The Insufficiency of the Theory of Evolution Part 2: Universal Morality
Paul Jenkins
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how the theory of Evolution does not provide a meaningful explanation for our existence – starting with the most obvious point; origin. If anything exists, there must have been a cause or a creator by necessity.
But not only does Evolution fail to explain our origin, it also fails to give us an explanation of why our existence is the way it is. This is very clearly demonstrated in the morality of human beings.
If evolution is true, and life is basically a cosmic accident, then there is no ultimate authority over what is right and wrong. Morality then, by necessity, must be just some formulation of the human mind over time. But given Evolution; what is right or wrong isn’t actually objectively ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. There is no logical foundation in this worldview to account for these things. There is only what is more beneficial to our species, or what has survival value. For someone who accepts Evolution, normative terms like this are arbitrary and meaningless. Let’s see why.
Christians have a logical, Biblically mandated foundation for right and wrong – God’s law, which as we see in Genesis 1:26 and Romans 1:21 is imprinted upon the nature of human beings. We are all made in God’s image, and therefore we have an understanding of His character, and subsequently, what is right and wrong – even though we often willingly disobey the law.
For the Humanist or Evolutionist, morality is a subjective, ever-changing thing. An essential clarification: I am not suggesting that people who accept Evolution are immoral. Often times, Evolutionists are very moral and respectable people. But that only further builds the case against the theory itself. Evolutionists are moral – but they don’t have rationale to be so! If they were to accept that a given action is always objectively wrong – they then step outside the boundaries of their worldview and, by necessity, borrow the Christian worldview to make sense of their own.
At best, when an Evolutionist considers the atrocities of the Holocaust, their worldview could only produce something like this: “According to evolutionary forces, these actions were not beneficial for the flourishing of the human race.” (this would then beg the question – within your worldview, why should the human race flourish or be protected? Within the evolutionary worldview, we just are. Normative statements about whether we should flourish or die off have no logical grounding – but this is venturing into a different topic)
To say that these actions were evil, or that Hitler should be called to justice, or be punished for what he did has no rationality in the secular, evolutionary worldview. The Bible tells us that God is a Judge (Psalm 9:7), and since he has given a revealed Law in the scriptures – Christians understand that murder is a terrible sin.
A possible objection to these things would be something along these lines: “What you are saying is completely ridiculous! You can’t say we have no reason to be moral – it is plain to see that we are! That is sufficient rationale. Don’t just make up a God so we can make sense of these things.”
This objection (founded in a principle called ‘empiricism’) demonstrates my point. The question isn’t whether we are moral – the Bible clearly indicates that every human being has some understanding of God’s divine nature. The question is, if Evolution is true, why is it present? When one watches the news and sees terrible stories of murder, poverty, and injustice – why do our hearts cry out for justice? These are just evolutionary forces in process. The supposedly weaker, unlucky ones are just following the course of nature – why is that anything to get upset about? It is because we all see the inherent value of human life that God has instilled in us. I hate seeing people commit evil towards others – because under God we are all equal. No one should be the one to judge when someone is to die. We ought to care for one another because this was directly commanded by Jesus.
Therefore – our morality isn’t contingent upon our belief in God, but it is contingent upon the existence of God. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in Him or not, the only way we can make sense of morality and justice is that He has created it in accordance to His own character.
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Well written guys. However the argument I see often isn’t the inability of humanists or evolutionists to see the need to explain morality, but that morality was simply a social construct that evolved due to the need to have order and law. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with your argument, but unfortunately a wishy-washy theory in evolution allows the statement “evolved” to make people accept that everything came about by either a physical or, in this contex, social pressures. I think it would be important to explain how morality can not have evolved via social pressures of needing order and law so that people can live without people in their community being killed or robbed etc. Studies have been showing a possible emotional tendency of animals for loosing other animals in their unit and we don’t have a scripture saying God made animals with god’s image for that reaction. Address the social pressure for morality in the humanist theory so that the Christian argrument can explain why social pressures didn’t cause morality to evolve. God bless brothers!
I see what you’re saying – I tried to touch on that when I referred to morality being a formulation of the human mind over time. Maybe I could have worded it better. But that is referring to morality being a social construct. But the argument still stands – that doesn’t make anything objectively right or wrong – it just makes murder, for example, be not optimal for human flourishing. It, by necessity, can’t be ‘evil’ or ‘unjust’ objectively.
Our inherent sense of justice, I would say, is much more than this necessity of survival thing… and the naturalist worldview has no category for that – their worldview can’t explain it. I tried to demonstrate that in the second-last paragraph. It is impossible that it evolved by social pressures.
If the naturalist doesn’t claim to have an objective right and wrong – then that’s fine – but what percentage of the earth would need to agree with him/her in order for that to be true? If their spouse was brutally murdered, their flaky view of morality would quickly go out the window, I would think.
Thanks man!
Paul
I’m glad you liked my TULIP post and I’m right with you on the necessity of God for morality. Funny how the typical answer “Because it’s helpful for reproduction” is simply a reworded form of an objective good. Human flourishing, in the eyes of the humanist, is the ultimate aim even when they cannot logically have an ultimate aim. Their ultimate aim is running in competition, and more often than not, trumped by human sin (of which is denied as sin because it’s all supposed to be on a universal neutral). A tricky situation for them no matter the angle of perspective.