Politics

Additional Thoughts Concerning The Despair Of Naturalism

by Frederick Meekins
08/20/05
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In trying to elevate himself by attempting to remove God from His rightful place upon the throne of the universe, man ends up far from elevating himself and instead finds himself ensnared to a form of despair and bondage far worse than anything that could be imagined under the yolk of Biblical Christianity.

To say that an individual possesses free will is to say that he has the ability to make decisions based upon some criteria existing beyond mere physical impulse.

However, materialistic evolutionary theory contends that this arena of the will does not exist as part of a deeper spiritual reality but is rather mere electrochemical response to physical stimuli with no higher reason or purpose.

Francis Schaeffer observes in How Should We Then Live: The Rise And Decline Of Western Thought And Culture that evolutionary theory in the form of humanistic thought has reduced everything to the level of a component in a great universal machine.

Of this outlook, Schaeffer writes, “In one form of reductionism, man is explained by reducing him to the smallest particles which make up his body. Man is seen as being only the molecule or the energy particle, more complex but not intrinsically different (164).”

To prove such an observation is more than Evangelical hyperbole, Schaeffer quotes Harvard University Chemistry Professor George Wald who said, “Four hundred years ago there was a collection of molecules named Shakespeare which produced Hamlet (164).”

In order to remain consistent, those holding to such a perspective have to concede such a masterpiece is not so much the result of creative insight as it is a fortuitous case of gas. And to any naturalist offended by my remarks, they cannot very well complain about them since by their own worldview, I had no control over what I wrote.

Copyright 2005 by Frederick Meekins

Frederick Meekins is an Internet Columnist. He holds a BS in Political Science/History from the University of Maryland, a MA in Apologetics & Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Practical Theology through The Master’s School Of Divinity.