men’. In trying to kill him they were escaping from the truth.On death Jesus made it clear that there were circumstances for which it was preferable to continue life on earth; but he said happy are those who were willing to be persecuted and killed for their testimony to him and the good news of the salvation he brought to men. Jesus made the difference in practically giving up his life at a youthful age in the prime of life. This is more adventurous and radical than his precept. Jesus knew in Jerusalem, he would be killed but he set his face towards it, embarking on a collision course with officialdom having only one outcome. Yet he continued teaching, healing and giving love being unconcerned about himself but for others. He said he would ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). So Jesus identifies himself with what they are, in order that they may share what he is. Jesus declared it was the destiny he had come to fulfil; gain our life through his death. He tasted God forsakenness proper to men who had deliberately forsaken God. He died that we might live; showing that what no man can do for us or for himself God has done for us.We think we live to wring the last drop of excitement out of life but Jesus Christ asserts that personal relationships must include God if they are to be lived to the full. Jesus lived a full, adventurous, supremely happy life which he surrendered on the cross, freely and vicariously for us. He forecasted that he would rise from the dead (mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34) and he did. This vindicates his claims to deity (Romans 1:4) and this shows that he was victorious in the battle for evil and having borne the worst that evil could do to him, had emerged alive to show that wickedness will not have a final word in God’s world. A Christian is therefore a man who has encountered the risen Christ and shares life with him. Jesus says he is with the Christians always, to the end of time; so they are not lonely. They are not disappointed because ‘we know that to those who love God,… everything that happens fits into a pattern for good’ (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 13:5). So the Christian is free to live life to the full, sharing his experiences with his maker, Redeemer and indweller.To follow Jesus is costly, demanding involvement, love, self-sacrifice, but it draws the best out of a man. Just like in the days of Jesus the most dynamic Christians these days are won from atheism or apathy; because Christianity is the faith for men who are prepared to swim against the stream. It requires the courage to give oneself to a costly, demanding Christian program. One has to live dangerously with Christ, instead of safe and sound with the rest. Many are convinced that Christianity is true but are not honest with themselves to act on what they believe. The opposition is tremendous and so the adventure is costly. But the faithful are encouraged daily through the number of conversions.
RUNNING AWAY FROM CHRIST
THE ORDINARY PEOPLE ONLY PRAY TO God when they are in trouble or difficulty and this is partly due to the church. The church has been defensive, inward-looking, lacking in social concern, cowardly in speaking out about moral issues, at times reluctant to face the truth. It is the church, not Jesus Christ, that is the stumbling-block for the ordinary people. People escape from facing the challenge of Christian standards of behaviour and Christian discipleship. They are afraid of being reminded about the God we would rather forget, afraid of letting our lives to be scrutinised and spring cleaned by God, afraid of what people would say if we are on the side of Jesus Christ.The escapism which drives us to a fantasy world is caused by the mess the world is in, the mess society is in, and the mess our lives are in. one of the routes of escapism here is sex. People raise propaganda that sex satisfies, sex fulfills. The result of this is a rise in veneral diseases, illegitimate births, psychological disturbances and crime rate. Another route is irresponsibility and selfishness. This has led to increase drug habit, trying to run from the harsh realities of life into a cosy world of make-believe and the pleasant sensations induced by drugs. Eastern meditation is another form of escapism which is contrary to Christian meditation in which there’s communion with a personal God of the Bible in order to face the responsibilities of daily life with love and compassion. The Eastern meditation entails the withdrawal of the holy men from concerns of daily life, making them parasites on the community sending nations like India in states of semi-starvation. Some escape Christianity by becoming conformists to the shreds of post-Christian decencies and good deeds that still linger around the contemporary ethical scene. Some say they go to church because it makes them feel good, while others escape from their own conscience by being generous, or being decent. Saul of Tarsus has been decent for years before his conversion. We also have gambling, drinking and smoking which are more ways of escapism as well as scientific utopias. The rat race is a popular route for escapism; get a good job, earn more money, get a car, a house etc. whatever you do, don’t allow yourself time to wonder what life is all about because it is too depressing. That’s how many people behave.People practicing this irresponsible attitude accuse the Christians of running away from reality. It is not new but former companions may think you’ll no longer be part of their rioting and say any thing about you but it shouldn’t bother you (Peter 4:4,5) God will not allow them to lie for ever (Psalm 39; Isaiah 28:4-7). Those who’ve made the church as their escape route will be exposed to the truth of Jesus Christ (1Peter 4:17). God has been disclosed by Jesus who came in our midst as he declares that ‘I am the truth' and we shall be judged by our relations to him.
Many people regard Christianity as unhistorical and many who say Jesus never lived, taking it as a myth. These rationalists have written books indicating Christ as a myth while some say the question of whether Jesus ever lived is open. These are seen in the books of J.M. Robertson, Gilbert Murray and John Allegro. The article of Allegro on the Daily mail newspaper in October 1967 shows that the idea of Christ myth is not dead and that some people are anxious to believe that the Christian story is false. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for that. It has been communist policy to deny Jesus Christ’s historical existence reason for the subjection to this propaganda in Eastern Europe and Asia. This became part of communist position in 1842 when the German theologian Bruno Bauer was deprived of his chair on account of his heterodox opinions; which influenced Karl Marx who thought he had been cruelly wronged by the men of religion.History matters to Judiasm and Christianity because if it can be proven that the founder never lived then it will fail to exist. Christianity is good news about a historical person, who was executed under the Roman procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. He matched his teachings with moral miracle of his sinless life and his resurrection from the grave. What makes the Christian claim so challenging is that the historical figure is known by some of the writers of the New Testament document. It is all about the historical Jesus who was God manifest in human flesh. It is a fact not an idea or myth.A non_christian, Pliny the Younger who was sent by the emperor Trajan to govern the province of Bithynia in Northen Turkey, in AD112 wrote in one of his letters to the emperor concerning Christianity. That he found Christians everywhere and that pagan temples had close down, sacred festivals and demand for sacrificial animals ceased. He executed Christians who persisted in their faith but was perplexed about the nature of their crime; as he confessed that no enormities were practiced in the Christian assemblies. Their problem was that they refused to worship the imperial statue and the images of the gods and that they met on a certain fixed day and sang to Christ as God. They took an oath not to commit crime. Cornelius Tacitus, the greatest historian of imperial Rome says Christians were hated and persecuted in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate. He notes that in destroying the temple at Jerusalem in AD70, the Roman general Titus hoped to put an end to both Christianity and Judaism. These writings justify the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The Samaritan historian Thallus, wrote in Rome about AD52 as Julius Africanus tells us the darkness that fell when Jesus died on the cross (Mark 15:33). Thallus says it was an eclipse of the sun, but noted that it is unreasonably as it seems to him. Of course true since these can’t be total eclipse when the moon is full. So Jesus’ death was well known in Rome as early as the middle of the first century as the non_christian historian comments. The inscriptions belonging to the time of Clausius Caesar (AD41-AD54) gives an order that if anyone is found tampering with graves, the person is liable to death penalty. Something which the Roman historians such as prof. Momigliano and Prof. Blaiklock regard as reaction concerning the report on the crucifixion of Jesus and its sequel. Suetonius, a court official under Hadrian records that Clausdius expelled the Jews from Rome for making disturbances at the instigation of chrestus. Orosius dates this to AD49. Aquila and Pricilia were among those expelled (Acts 18:12). Pliny (AD61-140?) wrote about events which took place 30 years before they were born, and their official position gave them access to good historical information; hence establishing the historicity of Jesus.The Jewish after AD70 thought the Christians did not help them in the life and death struggle against Rome. So the relations between Judaism and Christianity by the end of first century were very poor reason why there’s not much about Christ in Jewish writings. Josephus, one of the Jewish commanders in the war with Rome wrote the antiquities of the Jews (Published AD93) and his Jewish war (published AD75-79) to inform Romans of the his fathers religion; Judaism. Josephus wrote about Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas, the Herods, Quirinus, Felix, Festus and others; names familiar in New Testament. He talks of John the Baptist, his preaching, baptising and execution. He talks of James ‘the brother of Jesus, the so_called Christ’ as well. He talks of Jesus in the time of Pilate (AD26-36) as a wise man, doubting if he should be called a man as he did marvellous deeds. He confesses that Jesus appeared to his followers the third day after his death. Mishah, the Jewish law code and Talmuds has evidences such as the unusual birth of Jesus. The Rabbi Eliezer wrote with opposition to Christianity but indirectly attesting to a prophecy of the Gospel story as he refers to Jesus as ‘born of a woman’ and ‘seek to make himself God’ and his return. So the Jews supported the historicity, unusual birth, miracles, teaching, disciples, messianic claims, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the author of the Christian faith.From the discoveries at Qumran, the dead sea scrolls have been used by Edmund Wilson and John Allegro to say that it has disproved Christianity. Their literature shows that the community was non_conformist baptising sect of Judaism, Zealous for purity, antagonistic to marriage, living in monastery disclosed by excavations. Prof. Rowley notes that the dead sea scrolls can only tell us about the sect from which they came, enriching our knowledge of the Jewish world at the time of Christ and in the proceeding two centuries. They do not overthrow or confirm a single Christian octrine. If Allegro had considered the evidence by Tacitus and Suetonius, Pliny and Josephus he would not have claimed the New Testament stories of Jesus to be a reminiscence of real essene history; getting lost in his created myth. There is not doubt that Jesus lived and died under Pontius Pilate.Christian evidence based un archaeological findings especially from acrostics of ancient world. This show evidences of Christian existence as seen in those found in Pompeii destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. Anagram from the acrostic show the Christian view of Jesus being the alpha and Omega, as well as indicating the cross in the arrangement of the letters. The fish was also symbolic to Christians with each letter in fish representing Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour in Greek. A tomb was discovered outside Jerusalem in 1945 with decoration style and coins indicating approximately AD50. The inscription in Greek said Jesus help and another in Aramais (?’Jesus, let him arise’). These indicate the historical figure of Jesus. The pool of Bethesda was discovered around the church of st. Anne in Jerusalem with five porticos. Bethesda is also mentioned in one of the dead sea scrolls confirming the gospels of John. The French archaeologist Pere Vincent also dug out the pavement (Gabbatha) in 1930’s. this measures fifty yards square ,and was buried under piles of rubble in the fall of Jerusalem in AD70. This confirms John’s gospel (John19:13). The same vindication was seen with the accuracy of Luke’s gospel and Acts until discoveries show them to be accurate, reliable historical material for the understanding of first century world. Inscriptions have confirmed him accurate in the nomenclature of local officials and others such as proofs that Gallio was proconsul in AD51.In looking at New Testament evidence we note that its reliability is well attested. Also in like manner as classical scholars accept the writing of Thucydides ‘History’ and the case of Tacitus with gap from oldest manuscript of 1500 and 800 years so shall it be for the exceptionally attested New Testament. With variant readings in these manuscripts, no single point of doctrine hangs on disputed reading. In addition the extant manuscripts do not have large gaps from autograph copies. Paul who was a violent opponent of Christianity testify for the resurrection as he tells us in 1Corinthians 15; as he says at the time he wrote the letter ‘AD53), most of the people who so Christ after resurrection were still alive.The gospels are not biographies of Jesus as it concentrates up to half of its account on his death. They are not histories as it brings God and his actions into the story lacking the interest in chronology or what is happening in the outside world. But the gospels are proclamations of good news about Jesus; God’s way of rescue for men. Reason why it took some time for the Christians to write down their gospels as they were busy preaching this gospel. The teaching of Jesus falls into a poetic form when retranslated to Aramaic reason why the people could remember the Gospels. The New Testament offer reasonable grounds for belief; it does not induce people to believe: Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees had the evidence but did not believe. Atheists runaway from truth, neglecting the evidence while some escape it by intentionally running away from Christian living as Aldous Huxley testifies of himself. We find that the Jews came to conclusion that Jesus was God almighty accommodating himself to human nature and living in their midst; as we find in the gospels.
RUNNING AWAY FROM SCIENCE
The astonishing advances in science has opened up vistas to the human spirit and have induced a feeling of self confidence in many like sir Richard Gregory such that they consider the God hypothesis dated and unreal. The man on the street things scientific humanism has killed religion. The free thinkers at the congress of liege in 1865 concluded that science does not deny God but that she makes Him unnecessary. Martin Heidegger says God’s absence is not even noticed. They claim that Christians are running away from science to persist in their beliefs.The scientific pioneers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were Christian men. All these discoveries took place in Christian era. Men like Francis Bacon, Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus who glorified God despite the obscurantism of the Catholic church of the day; were devout Christians. Newton, Robert Boyle with Ward, Wallis, Wilkins and Barrow all of the royal society were all sincere Christians.In science we have both Christians and atheists just as in other fields. So it wasn’t new to have the Russian authorities decree that the last relics of religious faith be wiped. But we find scientists these days who have written extensively both in science and Christianity. Men like Prof. Coulson, Prof. MacKay and Prof. Boyd are examples. The misunderstanding is the way the Christian church has adopted a dogmatic attitude when it concerns science while forgetting that God of grace is the God of nature who made man and gave him dominion over his universe. The bible is not a science book, it speaks of total relationship of man to man, to the universe and to God. When it speaks of science it does so in ordinary everyday language and so its interpretation of science cannot be imposed to a scientist. There shouldn’t be discrepancies in the teaching of scriptures but if it does, one has to re-examine the implications as well as his own interpretation of scripture. Bertrand Russell judges Christianity with science and prescribe that those teachings that cannot be scientifically assessed should be discarded. With technology men have tamed the physical world, but haven’t begun to tame human nature.The relation of science to religion and God’s claim only in areas where knowledge had not yet reached; is misleading and blasphemous because God is not there just to close the gap in our knowledge but He is immanent in every part of His universe. Prof. CA Coulson writes that a God of the gaps has been disastrous in history; noting that Newton is guilty of this view. Either God is there in the whole Universe or He is not there at all. Prof. Mackay notes in his book that God holds the whole universe in being by His own power (Heb.1:3). Acts 17:25,28,29; Col. 1:16,17 tell us much about God.Prof. Boyd wrote in “Can God be known?” that there are three senses of knowledge. Mathematical knowledge which requires the assumption of axioms and of meaningfulness, scientific knowledge which assumes the existence of an external world and the uniformity of nature, and the personal knowledge which requires the assumption of other minds and personalities like our own. Science is concerned with description and material aspect of things while religion is concerned with encounter and belongs to the aspect of mind. Christianity belongs to personal knowledge. So the argument of science and human potentiality is that between those who see man as the product of a personal creator, and those who see him as the product of an entirely random collocation of atoms, a giant fluke.On the side of human values scientific humanists are extremely enthusiastic about man hence keen on social and educational reforms, relief of need and the support of the aged, the hungry, the underprivileged and those suffering from war and discrimination. The church has been sometimes on the side of the status quo due to the lead of men in power who profess Christian states but not personally committed to the program and the standards of Christ. But this is not a generality as some Christians have the other side of the story such as the emancipation of women and slaves, the pioneer work in education and medicine, foundation of the trade unions, worldwide concern for underprivileged people and underdeveloped countries and the preaching of the gospel of peace, integration and forgiveness. If not of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it would not have driven men like Wilberforce and Newton to battle against slavery in Europe. Christianity has always been against totalitarianism because of the conviction that the state is accountable to God, and that men matter because they are made in the image of God. Being made in the image of God human values are derived from God who made them and so Christian values because they matter to God. Atheistic humanism is illogical and absurd as they profess such deep regard for the random products of a universe where chance is king; no surprise why they are ruthless in torturing and eliminating unwanted people such as in Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or communist Russia. Atheist like Dr. Isaacs and Democritius look at the universe and even man as a composition of ultimate particles which develop in complexity by a process that is self sustaining with no intervention hence no place for God. This is absurd because they’ve not explained the existence of the ultimate particles. What gives them the remarkable possibilities? Science has no answer for such materialism. This advocates for a mind behind the universe. This view of Russell and Isaacs is not satisfactory to explain how you get ethics out of an unfeeling concourse of atoms, how you get personal being from impersonal and how you get freedom or an illusion of freedom from a determinist world. If the theory of scientific humanist were true it would be no more than the product of wandering atoms, as meaningless as everything else in a world devoid of meaning and purpose. Who would believe such a theory to be true? The value of human beings depends upon being made in God’s image and this is what gives man dignity and worth.On human behaviour, love is a common concern for both Christians and scientific humanists. With some humanists and some Christians who are unashamedly selfish others have shown considerable love. There’s an escape from truth, from social concern, and from freedom in different areas. This is not a characteristic Christian attitude, and it was not the attitude of Jesus. Jesus came to bring abundant life in contrast to John the Baptist he has no austere (Luke 7:33). Jesus graced a marriage and even supplied fresh wine (John 2:1-11) as Paul notes that opposition to marriage is devil-inspired doctrine (1Timothy 4:3-5). Why bother about love if there is no God and no future life? Many who hold the view of humanists are good and generous men as their loving actions speak louder than their rationalistic words because man is made in the image of God. When men turn their back on God’s revelation in scripture he still sets the truth of it in their hearts. Christians know that lasting love to your neighbour is grounded in the recognition of God’s love for you. “We love, because he first loved us.” For the humanist’s view morality is relative, there’s no absolute since it’s in an impersonal and mechanistic world. The society is manipulated in the way the majority thinks fits and the individual ceases to matter. On Christian view it’s the individual who matters to God, and society is improved by changed individuals who have been reconciled to God. On the humanists view, how is morality to be achieved? Education and effort will not make any man better. We see that the last two world wars took place between the most highly educated countries in the world. Education can’t erase the tendency to evil in human nature neither would effort do. What is needed is not good advice but practical assistance. Paul said ‘I do not do good I want but the evil I do not want is what I do.” This is due to the human nature, the original sin. Jesus taught the highest standards and kept them. The God of love expects love from us and came in the person of Jesus Christ to show how love works out in a human life.In looking at human destiny, scientific humanists think science is the key to making men good. But Martin Buber exclaimed in disillusionment at the end of his life that, “who can change the intractable thing, human nature? There is tragedy at the heart of things.” Colin Wilson wrote in “The Outsider” of how science has changed with the possibility of human technical progress but concerns about the danger, the boredom, the sheer hell of the evolving human situation. Existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and others without doubt have taken to this attitude. It is due to the enormous power for destruction that is placed into human hands by scientific discovery. Only a religious mind can find an alternative and a hope by relying on God who is above history.Jesus shared the optimism of the hopeful humanists but taught extensively about the “Kingdom of God”. He said an unaided man can not produce this utopia as evil is external and extrinsic; and that what defiles a man is what comes out of him (Mark 7:20ff). Jesus was also pessimistic as he spoke about the awful reality of hell than anyone else in the whole Bible. Jesus did not misplaced faith in human nature as we see in John 2:24f. Jesus also showed that human nature can be changed in his matchless life right to the cross and his resurrection. His resurrection guarantees that Christianity is not escapism; we see the destiny of redeemed mankind.
RUNNING AWAY FROM REALITY
Christianity asserts that God immersed himself in human existence for thirty years; it makes a difference to the way ordinary people behave in their daily lives and so it’s not an illusion. Psychologists and communists say it is; that Christians are running away from the stark realities of everyday life. The church has a quota of escapists, just like any other group of people. There are many weak characters that can’t face the reality of their position. There are many Christians in psychiatric wards, many who call Jesus “lord, lord” but have no intention of involving themselves in costly discipleship. Jesus says they are “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. This escapism among Christians does not invalidate Christianity.Karl Marx considered Christianity as an opiate administered by the bourgeoisie to keep the workers docile. For him it was the illusory compensation offered to the oppressed, hence that religion will die a natural death as soon as true socialism came in. It’s true that there was hypocrisy in Victorian religion but the best preachers were just as vehement as Marx in denouncing this state of affairs; as with Charles Spurgeon.In the days of Jesus, there was a religion which was the opiate of the people as we find Jesus denouncing it; “you devour widows houses and for a pretence you make long prayers”. “Woe to you, hypocrites… how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” Marx ought to have remembered that man’s nature without the power of Christ is likely to become self-centred. This is equally evident in capitalist and in communist societies as we see in the atrocities of Russian leaders. The Christian truth is that all men suffer the disease of self-will to which Christ provides total cure. Karl Marx was wilfully blind, to the historical evidence but swallowed the absurd theories about Christian origins by Strauss and Bauer which have many times been decisively refuted. It is a gaffe for Marx to view Christianity as a mass movement arising from the frustrations of the common man in the war-wearing world of the mid-second century because that age was one of the most prosperous; contented and stable periods in history. Christianity gave the ancient world a powerful injection of social equality. Communist like Lenin took on to the view of Marx on Christianity that it offered “cheap justification for all their exploiting” and “low price tickets to heavenly bliss”. The reason for communist hatred arises from the Russian Orthodox Church in the beginning of the twentieth century as it appeared to be a tool in the hands of Czar, and was implicated in appalling abuses of government and oppression of the poor. In 1918 all church property was confiscated, priests disenfranchised, seminaries closed, religious teaching forbidden except inside church, Christian marriage replaced by civil ceremony but the church refused to die. In 1921 persecution was added and in 1929 it was one of the first five year plans. During the rigours of German invasion in the Second World War churches were reopened and museums of atheism closed. Despite all these with intense atheistic propaganda the church is still stronger as we find Baptists and the orthodox flourishing. Stalin’s daughter returned to religious faith just as Martin Bormann’s (Hitler’s Lieutenant) children to Christians with one missionary speaks a lot; that the communists are running away from reality. The communists are escaping by forbidding Bibles, frowning at debates with believers as Michael Bordeaux notes that “no atheist ringleader has ever dared allow those under him to study the Bible, even for the purpose of spying out the enemy’s territory in order to conquer it”. The Marxist attack on religion and intensity of persecution of Christians is a form of escapism from reality.In the future of an illusion; Freud believed that when Christians talk about their heavenly Father, all they are doing is to project into the empty skies their image of their own father. Freud was ignorant of genuine Christianity and spent all his time among the abnormal and mentally ill which influenced his judgment. He failed to distinguish between religious fantasy as observed in the mentally sick, and religion as a reasonable attitude to life adopted by healthy and intelligent people. W.B. Selbie wrote in “Christianity and the New psychology” that ‘many of the psychologists are living in a fantasy world of their own, and the kind of religion they are dealing with is largely the product of their own not very healthy imagination.’ Freud says Christianity is a wish-fulfilment and obsessional neurosis, but he fails to note that this could be applied to his own pan-sexual theory of psychoanalysis. In his ‘Future of an illusion’ Freud said ‘science is no illusion. But it would be an illusion to suppose that we could get anywhere else what it cannot give us.’ He had an obsessional illusion that science and psychoanalysis were omnicompetent. The destruction caused by science is due to selfish human nature which is never transformed into love by any scientific process. This hope of a religionless scientific utopia was criticised as ‘the illusion of a future’ by Theodor Reik in his book ‘From Thirty Tears with Freud’.The limitations of psychoanalysis is that the analyst unconsciously attempts to establish a new and rival religion. This had been recognised by many psychologists as they realised that scientific optimism and infallibility of analysis were Freud’s illusions. The same was true with ‘Lenin’ and H. L. Philip says Freud’s “concept of reality was so narrow” in his book ‘Freud and Religious Belief’. The professor of psychology H.C. Rumke in ‘The psychology of unbelief’ rebutted Freud’s claim that religion is an illusion and gave reasons to show that unbelief is a symptom of arrested development. All these men gave value to psychoanalysis but they wanted to make clear that psychoanalysis can bring out, under favourable circumstances, the best in a patient, but it cannot supply anything extra to support weak personalities. The patient finds no comfort and no solace in this final attempt at self-sufficiency as Stafford Clark puts it. He says he knows no answer to this as a psychiatrist, but as a man he can only say with humility that he believes in God. This shows that when making judgments about God psychologists give their own opinion not the findings of their science. Psychology is a descriptive and not a prescriptive discipline; so it analyses the nature and origin of people’s beliefs, but cannot dogmatised upon their truth or falsity.In order to validly show that God is real and so is Christianity, we’ve to use the test of history. Christianity is a historical religion. It has been shown that Jesus is not a myth as the historical nature of Jesus of Nazareth is true and his impact on the world; right from the dating of our era which is derived from his birth; his love, courage, insight, integrity etc. his death and resurrection were real. The character is another test of validity as seen over the ages that this faith has made the immoral chaste, the greedy generous, the selfish loving, the cheat honest. Charles Darwin testifies about the transformation of character as he commends on the work of the preacher Mr Fegan in his own village; ‘Your services have done more for the village in a few months than all our efforts for many years. We have never been able to reclaim a single drunkard, but through your services I do not know that there is a drunkard left in the village’. Delusions tend towards disintegration of character, unbalanced behaviour, and either the inability to achieve one’s aims, or else the dissipation of energy in some strange byway of living Christianity on the other hand makes men whole. The next test to see that most illusions fade at the approach of death. Christians are convinced that death is a defeated enemy that’s why ‘they die well’. They are confident that because their master rose, they will share his life. They fear no death. Perfect love casts out fear. Note the letter Hermann Lange wrote to his parents in prison before he was to die ‘I am, first, in a joyous mood; and second, I filled with great anticipation.’ The victory over fear of death is one of the great moral triumphs of Christianity. It is inexplicable on the theory of illusion or auto-suggestion. Christ is at work on the side of fearlessness. He is real, alive, able to help, control and empower the Christian through out his life right up to the end and beyond it. Christianity is the key to life at its best.
RUNNING AWAY FROM ADVENTURE
Many people just as the sociologist Dr K. Busia complained that the church has an inward orientation, it is awfully dull and of an upper class; as Busia notes in his book ‘Urban churches in Britain’. Because the church in Britain is established by law, it isn’t endearing to a young man full of reforming zeal, radical ideas, and a disposition to react against all that is old, conventional and dull. The church going is occasional by the older generation showing the Englishman’s unwillingness to be extreme in any respect, as in the years up to the Second World War it was deemed socially improper not to go to church at all; but equally surprising and quaint if one went too often. They go to church but it makes no difference in their lives. It is therefore not surprising for the younger generation to see their churchgoing hypocritical. Since many who go to church do it because ‘it’s good for you’ and others to stock up capital in the bank of heaven and the old to be on the good side of God before they die’.This terrible indictment of the church has tamed Jesus, fossilised him, and imprisoned him inside conventional churches and institutional religion. This is not the spirit Jesus intended to instil in his followers; not to give the impression of a gentle orthodox figure with bourgeois values, less defensive and somewhat conservative. Some of the hymns we sing in churches are not challenging to attract teenagers too. The presentation of the church with emphasis on duty, conformity, accepted patterns of behaviour and speech, being silent while the clergyman preaches and prays, etc is on the death urge while the younger generation looks forth to life urge. This is what makes them think Christianity is dull, boring and useless.Jesus was adventurous as any radical in his teaching and in his attitudes to life though he too was gentle, meek and mild. Jesus assaulted priests who kept the people ‘a little civilized by religion’; a religion which was the opiate of the people. In his day the official religion was on the side of politics and economic conservatism. Not to let go traditions, and not to annoy the Roman forces. Jesus was penniless and was content to be so. He had revolutionary attitude towards wealth; warned men not to lay up ephemeral treasure on earth, but rich towards God, rich in love, in faith, in mercy and prayer. He told men it was happier to give than to take. The rabbi were convinced the Jews were superior to all others, and Pharisees to all Jews, then the Jewish men to all women. This was Judaism, just like Hinduism. Jesus had no time for formalism and hypocrisy, for washing ceremoniously before dinner or wearing special clothes to eat it; he was a radical to his fingertips.The first century Judaism had domesticated God to being merely the God of Israel. He was God of the whole earth in theory. Jesus showed that the devil has had a grip of Israel the chosen people just as the Gentile world. That God was gracious, so loving and merciful and longing to accept all as adopted children. Jesus asserted the value of man and acted on it by helping the poor, the underprivileged, the diseased, etc showing that mankind was made by God, loved by God and sustained by God. Jesus was strongly against the tendency of glorifying man to almost deifying man; something which entered Judaism from the Greek world. The achievements of mankind in the technical sphere has blinded us to the truth taught by Jesus, that evil deeds have their root in the human heart, that the troubles in the world proceed from human nature.Just like Mohammed, Confucius or Buddha has only made claims that they are prophets but Jesus Christ is different. He says ‘No one knows the son but the father, and no one knows the father but the son and those to whom the son may choose to reveal him (Matthew 11:27). The claim is similar to that in John 10:1,9. He was son of God in a different sense from other men who were God’s creation. He called God Abba which in Aramaic is Daddy as used by a child. He never referred to God as ‘Our Father’ as he aligned himself with the disciples but referred to ‘My God and your God, My Father and your Father’. Abba was the heart of the good news he had come to bring. Jesus laid claims to nothing less than sharing God’s essential and eternal nature as we find in John 10:28-30;14:9;1:1;8:58; Heb1:2;Exodus 3:14. Jesus told the Jews that God had committed all judgement to the son (John 5:27). He called to the hearers not to return to God but to him who is the way (matt 11:28; John 14:6; Mark 1:17) not like the Buddha who says this is the way. Jesus proclaimed forgiveness here and now on his authority (mark 2:5). He is the centre of his message, and he alone can bring men to God; because he alone brings God to men.Jesus’ claims were made before the most hostile audience imaginable; where monotheistic were they. He claimed nothing less than deity and got lots of men to believe it. All the earliest converts to Christianity who acknowledge that ‘Jesus is Lord’ were Jews. Jesus was a humble, modest man, a peasant teacher who sought no honour for himself. He liked the underprivilege, the poor and sick, friend of tax collectors and unsuspected of pride. Jesus’ claim played a two camp impact on the people. Either they responded to him with the love and devotion they would accord to God himself, or else they tried to kill him. No one said as many who’ve run away from evidence say ‘Jesus Christ was the best of men’. In trying to kill him they were escaping from the truth.On death Jesus made it clear that there were circumstances for which it was preferable to continue life on earth; but he said happy are those who were willing to be persecuted and killed for their testimony to him and the good news of the salvation he brought to men. Jesus made the difference in practically giving up his life at a youthful age in the prime of life. This is more adventurous and radical than his precept. Jesus knew in Jerusalem, he would be killed but he set his face towards it, embarking on a collision course with officialdom having only one outcome. Yet he continued teaching, healing and giving love being unconcerned about himself but for others. He said he would ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). So Jesus identifies himself with what they are, in order that they may share what he is. Jesus declared it was the destiny he had come to fulfil; gain our life through his death. He tasted God forsakenness proper to men who had deliberately forsaken God. He died that we might live; showing that what no man can do for us or for himself God has done for us.We think we live to wring the last drop of excitement out of life but Jesus Christ asserts that personal relationships must include God if they are to be lived to the full. Jesus lived a full, adventurous, supremely happy life which he surrendered on the cross, freely and vicariously for us. He forecasted that he would rise from the dead (mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34) and he did. This vindicates his claims to deity (Romans 1:4) and this shows that he was victorious in the battle for evil and having borne the worst that evil could do to him, had emerged alive to show that wickedness will not have a final word in God’s world. A Christian is therefore a man who has encountered the risen Christ and shares life with him. Jesus says he is with the Christians always, to the end of time; so they are not lonely. They are not disappointed because ‘we know that to those who love God,… everything that happens fits into a pattern for good’ (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 13:5). So the Christian is free to live life to the full, sharing his experiences with his maker, Redeemer and indweller.To follow Jesus is costly, demanding involvement, love, self-sacrifice, but it draws the best out of a man. Just like in the days of Jesus the most dynamic Christians these days are won from atheism or apathy; because Christianity is the faith for men who are prepared to swim against the stream. It requires the courage to give oneself to a costly, demanding Christian program. One has to live dangerously with Christ, instead of safe and sound with the rest. Many are convinced that Christianity is true but are not honest with themselves to act on what they believe. The opposition is tremendous and so the adventure is costly. But the faithful are encouraged daily through the number of conversions.
RUNNING AWAY FROM CHRIST
THE ORDINARY PEOPLE ONLY PRAY TO God when they are in trouble or difficulty and this is partly due to the church. The church has been defensive, inward-looking, lacking in social concern, cowardly in speaking out about moral issues, at times reluctant to face the truth. It is the church, not Jesus Christ, that is the stumbling-block for the ordinary people. People escape from facing the challenge of Christian standards of behaviour and Christian discipleship. They are afraid of being reminded about the God we would rather forget, afraid of letting our lives to be scrutinised and spring cleaned by God, afraid of what people would say if we are on the side of Jesus Christ.The escapism which drives us to a fantasy world is caused by the mess the world is in, the mess society is in, and the mess our lives are in. one of the routes of escapism here is sex. People raise propaganda that sex satisfies, sex fulfills. The result of this is a rise in veneral diseases, illegitimate births, psychological disturbances and crime rate. Another route is irresponsibility and selfishness. This has led to increase drug habit, trying to run from the harsh realities of life into a cosy world of make-believe and the pleasant sensations induced by drugs. Eastern meditation is another form of escapism which is contrary to Christian meditation in which there’s communion with a personal God of the Bible in order to face the responsibilities of daily life with love and compassion. The Eastern meditation entails the withdrawal of the holy men from concerns of daily life, making them parasites on the community sending nations like India in states of semi-starvation. Some escape Christianity by becoming conformists to the shreds of post-Christian decencies and good deeds that still linger around the contemporary ethical scene. Some say they go to church because it makes them feel good, while others escape from their own conscience by being generous, or being decent. Saul of Tarsus has been decent for years before his conversion. We also have gambling, drinking and smoking which are more ways of escapism as well as scientific utopias. The rat race is a popular route for escapism; get a good job, earn more money, get a car, a house etc. whatever you do, don’t allow yourself time to wonder what life is all about because it is too depressing. That’s how many people behave.People practicing this irresponsible attitude accuse the Christians of running away from reality. It is not new but former companions may think you’ll no longer be part of their rioting and say any thing about you but it shouldn’t bother you (Peter 4:4,5) God will not allow them to lie for ever (Psalm 39; Isaiah 28:4-7). Those who’ve made the church as their escape route will be exposed to the truth of Jesus Christ (1Peter 4:17). God has been disclosed by Jesus who came in our midst as he declares that ‘I am the truth' and we shall be judged by our relations to him.
Running Away from History
RUNNING AWAY FROM HISTORY
Many people regard Christianity as unhistorical and many who say Jesus never lived, taking it as a myth. These rationalists have written books indicating Christ as a myth while some say the question of whether Jesus ever lived is open. These are seen in the books of J.M. Robertson, Gilbert Murray and John Allegro. The article of Allegro on the Daily mail newspaper in October 1967 shows that the idea of Christ myth is not dead and that some people are anxious to believe that the Christian story is false. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for that. It has been communist policy to deny Jesus Christ’s historical existence reason for the subjection to this propaganda in Eastern Europe and Asia. This became part of communist position in 1842 when the German theologian Bruno Bauer was deprived of his chair on account of his heterodox opinions; which influenced Karl Marx who thought he had been cruelly wronged by the men of religion.
History matters to Judiasm and Christianity because if it can be proven that the founder never lived then it will fail to exist. Christianity is good news about a historical person, who was executed under the Roman procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. He matched his teachings with moral miracle of his sinless life and his resurrection from the grave. What makes the Christian claim so challenging is that the historical figure is known by some of the writers of the New Testament document. It is all about the historical Jesus who was God manifest in human flesh. It is a fact not an idea or myth.
A non_christian, Pliny the Younger who was sent by the emperor Trajan to govern the province of Bithynia in Northen Turkey, in AD112 wrote in one of his letters to the emperor concerning Christianity. That he found Christians everywhere and that pagan temples had close down, sacred festivals and demand for sacrificial animals ceased. He executed Christians who persisted in their faith but was perplexed about the nature of their crime; as he confessed that no enormities were practiced in the Christian assemblies. Their problem was that they refused to worship the imperial statue and the images of the gods and that they met on a certain fixed day and sang to Christ as God. They took an oath not to commit crime. Cornelius Tacitus, the greatest historian of imperial Rome says Christians were hated and persecuted in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate. He notes that in destroying the temple at Jerusalem in AD70, the Roman general Titus hoped to put an end to both Christianity and Judaism. These writings justify the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The Samaritan historian Thallus, wrote in Rome about AD52 as Julius Africanus tells us the darkness that fell when Jesus died on the cross (Mark 15:33). Thallus says it was an eclipse of the sun, but noted that it is unreasonably as it seems to him. Of course true since these can’t be total eclipse when the moon is full. So Jesus’ death was well known in Rome as early as the middle of the first century as the non_christian historian comments. The inscriptions belonging to the time of Clausius Caesar (AD41-AD54) gives an order that if anyone is found tampering with graves, the person is liable to death penalty. Something which the Roman historians such as prof. Momigliano and Prof. Blaiklock regard as reaction concerning the report on the crucifixion of Jesus and its sequel. Suetonius, a court official under Hadrian records that Clausdius expelled the Jews from Rome for making disturbances at the instigation of chrestus. Orosius dates this to AD49. Aquila and Pricilia were among those expelled (Acts 18:12). Pliny (AD61-140?) wrote about events which took place 30 years before they were born, and their official position gave them access to good historical information; hence establishing the historicity of Jesus.
The Jewish after AD70 thought the Christians did not help them in the life and death struggle against Rome. So the relations between Judaism and Christianity by the end of first century were very poor reason why there’s not much about Christ in Jewish writings. Josephus, one of the Jewish commanders in the war with Rome wrote the antiquities of the Jews (Published AD93) and his Jewish war (published AD75-79) to inform Romans of the his fathers religion; Judaism. Josephus wrote about Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas, the Herods, Quirinus, Felix, Festus and others; names familiar in New Testament. He talks of John the Baptist, his preaching, baptising and execution. He talks of James ‘the brother of Jesus, the so_called Christ’ as well. He talks of Jesus in the time of Pilate (AD26-36) as a wise man, doubting if he should be called a man as he did marvellous deeds. He confesses that Jesus appeared to his followers the third day after his death. Mishah, the Jewish law code and Talmuds has evidences such as the unusual birth of Jesus. The Rabbi Eliezer wrote with opposition to Christianity but indirectly attesting to a prophecy of the Gospel story as he refers to Jesus as ‘born of a woman’ and ‘seek to make himself God’ and his return. So the Jews supported the historicity, unusual birth, miracles, teaching, disciples, messianic claims, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the author of the Christian faith.
From the discoveries at Qumran, the dead sea scrolls have been used by Edmund Wilson and John Allegro to say that it has disproved Christianity. Their literature shows that the community was non_conformist baptising sect of Judaism, Zealous for purity, antagonistic to marriage, living in monastery disclosed by excavations. Prof. Rowley notes that the dead sea scrolls can only tell us about the sect from which they came, enriching our knowledge of the Jewish world at the time of Christ and in the proceeding two centuries. They do not overthrow or confirm a single Christian octrine. If Allegro had considered the evidence by Tacitus and Suetonius, Pliny and Josephus he would not have claimed the New Testament stories of Jesus to be a reminiscence of real essene history; getting lost in his created myth. There is not doubt that Jesus lived and died under Pontius Pilate.
Christian evidence based un archaeological findings especially from acrostics of ancient world. This show evidences of Christian existence as seen in those found in Pompeii destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. Anagram from the acrostic show the Christian view of Jesus being the alpha and Omega, as well as indicating the cross in the arrangement of the letters. The fish was also symbolic to Christians with each letter in fish representing Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour in Greek. A tomb was discovered outside Jerusalem in 1945 with decoration style and coins indicating approximately AD50. The inscription in Greek said Jesus help and another in Aramais (?’Jesus, let him arise’). These indicate the historical figure of Jesus. The pool of Bethesda was discovered around the church of st. Anne in Jerusalem with five porticos. Bethesda is also mentioned in one of the dead sea scrolls confirming the gospels of John. The French archaeologist Pere Vincent also dug out the pavement (Gabbatha) in 1930’s. this measures fifty yards square ,and was buried under piles of rubble in the fall of Jerusalem in AD70. This confirms John’s gospel (John19:13). The same vindication was seen with the accuracy of Luke’s gospel and Acts until discoveries show them to be accurate, reliable historical material for the understanding of first century world. Inscriptions have confirmed him accurate in the nomenclature of local officials and others such as proofs that Gallio was proconsul in AD51.
In looking at New Testament evidence we note that its reliability is well attested. Also in like manner as classical scholars accept the writing of Thucydides ‘History’ and the case of Tacitus with gap from oldest manuscript of 1500 and 800 years so shall it be for the exceptionally attested New Testament. With variant readings in these manuscripts, no single point of doctrine hangs on disputed reading. In addition the extant manuscripts do not have large gaps from autograph copies. Paul who was a violent opponent of Christianity testify for the resurrection as he tells us in 1Corinthians 15; as he says at the time he wrote the letter ‘AD53), most of the people who so Christ after resurrection were still alive.
The gospels are not biographies of Jesus as it concentrates up to half of its account on his death. They are not histories as it brings God and his actions into the story lacking the interest in chronology or what is happening in the outside world. But the gospels are proclamations of good news about Jesus; God’s way of rescue for men. Reason why it took some time for the Christians to write down their gospels as they were busy preaching this gospel. The teaching of Jesus falls into a poetic form when retranslated to Aramaic reason why the people could remember the Gospels. The New Testament offer reasonable grounds for belief; it does not induce people to believe: Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees had the evidence but did not believe. Atheists runaway from truth, neglecting the evidence while some escape it by intentionally running away from Christian living as Aldous Huxley testifies of himself. We find that the Jews came to conclusion that Jesus was God almighty accommodating himself to human nature and living in their midst; as we find in the gospels.
Wednesday 8 October 2008
An Excellent Mother
An Excellent Mother
2 John
She is one whose children walk in the truth (vs. 1, 2)2 John
She is one who walks in love (vs. 5, 6); Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD. (Lev 19:18)
She is one who walks in truth (vs. 7-11).
Living the life of Jesus is the life of truth; “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). True love comes when we know the truth. Truth is taught in scriptures as we see 2Timothy 3:6-7 (For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.).
SO an excellent mother is one whose children walk in truth and she walks in truth and love.
Tuesday 19 August 2008
DOES GOD EXISTS? A SCIENTIFIC, PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
The case of the existence of God is a basic and fundamental issue that runs in the human mind. The fact whether God exist or not has no middle. It is impossible to logically affirm both the existence and non-existence of God. Atheists claim that God does not exist while theists boldly affirm that God exist. The agnostics say there is not enough evidence to make a decision while the sceptic doubt that God’s existence can be proven with certainty. The only way to answer the question “Does God exist?” is to seek out and examine the evidence because if there is a God then He would certainly provide adequate evidence for His existence. Theists advocate that there is enough evidence to show beyond reasonable doubt that God exist.
Cause and effect – The cosmological argument
Everyone agrees that the Universe exists and is real. An entity that can not account for its own being is contingent because its existence is dependent on something outside of itself. The universe is therefore contingent since it can not explain or cause its existence. So what caused the universe?
The law of causality is a universal law and states that every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. This law is analytically true i.e. by definition or analysis. There’s no effect without cause neither is there a cause without effect. The effect can not be superior to the cause reason why the statement adequate antecedent cause is used. To the question on what caused the universe, we have three answers; firstly that the universe is eternal; it always has existed and always will exist. The second is that it is not eternal; but it created itself out of nothing and thirdly that the universe is not eternal and was created by something or someone anterior and superior to itself.
People who do not believe in the existence of God such as Hoyle would say the universe is eternal to avoid the fact that there is a beginning reason why they developed the steady state theory. The discovery that the universe was expanding forced Dr. Hoyle to explain both an expanding and eternal universe by suggesting that at points in space called “irtrons” hydrogen was coming into existence from nothing and their displacement of existing matter causes the expansion of the universe; and that the gaseous hydrogen condenses into clouds of virgin matter from where new stars and galaxies form, etc.
The astronomer Jastrow noted that the steady state theory has been shown to be incorrect and that some astronomers still favour it because the notion of a world with a beginning and an end makes them uncomfortable. The steady state theory violates the first law of thermodynamics which state that matter can neither be created nor destroyed but can be converted into energy and vice versa, with the total amount of matter and energy in the universe remaining unchanged. Dr. Jastrow noted five points to show the failure for the attempt to explain an eternal universe; the motions of the galaxies, the discovery of the primordial fireball, the laws of thermodynamics, the abundance of helium in the Universe and the life story of the stars. The astrophysicist concludes that the universe has a beginning as seen from the second law of thermodynamics. SO the universe is not eternal.
On the auto-creation of the universe, no reputable scientist would agree with the fact that a material thing can create itself. With the evidence that the universe has a beginning hence has a cause anterior and superior to itself; evolutionists escape this by claiming that the universe came from nothing. Claiming that the universe is a result of a random quantum fluctuation in a spaceless, timeless void coming out from absolute nothingness; they violate the first law of thermodynamics. In addition these claims have no empirical data that can support this fact. This battle went on to the inflationary model to the chaotic inflationary model none of which found any success. The fact that the universe created itself is absurd both philosophically and scientifically because for something to create itself it should have enough causal power to cause its own being, and it would have to have the causal power of being before it was.
One thing is clear then that the universe had a beginning and it did not create itself from nothing, but is an effect having a cause. The cause/effect principle states that wherever there is a material effect, there must be an adequate antecedent cause and that no effect can be qualitatively superior to, or quantitatively greater than, its cause. Since the Universe is not eternal, and could not have created itself, then the Universe was created by some-thing, or Someone, that: (a) existed before it, i.e., some eternal, uncaused First Cause; (b) is superior to it—since the created cannot be superior to the creator; and (c) is of a different nature, since the finite, contingent Universe of matter is unable to explain itself. Nothing produces nothing and since something exists, then something has existed forever. Everything can be classified into either matter or mind. Since something existed forever, then either matter or mind is eternal. But we have seen that matter is not eternal from the discussion about the universe, thus mind is eternal. From another direction everything is either contingent or non-contingent. The universe is not eternal hence contingent and so depends on a cause or a non-contingent force. Sir John Eccles in his research on synapses confirms that human beings consist of a mysterious compound of physical and intangible spirit; which is nonmaterial thinking and perceiving. He added that this nonmaterial self survives the death of the physical brain. The philosopher Norman Geisler confirms that this nonmaterial self or mind is all-knowing eternally and in an unchanging way. Jastrow confirms Eccles point of view that many scientist have come out from their closet and believing in the immortal human spirit and divine creation.
Scientifically, the choice is between matter only and more than matter with the difference being: (a) time, chance, and the inherent properties of matter; or (b) design, creation,
and the irreducible properties of organization. In particular cases there are two scientific explanations for the origin of the order that characterizes the Universe and life in
the Universe: either the order was imposed on matter, or it resides within matter. We have not seen any evidence yet to show that it resides within matter but our evidence is of a non-contingent, eternal, self-existent mind that created the universe and everything within it.
Design in nature – The teleological argument
The law of rationality in logic states that one should accept as true only those conclusions for which there is adequate evidence. Theists affirm that there is adequate evidence to show that God exist. They often employ the teleological argument which suggests that where there’s purposeful design, there must be a designer. It is deduced that order, planning, and design in a system are indicative of intelligence, purpose, and specific intent on the part of the originating cause. Atheist philosophers also agree with the fact that everything designed has a designer but they do not accept that the universe shows purposeful design; so they say there’s no design in nature adequate to substantiate the conclusion that a designer exist.
The science writer Lincoln Barnett says modern physicists who prefer to solve their problem with recourse to God say nature mysteriously operates on mathematical principles. The precision, complexity, and orderliness within the Universe are not disputed but atheists do not want to concede design because of its implication for a designer.
Our universe is estimated to be 20 billion light years in diameter. There are an estimated one billion galaxies in the universe, estimated sextillion stars in the universe, with 100 billion stars in the milky way galaxy which would take 100 000years for light to cross its diameter. So the diameter of the galaxy is approximately 587 quadrillion miles. The Earth distance from the sun is exactly positioned to receive the proper amount of heat and radiation to sustain life though the interior of the sun is estimated to be at over 20 million degrees Celsius. If the earth were moved 10% to or from the sun too much heat or too little heat respectively will be absorbed destroying the life on earth. The earth departs from its line in the orbit by one ninth of an inch every 18miles. If it departed by one eight we will be so closed to the earth to be burned up and if it departed by one tenth of an inch we will be so far from the sun that we would freeze to death. Likewise the position of the earth with respect to the moon is just correct to maintain the tides. If it were moved just by a fifth the tides could reach 35-50 feets high twice a day.
If the rotation of the earth were halved, the seasons would be doubled in length leading to harsh heat and cold over much of the earth. If it were doubled the seasons would be halved. In either case it would be impossible to grow enough food to sustain the earth’s population. If the tilt of the earth’s axis were reduce from the 23.5 degrees to zero, all the water would accumulate at the poles leaving vast deserts in their place. If the atmosphere were much thinner, meteorites would strike our planet with much force and frequency causing worldwide devastation. If four-fifth of the earth were not covered by water but less, temperature extremes would be erratic than they are, and we soon would be out of air to breath if oceans were considerably smaller since 90% of the oxygen comes from microscopic plants in the seas.
These exacting requirements for life are not by accident. The Earth has exactly the right distance from the sun, the right diameter, right distance from the moon, right atmospheric pressure, right tilt, right amount of oceanic water, right weight and mass, etc. This is by design but atheist claim that all these are of fortuitous accidents. The atheist Richard Dawkins was forced to admit the very conclusion of the theists that the statistical improbability of the Universe “just happening by blind chance” is staggering; and that the only alternative is an intelligent Designer, and theists extend that this intelligent designer is God.
Design of the human body
Humans go about wondering on the astonishing scenes from our unique universe without wondering about themselves; a marvellous creation. Some evolutionists credit this to a fortuitous circumstance in nature without recognising that this is the result of purposeful design by a master designer.
While noting that the organisation of the body can be grouped at different levels starting from cells, to tissues, to organs and finally the systems; a look at these levels will show how the body is designed to live in this our universe. The human body has over thirty kinds of cells making approximately 100 trillion in an average adult. The diameter of the cells range from 0.05mm to 0.25mm; meaning that if we line the cells in an average human end-to-end it would encircle the earth over 200 times. The cell is made up of a cell membrane of about 0.06-0.08µm thick which allows selective transport into and out of the cell. It also has the 3 dimensional cytoplasm with over 20 different chemical reactions, and having the communication, waste disposal, nutrition, repair and reproduction components. There are also several organelles within the cytoplasm. The third component of the cell is the nucleus which is found within the cytoplasm and is the control centre having most of the genetic material. It’s within the nucleus that we find the DNA which is about 6feets long when unravelled hence if all DNA in an average human were placed end-to-end it will go to the sun and back 400times (186million miles). The DNA molecule is made up of atoms and a cell has about 1014atoms and since an average human has 1014cells then the human body has about 10 million sextillion (1028) atoms.
Information is stored chemically in DNA which is decoded by RNA. Human technology has not yet attained the chemical storage of information and in addition the amount of information stored in a human cell is approximately a trillion (1012) bits. A library of over 10 million volumes would have about a trillion letter equivalent to the size of the cell memory showing intelligence and great design. Within the DNA, the complexity of the genetic code is not by chance but evidence of an intelligence source.
The human body has several tissues with 600 muscles containing 6 billion muscles fibres which make up 40% of body’s weight. They provide the power for movement in the body. Muscles can be grouped into involuntary and voluntary muscles which require thinking before any action can take place. The muscles of the arm are voluntary where as the heart and intestines have involuntary muscles and so work regardless of our control. Muscles work by contracting (initiated by the nerves in the skeletal muscles) and in pairs. When one contracts the other is relaxed (at rest). The muscle is made up of a bundle of muscle fibres. It uses glycogen (sugar) from food as fuel; consuming it just in a similar way an automobile does. Who then engineered this? Certain muscle movements are only peculiar to humans showing that they are not a kind of “evolved animal” but created by an intelligent designer. The largest organ of the body; the skin is made up of two layers and has the skin layer, the glands and the nails. The skin layer is made up of dead cells which are constantly replaced by new ones in the uppermost layer; epidermis (which has melanin for skin colour). The lower layer; dermis is made up of nerves, blood cells and glands such as the sweat and oil. The nails are mostly made of dead cells and those of the hands grow faster than those of the toes. The soles of the hands and feet are rough to provide better grip and they have no hairs. Hair is a sentry system which helps to warn the eye when something strikes it, helps to squeeze the oil glands of the skin, acts as filters in ears and nose. It only grows to a certain length and fall off. The skin has the following values:
1) The skin is a protective fortification that keeps harmful bacteria from entering the human
system.
2) It is a waterproof wall that holds in the fluids of the body. Our bodies are about 75% fluid.
3) It protects the interior parts of the body from cuts, bruises, etc.
4) With its pigment, melanin, it shields the body from harmful rays arriving on the Earth from the Sun. Beck calls melanin “an epidermal light filter” (1971, p. 745). Do light filters in-
vented by man require intelligence?
5) The skin’s many nerve endings make it sensitive to touch, cold, heat, pain, and pressure. Thus, it is a major sense organ.
6) The sweat glands (2 to 5 million in the whole body) help eliminate waste products and also function in cooling the skin.
7) The oil glands lubricate the skin and help keep it soft—while at the same time providing a waterproofing system. Though soft, the skin is quite durable.
8) About one-third of the body’s blood circulates through the skin. The blood vessels, by contracting and expanding, work to regulate body temperature. If body temperature increases by 7 or 8 degrees, and remains there for any length of time, a person almost always will die. The skin is thus a radiator system (see Brand and Yancey, 1980, p. 154). Does a radiator happen by accident?
9) The skin absorbs ultraviolet rays from the Sun, and uses them to convert chemicals into vitamin D, which the body needs for the utilization of calcium. The skin is therefore a chemical-processing plant for the entire body.
The eye is a very complex organ of the body which is made up of millions of cones, rods and more than a hundred million light-sensitive receptor cells. The eye’s focus is easily adjustable, it has a variable diaphragm to control the amount of light entering, and it does optical corrections for spherical and chromatic aberration. The evolutionists Darwin and Jastrow have independently confess and are troubled about the design of the eye. If the eye is always compared to the camera as it is, then considering the number of images the eye takes in a second and its movement, then no right thinking person will deny its design hence a designer.
Another strong evidence of design within the human body is the ear which is made up of the outer, middle and inner ear. Sound waves enter the outer ear and passes along a tube to the middle ear to the thin membrane; the eardrum. This membrane is moved by the sound wave. The vibration is transmitted to the inner ear where it is amplified by vibrating three thin bones operated by muscles. These bones (hammer, anvil and stirrup) are designed to transmit faint sounds. These vibrations are transmitted to the spiral cochlea which is filled with fluid. Here the 25000 auditory receptors transfer the vibration through electrical impulses to the brain where the sound is interpreted to either thunder, voice, music etc. The ear is described as being far beyond the achievement of any microphone. The fluid in the cochlea is also used for balance in cooperation with the nerves in the three semi-circular canals. This system has been compared to inertial system used in missiles and submarines. If the hearing and balancing ability of the ear shows a remarkable achievement in biological engineering then can this be blind nature? No, it should speak of a grand designer. The psalmist affirms that God is the designer as seen in Psalm 94:9 and proverbs 20:12.
The skeletal system is made up of 206 bones in an average adult and 250 in infants. Some fuse as the child grows. The bones are rigid support for organs and tissues of the body. They are protective devices of some softer parts of the anatomy such as the brain, the heart and lungs, the spinal cord etc. They also serve as levers in body movement and they have metabolic functions as they constantly rebuilt the mineral contents in them and production of red blood cells, certain white blood cells and platelets. The bones are very strong, elastic and are light in order for the system to be effective. The bones of the feet make up 26 in number and they help in support working like hydraulic jacks and levers as well as catapult when one jumps and cushion for the legs showing that there most be a brilliant designer behind this design.
The heart is a muscle used to pump blood. It is the strongest muscle in the body regulating its beating with the requirement of the body. It is an involuntary muscle which generates an enormous amount of energy beating 100000times a day and pumping 1800 gallons of blood a day. It is the sinus node which produces electric current to the nerve fibres which stimulate the muscular contractions that send the blood through the body; from heart to tissues, to lungs and from tissues to lungs carrying oxygen from the lungs through out the body. Medical authorities have observed that the hearts efficiency is about twice that of a steam engine. If intelligence was required to invent the steam engine, then what more about the human heart?
Moses declared fifteen centuries before Christ was born, and 3000 years before the English physician William Harvey (1628) discovered the circulatory system that “the life of the flesh is in the blood”. Blood is classified as a tissue consisting of plasma (maintains chemical and temperature balance), salts, the protein fibrinogen, antibodies (which fight disease), enzymes, and hormones. It has solid materials such as red cells which transport oxygen to the body and carbon dioxide to the lungs, white cells (five kinds) which attack bacteria and other germs, and platelets (15 millions in a drop of blood) which help the blood to clot when the body is wounded. The liver and spleen removes bacteria and worn-out cells from the body just as the kidney also removes waste products from the blood system. Because the temperature is very vital for the functioning of the blood the brain thermostatically controls the temperature by slowing down heart beats and constricting blood vessels at low temperature, so that the liquid flow deeper within the body to get warm. At warm weather or during exercise, the arterioles open and blood dispersed within the skin functioning like a radiator. The blood system constitute a networking of arteries (elastic) and arterioles, veins (with one way valves) and venules, and capillaries (with porous walls) which are links between arterioles and veins. If the pipelines were connected end-to-end it would cover between 60000-100000 miles as estimated and circulation takes only a total of 20 seconds (Avraham, 1989, p.41)
Medical scientists, in the interest of extending human longevity have developed artificial organs which are simplistic substitutes for the sophisticated natural counterparts. Hence no synthetic spare part-however well engineered can match the capacity of the organ a normal human being is born with. Miller and Goode admitted that “no engineering genius has invented a pump like the human heart” (1960,P.6)
The nervous system which is the communication centre of the body is made up of the brain, spinal cord and nerves. It regulates the actions of organs, monitors the senses and controls our thinking, learning and memory capabilities. Specialized nerve receptors pick information relating to touch, temperature, sight, taste, etc and send to the brain via nerve fibres at 30 miles/hr. the brain analyses this data and determines the appropriate action to be taken. The brain is the most developed and complex system known to science and it’s made up of the cerebrum which is the thinking/learning centre, the cerebellum for maintenance of equilibrium and muscle coordination, and the brain stem which controls the involuntary muscles.
The brain is said to have a capacity of about 1014 bits using 20 to 25 watts compared to 10KW used by our large computers. Cray-2 supercomputer has a storage capacity about 1000 times less than the human brain which is also very flexible. If the information in the brain were to be written in English it will fill 20 million volumes which will take a bookshelf 500 miles long to house the information. If the computer was designed as no rational man will refuse, then what more of the human brain?
To pick up a pen and a paper from a desk, the brain will send signals to the hands, wrists, arms and shoulders to direct the manipulation of 60 different joints and more than 100 muscles. At the same time, you can smell food cooking and know which hear a dog barking and determine if it is yours or the neighbours; feel a breeze upon the face and sense that rain is near, etc. Even with all these, the brain is regulating millions of internal bodily activities that the person never “thinks” about. The brain surgeon, Robert White, wrote: “I am left with no choice but to acknowledge he existence of a superior intellect, responsible for the design and development of the incredible brain-mind relationship-something far beyond man’s capacity to understand”(1978,p.99). Jastrow also admitted that “It is not so easy to accept that theory (Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection –BT/WJ) as the explanation of an extraordinary organ like the brain”(1981, P.96). He went on to say “Among the organs of the human body, none is more difficult than the brain to explain by evolution” (1981, P.104).
It is not just the brain but also numerous other body systems (eg. Digestive, reproductive, etc), each of which provides clear and compelling evidence of design. Atheistic philosopher Paul Ricci suggested that “Although many have difficulty understanding the tremendous order and complexity of functions of human body (the eye, for example), there is no obvious designer” (1986, p.191, emp.added). The only people who “have difficulty understanding the tremendous order and complexity” found in the universe are those who have “refused to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28)
The Unbeliever’s response to the argument from Design
Those who do not believe in God claim there’s no design in nature; that’s why Richard Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker – to argue that there’s no design apparent in the Universe. There are many examples of design in nature; from the macrocosm to the microcosm, and in their lucid moments even unbelievers are struck by it just like the evolutionist Douglas Futuyma. Still yet they have not admitted defeat but have developed other approaches. They say apparent design is just that-apparent, not actual; so features that appear to have been designed can, in actuality, be explained on the basis of adaptation, random chance over eons of time, etc. The second argument is that of drawing attention to alleged examples of “non-design” or poor design-which they feel, should not be present if an intelligent Designer created the magnificent universe in which we live.
In the book, science on Trial, Futuyma used almost a whole chapter for examples of non-design in nature; just as the Harvard scientist Stephen Jay Gould. They used the argument from suboptimality which suggests that if all design were considered perfect, everything would be optimal; and since there are items in nature that allegedly are imperfect, there is suboptimality in nature. This is wrong for these reasons:
1- In arguing the case for design, creationists are not obligated to show obvious design in every single feature of the Universe but to produce only a reasonable number of sufficient evidences in order to establish design. So a production of an example of which to the evolutionist shows no design to negate the evidences of design is a flawed argument.
2- An object might possess purposeful design, but it is not recognized by the observer. An example is the illustration provided by Davis in his book A Case of Creation.
My daughter was playing with her pet rat one day when a question occurred to her. “Daddy,” she said, “why does a rat have scales on its tail?” “You know perfectly well,” I replied. “The reptiles that were ancestral to rats and all other mammals had scales on their tails as well as on the rest of their bodies. Because there was no particular disadvantage to having them, they persisted in rats to this day.” “Quit putting me on, Daddy. I know you don’t believe that!” You cannot win, it seems. But it is true that one is hard put to discern the reason for the manifold adaptations that organisms possess. What I should have said to my daughter (and eventually did say) was that God had put the scales there for reasons He knew to be perfectly good ones but which may take us a lot of research to discover, since He has not told us what they are. Still, the fact was that I could not explain the presence of those scales... (Frair and Davis, 1983, pp. 30-31).
Davis has raised the point that we may not know presently why an organism is designed the way it is; and that with further research, the heretofore-unrecognizable design eventually may be discovered. This is what happened with the Panda’s thumb which Dr. Gould used in his book, The Panda’s Thumb, for an example of non-design. As he was writing about the non-design, Dr. Davis suggested the same kind of research to elucidate the purpose of design in certain structures. Dr. Gould claimed that the Panda’s “thumb” is “a somewhat clumsy, but quite workable” appendage that “wins no prize in an engineer’s derby”. For him it was an evidence for suboptimality, but Davis in his research found that the Panda’s thumb now has been found to exhibit design for very special functions:
a) The san Diego Zoo’ Giant Panda Zoo book states: “In fact, the giant panda is one of the few large animals that can grab things as tightly as a human can”(undated, p.6).
b) In 1985 schaller and co-authors released The Giant Pandas of Wolong, in which they wrote that “the panda can handle bamboo stems with great precision by holding them as if with forceps in the hairless groove connecting the pad of the first digit and pseudo thumb” (p.4). Does these seem to convey non-design or that the Panda’s thumb is a “jury-rigged” device? No, but that Dr. Gould could not immediately observe the design (for whatever reason), but such design is present.
3- The third reason has to do with theology and not science as S.R. Scally of Guelph University in Canada commented (1981,p.174). Those who claim that something is “suboptimal” must, by definition, set themselves up as the sole judge of what is, and what is not, “optimal.” Ie, they must know with certainty that the item shows no design and what the absolute standard is in the first place in order to claim that something has become “suboptimal.” This means that the unbeliever sets himself up as the creator, presupposes to know the mind of the creator, and then presumes to say what the creator did, or did not, do. This we can see in one evolutionists statement where he notes “that the natural world does not conform to our expectation of what an omnipotent, omniscient, truthful creator would have created” (Futuyma, 1983, p.198). They see that creation does not fit what they would do if they were the creator, and then suggests that a creator does not exist on that basis. That is an empty argument.
4- Another flaw with the suboptimality argument which has to do with theology again is that the unbeliever sets himself up as the creator, and proceeds to note that since things weren’t done as he would do them, there must not be a creator. Secondly, when the real creator tries to explain why things are as they are, the unbeliever refuses to listen.
The unbeliever might be witnessing simply degeneration and he believes they are evidences of “suboptimality”. An object that showed design might have this erased or clouded as a result of a process of degeneration. This does not mean that it was not designed. Imagine a gardener who digs up a book from a pile of rubbish. This book has a weathered cover with pages stuck together and the text illegible. Does the current condition show that the book was not communicative or not design? Of course not. This is exactly what the creator has stated that when man sinned, and evil was introduced to this planet, a state of progressive degeneration commenced (Romans 8:20-22). The same is seen when the Hebrew writer quotes the psalmist observing that “the earth, like a garment, is wearing out” (Hebrews 1:10-11). The degeneration in humans due to their rebellion will eventually lead to death (Romans 5:12). The fact that we have eye problems, heart failure, diseases etc does not cancel the fact that the human body is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). We will not assume that because the unbeliever’s reasoning ability is flawed, his brain was not designed. The creator liked this original creation, so much so He pronounced it “very good” (Genesis 1:31); but because of man’s fault because the first man wanted to be like God, just like so many today, that degeneration came into place.
For the unbeliever God gets the blame for man’s mistakes. They have once again set up themselves as the creator to convince people that no creator exists. One does not get a poem without a poet, or a law without a lawgiver. One does not get a painting without a painter, or a musical score without a composer. Surely one does not get purposeful design without a designer. The inherent design in the universe is sufficient evidence, in keeping with the law of rationality that God does exist.
Morality and Ethics-The Anthropological Argument
All rational people are concerned about human moral and ethical conduct. A person may become so insensitive that he abandons his personal ethical obligations, but he will never be willing to ignore the lack of such ethical obligations in those who would abuse him. Morality is uniquely a human trait. Animals do not operate according to any ethical code. What is therefore the origin of morals and ethics?
1- They are either theocentric (centered in an external source of eternal goodness, namely, God); or
2- Anthropocentric (imbedded in the mind of man as a creature that evolved naturally as a result of inanimate forces operating over eons of cosmic and geologic time).
Atheists think that raw, eternal, inorganic matter was able, by means of extended evolutionary process, to concoct, promote, and maintain morality. This is wrong because it assumes that man somehow is capable of discovering “moral truth” with the evolved mass of cerebral tissue. Charles Darwin declared that “there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties” (as quoted in Francis Darwin, 1889, 1:64). Darwin also opined that “can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” (as quoted in Francis Darwin, 1889 , 1:282). The second reason for the flaw in this opinion is that “raw matter” is impotent to evolve any sense of moral consciousness. Unbelief contends that morality and ethics are, at best, relative and situational. If that were so, then billions of ethical systems would exist, each at variance with many of the others, yet, oddly, each equally valid. Who could say someone else’s conduct was “wrong”, or that a man “ought” or “ought not” to do thus and so? Infact infidelity cannot reasonably explain the origin of morality and ethics but only by appealing to the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient God.
Morality is the character of being in accord with the principles or standards of right conduct. Morality and ethics assert that there exists a differentiation between right and wrong, and between good and evil. This implies an appeal to some ultimate standard by which these character traits can be distinguished. If there’s no purpose in the universe, then there’s no purpose to morality or ethics.
Hedonism argues that the aim of moral conduct is the attainment of the greatest possible pleasure with the greatest possible avoidance of pain. How can this be considered “moral” when the man is doing what he cannot help doing since the moral criterion is the preponderance of pleasure over pain? In pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, if one must inflict pain upon others in order to achieve the goal or what if one must act immorally in order to practice his “morality”? There’s nothing in this philosophy that would motivate one to forego his own pleasure in the interest of others. The atheistic philosopher Ayn Rand authored a book, The virtue of selfishness-A new concept of Egoism, defending the concept of hedonistic selfishness. Who would want to live in such a society?
Utilitarianism build upon hedonism argues that “good” is that which gives pleasure to the greatest number of people. This is wrong because it cannot answer the query if pleasure to the many prevents a man from achieving his own personal pleasure. What motivates him towards the pleasure of the many? Secondly, there’s no guideline to determine what the “pleasure” (genuine happiness) of the many actually is. Thirdly, it is consistent with numerous atrocities perpetrated in the alleged interest of humanity. Finally, there’s no reason why it would be wrong to forgo the interest of many and pursue one’s personal pleasure.
Moral/Ethics and the Existence of God
Though proof of God’s existence is abundant in the designed Universe, His character is only exposed in His verbal communications available to us in the biblical documents. The Bible declares that God is eternal (Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17), and that He is morally perfect. Not only is He holy (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), just and righteous (Psalm 89:14), and good (Psalms 100:6; 106:1), but in the ultimate sense, only God is good (Mark 10:18). Since the God of the Bible is perfect (Matthew 5:48), it is to be expected that all that proceeds from Him is good initially. Accordingly, that which He created was good (Genesis 1:31), and all that He does, commands, and approves is likewise good (Psalm 119:39,68).
The “good,” therefore, is what God is; what He has commanded results from Who He is, and thus is likewise good. The prophet Micah declared of God that “He showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8). In the New Testament Peter admonished: “...as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy: for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15). Moral sensitivity has been implanted in man by his creation in the image of God who is eternally good; but the failure in man due to the free will power moved man from this state for which God seeks to restore by divine revelation through a process requiring religious and moral obligations.
Biblical morality is designed to develop within man right attitudes, to help humanity translate spiritual attitudes into actions helpful to others, and to guide man back into accord with the divine ideal, ensuring the present and eternal happiness of man to the glory of God. This also give a motive for moral conduct. Those who have not foolishly thrust God from their minds (Psalm 14:1) acknowledge that the creation testifies of Jehovah’s existence (Romans 1:20-21), and that His orderly Universe is evidence of His good and loving nature (Acts 14:17; James 1:17; 1 John 4:8). The love of God in providing Christ (John 3:16) for sinful man, and the love of Jesus in offering Himself to redeem us (Revelation 1:5; Philippians 2:5ff.), are motive plenteous for leading a moral life. We love, hence, obey Him (John 14:15) because He first loved us (1 John 4:10-11,19). The Scriptures therefore provide both purpose and motive for their ethical base, not found in unbelief.
Other criteria for establishing ethics
Nihilism says since there’s no God, there can be no rational justification for ethical norms; so everything is permitted. The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre says: “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.... Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behaviour (1961, p. 485).” This is also admitted by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his work, The Brothers Karamazov (1880); that if there is no God, “anything goes”. But those who propagate this idea mean that everything is permitted for them alone. They don’t mean that the theft of their property, the rape of their wives etc is permitted.
Relativism says there’s no universal criterion for determining values and so no moral system can be said to be true or false since they depend on culture, and condition. Those believing in the Bible say it is absolute, will they yield to that? Infanticide in some cultures is used to control population is that right? Who will declare the morality of this practices?
Situationism also refuses an absolute system of values. The atheistic situationist says the rightness or wrongness depends upon the situation. So it will be wrong to lie if the falsehood is hurtful to others; but if it is helpful, it would be right. Morality is autonomous, so it’s a self law; then could there ever be a situation in which a person could do wrong? Theistic situationists stand midway between antinomianism (no ethical rules exist) and legalism (moral decisions maybe made by appealing to a rule book eg, the Bible). For them love is the only factor in making moral judgements. This love is subjective to the context. The situation ethics say there are only the rules of love, yet they would define love. Secondly, they enthrone man on the throne as the moral sovereign of the universe with his subjective sense of “love”. Thirdly they assume omniscience application of “love” principle. Since they claim that lying, adultery, murder, etc could be “moral” depending on the context of love, then who is able to predict the consequences of such acts and determine in advance what the “loving” thing to do is? Fourthly, they assume that “love” is an ambiguous, no-rule essence that is a cure-all for moral problems and in addition they presupposes some standard for determining what love is even though they take it as the criterion for ethical decisions.
Determinism removes man of personal responsibility for his conduct. Behaviourism claims man is the product of environment and so to speak of human responsibility is nonsense. Socio-biology also sees man as a machine, which has been programmed by its genetic make up. The flaws in this idea are:
1- If this is true, then there’s no human responsibility.
2- If man is not responsible for his actions, terms such as “good” and “evil” are meaningless.
3- If man is not accountable, no one should ever be punished for robbery, rape, child abuse, murder, etc.
4- How can we be persuaded by the doctrine of determinists since they were programmed to teach their ideas even if they are not true at all.
5- They will not abide by their own doctrine. If Edward Wilson’s book, socio-biology was recopied and published in our names, we would find if Wilson thought we were responsible for the action or our genetic backgrounds were.
Is there Ultimate Moral Responsibility?
We have seen that morality is unique to humans and so it has much to say about our nature.
1- Human moral responsibility is based upon the fact that God is our Creator (Psalm 100:3), and that we have been made in His spiritual image (Genesis 1:26). Just as a potter has a right over the clay he is fashioning, so our Maker has the right to obligate us morally and spiritually to right living (see Romans 9:21).
2- Since morality is grounded in the unchanging nature of God (Malachi 3:6; 1 Peter 1:15), it is absolute—not cultural, not relative, not situational.
3- God’s will is not subjective speculation, but He has spoken (Hebrews 1:1) and His mind is made known in Biblical revelation (1Corinthians 2:11ff.; 2Timothy 3:16-17)
4- God has an unchanging nature but His revelatory process was progressive as He dealt with man as he was in that infantile state (Matthew 19:8; Acts 14:16, 17:30-31). Today the New Testament is the Lord’s final and ultimate standard of morality.
5- The New Testament being the “law of Christ” (Romans 8:2; Galatians 6:2) it is not a “legal” system as the aspects of human conduct are proscribed with a “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not.”
6- New testament ethics also deal with motives of the actions e.g. If one accidentally kills a careless pedestrian with an automobile, he is not accountable before God because it was unintentional but adultery and murder makes him guilty (cf Matthew 5:28 and John 3:15)
7- Ethical activity is not man’s entire obligation before God (Acts 10).
8- Though God has called humans to high moral level, He is aware that we are frail, dusty flesh (Psalms 78:39; 103:14), hence His grace is given us through His son (Hebrews 5:8-9) for pardon of our moral blunders (Acts 22:16); so challenged to live godly lives in this world (Titus 2:11-14).
Cause and effect – The cosmological argument
Everyone agrees that the Universe exists and is real. An entity that can not account for its own being is contingent because its existence is dependent on something outside of itself. The universe is therefore contingent since it can not explain or cause its existence. So what caused the universe?
The law of causality is a universal law and states that every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. This law is analytically true i.e. by definition or analysis. There’s no effect without cause neither is there a cause without effect. The effect can not be superior to the cause reason why the statement adequate antecedent cause is used. To the question on what caused the universe, we have three answers; firstly that the universe is eternal; it always has existed and always will exist. The second is that it is not eternal; but it created itself out of nothing and thirdly that the universe is not eternal and was created by something or someone anterior and superior to itself.
People who do not believe in the existence of God such as Hoyle would say the universe is eternal to avoid the fact that there is a beginning reason why they developed the steady state theory. The discovery that the universe was expanding forced Dr. Hoyle to explain both an expanding and eternal universe by suggesting that at points in space called “irtrons” hydrogen was coming into existence from nothing and their displacement of existing matter causes the expansion of the universe; and that the gaseous hydrogen condenses into clouds of virgin matter from where new stars and galaxies form, etc.
The astronomer Jastrow noted that the steady state theory has been shown to be incorrect and that some astronomers still favour it because the notion of a world with a beginning and an end makes them uncomfortable. The steady state theory violates the first law of thermodynamics which state that matter can neither be created nor destroyed but can be converted into energy and vice versa, with the total amount of matter and energy in the universe remaining unchanged. Dr. Jastrow noted five points to show the failure for the attempt to explain an eternal universe; the motions of the galaxies, the discovery of the primordial fireball, the laws of thermodynamics, the abundance of helium in the Universe and the life story of the stars. The astrophysicist concludes that the universe has a beginning as seen from the second law of thermodynamics. SO the universe is not eternal.
On the auto-creation of the universe, no reputable scientist would agree with the fact that a material thing can create itself. With the evidence that the universe has a beginning hence has a cause anterior and superior to itself; evolutionists escape this by claiming that the universe came from nothing. Claiming that the universe is a result of a random quantum fluctuation in a spaceless, timeless void coming out from absolute nothingness; they violate the first law of thermodynamics. In addition these claims have no empirical data that can support this fact. This battle went on to the inflationary model to the chaotic inflationary model none of which found any success. The fact that the universe created itself is absurd both philosophically and scientifically because for something to create itself it should have enough causal power to cause its own being, and it would have to have the causal power of being before it was.
One thing is clear then that the universe had a beginning and it did not create itself from nothing, but is an effect having a cause. The cause/effect principle states that wherever there is a material effect, there must be an adequate antecedent cause and that no effect can be qualitatively superior to, or quantitatively greater than, its cause. Since the Universe is not eternal, and could not have created itself, then the Universe was created by some-thing, or Someone, that: (a) existed before it, i.e., some eternal, uncaused First Cause; (b) is superior to it—since the created cannot be superior to the creator; and (c) is of a different nature, since the finite, contingent Universe of matter is unable to explain itself. Nothing produces nothing and since something exists, then something has existed forever. Everything can be classified into either matter or mind. Since something existed forever, then either matter or mind is eternal. But we have seen that matter is not eternal from the discussion about the universe, thus mind is eternal. From another direction everything is either contingent or non-contingent. The universe is not eternal hence contingent and so depends on a cause or a non-contingent force. Sir John Eccles in his research on synapses confirms that human beings consist of a mysterious compound of physical and intangible spirit; which is nonmaterial thinking and perceiving. He added that this nonmaterial self survives the death of the physical brain. The philosopher Norman Geisler confirms that this nonmaterial self or mind is all-knowing eternally and in an unchanging way. Jastrow confirms Eccles point of view that many scientist have come out from their closet and believing in the immortal human spirit and divine creation.
Scientifically, the choice is between matter only and more than matter with the difference being: (a) time, chance, and the inherent properties of matter; or (b) design, creation,
and the irreducible properties of organization. In particular cases there are two scientific explanations for the origin of the order that characterizes the Universe and life in
the Universe: either the order was imposed on matter, or it resides within matter. We have not seen any evidence yet to show that it resides within matter but our evidence is of a non-contingent, eternal, self-existent mind that created the universe and everything within it.
Design in nature – The teleological argument
The law of rationality in logic states that one should accept as true only those conclusions for which there is adequate evidence. Theists affirm that there is adequate evidence to show that God exist. They often employ the teleological argument which suggests that where there’s purposeful design, there must be a designer. It is deduced that order, planning, and design in a system are indicative of intelligence, purpose, and specific intent on the part of the originating cause. Atheist philosophers also agree with the fact that everything designed has a designer but they do not accept that the universe shows purposeful design; so they say there’s no design in nature adequate to substantiate the conclusion that a designer exist.
The science writer Lincoln Barnett says modern physicists who prefer to solve their problem with recourse to God say nature mysteriously operates on mathematical principles. The precision, complexity, and orderliness within the Universe are not disputed but atheists do not want to concede design because of its implication for a designer.
Our universe is estimated to be 20 billion light years in diameter. There are an estimated one billion galaxies in the universe, estimated sextillion stars in the universe, with 100 billion stars in the milky way galaxy which would take 100 000years for light to cross its diameter. So the diameter of the galaxy is approximately 587 quadrillion miles. The Earth distance from the sun is exactly positioned to receive the proper amount of heat and radiation to sustain life though the interior of the sun is estimated to be at over 20 million degrees Celsius. If the earth were moved 10% to or from the sun too much heat or too little heat respectively will be absorbed destroying the life on earth. The earth departs from its line in the orbit by one ninth of an inch every 18miles. If it departed by one eight we will be so closed to the earth to be burned up and if it departed by one tenth of an inch we will be so far from the sun that we would freeze to death. Likewise the position of the earth with respect to the moon is just correct to maintain the tides. If it were moved just by a fifth the tides could reach 35-50 feets high twice a day.
If the rotation of the earth were halved, the seasons would be doubled in length leading to harsh heat and cold over much of the earth. If it were doubled the seasons would be halved. In either case it would be impossible to grow enough food to sustain the earth’s population. If the tilt of the earth’s axis were reduce from the 23.5 degrees to zero, all the water would accumulate at the poles leaving vast deserts in their place. If the atmosphere were much thinner, meteorites would strike our planet with much force and frequency causing worldwide devastation. If four-fifth of the earth were not covered by water but less, temperature extremes would be erratic than they are, and we soon would be out of air to breath if oceans were considerably smaller since 90% of the oxygen comes from microscopic plants in the seas.
These exacting requirements for life are not by accident. The Earth has exactly the right distance from the sun, the right diameter, right distance from the moon, right atmospheric pressure, right tilt, right amount of oceanic water, right weight and mass, etc. This is by design but atheist claim that all these are of fortuitous accidents. The atheist Richard Dawkins was forced to admit the very conclusion of the theists that the statistical improbability of the Universe “just happening by blind chance” is staggering; and that the only alternative is an intelligent Designer, and theists extend that this intelligent designer is God.
Design of the human body
Humans go about wondering on the astonishing scenes from our unique universe without wondering about themselves; a marvellous creation. Some evolutionists credit this to a fortuitous circumstance in nature without recognising that this is the result of purposeful design by a master designer.
While noting that the organisation of the body can be grouped at different levels starting from cells, to tissues, to organs and finally the systems; a look at these levels will show how the body is designed to live in this our universe. The human body has over thirty kinds of cells making approximately 100 trillion in an average adult. The diameter of the cells range from 0.05mm to 0.25mm; meaning that if we line the cells in an average human end-to-end it would encircle the earth over 200 times. The cell is made up of a cell membrane of about 0.06-0.08µm thick which allows selective transport into and out of the cell. It also has the 3 dimensional cytoplasm with over 20 different chemical reactions, and having the communication, waste disposal, nutrition, repair and reproduction components. There are also several organelles within the cytoplasm. The third component of the cell is the nucleus which is found within the cytoplasm and is the control centre having most of the genetic material. It’s within the nucleus that we find the DNA which is about 6feets long when unravelled hence if all DNA in an average human were placed end-to-end it will go to the sun and back 400times (186million miles). The DNA molecule is made up of atoms and a cell has about 1014atoms and since an average human has 1014cells then the human body has about 10 million sextillion (1028) atoms.
Information is stored chemically in DNA which is decoded by RNA. Human technology has not yet attained the chemical storage of information and in addition the amount of information stored in a human cell is approximately a trillion (1012) bits. A library of over 10 million volumes would have about a trillion letter equivalent to the size of the cell memory showing intelligence and great design. Within the DNA, the complexity of the genetic code is not by chance but evidence of an intelligence source.
The human body has several tissues with 600 muscles containing 6 billion muscles fibres which make up 40% of body’s weight. They provide the power for movement in the body. Muscles can be grouped into involuntary and voluntary muscles which require thinking before any action can take place. The muscles of the arm are voluntary where as the heart and intestines have involuntary muscles and so work regardless of our control. Muscles work by contracting (initiated by the nerves in the skeletal muscles) and in pairs. When one contracts the other is relaxed (at rest). The muscle is made up of a bundle of muscle fibres. It uses glycogen (sugar) from food as fuel; consuming it just in a similar way an automobile does. Who then engineered this? Certain muscle movements are only peculiar to humans showing that they are not a kind of “evolved animal” but created by an intelligent designer. The largest organ of the body; the skin is made up of two layers and has the skin layer, the glands and the nails. The skin layer is made up of dead cells which are constantly replaced by new ones in the uppermost layer; epidermis (which has melanin for skin colour). The lower layer; dermis is made up of nerves, blood cells and glands such as the sweat and oil. The nails are mostly made of dead cells and those of the hands grow faster than those of the toes. The soles of the hands and feet are rough to provide better grip and they have no hairs. Hair is a sentry system which helps to warn the eye when something strikes it, helps to squeeze the oil glands of the skin, acts as filters in ears and nose. It only grows to a certain length and fall off. The skin has the following values:
1) The skin is a protective fortification that keeps harmful bacteria from entering the human
system.
2) It is a waterproof wall that holds in the fluids of the body. Our bodies are about 75% fluid.
3) It protects the interior parts of the body from cuts, bruises, etc.
4) With its pigment, melanin, it shields the body from harmful rays arriving on the Earth from the Sun. Beck calls melanin “an epidermal light filter” (1971, p. 745). Do light filters in-
vented by man require intelligence?
5) The skin’s many nerve endings make it sensitive to touch, cold, heat, pain, and pressure. Thus, it is a major sense organ.
6) The sweat glands (2 to 5 million in the whole body) help eliminate waste products and also function in cooling the skin.
7) The oil glands lubricate the skin and help keep it soft—while at the same time providing a waterproofing system. Though soft, the skin is quite durable.
8) About one-third of the body’s blood circulates through the skin. The blood vessels, by contracting and expanding, work to regulate body temperature. If body temperature increases by 7 or 8 degrees, and remains there for any length of time, a person almost always will die. The skin is thus a radiator system (see Brand and Yancey, 1980, p. 154). Does a radiator happen by accident?
9) The skin absorbs ultraviolet rays from the Sun, and uses them to convert chemicals into vitamin D, which the body needs for the utilization of calcium. The skin is therefore a chemical-processing plant for the entire body.
The eye is a very complex organ of the body which is made up of millions of cones, rods and more than a hundred million light-sensitive receptor cells. The eye’s focus is easily adjustable, it has a variable diaphragm to control the amount of light entering, and it does optical corrections for spherical and chromatic aberration. The evolutionists Darwin and Jastrow have independently confess and are troubled about the design of the eye. If the eye is always compared to the camera as it is, then considering the number of images the eye takes in a second and its movement, then no right thinking person will deny its design hence a designer.
Another strong evidence of design within the human body is the ear which is made up of the outer, middle and inner ear. Sound waves enter the outer ear and passes along a tube to the middle ear to the thin membrane; the eardrum. This membrane is moved by the sound wave. The vibration is transmitted to the inner ear where it is amplified by vibrating three thin bones operated by muscles. These bones (hammer, anvil and stirrup) are designed to transmit faint sounds. These vibrations are transmitted to the spiral cochlea which is filled with fluid. Here the 25000 auditory receptors transfer the vibration through electrical impulses to the brain where the sound is interpreted to either thunder, voice, music etc. The ear is described as being far beyond the achievement of any microphone. The fluid in the cochlea is also used for balance in cooperation with the nerves in the three semi-circular canals. This system has been compared to inertial system used in missiles and submarines. If the hearing and balancing ability of the ear shows a remarkable achievement in biological engineering then can this be blind nature? No, it should speak of a grand designer. The psalmist affirms that God is the designer as seen in Psalm 94:9 and proverbs 20:12.
The skeletal system is made up of 206 bones in an average adult and 250 in infants. Some fuse as the child grows. The bones are rigid support for organs and tissues of the body. They are protective devices of some softer parts of the anatomy such as the brain, the heart and lungs, the spinal cord etc. They also serve as levers in body movement and they have metabolic functions as they constantly rebuilt the mineral contents in them and production of red blood cells, certain white blood cells and platelets. The bones are very strong, elastic and are light in order for the system to be effective. The bones of the feet make up 26 in number and they help in support working like hydraulic jacks and levers as well as catapult when one jumps and cushion for the legs showing that there most be a brilliant designer behind this design.
The heart is a muscle used to pump blood. It is the strongest muscle in the body regulating its beating with the requirement of the body. It is an involuntary muscle which generates an enormous amount of energy beating 100000times a day and pumping 1800 gallons of blood a day. It is the sinus node which produces electric current to the nerve fibres which stimulate the muscular contractions that send the blood through the body; from heart to tissues, to lungs and from tissues to lungs carrying oxygen from the lungs through out the body. Medical authorities have observed that the hearts efficiency is about twice that of a steam engine. If intelligence was required to invent the steam engine, then what more about the human heart?
Moses declared fifteen centuries before Christ was born, and 3000 years before the English physician William Harvey (1628) discovered the circulatory system that “the life of the flesh is in the blood”. Blood is classified as a tissue consisting of plasma (maintains chemical and temperature balance), salts, the protein fibrinogen, antibodies (which fight disease), enzymes, and hormones. It has solid materials such as red cells which transport oxygen to the body and carbon dioxide to the lungs, white cells (five kinds) which attack bacteria and other germs, and platelets (15 millions in a drop of blood) which help the blood to clot when the body is wounded. The liver and spleen removes bacteria and worn-out cells from the body just as the kidney also removes waste products from the blood system. Because the temperature is very vital for the functioning of the blood the brain thermostatically controls the temperature by slowing down heart beats and constricting blood vessels at low temperature, so that the liquid flow deeper within the body to get warm. At warm weather or during exercise, the arterioles open and blood dispersed within the skin functioning like a radiator. The blood system constitute a networking of arteries (elastic) and arterioles, veins (with one way valves) and venules, and capillaries (with porous walls) which are links between arterioles and veins. If the pipelines were connected end-to-end it would cover between 60000-100000 miles as estimated and circulation takes only a total of 20 seconds (Avraham, 1989, p.41)
Medical scientists, in the interest of extending human longevity have developed artificial organs which are simplistic substitutes for the sophisticated natural counterparts. Hence no synthetic spare part-however well engineered can match the capacity of the organ a normal human being is born with. Miller and Goode admitted that “no engineering genius has invented a pump like the human heart” (1960,P.6)
The nervous system which is the communication centre of the body is made up of the brain, spinal cord and nerves. It regulates the actions of organs, monitors the senses and controls our thinking, learning and memory capabilities. Specialized nerve receptors pick information relating to touch, temperature, sight, taste, etc and send to the brain via nerve fibres at 30 miles/hr. the brain analyses this data and determines the appropriate action to be taken. The brain is the most developed and complex system known to science and it’s made up of the cerebrum which is the thinking/learning centre, the cerebellum for maintenance of equilibrium and muscle coordination, and the brain stem which controls the involuntary muscles.
The brain is said to have a capacity of about 1014 bits using 20 to 25 watts compared to 10KW used by our large computers. Cray-2 supercomputer has a storage capacity about 1000 times less than the human brain which is also very flexible. If the information in the brain were to be written in English it will fill 20 million volumes which will take a bookshelf 500 miles long to house the information. If the computer was designed as no rational man will refuse, then what more of the human brain?
To pick up a pen and a paper from a desk, the brain will send signals to the hands, wrists, arms and shoulders to direct the manipulation of 60 different joints and more than 100 muscles. At the same time, you can smell food cooking and know which hear a dog barking and determine if it is yours or the neighbours; feel a breeze upon the face and sense that rain is near, etc. Even with all these, the brain is regulating millions of internal bodily activities that the person never “thinks” about. The brain surgeon, Robert White, wrote: “I am left with no choice but to acknowledge he existence of a superior intellect, responsible for the design and development of the incredible brain-mind relationship-something far beyond man’s capacity to understand”(1978,p.99). Jastrow also admitted that “It is not so easy to accept that theory (Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection –BT/WJ) as the explanation of an extraordinary organ like the brain”(1981, P.96). He went on to say “Among the organs of the human body, none is more difficult than the brain to explain by evolution” (1981, P.104).
It is not just the brain but also numerous other body systems (eg. Digestive, reproductive, etc), each of which provides clear and compelling evidence of design. Atheistic philosopher Paul Ricci suggested that “Although many have difficulty understanding the tremendous order and complexity of functions of human body (the eye, for example), there is no obvious designer” (1986, p.191, emp.added). The only people who “have difficulty understanding the tremendous order and complexity” found in the universe are those who have “refused to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28)
The Unbeliever’s response to the argument from Design
Those who do not believe in God claim there’s no design in nature; that’s why Richard Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker – to argue that there’s no design apparent in the Universe. There are many examples of design in nature; from the macrocosm to the microcosm, and in their lucid moments even unbelievers are struck by it just like the evolutionist Douglas Futuyma. Still yet they have not admitted defeat but have developed other approaches. They say apparent design is just that-apparent, not actual; so features that appear to have been designed can, in actuality, be explained on the basis of adaptation, random chance over eons of time, etc. The second argument is that of drawing attention to alleged examples of “non-design” or poor design-which they feel, should not be present if an intelligent Designer created the magnificent universe in which we live.
In the book, science on Trial, Futuyma used almost a whole chapter for examples of non-design in nature; just as the Harvard scientist Stephen Jay Gould. They used the argument from suboptimality which suggests that if all design were considered perfect, everything would be optimal; and since there are items in nature that allegedly are imperfect, there is suboptimality in nature. This is wrong for these reasons:
1- In arguing the case for design, creationists are not obligated to show obvious design in every single feature of the Universe but to produce only a reasonable number of sufficient evidences in order to establish design. So a production of an example of which to the evolutionist shows no design to negate the evidences of design is a flawed argument.
2- An object might possess purposeful design, but it is not recognized by the observer. An example is the illustration provided by Davis in his book A Case of Creation.
My daughter was playing with her pet rat one day when a question occurred to her. “Daddy,” she said, “why does a rat have scales on its tail?” “You know perfectly well,” I replied. “The reptiles that were ancestral to rats and all other mammals had scales on their tails as well as on the rest of their bodies. Because there was no particular disadvantage to having them, they persisted in rats to this day.” “Quit putting me on, Daddy. I know you don’t believe that!” You cannot win, it seems. But it is true that one is hard put to discern the reason for the manifold adaptations that organisms possess. What I should have said to my daughter (and eventually did say) was that God had put the scales there for reasons He knew to be perfectly good ones but which may take us a lot of research to discover, since He has not told us what they are. Still, the fact was that I could not explain the presence of those scales... (Frair and Davis, 1983, pp. 30-31).
Davis has raised the point that we may not know presently why an organism is designed the way it is; and that with further research, the heretofore-unrecognizable design eventually may be discovered. This is what happened with the Panda’s thumb which Dr. Gould used in his book, The Panda’s Thumb, for an example of non-design. As he was writing about the non-design, Dr. Davis suggested the same kind of research to elucidate the purpose of design in certain structures. Dr. Gould claimed that the Panda’s “thumb” is “a somewhat clumsy, but quite workable” appendage that “wins no prize in an engineer’s derby”. For him it was an evidence for suboptimality, but Davis in his research found that the Panda’s thumb now has been found to exhibit design for very special functions:
a) The san Diego Zoo’ Giant Panda Zoo book states: “In fact, the giant panda is one of the few large animals that can grab things as tightly as a human can”(undated, p.6).
b) In 1985 schaller and co-authors released The Giant Pandas of Wolong, in which they wrote that “the panda can handle bamboo stems with great precision by holding them as if with forceps in the hairless groove connecting the pad of the first digit and pseudo thumb” (p.4). Does these seem to convey non-design or that the Panda’s thumb is a “jury-rigged” device? No, but that Dr. Gould could not immediately observe the design (for whatever reason), but such design is present.
3- The third reason has to do with theology and not science as S.R. Scally of Guelph University in Canada commented (1981,p.174). Those who claim that something is “suboptimal” must, by definition, set themselves up as the sole judge of what is, and what is not, “optimal.” Ie, they must know with certainty that the item shows no design and what the absolute standard is in the first place in order to claim that something has become “suboptimal.” This means that the unbeliever sets himself up as the creator, presupposes to know the mind of the creator, and then presumes to say what the creator did, or did not, do. This we can see in one evolutionists statement where he notes “that the natural world does not conform to our expectation of what an omnipotent, omniscient, truthful creator would have created” (Futuyma, 1983, p.198). They see that creation does not fit what they would do if they were the creator, and then suggests that a creator does not exist on that basis. That is an empty argument.
4- Another flaw with the suboptimality argument which has to do with theology again is that the unbeliever sets himself up as the creator, and proceeds to note that since things weren’t done as he would do them, there must not be a creator. Secondly, when the real creator tries to explain why things are as they are, the unbeliever refuses to listen.
The unbeliever might be witnessing simply degeneration and he believes they are evidences of “suboptimality”. An object that showed design might have this erased or clouded as a result of a process of degeneration. This does not mean that it was not designed. Imagine a gardener who digs up a book from a pile of rubbish. This book has a weathered cover with pages stuck together and the text illegible. Does the current condition show that the book was not communicative or not design? Of course not. This is exactly what the creator has stated that when man sinned, and evil was introduced to this planet, a state of progressive degeneration commenced (Romans 8:20-22). The same is seen when the Hebrew writer quotes the psalmist observing that “the earth, like a garment, is wearing out” (Hebrews 1:10-11). The degeneration in humans due to their rebellion will eventually lead to death (Romans 5:12). The fact that we have eye problems, heart failure, diseases etc does not cancel the fact that the human body is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). We will not assume that because the unbeliever’s reasoning ability is flawed, his brain was not designed. The creator liked this original creation, so much so He pronounced it “very good” (Genesis 1:31); but because of man’s fault because the first man wanted to be like God, just like so many today, that degeneration came into place.
For the unbeliever God gets the blame for man’s mistakes. They have once again set up themselves as the creator to convince people that no creator exists. One does not get a poem without a poet, or a law without a lawgiver. One does not get a painting without a painter, or a musical score without a composer. Surely one does not get purposeful design without a designer. The inherent design in the universe is sufficient evidence, in keeping with the law of rationality that God does exist.
Morality and Ethics-The Anthropological Argument
All rational people are concerned about human moral and ethical conduct. A person may become so insensitive that he abandons his personal ethical obligations, but he will never be willing to ignore the lack of such ethical obligations in those who would abuse him. Morality is uniquely a human trait. Animals do not operate according to any ethical code. What is therefore the origin of morals and ethics?
1- They are either theocentric (centered in an external source of eternal goodness, namely, God); or
2- Anthropocentric (imbedded in the mind of man as a creature that evolved naturally as a result of inanimate forces operating over eons of cosmic and geologic time).
Atheists think that raw, eternal, inorganic matter was able, by means of extended evolutionary process, to concoct, promote, and maintain morality. This is wrong because it assumes that man somehow is capable of discovering “moral truth” with the evolved mass of cerebral tissue. Charles Darwin declared that “there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties” (as quoted in Francis Darwin, 1889, 1:64). Darwin also opined that “can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” (as quoted in Francis Darwin, 1889 , 1:282). The second reason for the flaw in this opinion is that “raw matter” is impotent to evolve any sense of moral consciousness. Unbelief contends that morality and ethics are, at best, relative and situational. If that were so, then billions of ethical systems would exist, each at variance with many of the others, yet, oddly, each equally valid. Who could say someone else’s conduct was “wrong”, or that a man “ought” or “ought not” to do thus and so? Infact infidelity cannot reasonably explain the origin of morality and ethics but only by appealing to the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient God.
Morality is the character of being in accord with the principles or standards of right conduct. Morality and ethics assert that there exists a differentiation between right and wrong, and between good and evil. This implies an appeal to some ultimate standard by which these character traits can be distinguished. If there’s no purpose in the universe, then there’s no purpose to morality or ethics.
Hedonism argues that the aim of moral conduct is the attainment of the greatest possible pleasure with the greatest possible avoidance of pain. How can this be considered “moral” when the man is doing what he cannot help doing since the moral criterion is the preponderance of pleasure over pain? In pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, if one must inflict pain upon others in order to achieve the goal or what if one must act immorally in order to practice his “morality”? There’s nothing in this philosophy that would motivate one to forego his own pleasure in the interest of others. The atheistic philosopher Ayn Rand authored a book, The virtue of selfishness-A new concept of Egoism, defending the concept of hedonistic selfishness. Who would want to live in such a society?
Utilitarianism build upon hedonism argues that “good” is that which gives pleasure to the greatest number of people. This is wrong because it cannot answer the query if pleasure to the many prevents a man from achieving his own personal pleasure. What motivates him towards the pleasure of the many? Secondly, there’s no guideline to determine what the “pleasure” (genuine happiness) of the many actually is. Thirdly, it is consistent with numerous atrocities perpetrated in the alleged interest of humanity. Finally, there’s no reason why it would be wrong to forgo the interest of many and pursue one’s personal pleasure.
Moral/Ethics and the Existence of God
Though proof of God’s existence is abundant in the designed Universe, His character is only exposed in His verbal communications available to us in the biblical documents. The Bible declares that God is eternal (Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17), and that He is morally perfect. Not only is He holy (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), just and righteous (Psalm 89:14), and good (Psalms 100:6; 106:1), but in the ultimate sense, only God is good (Mark 10:18). Since the God of the Bible is perfect (Matthew 5:48), it is to be expected that all that proceeds from Him is good initially. Accordingly, that which He created was good (Genesis 1:31), and all that He does, commands, and approves is likewise good (Psalm 119:39,68).
The “good,” therefore, is what God is; what He has commanded results from Who He is, and thus is likewise good. The prophet Micah declared of God that “He showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8). In the New Testament Peter admonished: “...as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy: for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15). Moral sensitivity has been implanted in man by his creation in the image of God who is eternally good; but the failure in man due to the free will power moved man from this state for which God seeks to restore by divine revelation through a process requiring religious and moral obligations.
Biblical morality is designed to develop within man right attitudes, to help humanity translate spiritual attitudes into actions helpful to others, and to guide man back into accord with the divine ideal, ensuring the present and eternal happiness of man to the glory of God. This also give a motive for moral conduct. Those who have not foolishly thrust God from their minds (Psalm 14:1) acknowledge that the creation testifies of Jehovah’s existence (Romans 1:20-21), and that His orderly Universe is evidence of His good and loving nature (Acts 14:17; James 1:17; 1 John 4:8). The love of God in providing Christ (John 3:16) for sinful man, and the love of Jesus in offering Himself to redeem us (Revelation 1:5; Philippians 2:5ff.), are motive plenteous for leading a moral life. We love, hence, obey Him (John 14:15) because He first loved us (1 John 4:10-11,19). The Scriptures therefore provide both purpose and motive for their ethical base, not found in unbelief.
Other criteria for establishing ethics
Nihilism says since there’s no God, there can be no rational justification for ethical norms; so everything is permitted. The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre says: “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.... Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behaviour (1961, p. 485).” This is also admitted by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his work, The Brothers Karamazov (1880); that if there is no God, “anything goes”. But those who propagate this idea mean that everything is permitted for them alone. They don’t mean that the theft of their property, the rape of their wives etc is permitted.
Relativism says there’s no universal criterion for determining values and so no moral system can be said to be true or false since they depend on culture, and condition. Those believing in the Bible say it is absolute, will they yield to that? Infanticide in some cultures is used to control population is that right? Who will declare the morality of this practices?
Situationism also refuses an absolute system of values. The atheistic situationist says the rightness or wrongness depends upon the situation. So it will be wrong to lie if the falsehood is hurtful to others; but if it is helpful, it would be right. Morality is autonomous, so it’s a self law; then could there ever be a situation in which a person could do wrong? Theistic situationists stand midway between antinomianism (no ethical rules exist) and legalism (moral decisions maybe made by appealing to a rule book eg, the Bible). For them love is the only factor in making moral judgements. This love is subjective to the context. The situation ethics say there are only the rules of love, yet they would define love. Secondly, they enthrone man on the throne as the moral sovereign of the universe with his subjective sense of “love”. Thirdly they assume omniscience application of “love” principle. Since they claim that lying, adultery, murder, etc could be “moral” depending on the context of love, then who is able to predict the consequences of such acts and determine in advance what the “loving” thing to do is? Fourthly, they assume that “love” is an ambiguous, no-rule essence that is a cure-all for moral problems and in addition they presupposes some standard for determining what love is even though they take it as the criterion for ethical decisions.
Determinism removes man of personal responsibility for his conduct. Behaviourism claims man is the product of environment and so to speak of human responsibility is nonsense. Socio-biology also sees man as a machine, which has been programmed by its genetic make up. The flaws in this idea are:
1- If this is true, then there’s no human responsibility.
2- If man is not responsible for his actions, terms such as “good” and “evil” are meaningless.
3- If man is not accountable, no one should ever be punished for robbery, rape, child abuse, murder, etc.
4- How can we be persuaded by the doctrine of determinists since they were programmed to teach their ideas even if they are not true at all.
5- They will not abide by their own doctrine. If Edward Wilson’s book, socio-biology was recopied and published in our names, we would find if Wilson thought we were responsible for the action or our genetic backgrounds were.
Is there Ultimate Moral Responsibility?
We have seen that morality is unique to humans and so it has much to say about our nature.
1- Human moral responsibility is based upon the fact that God is our Creator (Psalm 100:3), and that we have been made in His spiritual image (Genesis 1:26). Just as a potter has a right over the clay he is fashioning, so our Maker has the right to obligate us morally and spiritually to right living (see Romans 9:21).
2- Since morality is grounded in the unchanging nature of God (Malachi 3:6; 1 Peter 1:15), it is absolute—not cultural, not relative, not situational.
3- God’s will is not subjective speculation, but He has spoken (Hebrews 1:1) and His mind is made known in Biblical revelation (1Corinthians 2:11ff.; 2Timothy 3:16-17)
4- God has an unchanging nature but His revelatory process was progressive as He dealt with man as he was in that infantile state (Matthew 19:8; Acts 14:16, 17:30-31). Today the New Testament is the Lord’s final and ultimate standard of morality.
5- The New Testament being the “law of Christ” (Romans 8:2; Galatians 6:2) it is not a “legal” system as the aspects of human conduct are proscribed with a “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not.”
6- New testament ethics also deal with motives of the actions e.g. If one accidentally kills a careless pedestrian with an automobile, he is not accountable before God because it was unintentional but adultery and murder makes him guilty (cf Matthew 5:28 and John 3:15)
7- Ethical activity is not man’s entire obligation before God (Acts 10).
8- Though God has called humans to high moral level, He is aware that we are frail, dusty flesh (Psalms 78:39; 103:14), hence His grace is given us through His son (Hebrews 5:8-9) for pardon of our moral blunders (Acts 22:16); so challenged to live godly lives in this world (Titus 2:11-14).
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