WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION (TOE) ON MORALITY?

For one thing, TOE naturalism removes any possible objective basis for objective moral truth and laws. It also denies that there is any higher purpose to life. Consequently, the only meaning of life is the meaning that we subjectively create for ourselves. In fact, many evolutionists gladly admit this. Atheist evolutionist and philosopher, Michael Ruse, admits:

• The evolutionist’s claim… is that morality is subjective – it is all a question of human feelings and sentiments… We think morality has objective reference [to a moral reality outside of our own creation] even though it does not. (Evolutionary Ethics, Zygon, Vol. 21, no. 1; March 1986)

Therefore, whatever morality we have, we must create for ourselves. In view of this, Ethics Prof. David Anderson commented about the impact of TOE:

• Objective moral values and duties are no more real than the tooth fairy. (Salvo, Spring 2016, 26)

Some atheistic evolutionists go even further and deny the existence of freewill. The late evolutionary biologist, William Provine had written:

• What modern science tells us… is that human beings are very complex machines. There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices.

• Free will as it is traditionally conceived… simply does not exist. (“Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics,” MBL Science, Vol. 3, no. 1, 28)

Anderson comments:

• Provine’s commitment to determinism simply lays waste to morality itself.

If we are nothing more than materials, and the actions of materials are all governed by the laws of science, there is no room for any consideration of freewill, which requires an extra-material explanation.

But if there is no freewill, then we could not have acted otherwise, and if we could not have acted otherwise, then we cannot be held guilty for what we have done. Consequently, ISIS is not guilty of their genocide, rapes, and kidnappings of women and young girls into sexual slavery. They could not have done otherwise. Their behaviors are exclusively the result of forces outside of their non-existent control.

Besides, they hadn’t broken any higher, universal, objective moral laws. Consequently, this is the way that the West is treating the Muslim refugees who are raping their way across Europe. Therefore, they are not accorded their full dignity as humans and are not held responsible for their behavior, since they are just a product of deterministic forces outside of their control.

Germany is now distributing condoms to them, reflecting the fact that they neither have any moral clarity or moral resolution to meaningfully confront these horrors and to protect the innocent.

Instead, Europe, under the influence of TOE, is further descending into moral relativistic confusion. These nations are even abandoning their traditional understanding of justice as merely their own chauvinistic beliefs. The Telegraph (March 28, 2016) reports:

• Teaching children fundamental British values is an act of “cultural supremacism”, teachers have said, as members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) vote to replace the concept with one that includes “international rights”.

• However, teachers argue “fundamental British values” set an “inherent cultural supremacism, particularly in the context of multicultural schools and the wider picture of migration”.

TOE has eliminated from the discussion the question of whether the British concept of justice might include some vital objective truths about justice. It has also eliminated any possible objective rationale for Britain’s existence. God help us.

Genocide and our Lame Response

Villagers of the Nuba Mountains of Sudan are being slaughtered and the world is looking elsewhere:

• The situation in the Nuba Mountains is reminiscent of the catastrophe in Darfur, where the Sudanese government executed an ethnic cleansing campaign against opposition forces and civilians during a conflict that began ion 2003…The region is also home to many Christians – an open target for an Islamic government in the north that persecuted and killed Christians in South Sudan for decades. That campaign has ensnared hundreds of thousands of civilians in pockets of the Nuba Mountains, forcing them to endure bombings, burned villages, rape, torture and starvation. It’s not the first time: During a similar campaign in the Nuba Mountains in the 1990’s, as many as half million residents died. (World Magazine, May 5, 2012, 36)

• Overall, the UN estimates that violence or hunger has displaced or severely affected some 350,000 residents in Blue Nile and South Kordofan [regions] since last year. As many as 150,000 live in refugee camps in South Sudan and neighboring Ethiopia. (37)

• [It] is a certain catastrophe that threatens worse casualties if the Sudanese government doesn’t relent or allow humanitarian aid to flow to the region. In mid-April Sudanese officials claimed that South Kordofan doesn’t need food aid, but USAID estimated 200,000 to 250,000 residents are close to running out of food. (37-38)

The media has only briefly covered this ongoing outrage, and that was when George Clooney got involved. Meanwhile, when similar outrages are carried out against Islamic people, the Western media is there and will not let up until Western nations intervene in some capacity. In Libya and Somalia, the Muslim leaders weren’t engaging in genocide against their own people, yet the West intervened. In Egypt, the West was instrumental in forcing the resignation of Mubarak, but he hadn’t committed genocide. Meanwhile, it had seemed likely that in both cases, an equally malevolent Islamic Brotherhood would seize control. The West is now talking about intervening in Syria in favor of the Al Qaeda supported insurgents – hardly innocent victims.

However, there isn’t a word spoken in favor of the innocent, non-insurgent Christians in Sudan and South Sudan. Why not?

I think that part of it can be understood from the perspective of Western antipathy for its Western roots, and many of these roots are a product of Christianity. Similarly, I think that we Christians are walking reminders of God’s righteous condemnation of sin, as Paul suggested:

• For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. (2 Cor. 2:15-16)

For those who are banking on the adequacy of their own righteousness, we represent the stench of death of their own impending judgment (Romans 1:32). It is therefore understandable that no one would want to be reminded of such a thing and might even be comfortable about the disappearance of this reminder.

However, I think that some of the blame should also fall on us Christians. When I mention persecution – whether the non-life-threatening Western form or outright genocide-form - to other Christians, I’m often confronted with what sounds like a dismissal: “Well, the Bible tells us that that we are going to suffer persecution.”

Although this is true, it certainly doesn’t mean that we are without responsibility in this matter:

• Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27).

It might be inevitable that there will always be the poor, “orphans and widows,” but this fact doesn’t alleviate us of our God-mandated responsibilities. Likewise, it might have been fated that the victim on the road to Jericho would be left-for-dead by his robbers, but Jesus made it very obvious that we are responsible to treat all as “neighbors,” whether the persecution is fated or not.

Perhaps, more subtly, educated Christians have been inculcated with a university-bred strain of moral-universalism – that we should be equally concerned about the Eskimo as we should about our cousin who lives next-door.

Although Christian concern regards all as “neighbors,” the Bible does teach that we have an overriding responsibility for our wives, children and parents, and even for those of our spiritual family (Gal. 6:10).

I even feel uncomfortable as I write this. Many Christians will regard this as a form of chauvinism – “it’s all about me and my group” - and therefore experience discomfort in raising their cries against the persecution of Christians.

We see the chauvinism of the whites, the blacks, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Jews, and even the Americans, and we attempt to distance ourselves.

However, Christian “chauvinism” is different. Jesus had prayed:

• "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me…May they be brought to complete unity [of love] to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

According to Jesus, one way to love others is be unified in love. In this way, they will see the reality of the Cross and be drawn. What greater blessing is there?