Why General Revelation (science) is not Enough

God's Two Books
According to Christian doctrine, found for example in Psalm 19, God has written two books. The first is the book of nature, or creation, which reveals and declares God's glory, design, might and wisdom through the wonderful material universe he has made. And then there is God's book of Scripture, the Bible.

The book of revelation is clear on all essentials, and especially clear on God's rescue plan, called the Gospel. Where Christians disagree, on secondary matters, not a great amount of weight or importance lies.

The book of creation is also absolutely clear, but the hearts of sinful men suppress the truth they find there, so that almost anything can be read from the book of creation - depending on your starting point, your philosophy, your world-view, and most of all whether or not you have faith.

Twisted evidence
We could choose almost any subject to demonstrate this indeterminacy of the book of nature, or rather the ability of the human heart to read what it wishes. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

For example, there is overwhelming evidence around us that the universe has been created by a Mind, whether the fine tuning of the universe or the staggering ingenuity of the simplest cell. But so many scientists flatly refuse to acknowledge this evidence and label this intelligent design pseudoscience (a neat phrase, conjured up, like Islamophobia, Misogyny, Transphobia and  Homophobia, to shut down discussion and slur those who hold those views. Something very similar happened in Hitler's Third Reich - if you possessed the label "Jew"- that's all - you were considered worthless, no discussion, no debate, no argument).

Overwhelming evidence cannot lead to belief in a God when the human heart obstinately refuses to bow to that God.

Science, nature, material evidence can be twisted.

Gender issues
Take the following indisputable facts. (1) Men and women are different down to virtually every cell in their bodies (almost); men's 23rd chromosome is XY and for the women it is XX. (2) Testosterone and oestrogen levels are very different in their respective bodies. (3) Women alone can give birth. (4) Women alone can feed a baby with milk. (5) A bonding molecule, oxytocin is produced by mothers which bonds them to their newborns in a way that a man is not bonded to his baby - as much love as he feels for it. (6) Psychologically, men and women are very different, with women being stronger on warmth and empathy and men stronger on vigilance and emotional stability. (7) Men on average are heavier, stronger and taller than women.

These seven facts alone are clues from the way men and women are built differently, that especially  it is a good idea for women to take the lion's share of caring for little ones, and for men to use their superior strength to protect their wives and families.

Since however, those seven facts can be either ignored or twisted, they are insufficient to determine how men and women should relate to one another.

The need for Revelation
This is why we need Revelation. We need God, who made our bodies, to  tell us in black and white how he designed them to work. What we discover is that Scripture perfectly lines up with nature. Scripture and nature teaches us that while men and women are totally equal ontologically (in essence of being) and worth, they are very different from one another in roles and functions. In Christian marriage and the church, men are meant to love and protect their wives and children, while wives should recognise their God-given role to be the primary carers of their children and be submissive to their husbands.

No Christian should expect agreement with their non-Christian friends on these issues, and we are not called to judge the world, who do not have Revelation.

Neither should any Christian drift with the confused world we live in, on issues of gender, sexuality or the roles between men and women.

The tragedy is that many Christians have already chameleon-like become indistinguishable form the world on these matters.

The early church won the world not by being the same, but being radically counter-cultural. And the world flocked to the Gospel, attracted by how Jesus set them free from the lies and idols of their culture.

Should Christians trust the BBC?

Is the BBC your home page?
For many years I have had the BBC as my Firefox homepage. And for all those years, my mind has run a continuous "ethics and truth filter" on the content.

Let me say from the start, that when it comes to "facts" such as how many people died in this conflict, how many attended that parade, the BBC is reliable. So why the ethics filter?

Robin Aitken worked in the BBC for 25 years at all levels, and has written a book, whose title comes from some words written by the ancient philosopher Plato. The Noble Liar is subtitled, "How and why the BBC distorts the news to promote a liberal agenda."

The book reveals how though the BBC began as an institution that was at least even-handed towards, and perhaps even promoted Christianity (CS Lewis was able to give a remarkable set of talks on the radio in the early 1940s), it has been taken over by a liberal elite who see their task, consciously or unconsciously (either way they are culpable), as promoting the politically correct agenda of - the western liberal elite.

When I read this book last week, nothing surprised me, for every Christian filtering the BBC through a mind renewed by the Holy Spirit will have picked up this bias on a daily basis.

The skewing of the news is expressed as much in story-selection as in viewpoint bias. Concerning viewpoint bias, whenever there is an article on homosexuality or gender, you could write the article in advance: you know where it's going, you can prophecy what will be said. Utterly predictably, without any critical thinking, it takes the narrow party line.

(The journalists who write this stuff could get a software programme to churn it out, and it would cost a lot less, and with regular tweaks to the algorithm it would probably be twice as interesting).

Concerning selection, there is an almost unbelievable proportion of stories designed to promote the liberal agenda.

Take for example a story on their website today about some Muslims (are they real Muslims?) who want Islam to embrace a gay life style. Here's the BBC's homepage click-bait image:

What is wrong with this news item? Why is it "fake-news"?

(i) Story-selection bias. Of all the thousands of interesting events going on in the Muslim world today, the BBC have chosen one which promotes homosexuality. This would be fine if this kind of event was taking place in every city across the Muslim world, or if that statistic wasn't true, it would be fine if  the story had been balanced, ratio-wise with say 1000 other stories, alongside it, of all the other events going on in the Muslim world. Then the BBC would be reporting in a balanced way, in proportion to reality on the ground. But no, let's pick one which promotes our agenda.

(ii) Content bias. Then there's the content. No mention is made of the reasoned defence a conservative Muslim might up for opposing homosexual behaviour. No hint of the reasons a Muslim might give rationally against, not the people, but the homosexual acts themselves.

Robin Aitken puts it like this:

"The BBC has closed down debate on many issues that are important to social conservatives; on things like abortion, divorce and gay rights, the BBC does not willingly allow dissident voices to be heard, although in truth, these are issues where people in a free society should be allowed to exercise freedom of speech - and conscience." (page 208)

A label designed to damn
If you disagree with the PC consensus, you are given a label which automatically damns you:

"A special lexicon has even developed comprising a short list of words which are sued to vilify social conservatives; it includes racist, homophone, misogynist and Islamophobe. By deploying these terms it is possible to undermine the credential of anyone making a counterargument and then to justify denying them opportunities to explain their position." (p. 209)

He gives some general examples of this labelling in action:

"...having misgivings about mass immigration does not make you a racist, having moral qualms about homosexuality does not make you homophobic; refusing to accept radical feminist ideology does not make you misogynist and fearing aspects of Islam does not make you Islamophobic." (page 209)

Should Christians trust the BBC?
Yes, when it relates general indisputable numerical and statistical facts. Today it told me that the Supreme court found Boris Johnson guilty of calling off Parliament - that is true, that's what happened, the BBC were accurate. But when the BBC talks about anything to do with philosophy, ethics or religion, we should automatically be sceptical.

None of this should surprise us.

We live in a culture, which though deeply shaped by the Christian worldview has now turned its back on it, and in many areas of life today, while claiming to be wise, this lost and needy world are revealing themselves to be fools (Romans 1:22).

Are Humans Just Animals?

A common view
It is becoming increasingly common to view human beings as just one species out of the 9 million living things thought to exist on the planet today. Indeed it is regarded as "speciesism" by some to think of homo sapiens as in any way elevated or distinct.

Many Similarities

It is well known that  human beings and animals share much in common. Genetically they are remarkably similar (for example, we share around 99% of our genes with Chimpanzees). Our biochemistry is similar and our basic body plan, four limbs, two ears, two eyes, one nose and one mouth, etc. bears much resemblance to many animals. (The animals we tend to fear or find alien, such as spiders and octopuses have different body plans to which we simply can't relate; the animals we find cuddly have a similar body plan to our own).

But at the level of mind, absolutely everything changes. There is an enormous gap between the mental abilities of an adult human being and the "mind" of any other adult animal.

The Human Mind

Helped and facilitated by a large brain, we humans rise almost infinitely above the wonderful animal kingdom. This is not a put-down for animals but a rise-up for human beings. And this immense difference is a rather big problem for evolutionists, not least because most of our superior skills are totally unnecessary for survival (maths, painting, music, etc.) - chimps have arrived without these abilities, why do we need them?  And to be frank, these extra abilities could actually pose a hindrance to survival. Counting how many lions are running towards you, or working out their speed and hence how much time you have to escape, may hinder flight and hasten your last fight. 

So where does the mind come from? 

There is not - and never will be - an adequate answer from the present theory of evolution. Eminent atheist philosophers such as Thomas Nagel have pointed this out - to his personal cost ("A once-great philosopher" was one insult thrown at him for thinking outside the religious box of Darwinitis). Nagel says that mind cannot come from matter. In the same way that if you don't put cinnamon into the cake at the start you'll never get a cinnamon cake at the end, so you'll never get mind out of evolution unless you start with mind.

From the Christian Scriptures we know that Mind comes from God. Adam and Eve were made different from the animals, in the image of a thinking active, creative God. "In the beginning was the word (Logos, mind, thought)." There is a step difference between man and animal. 

Beware of the "aping of mankind"

Two pincer moments, according to another atheist philosopher, are taking place today, both designed to lessen the infinite gap between animal and human and reduce mankind into a mere ape. The first is done by inflating the abilities of animals and the second by deflating the abilities of humankind. A great example of this pincer movement is seen in the attempted comparisons between human and animal abilities. Ardent evolutionists determined to eradicate the chasm between man and beast are using this clever tactic. They find an activity both animals and humans can do and invent a name for it. This name crosses the human-beast divide linguistically but hides the human-beast divide practically. 

For example, when someone talks about animal “Tool Use,” ask what they mean. They probably mean that the animal has picked up a stick to fish out termites, or picked up a rock to crack open nuts. Very simple stuff - just what we'd expect from a beast. But when we talk about “Tool Use” to describe what humans do, we mean something so much more complicated. Think about a “simple” human tool—a hammer. We have to mine the ground for iron ore, tame fire to smelt the ore, use complicated other tools to forge the metal head into a hammer shape. Then we decide to use wood rather than metal for the handle, because wood is more flexible, and then decide which wood to use. Then we determine how to fix the handle to the head so that it won’t fly off and injure someone (because humans are concerned about safety). 

 

Complex human “Tool Use” simply can’t - and shouldn't - be compared to very simple animal “Tool Use!” 

And the level of complexity required to make a hammer is nothing compared to that needed to make a lathe or a sewing machine! What is true of “Tool Use” is also true of every other animal-to-human comparison (see diagram).

The steady erosion of the high dignity of human beings

As our western culture drifts away from its Christian moorings we will find that human life is diminished and human dignity downplayed. Only Christianity maintains the high dignity of human beings, made in the image of God, to know God, to serve him and to live with him forever.