The Dangers of Accommodation

I remind the reader of the definition of Darwinism given in the 1995 statement by the National Association of Biology Teachers: "The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments." Recall also the words of evolutionary biologist George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." Furthermore, recall how science has come to be associated in the contemporary mind with not just materialism--philosophical as well as methodological--but with reason and rationality.

In what way, then, can biblical Christianity and Darwinism (materialistic naturalism applied to biology) coexist? The philosophical underpinnings of naturalism insist that only science may speak about objective reality and that faith is commensurate with irrationality or at best personal subjective opinion or preference. In this culture, peace is afforded only on the materialist's terms--we can paper over the differences so long as theists agree with the superficial reassurances of the science educators: "All the scientists are saying is that all living things are related and that a certain amount of natural variation occurs in nature." But that is not "all" the scientists are saying and it is dishonest to perpetuate this superficiality.

If theists don't confront and expose the truth about Darwinism and warn one another about the quicksand of naturalism at its core we will succumb to the cultural naturalism that surrounds us and threatens to engulf our children. If they are unprepared to deal with this mindset they may abandon the biblical faith, relegating God to the periphery or the private sphere of life if they retain him at all.

Naturalism is widespread throughout the various categories of human thought. It applies equally well to the humanities and to the social sciences especially. It is rampant in popular culture and entertainment, the sphere from which so many people take their ideas today. The idea of objective truth does not survive the "death" of God, hence the widespread acceptance of relativism, multiculturalism, and many other features of postmodern thought. Because we do not live in isolation from the world we cannnot retreat behind walls or moats.