“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ESV
The American cultural kings – the media, the schools, both K-12 and higher education, not to mention the political halls of power – are all dominated by the lie of Darwinism. This is the philosophical soil we have grown up in and taught to think. It’s ubiquitous and every Christian must know the nature and power of this lie. And we must be taught to see its plain and bald foolishness too.
The secular humanist is fond of saying that might doesn’t make right. They think it’s a noble thing – even self-evident. But they aren’t exactly right. If might isn’t right, or if right has no might, then we’re all utterly doomed. In even speaking of right and might, the atheist unwittingly shows that he knows that Darwinism is a lie. He knows that survival of the fittest in a purely mechanical universe is nonsense. Scary nonsense. Moreover, saying such a thing indicts them insofar as their professed atheism is concerned. It proves that all men suppress the truth about God and refuse to acknowledge Him, not due to lack of evidence, but because they want desperately to continue the charade of neutrality.
But the truth about God is plainly seen in the natural world. His divine nature and eternal power are clearly perceived in the things we see and marvel at every day (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:18-21). And, as this sort of statement proves, all men know that life is not mere material things or else might would literally make right. To say that righteousness isn’t the domain of the mightiest is to say that truth transcends the material world.
Thus, it shows that every one knows in their heart that God is God and that no man, nor institution, or group of men, are God. But the deep truth, ultimately, is that – and it must be – that might is right and right is might. If it’s not, if right isn’t all-powerful, then we’re doomed and the aforementioned aphorism is nonsense of the highest order.
Think of it this way: if a little old lady is home alone baking cookies and a gang of marauders break in, intent on murder and theft, she’s clearly in the right but powerless to enforce it. Even the most ardent atheist understands that such a scenario is evil. The marauders are not morally higher than the old lady by virtue of their physical power over her. This is understood because the law of the Lord is indeed written into the fabric of our lives (Romans 2:14-15). How else do we understand that might doesn’t mean right except through the moral lens of Christ? To say that all people know this merely begs the question of how they know it. It proves our point.
The problem of atheism rears its head with a vengeance here. The metaphysic (theory of ultimacy and origins, that is) of the modern atheist is Darwinism. Huxley once remarked that Darwin provided unbelievers the origin story in which to ignore God and go their own way. Until Darwin, western civilization was philosophically dominated by the Biblical creation account – which is to say, God’s power and authority as Creator was baked into the cake. This basic presupposition has massive ramifications culturally, politically and personally.
Since Darwin, however, as Huxley said, the west has used macro-evolution as intellectual cover to reject God. It’s a simple equation. Whoever or whatever created everything – especially and including us – is in charge and gets to set the rules of life. This is life’s hard and inescapable logic.
This fact is where the real men and women of Christ should and must put their flag down. Not only that, but we must insist that Darwinists stand upon their own ground as well. As of now, sadly enough, the Christian intellectual fortress (2 Corinthians 10:5) is guarded like a children’s playground and everyone is welcome to come and frolic. The myth of neutrality (the irrational belief that God’s divine nature and eternal power aren’t clearly perceived by everyone, so unbelief is logical) is so dominant that Christians have given away their most powerful tool for evangelism and apologetics. We’ve handed our biggest guns to our enemies – weapons they surely don’t have in their own philosophical arsenal.
We give them our cannons. We fire back with squirt-guns. And we make sure the water is lukewarm. We confuse being nice with being truthful and end up being cowards.
It’s like a boxer agreeing to a match with a fella who can bring a bat and a friend while he fights with one hand.
But again, Darwinism’s logic is clear. Survival is the moral center of all action in an evolutionary world. The unfit – like our little old lady baking in her kitchen surrounded by photos of grandchildren and family – deserve to perish at the hands of the strong. The law of the jungle is the law or else Darwinism can’t be true. An exception to survival of the fittest isn’t an exception but an evisceration of the philosophy itself.
We turn again to the reality that there’s no such thing as a brute fact in this world. All facts are interrelated and must be logically integrated into the correct systematic philosophy/theology. All facts must be actionable via their correct categorical classification. Darwinism attempts to provide a creation story via observable science but must contend, just as all other disciplines, with epistemological and ethical implications too. Simply put, if everything came from nothing (which is logically impossible because ex nihilo nihil fit…out of nothing, nothing comes), and there is no Creator and personal God who is uncreated (a mystery, but not a contradiction), and evolution is a person-less force wherein survival is the highest goal, there is and can be no moral law. In the Darwinist worldview, evolution is both the metaphysic (theory of origin and ultimacy) and the ethic (value theory).
This is tragically illogical.
Everyone knows deep down that evolution is a blood-red and depersonalizing ethic, which explains the deafening silence on the subject of philosophical integration. To admit this is fatal to the lie; it bleeds out on the smallest scratch.
As soon as young students are taught about the systemic connection of origin, knowledge and ethics they can see that the emperor is not merely scantily clad but sauntering around in his pot-bellied, skinny legged birthday suit, they’ll naturally reject the insanity of philosophical materialism (Darwinism). Again, this is the sinister package-deal of secular humanism. Public schools and universities, media, politics and corporate culture make sure we can’t talk about the massive black hole at the center that gobbles up all truth, meaning, and beauty. As a matter of self-preservation the humanist must avoid all discussion about systematics and philosophical integration. The only struggle for survival in our Darwinist-dominated world today is, therefore, the struggle to keep the balderdash of Darwinism alive. To do this we must commit intellectual suicide by destroying each generation’s ability to think in philosophical categories.
To tell the young that there is no ultimate truth but that they have to find their own truth is the grandest form of torture available. It posits a nihilistic universe and tells them to find meaning in it. This is, of course, like tasking a crew to find a good burger place on the moon, except it isn’t a joke. These are human lives – living breathing, dreaming, wondering, striving, and loving image-bearers of God – being told they exist in a dark and merciless universe that’s indifferent to them. And then telling them they must find their own happiness.
Is it any wonder why the teenagers of America struggle so mightily with anxiety, depression and worse? And maybe you do too because the infection is out there…it’s everywhere in culture. It’s the logic of philosophical nihilism required to keep the creation-con of Darwinism afloat. Secular humanism/atheism must get rid of God and to do this they must attack Him as Creator because, as we’ve said, whoever or whatever created everything is alone authorized to set the rules. Atheism hates God because it hates moral law and responsibility. It desires to live in God’s world as if they are the ones who get to determine right and wrong (Genesis 3:5).
So, like Cain who killed his brother, Abel, and then was convicted by God for the murder, secular man flees responsibility. He builds his cities and structures to protect himself from God’s moral judgment (Genesis 4:17-24). Seeking absolute freedom he makes himself a political slave because politics is the alternative to open violence. Rather than the risk and chaos of bloodshed and destruction, government by men and for men is the uneasy and tenuous truce of warring parties. Peace is, therefore, merely the absence of open hostilities rather than true unity.
To eradicate the royal commandments to love God and neighbor, man the sinner votes himself into ten thousand humanistic laws and regulations. He decries the power of others over him and yet rails that might doesn’t make right. If he can, if the circumstances permit, he overpowers his neighbor. If not, he joins those who can do it for him. All social-political systems of man and for man end up enslaving and murdering. The only question is who is put down and oppressed and how deep runs that domination.
The con is that law is anything other than a gun in the face, or sword at the throat, of the one who disagrees. Law surely is and always must be backed by power. Politics is surely war by other means and it’s a blessing from God, part of His so-called common grace, that atheists only follow their principle of cosmic treason so far. Nevertheless, we all know that might must support right or right is defenseless. A law that’s passed that isn’t backed by the police, then the courts, even the military if necessary, is hardly law.
This is why law must be moral because law is justified force. Thus when men reject God they claim for themselves the right to rule their neighbor. The Kingdom of Heaven is, amongst all other glorious things, simply that glorious place where men and women lay down their arms and say with one voice, “Your will be done!”
The source of all strife and war is the sinner saying, “my will be done.” A primitive society sees gangs of marauders enforcing their will. The “advanced” ones form political parties backed by legal gangs to enforce their will. We saw this best in the grandest culmination of atheistic philosophy: communism.
Life and social affairs always comes down to this question: who decides what is right and wrong?
The terrible logic of humanism and false religion always starts on a highway full of blissful promises. But the road that begins near the beach with splendid blue water and smooth sand soon turns and winds its way into a sepulchral darkness. Man can’t be free without God because force must be applied according to a standard. And when men decide what that standard is they are playing God. This is why political parties without God’s law are well-dressed gangs. This is why there are so many lawyers in America; we trade lawsuits rather than gunfire.
For now anyway. By the grace of God we don’t tear each other apart.
It is Jesus Christ who is Lord, which means inexorably that He has the power to morally judge all men in righteousness and punish rebels. This is, therefore, the time of salvation and day of grace. To those who repent of their sin and rebellion, we read:
“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.”
Revelation 1:17–18 NLT
In all, to be true to today’s verse, we tear down this modern stronghold by showing the atheist how he/she doesn’t dare live in accord with his principle of evolution. Just as well, though, we should endeavor to live true to our principle of faith in Christ! It’s a fight. A duel of competing worldviews. Let’s be bold and live out the Christian truth while patiently and lovingly exposing the lies of those flim-flam strongholds of Satan.
Recent Comments