I was listening to a talk by Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box and other good reads. He is a Lehigh University biochemist who believes in intelligent design. In his talk, he referenced a quotation by Franklin Harold, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Colorado State University. Harold is not a Christian, so I find his quotation especially interesting. Here it is:

“We should reject as a matter of principle the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity. But we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”

Notice what he said. He says there’s a principle (which he doesn’t explain) that requires good scientists to reject outright intelligent design in the discussion of the origins of life on earth and then its evolution. I’ve got to believe this is an example of scientism, as opposed to science. The old idea was for scientists to find truth, no matter where it might be. But today many scientists like Harold subscribe to the idea that all answers must be found in the natural world–no divine possibilities are allowed. They have required that all science be governed by naturalism, that there is nothing outside this universe. That’s a philosophical idea pretending to be scientific.

The other part of the quotation is interesting too. He admits that things don’t look good for those trying to discover natural causes for the origin of life and its later evolution. He says it’s all “wishful speculations” for now. This is one of the biggest problems for evolutionists today–they have no idea how life got started or how it changed into different, more complicated species. As one person said, “Evolutionists can talk about the survival of the species but not the arrival of the species.”

So the next time we hear a person say with great authority that evolution is a fact, we might want to think about what Harold said.

This is a continuation of several blog posts having to do with the existence of real truth.  Our society today is mired in relativism, which states that you may be able to find truth in other areas like science, just not in morality or religion. Previous blog posts have dealt with various aspects of this – how we got such an increase in relativism, problems with relativism, and challenges offered by relativists.

This time I’d like to explore how we can find truths in morality and religion. For one thing, we can use intuition. No experience is necessary, it’s simply a truth that’s obvious upon consideration, and it’s the way we start knowing everything. For example, in the Declaration of Independence the authors say they hold certain truths to be self-evident. They did not feel it was necessary to explain why this was the case; it was a truth that was obvious to everyone upon consideration. We all have moral common sense and recognize, for example, that since humans are valuable, we ought not take their lives without proper justification. Anyone who denies obvious moral rules doesn’t just have a different moral point of view; he or she has something wrong on the inside.

What other ways can we use to begin to find truths in morality and religion? One way is the use of logic. For example, there is a law of non-contradiction. In the area of religion, we might get people to see that Jesus either is or is not God. There’s no middle ground, there’s no fuzzy waffling, there is no way to bridge these two points. So much for the idea that all religions are truthful. Somebody is right and somebody is wrong regarding Jesus.

Another way we can begin to find truths is factual evidence. Some people may scratch their heads at the idea that there is factual evidence for religions, but there is. Consider manuscript evidence. Christianity is far ahead of other ancient religions in the number of manuscripts available and their closeness to the original events described. Look at the history of ancient religions – Christianity spread by non-violence while others, such as Islam, spread by violence. Look at science as well – Christianity and Judaism reference Old Testament passages which talk about the expansion of the universe while Eastern religions like Hinduism say there was not a beginning or an expansion to the universe. Then there’s archaeology – compare Christian evidences with Mormon teachings. There is so much more archaeological evidence for the accuracy of Christianity.

There are other ways we can begin to find truths in morality and religion, but I will save those for a future blog post.

This is a continuation of my thoughts on relativism. See past blog posts for further points.

This time I’d like to look at a fall-back position of some relativists. They say we can get all truths from science, and we should be suspicious of truths from any other source.

But is science the only place we can get truths? Absolutely not. We can know much without science. Consider the Declaration of Independence, in which the famous lines ring out: “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .” What are these people saying? That some truths do not need proving, that some truths do not need scientific evidence of their rightness. We have intuitions, moral leanings, emotions, laws of logic–these all exist outside the realm of science.

In addition, science has no answers for the most important questions of life–where did we come from? why are we here? what gives value to life? how should we treat each other? what happens when we die?

Next time, let’s talk about how we can go about finding truths in morality and religion–a tough challenge in today’s society.