Made in His Image, part 8

The Naturalistic Alternative

I hope up to this point I hope I’ve encouraged you to embrace the biblical teaching that God is always good and whatever He does is good. In fact, it’s because of His goodness and the standard He gives in His Word that we have a basis on which to declare right from wrong.

And it’s because He created two “very good” people in the beginning that we can say “This is how it should be,” “This is what God originally intended life to look like.”

I understand that it may be tempting to doubt God and His goodness when we’re put in situations like this. To return to the question I’ve been asking throughout this presentation:

“This is a problem I have wondered about—how physically imperfect newborns can be admired as "the handiwork of God," because it casts such doubt on God.”

Does disability really cast doubt on God? Should it? When we wonder about God’s goodness in these situations, we’re defining what is “good” on our terms, not God’s. Remember, God’s ways are much better and higher than ours. We need to be careful about bringing Him down to our level and defining what is “good” based on how we feel or see the world.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8, NKJV)

We need to allow God to be sovereign and good and to work all things according to the counsel of His will—within this cursed, fallen world that we’ve brought upon ourselves.

Randy Alcorn points out in his book, If God Is Good, that our definition of goodness is nothing compared to God’s.

“We argue against God’s goodness in allowing suffering, not because our goodness exceeds God’s, but because it falls so far short of it.” (p 168)

Our youngest son is eleven months old. For whatever reason, he enjoys playing in the trash. He’ll reach his little fingers up and over the lid of the trash can and grab whatever he can. Or, he’ll drop something, on purpose in there. To him, the trash can is “good.” So he’s understandably upset when I tell him no, he may not play in the trash and take his hand away from it. But the reality is that I do know better than he does in this case. I know that the trash can—what he considers good—is filled with all sorts of things that will actually do him harm—raw meat, sharp lids, egg shells . . . . I know that the trash can isn’t what is best for him.

How many times does our definition of what is “good” look like trash in the eyes of the Almighty Sovereign Ruler of the Universe whose very essence is good?

And yet, many skeptics use people with disabilities to mock God. “How can there be a good God in the face of such debilitating disabilities?” they ask.

So, ok, let’s walk down that path for a bit and see what happens when we remove God from the picture.

First, let’s examine the worldview of those skeptics. They deny there is a God and accept that we are the result of molecules-to-man evolutionary processes. According to their worldview, we are simply the result of natural processes that have operated on chemicals over billions of years. So who is to say that the way one set of chemicals combined is any better (or worse) than the way another set of chemicals combined? They have no ultimate standard by which to say that one combination is “good” while another combination is “bad." Therefore, they are unable to consistently hold the Creator accountable for doing something that they deem to be “wrong” since the concept of “wrongness” can’t logically exist in their worldview.

William Provine is an evolutionist and biology professor at Cornell University. He states, “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear . . . .There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life.” (Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.)

Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is an evolutionist and physics professor at the University of Texas. He states, “I think that part of the historical mission of science [and by "science" he means "molecules-to-man evolution" not operational science] has been to teach us that we are not the playthings of supernatural intervention, that we can make our own way in the universe, and that we have to find our own sense of morality.” (Interview with Steven Weinberg (PBS). http://www.counterbalance.net/transcript/wein-frame.html)

If no foundation for ethics exists and if we have to find our own sense of morality, then on what basis can they say that God is “wrong” for creating some with disabilities? These skeptics don’t have a logical basis on which to say, “God cannot be good and allow birth defects at the same time” because they don’t have a logical basis on which to determine what is “good” in the first place.

A second point that I want to make here is this. Within their own worldview, people with birth defects and genetic disorders are considered the “trial and error” of evolutionary processes.

Eugenics

In fact, this is the basis for the eugenics movement. Eugenics is a term coined in 1883 by Francis Galton, who was a cousin of Charles Darwin, the man who gave us the basis for the modern-day idea of molecules-to-man evolution. “Eugenics” refers to “good in birth” or “well born.” This was a movement in the early 1900s that sought to rid the human race of the undesirables—such as those with mental and physical handicaps—by preventing those deemed “unfit” from having children.

Dr. Purdom gives a presentation and has written a chapter for the New Answers Book 3 on this topic so I won’t go into too much detail but I do want to offer a few thoughts.

One of the most well-known proponents of eugenics was Adolf Hitler. He went further than sterilizing those with disabilities, however. The Nazis actively killed those considered to be “genetically inferior.”

We recoil in horror at what has been done to those with disabilities in the past, but getting rid of those deemed “less than” the general population is the logical extension of an atheistic, evolutionary worldview. So why would those who hold to this worldview use genetic disorders and disabilities to argue against a good God? Why would they bother to be concerned about people with genetic disorders if they’re simply a bump in the evolutionary road which evolutionary processes will eventually work out?

The concern of the skeptics about those with disabilities is inconsistent with their worldview.

And when we doubt the goodness of God or deny His sovereignty over His creation, this is the path we begin to travel down. Is that really a place we want to be?

 
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11