Humanity, Mammalian Equality, and the Divine

Ideas and beliefs are our masters. As we think, so also do we live! Let’s do a thought experiment. Ingrid Newkirk, the head of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, believes that we should make no moral or value distinction among mammals: “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals.”

What are the implications of such a belief? Many! Our laws reflect our values. If there is no moral distinction among mammals, then our laws should reflect this belief. They should protect mammals against murder, not only by humans but by other amoral animal agents. Consequently, we should prosecute any mammal who kills a mouse of a rat, but we can’t stop there. We should also prosecute any mammal who steals from a mammal – think milk.

What would the implications of such “upgraded” laws be? Pigs, rats and cows would inevitably overrun our streets, farms and gardens. Some fundamentalist animal rights folk will answer, “So what! It’s about time that the tables are reversed.”

However, such a reversal would have even more serious costs. When our laws are revised to protect every mammal – and this would make our laws unenforceable – then none will be protected. Expect to see libel, theft, murder and sexual abuse skyrocket!

The problems don’t stop here. Even Newkirk’s position is man-centered, depending on human judgment. Why should our laws stop at protecting mammals? Does Newkirk promote the value of mammals because she too is a mammal, and, as a mammal, she confers greater value on mammals? From the perspective of animal rights, this seems very chauvinistic. Why not also extend value and protection to fish and birds? Would we deny mammalian worth to them simply because they are more dissimilar from us?

Some will interject that, “Birds and fish are less intelligent… or emotive… or conscious than mammals. Therefore they don’t have the value that mammals have!”

Apart from the questionable science upon which such arguments rest, this position(s) has even more fundamental problems. Why should the level of intelligent or emotion bestow a greater value on an animal? While science might be able to demonstrate that certain species can perform certain tasks more efficiently, it is unable to answer the question of value.

Instead, the question of value or worth requires an even more fundamental question: “Value or worth to whom?” Is there an ultimate source that determines value or is this entire concept just a human invention to bestow meaning on life?

If we created this idea, and value has no existence outside of what we determine value to be, then we have returned to man-centered center and dominated world. However, it is an arbitrary world, depending on who is in power and can enforce their worldview. It also means that anything goes, because there is no absolute standard of truth to determine the worth of anything. It means that if I think that people who look or act like me are the most evolved, and if I attach value to the highest level of evolution, then who can say that I am wrong!

Real value therefore depends on the existence of immutable and universal truth that transcends us and our competing opinions, and therefore also a Truth-giver that transcends us.

Some will interject, “We have natural laws, and they don’t require your Truth-giver. Why then can’t we have a natural law that bestows value?”

There are many problems with this hope. For one thing, there is no evidence that our natural, universal, immutable laws don’t require a Truth-giver. Perhaps even more problematic, a natural law that bestows value cannot be natural. Once again, value is the product of personhood and not science, which can only tell us what is. Value is the product of intelligence, consciousness and will, not of impersonal and mindless forces.

We can demonstrate this by showing the distinction between the law of gravity and the law that imparts value. The effects of the former can be bypassed or overcome; those of the values law cannot.  We can board an airplane that violates the natural effects of gravity without consequence. However, we cannot sex-traffic teenagers and pre-teens without violating the law of value. Hence, this law is a different kind of law – a Personal law. In contrast, gravity can attract, but it cannot value anything.

Because of the universality, immutable, and Personhood of value, it doesn’t matter whether we go to Alaska or the desert or even enter a time machine to go to a different age, the same immutable law of value will confront us and the girls we intend to traffic. Nor will any of our scientific innovations change it. Our conscience instructs us that our value as humans transcends any changes or innovations, and our conscience will punish us if we defy the law we find therein! In this sense, it seems to be more un-defiable and Personal than the law of gravity, which we can side-step without any consequence.

At this, some will respond, “I know what is right and wrong without your God.” However, it is impossible to know what is “right and wrong” unless there is a real and objective right and wrong, which transcends our bio-chemical reactions. However, you can say, “I have the very real feeling of right and wrong regardless!” True, but irrelevant! Feelings cannot equate with truth unless truth and value have an independent existence, apart from our feelings.

Truth and Trust: The Number One Casualty

If civilization depends on trust, then Western Civilization is facing a long Western winter. The problem isn’t so much that the West is struggling vainly to win trust, but that it has simply abandoned this concept and the concept of truth upon which trust must find its foundation. If our interests or agendas – be it a good form of social activism or not – trumps truth-telling, trust becomes collateral damage.

Writer Jen Angel expresses the growing commitment of the media to social activism, even at the expense of objectivity:

• I also drew from Ostertag’s work the concept of needing media that is unafraid to align itself directly with activism and movements for change, that doesn’t seek to objectively report the news, or to be a passive observer. 

Of course, we all have our social-religious-political commitments, and we should! However, we undermine ourselves when our politics commandeers truth and objectivity in service to its cause.

Truth is especially critical to the media. If the media is supposed to provide accountability – and I think that we all regard this as essential to the welfare of democracy – it fails to provide this function if it first commitment is to its political agenda.

In fact, our Founding Fathers thought so highly of the media’s watch-dog role that its right to unencumbered free speech was specifically guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The media has therefore been entrusted with a sacred duty.

What should we think about a media whose first interest and commitment is to political activism at the expense of objectivity? Should we trust it? This question is now center-stage. The mainstream media has become so committed to liberal causes that a recent survey revealed that 60% of Americans no longer trust it! Such activism is dangerously polarizing this nation. And when trust is lacking, power and brutality hasten to fill the vacuum.

Should we trust the findings of science, when the scientists themselves admit that truth-telling has taken a back seat? Denyse O’Leary writes that:

• Darwinian philosophers like Michael Ruse insist that ethics is an illusion…Well-known atheist science writer John Horgan explicitly endorses lying for science in such cases as the effort to fight Global warming: “It’s a war, and when people are waging war, they always lie for their cause.” (Salvo, Issue 22, 48)

Sadly, there is a tendency to regard the promotion of all our political or scientific agendas as “waging war.” And if ethics is no more than an “illusion,” then why not bend the truth to promote the cause! And if we are willing to lie “for science,” for what wouldn’t we lie!

Hence, there is a crisis of trust - that even our constitutional rights will not be upheld. In a war, nothing is sacred. Every “truth” is expendable, and every right can be revoked.

This makes me wonder about myself. I too have an agenda. My blog’s mission statement reads, “Defending the Christian faith and promoting its wisdom against the secular and religious challenges of our day.” Does my agenda relegate truth to second-fiddle in a winner-take-all war? It mustn’t!

Why not? I think that there are several reasons. If God is all-powerful, merciful and truthful, then I need not lie to cover for Him. He can cover for Himself. If He can’t, then I am wasting my time – both with Him and with my efforts.

However, if God is everything I believe Him to be, then my first goal is faithfulness to His calling. This means modeling myself after Him in every way, and this includes truth-telling.

Certainty: Its Reality and its Rejection

Whenever I write, I write with the unavoidable taint of certainty. Why else should I write if I cannot instruct. This requires a high degree of certainty! (Some write simply to express themselves, but I have little interest in this.) Nevertheless, I earn the disdain of many by speaking authoritatively about truth. However, I would be tolerated if I’d simply write, “Christ seems to work for me.” However, once I claim that Christ is the truth, gentility vanishes, and I become the object of scorn.

Today, many Christians are joining the chorus against certainty. One evangelical castigated the church for speaking out publicly and authoritatively on social issues, claiming that we really can’t be that certain. Curiously, she was certain enough to speak up against the church.

At an apologetics forum, another evangelical, a professor, defined “certainty” as “objective uncertainty appropriated with passion.” In other words, what seems like “objective certainty” is really a matter of our passion getting the best of us. He tried to prove that certainty wasn’t really a part of the Christian life by citing 2 Corinthians 5:7 – “We live by faith, not by sight” – apparently unaware of his absurd position that he needs a high degree of certainty in order to prove that a high degree of certainty isn’t possible.

In addition to this problem, the Bible never pits faith against certainty. Although there are indeed things that defy certainty – for we only see in part - there are also spiritual truths that we can bank on, truths that we must bank on!

The professor also cited the account of Peter walking on water as proof that we shouldn’t expect to walk in the light of certainty. He claimed that Peter sank into the waves because he required a guaranteed certainty, when he should have been content with faith and uncertainty. However, this lesson can’t be justifiably derived from Scripture. If anything, Jesus castigates Peter for his lack of certainty:

·        But when he [Peter] saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:30-31)

Peter’s problem was a lack of faith and not a demand for certainty. Initially, he had been willing to follow Jesus into the water, but then got cold feet.

In fact, the Bible not only recognizes certainty - and our assurance and confidence in the faith depend upon certainty - as a precious and almost indispensable gift:

·        My purpose…so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ. (Col. 2:2)

Clearly, faith is not opposed to a “full assurance”:

·        Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22)

·        That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. (2 Tim. 1:12)

  

·        For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. (John 17:8)

Scripture informs us that we can be certain:

·        So that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:4)

·        For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephes. 5:5)

·        Then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you. (Joshua 23:13)

It is pointless for me to point out these verses. Everything that Scripture says, it says with certainty. There is no suggestion that “perhaps the Gospel might be true.” However, I must confess that for many years I struggled with debilitating doubts regarding God and His Gospel. However, I am now thankful that I had experienced this horribly painful ordeal. It led me to devote myself to God’s Word (Psalm 119:71).

For many of us, growing in assurance/certainty is a long and painful process. However, this process in no way should suggest that certainty isn’t a possibility. I must also admit that there were times when it would have been comforting to acquiesce to uncertainty. If uncertainty was the norm for the Christian life, then I wouldn’t have to feel that there was something wrong with me because it didn’t have certainty.

Besides, why should we rule out certainty? After all, I am certain that I am now typing at my computer. If I can be certain about this, why not also spiritual things? Weren’t the disciples certain that Jesus had appeared to them? Of course, and this certainty gave them the necessary courage to live according to their faith.

However, uncertainty is a social lubricant. The uncertain are perceived as less rigid and socially responsive. They seem ready to accommodate themselves to others and their experiences. We tend see to them as having a humble, inquiring and scholarly disposition. However, true uncertainty cannot say anything. While our professor expounded upon the virtues of uncertainty, everything he said required a high degree of certainty.

Jesus conducted Himself with certainty, not as the Scribes and the Pharisees. After Him, His Apostles also conducted themselves with certainty. However, they did offend many and lost their lives because of it. Therefore, social approval should not serve as the final arbiter of truth or even the way we present ourselves.

Someone asked our professor, “How then can we know for certain that we have the truth?” He answered that we can’t:

·        “There are no neutral facts or argumentation. We cannot objectively weigh evidence because we cannot get on the outside of ourselves, our biases, and presuppositions in order to stand on neutral ground. Consequently, biblical interpretation will always be a matter of uncertainty and disagreement.”

However, if we can never stand on neutral ground and, consequently, everything depends upon our subjective interpretation, how then can he make such an objective, certain and sweeping statement?

Indeed, there are some biblical teachings that are very difficult and uncertain. Consequently, there are legitimate differences, which we will probably never resolve in this life. However, there are much clearer and more certain Biblical assertions, like “Christ died for our sins.”

When I was uncertain about this, I lived in constant torment. I am certain that the church would not have endured had it not been delivered from its doubts. In fact, it was in destruction-mode until Jesus’ resurrection appearances.

I think that there are many ways that we can know the truth. Have you seen the series of books called “Magic Eye?” They include many computer-generated designs that contain a secret, yet discreet image or picture. Some people are unable to see it. However, for others, the picture is seen with certain clarity. If you wonder whether it is your mind that constructed the image, well, it’s easy to resolve this question. The books have an “answer sheet” containing the hidden image. Consequently, we can be sure that what we see is real.

The Bible contains many discreet, hidden “images.” When you see them, you will know that you are not inventing them.

It may be temporarily comforting to reject the idea of certainty. However, it is also the way of almost certain torment. Instead, continue to ask our Lord to make His revelation real to you. He has promised to bless those who seek Him!