ANOTHER FATAL FLAW OF NATURALISM AND EVOLUTION

Both naturalism and the theory of evolution maintain that, through natural selection, we have evolved a brain that has conferred upon us many survival advantages by enabling us to accurately perceive and to rationally think about our world.

However, there are other forms of our neurological wiring that the naturalist dismisses as irrational, although perhaps adaptive. Theologian and pastor, Timothy Keller, has written about this inconsistency:

·       Evolutionists say that if God makes sense to us, it is not because he is really there, it’s only because that [irrational] belief helped us survive and so we are hard wired for it. However, if we can’t trust our belief-forming faculties to tell us the truth about God, why should we trust them to tell us the truth about anything, including evolutionary science? If our cognitive faculties only tell us what we need to survive, not what is true, why trust them about anything at all?

·       What is not fair is to do what so many evolutionary scientists are doing now. They are applying the scalpel of their skepticism to what our minds tell us about God but not to what our minds are telling us about evolutionary science itself. (The Reason for God, Dutton, 2008, 137-38)

The evolutionist claims that both rationality and irrationality (for example, the belief in God) have enabled us to successful adapt. Keller points to the fact that the evolutionist is not applying his scalpel evenly. If our brains and their beliefs have enabled us to successfully navigate this world and even to understand more abstract things, why not also apply this to our intuition or belief in God? According to the evolutionist, this form of irrationality had once conferred a survival advantage, but how could irrationality – seeing the world through a distorted lens – do so? Perhaps then, their own theories are irrational, serving only a temporary purpose?

Besides, the evolutionist takes his scalpel to many other ideas or intuitions that do not fit into their naturalistic worldview. C.S. Lewis reflects on this tendency in regards to love and music:

·       You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes. You can’t go on getting very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. (141)

According to Lewis, a naturalistic meaningless universe does not accord with our intuitions about it. It is these intuitions that take us beyond what is evolutionarily “rational” and infuse life with meaning and fullness. Are these hot-wired intuitions feeding us a distorted message? Does evolution “win” by tricking us? Are our brains filled with evolutionary distortions? If so, won’t these “distortions” intrude into all other areas of life? And won’t such “irrational” thoughts distort the rational?

Today, based upon the naturalistic worldview, many deny the existence of freewill. In a materialistic world governed entirely by the laws of science, there is just no room or basis for freewill. Instead, although adaptive, believing that we have freewill is just another necessary prank of evolution.

However, we have the intuitive perception that we are freely, at least to some degree, making freewill decisions. Are we mistaken? If so, because these intuitions are so basic, if we doubt our freewill, what then can we not doubt? Should we not also doubt that perhaps we are an individual person rather than part of a corporate consciousness? Should we not also doubt that a physical world exists and that our thoughts and perceptions are all just imaginary?

Consequently, if we are to doubt our freewill, love, the fullness of vision we receive from music, and the existence of God, perhaps we must doubt everything else. But perhaps we should also doubt doubt itself.

Perhaps, instead, these beliefs are not only “necessary,” but they are also an accurate reflection of reality. And to doubt them is also to doubt everything else that we believe in.

This same problem exists in the area of morality. Naturalism instructs us that there are no objective moral laws. Instead, morality is just something that we create, even if largely based on our biochemical intuitions.

Instead, we intuit that when we violate our conscience, we violate objective moral laws, which exist beyond our biochemistry, and deserve punishment. We sense that something or Someone greater than us is condemning us, and that we need to confess our wrongdoing. This sense is so powerful, that when we don’t confess, we find ourselves forced to justify our misbehaviors. We are not able to simply say “who cares!” and walk away. Instead, the sense that we have done something wrong is so vivid and compelling that we have to address it in some way.

Does this sense grant us an accurate picture of reality? According to the naturalist, it might be necessary, but it is also irrational, since there is no Judge, no objective means of judgment, and no ultimate punishment.

The naturalistic worldview forces them to regard these various intuitions as necessary but also as irrational. But how can so many irrational beliefs have survival value? And won’t they permeate into what is “rational,” undermining our entire existence? And if these intuitions are irrational, perhaps also the naturalistic worldview?

ARGUMENT FOR GOD FROM ALTRUISM AND HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY

Science agrees that we have been wired to make specific moral judgments. In fact, it has been well noted that these judgments develop in tandem with our neurological development.

However, we differ in regards to the origins of this wiring – whether it’s evolution or God who has done the wiring. Evolution is based upon the understanding that evolutionary development is guided by the possible survival value our wiring gives us. According to this thinking, we have been wired with emotions that maximize a survival advantage and  the likelihood of passing on our superior genetic inheritance to the next generation. However, this understanding fails to adequately explain why we humans have altruistic motivations.

Here is why the God paradigm is superior to that of evolution:

1. We derive a deep moral satisfaction by doing the right thing.

2. While certain forms of altruism might be construed as giving humanity a survival advantage, the evolutionary understanding of altruism and our other psychological tendencies is inadequate.

3. Evolution cannot explain our deepest moral proclivities. However, the hypothesis that we are created in God’s moral likeness can explain these.

PREMISE #1  We derive a deep moral satisfaction by doing the right thing.

Humanity tends to value forgiveness, confession of wrongdoing, acts of love, and even loving our enemies. Although we might not derive immediate benefit from these behaviors, we tend to derive a deep satisfaction when we act in accord with our most deeply held values.

Mental health professionals recognize that living in accordance with our moral wiring is an important factor for mental health, although perhaps not for passing on our genes. Accordingly, Karen Wright wrote,

• "Eudaimonia refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values."

Many have recognized a connection between happiness (sometimes referred to as “eudaimonia”) and the virtuous life:

• Plato argues that virtues are states of the soul, and that the just person is someone whose soul is ordered and harmonious, with all its parts functioning properly to the person’s benefit. In contrast, Plato argues that the unjust man’s soul, without the virtues, is chaotic and at war with itself, so that even if he were able to satisfy most of his desires, his lack of inner harmony and unity thwart any chance he has of achieving eudaimonia. Plato’s ethical theory is eudaimonistic because it maintains that eudaimonia depends on virtue. (Virtue is necessary for eudaimonia.) On Plato’s version of the relationship, virtue is depicted as the most crucial and the dominant constituent of eudaimonia. (Wikipedia)

Indeed, disharmony creates peace-depriving conflict. This is one of the reasons that we obsess. Obsession is a normal attempt to harmonize our thinking and moral intuitions with the rest of our lives. When these are in disharmony, peace is replaced by an endless running of obsessive mental tapes, seeking a way out – a place of peace.

Gautama Buddha recognized these truths and provided an eightfold strategy to avoid suffering and to restore peace known as the “middle way,” sandwiched between the extremes of self-denial and self-indulgence:

• "This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."

For Buddha, Positive Psychologists, and even AA, there are certain objective principles – principles articulated in the Bible - like forgiveness and gratefulness, to which we must adhere for the sake of our peace-of-mind.  

Even atheists perceive these positive principles but pride themselves that they can be good without God. For them, morality is simply a matter of expedience, what provides the desired benefits. Atheist, humanist, and author of the Humanist Manifesto II, Paul Kurtz, affirms that pragmatism – the results - is the “only” possible justification for morality:

• "How are these [moral] principles to be justified? They are not derived from a divine or natural law nor do they have a special metaphysical [beyond the material world] status. They are rules offered to govern how we shall behave. They can be justified only by reference to their results."

However, this stance is at odds with itself. It affirms moral principles but not because they are objectively moral in themselves. Rather, altruism and other-centeredness is promoted for self-centered reasons – “their results.” Therefore, when we help our enemy, we are not doing it because it is the right thing to do, but because it brings favorable results.

It was this kind of thinking that turned me into a selfish nihilist in my first year at college. I had been volunteering in a project to help the disadvantaged but became increasingly aware that I was doing this for myself. I reasoned that if it’s all about me, then I should be genuine about it. I therefore quit the program to pursue what I now saw as the genuine truth – my own welfare.

Evolutionists also share this problem. While certain forms of altruism might be construed as giving humanity a survival advantage, the evolutionary understanding of altruism is necessarily self-centered and, therefore, not truly altruistic. Therefore, the theory of evolution cannot embrace a true, non-self-centered altruism.

PREMISE #2  While certain forms of altruism might be construed as giving humanity a survival advantage, the evolutionary understanding of altruism and our other psychological tendencies is inadequate.

In fact, humanity seems to possess many gratuitous traits, like our enjoyment of music, dance, and literature, that defy a Darwinian explanation. We are even psychologically constituted to seek to understand our place in the world and to comprehend our purpose and meaning within it. The late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel, asserted this very thing:

• “It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?”

Such an introspective trait seems to exceed and defy what the evolutionary paradigm can reasonably explain. It might even interfere with the business of survival and passing on the human genetic inheritance. Just ask Hamlet!

John M. Gottman, professor of psychology and cofounder of The Gottman Institute for marriage improvement wrote about another gratuitous human requirement – the need for honor, respect, and appreciation:

• “The typical conflict-resolution advice won’t help. Instead, you need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict between you—and learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other.” 

If our heads are cluttered with these additional psychological needs, the pursuit for survival and passing on our genes is somewhat displaced. It would therefore seem that these needs would not provide any survival advantage. Instead, they might even prove disadvantageous.

In “The Significant Life,” attorney George M. Weaver has made a strong case that the drive to establish our self-importance is so compelling that it even eclipses the drive for survival:

• Individual humans are not concerned so much about the survival of the species as they are about their personal survival or significance. In order to push ourselves beyond our confining space-time limits, we as individuals try to set ourselves apart from the rest of humanity. It is unsettling to admit that one is average or ordinary – a routine person. (7)

Weaver documents this convincingly. Even those who commit horrific self-destructive acts do so to establish their importance:

• In 2005 Joseph Stone torched a Pittsfield, Massachusetts apartment building… After setting the blaze, Stone rescued several tenants from the fire and was hailed as a hero. Under police questioning, Stone admitted, however, that he set the fire and rescued the tenants because, as summarized at trial by an assistant district attorney, he “wanted to be noticed, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to be known.” (44)

Evidently, this drive for significance is so powerful that it can overrule the drive for survival. One mass-murderer gunman explained in his suicide note, “I’m going to be f_____ famous.” (45)

This need to be famous is potentially anti-social. It detracts from the viability of the social group by creating fragmentation. But how can the biblical paradigm account for this human drive? When we do not find our significance in God, we are psychologically coerced to pursue it elsewhere.

This drive for significance can be so compelling that we will sacrifice our future for it. Weaver reports that:

• More than two hundred people confessed in 1932 to the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. (50)

If humanity had always evolved in a way that would confer a survival advantage, it is hard to explain many of our individualistic human traits. Instead, if we had more of a group-oriented nature like the ants or the bees, we might have fared better.

Also, from the perspective of evolution, our altruistic moral wiring will only confer a survival advantage when we act altruistically towards those who will reciprocate. We should only forgive those who can repay our forgiveness. If instead we forgive our enemies, they may interpret this as weakness, which might encourage them to attack us.

Likewise, we should only confess our wrongdoing when we can derive a clear benefit. After all, such a confession can be used against us. Also, we should only love those who are in a position to repay us.

CONCLUSION: Evolution cannot explain our deepest moral/psychological proclivities. However, the hypothesis that we are created in God’s moral likeness can explain these.

It is also highly ironic that a book completed 2000 years ago could more accurately explain the human condition than the “scientific” fruits of our modern age.