This Needs No Explanation

This is my family....  Please watch, and pray with me for them.

Policy Debates in the American Media

Nothing has driven home to me the reality that the news media in America is liberally biased more than this video from the Piers Morgan show.  Notice first that, though Ryan Anderson has been invited to speak on the show, he has been seated in the audience, instead of onstage.  Second, notice the fact that Piers Morgan and Suze Orman essentially tag-team throughout the show, using unprofessional language and hollow arguments, switching topics, and finally polling a very specific niche of people (the live studio audience) in order to determine what the American public at large believes.


How can anyone hold an honest discussion in such a circumstance?  I am very far from shy about expressing my views in debates and discussions on anything from gun control to welfare to homosexual marriage--in fact, I am often too vocal about my views--but when the general attitude of the modern American media is disdain and disgust for my perspective, I would hesitate to place myself in a position to be ridiculed, especially when doing so would accomplish absolutely nothing.

To Suze Orman, I would say this: do not call someone ignorant when you yourself do not know the facts.  Ryan T. Anderson, according to his bio on the Heritage Foundation website, "received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude.  He is a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he received his master's degree.  His research spans the natural law tradition in conversation with classical and contemporary liberalism."  This man clearly has a very good idea what he is saying, and is not uninformed.  His ideals do not come from assumptions and presuppositions, but from very careful study, and I assure you that his traditional view of marriage was more than tested during his time at Princeton.

To Piers Morgan, I would say this: you call yourself a journalist and newsman.  Whatever happened to reporting without bias?  You have two guests on your show: whatever your personal beliefs, please do not bash one while helping the other.  We all know you are a liberal, both politically and socially, but you do not need to step in and interfere in a discussion between two educated and successful Americans.  I know this is the way talk shows tend to work today (believe me, I wish Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity would also stay out of discussions between their guests), but I would be able to better respect you if you were man enough to rise above the norm and pretend for a few minutes to be unbiased.

Additionally, Mr. Morgan, I would advise you to be very careful.  According to Gallup polls, it was only in 2011 that the percentage of Americans who oppose gay marriage first dropped below 50%.  Over the past three years, 45-48% of Americans oppose gay marriage.  In your summarizing statement in this video, though you may have intended only to insult Mr. Anderson by calling him un-American, you insulted nearly half the population of the United States.  In other words, you just said that over one hundred forty-one million American citizens, most of whom love their country and desire only its future prosperity, do not deserve to be called Americans.

I am one of those Americans, and although I am willing to say it in person or over the internet, I recognize the trend in the American news.  It is time to acknowledge the truth: free speech, though legally protected, is no longer culturally tolerated.  Honest discussions on equal footing do not exist anymore, and those who disagree with the media are in for a rough ride.  Reporters and journalists can no longer be relied upon to do anything other than push the agendas of highly specialized classes.

As for politics?  Constitutionality does not matter anymore.  Newsmen obviously no longer care whether or not the national government can legally do something.  They want what will give them the greatest benefits, and hang the Constitution!  These are the beliefs that are being pumped into millions of homes across America, being displayed in televisions in restaurants and hotels throughout this land, and being fed into the minds of our fellow citizens.  We are not being taught to think rationally or morally.  Instead, we are being taught to fight for our "right" to comfort and ease; any of the 870,000,000 people who do not have enough to eat could tell us that this so-called right is a myth, yet we are being told, day-in and day-out, to look out for number one.

Anyone else think it might be time to unplug the cable?

Worth Mimicking

A long time ago, long before you or I were either born, before our families were around, even before any of the countries our families came from were around, God created a masterpiece. But this wasn’t one of those masterpieces that was just set out there for generations to appreciate, one of those creations that people are like, “Oh, wow, that guy was really something, wasn’t he? Wish he were still around: there are a few questions I’d ask him if he were.”

No, this is a masterpiece that continues to, well, continue. It grows, adapting to the times, forming itself around new cultural phenomena, integrating itself into any environment, responding to any need that should arise. It’s like a book that writes its own sequels, film adaptations, soundtracks… And it can do this because it’s not just one story, but many; it’s not only about one person, or even about several. It’s about everybody: every individual who has ever lived, every culture those individuals have lived in, every civilization in which those cultures have been present, every history those civilizations have helped to form.

You see, in the beginning, God did what no one else can do: He had original thought. And what He came up with was, indeed, miraculous. Because He invented something that was like Himself, but was still different. Made in His image, yet still its own individual. What kind of genius must He be, to come up with the creature who has come up with all of the so-called “progress” we see today? I would like to propose that the greatest asset of mankind, the thing that truly lends us God’s image—because it can’t be appearance or personality except in a very general sense, because God has created each and every person individually, and none of us are exactly the same—is our ability to create.

God gave us His own aptitude for dreaming, for designing, for building, for repairing, for improving. That is built into us in the same way that our hair colour or our height or our intelligence is built into us. I have it, you have it, our friends, our families, each and every person has that divine spark of genius, captured inside a physical frame. We can create! And that is beautiful.

If that is true, though, why can’t I go out one day and design a skyscraper? Why can’t you sit down for a few hours and type up a novel? Did the Master Creator build a flaw into our hardware? The answer is both yes and no. Of course, God didn’t make us wrong, because He’s perfect, and so His creation was perfect at the time of its completion. But when God set out to design a creature to rule over the earth He was building, He didn’t just want robotic caretakers to herd sheep for Him. No, God wanted something, someone who would please Him through its very life. And so He added just a little bit of spice to the plans: a tiny tweak in the design, hardly a huge change at all. And yet free will made us who we are today.

Now, don’t panic—I’m not going to cover such a heavy and controversial topic today. If theologians have wrestled with the subject of free will versus predestination for centuries, probably millennia, who am I to tackle it when I’m not even out of high school? But I do want you to understand that the course of human history has proceeded the way it has because, in some capacity, God instilled in us the ability, and desire, to make choices. We were not created to totally run our own lives, for we still need a Sovereign in our lives, but we were built to be somewhat independent. Every parent can understand this: who wants to watch his kid every moment of every day to make sure they do everything right? No one! And that’s why you train and instruct, preparing your children for the day when they can have more independence. God gave us the ability to make our own decisions because He genuinely wants to have a relationship with us, and that doesn’t mean pulling puppet strings all the time. When I was younger, I gave each of my stuffed animals different personalities. I’d talk to them, and they’d reply; but the only problem was that I was the one replying. True, I could imagine that they were answering, but the words that came out of their mouths were my words, and not theirs. And that’s why, as I got older, the toys went into the box and I sought out real people, who would give me real answers: original ones that they actually thought up.

And so God made the fateful decision to give us free will, knowing full well, I believe, the consequences of that decision. Looking forward and seeing the pain that our choices would cause Him, He still chose to give us free will, why? Because He already knew who every one of us would be, and He loved us and wanted to be in a relationship with us.

So here was this masterpiece called man, living in the garden with this masterpiece called woman. Both of them were perfect, flawless, able to talk with God and with each other, able to invent names for these funny, wacky things God had made: things like the platypus, the giraffe, the bumblebee. And God saw that they were very good. He was proud of His creations! And I believe He was glad to have that time in the garden with them. He saw what was going to happen, but I’m sure He enjoyed the time with the man and the woman while He had it.

I don’t know how long that first chapter of humanity lasted, when everything in the design was working perfectly: the Bible gives no indicator of time, it just launches straight into the tragedy. At this point in the story, a new character is introduced. Universally viewed as the villain of the story (and rightfully so), the serpent was more crafty than any other. But we mustn’t say, “Oh no, poor Adam and Eve! They were deceived!” That is not what happened. The man and the woman were aware of the rule, aware of the requirements set before them. And what easy requirements! Don’t eat this fruit. I mean, come on! But God had put that free will in them, and they decided they wanted that fruit anyway. Notice I said that they decided to want the fruit; they didn’t just want the fruit, they chose to want it. Genesis 3:6 says, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” The woman looked at the fruit and decided that it was something she wanted. Certainly, the serpent’s speech was the impetus for that decision, but the choice was still on her shoulders. She took the fruit and ate it. And what of the man? For him, the blame is doubled. First, he was with her when she took the fruit, and decided to say nothing. That’s choice number one. Second, she gave the fruit to him, and he decided to eat it. That’s choice number two. Together, they made three wrong decisions in a span of about one minute, maybe a bit longer.

Well, you know the rest of that chapter of our history: God comes, there’s lots of finger-pointing (again, poor decisions), and they face the consequences for their decisions. But there were a few things that happened in the background, even before the close of Part One. With free will came the capacity to choose evil. When they chose to eat the fruit, they chose evil for the first time, and immediately that capacity to choose evil shot up about seventeen thousand points, which is why we feel the effects of sin today: we were born with an incredibly high capacity for wrong decisions. That’s the first thing that happened.

The second thing that happened—and this is the one I want to focus on—is that the creative capabilities of the human being were broken. This is a result of the fruit’s effects. Before we possessed the knowledge of good and evil, there was just life. When the only evil we could commit was to learn the difference between good and evil, we could not sin, and so we lived in complete innocence. Everything we created was pure and holy, blameless in God’s eyes, and thus perfect. But once we learned the difference between good and evil, those days were over. When you know about evil, it is impossible to create something that does not reflect that, if only in a miniscule way. And that, God cannot abide.

But knowledge of evil is not the only way in which our creative capabilities were broken. The innocence of what we created was lost, but so was the originality. If you look out there, at the world around us, what is it we have created? Shades and echoes, moving mirrors, reflections of things that are not ours. Our entire world is plagiarized! We have vehicles that are our attempts to create something that can travel, but none of them can move half as well as any of the creatures God crafted. We have buildings that are our attempts to create homes, but can even one of them compete with the garden God made for our original home? We have artificial lights and artificial plants, artificial turf, artificial animals, even artificial bodies, and not one of them can compare with the real thing.

Even our entertainment is pitiful. Look at any book, any play, any movie. What are the common themes? Hmm… Sacrifice? God’s plan for our salvation. Maybe love? The reason, painted all over God’s book, that He created us in the first place. How about hate? God states flatly that He hates unrighteousness. All of our visual art is, once again, a reflection of things we see in real life. Music is, perhaps, the only art form mostly free from sin’s corrupting influence. I’m not talking about songs with words, those are all about love, longing, despair, or living life for fun. I mean purely instrumental music: classical, innovative, score. But even those reek of sorrow.

I find it so tragic that, through our own stupidity, we spoiled what is possibly God’s greatest gift to us after Himself. Could you imagine if we lived in a world where every book was a celebration of beauty? What about a world where Hollywood's output included something other than sex, drugs, and violence? Where every songwriter's work didn't praise the depravity of sin?

Now, please do not think that I am so pessimistic as to be unable to see the good in our artwork. I believe that there is very real beauty and joy to be seen, very real pleasure to be had, from art of every kind. But I wanted to first highlight the negative sides of what passes for creativity so that the positive sides can shine out a bit brighter.

Yes, there are delightful times to be had from reading books; I love watching movies just as much as the next person. Music is extraordinarily moving to listen to. We as a general populace have done an incredible job of overcoming some of our own natural destructiveness in order to instead create, or at least mimic. The purpose of this paper is not to applaud humanity, though; neither is it to bash us in some way. I only wish to point out how unbelievable is the grace our God has given us.

Just think about this: how many people exist who have created beautiful artistic expressions, yet are not Christian? In this, God does not discriminate between His children and those who are His enemies. He allows even those who most spitefully defy Him to be blessed with the gifts of creativity and imagination. That is beyond belief: how many of us would choose to give those who most hate us one of our most precious possessions? No one.

If you think you don't owe God anything, think again. Even if you don't choose to follow Him, offer up a quick prayer of thanks, right now, for the incredible capacity He has given you to bring beauty into this world. And now do not feel anymore pressure to perform. You will never measure up to a standard of perfection, so relax and enjoy the experience of mimicking your Creator's passion: creation.

Spontaneity? Rather Not...

I just got the urge to blog.  It just sorta hit me out of nowhere.  The only problem with this urge is that I have absolutely no idea what it is I want to blog about.  It seems very silly--a writer who doesn't know what to write--but then again, there is no central theme involved in this blog.  It's not like I've said, "Alright, I'm going to be a blogger on industrial developments in third-world countries."  It isn't even like I've said, "I love flowers, so I'm going to make every blog post focus on a different type of flower."  No, instead I had to go ahead and say, "Hey, let's write about whatever pops into my head!"

Sometimes spontaneity is the enemy of productivity--a lesson I have finally begun to learn from my fiction writing.  In terms of accomplishing something through writing, it never happens without planning.  I can get pretty far just running off spontaneous inspiration, but I dry up after about fifty pages of single-spaced writing.  That isn't a good trait for a writer.  I'm slowly learning to plot and outline before I actually begin writing a project, so that I can prevail to the end of the story.

Here's the thing: life doesn't work if we don't think about it before we live it.  Think of it as a marathon: there are lots of people who can do a sprint, no problem, or even a 5-K, but there's no way on earth any of them could go out and run a marathon without some serious preparation.  It's the same thing with life, because life is a marathon.

In the Bible, God used Paul to make the same point (1 Corinthians 9).  A lot of people use this passage, and other parallel ones, to talk about prevailing and persevering when the going gets tough.  I think that is a wonderful application of this passage, and it has gotten me through a lot of really tough emotional and spiritual situations for me.  I think the error comes when that is the only way people use it, because there are always multiple applications for a verse in the Bible.

God is telling us not just to persevere in life, but also to prepare for life.  I guarantee that you will never regret any actions so much as ones you take without forethought.  That's not to say that spontaneity won't sometimes pay off, even in significant and beautiful ways that change our lives, but those times are the exception rather than the rule.  It is essential to recognize that we should prepare for life in the same way we would prepare for an essential work or school project, for life is the biggest project we've been entrusted with completing.  Think and pray before you make a significant decision about friendships, careers, or education.  In taking the time for this sort of preparation, you'll find yourself with a lot less stress in your day-to-day life.

Conclusion

There are those who believe it is impossible to know the truth.  The irony of such a statement is that they believe that it is true.  Everyone believes in something, and everyone ought to believe that their beliefs are true.  How, then, can we know the truth?  If I disagree with a Marxist but we both think our beliefs are true, who is right?  We cannot know that.  That is not to say that we cannot know the truth: the truth is knowable, it is simply impossible to know which belief system is true.

I believe that one day I will die and will stand before the God Who created me and give an account for all of my actions.  A friend of mine who is an atheist believes that one day he will die and will be dead.  We cannot know which of us is right until we die.  That is the life of faith.  A worldview is nothing more than looking at the world and choosing what makes sense, analyzing the evidence and honestly choosing what seems true, then living your life with the assumption that what you believe is true, is true.

I believe that my beliefs are true.  Do you?

History

There are two different general perspectives in terms of history.  One is a cyclical perspective, in which the same events happen time and again, using new players on a new stage each time around.  Such a perspective is displayed in the Matrix series of movies by the Wachowski brothers.  This view, even as it looks at the past as a repetition, offers no hope for the future, for it simply means that all the same death, destruction, and despair will be repeated infinitely in a great circle that can never be escaped.

Therefore, cyclical historicism must be rejected in favor of a linear view, a view in which history has a definite starting point, from which it moves to a definite ending.  This linear perspective is in line with a biblical worldview, for the Bible itself repeatedly uses phrases such as “in the beginning” and “the end is near.”  Such phrases would not be used did God not desire us to believe in a single story arc that begins with creation and concludes with heaven.  Even within the linear camp, however, there are many different beliefs about man’s purpose and history’s ultimate meaning.  Which one is correct?

Man’s purpose is to be a reflection of God’s nature and a bearer of His glory throughout the world.  It was for this reason that God created us and it is for this reason that we should live our entire lives in a manner that is pleasing to God.  This story of humanity obviously has a past, however.  In a sense, there is a definite elephant in the room: if God intends humanity to display His glory, why do humans do evil?  The answer is that history is not summed up as a straight line connecting creation and heaven.  There were several major events that have occurred and will occur between those two.  Rather than as a single parabola, history should be viewed as moving along the way a stone does when skipped across a pond.  This paper will look at each of the points where the stone that is history touches the water.

History began at the point of creation.  The Bible tells us that God spoke and the earth came into being.  Everything that was and is, spoken from His mouth.  Significantly, the one exception to this is man.  When God created man, He did not speak him into being.  Instead, He shaped him with His hands and breathed life into his lungs.  God was intimately involved in the creation of mankind, which means that He has a special plan for us, one which He reveals in the first chapter of Genesis when He says: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Something went wrong along the way, however.  History flew for a time before it touched the water again, at what is known as the fall.  Humanity was deceived by God’s enemy, the Devil, into rebelling against God and seeking to set themselves in His place.  Because of their rebellion, God banished them from paradise and cursed them to pain, hardship, and death.

From this time forward, humanity was at war with God.  Millennia passed as man constantly fought against God’s rule and sought to overthrow Him in every way imaginable.  God called for Himself a people to represent Him on earth, but like Adam and Eve, they rebelled against Him time and again, serving other gods and violating His commandments.  This went on until the stone once more touched the water, at the most significant moment in human history.  A man, named Jesus Christ, was born to a virgin, named Mary.  But this was no ordinary man, as His miraculous birth testifies.  He was God in human flesh, come to bear for humanity their punishment of death.  He allowed His creation to beat Him, humiliate Him, and publicly execute Him while He took their sins on Himself in order to save them.

This Jesus is not an imaginary figure.  There is not a historian alive, even among those who are not Christians, who truly believe He did not live.  The historical evidence for His life and His death go far beyond Christian teaching into the writings of a number of non-Christian historians of the day.  As for His resurrection from the dead, His followers were willing to die rather than deny their testimony of its truth.  A group of nobodies from nowhere were willing to defy the greatest power of the day—the Roman Empire—rather than turn aside from their claims.  Would fishermen and tax collectors have been willing to die for something they knew was not true?  Absolutely not.  No liar is willing to lay down his life to preserve the life of his lie.  Lies are by their very nature self-serving, and it is not in the nature of a liar to sacrifice for his lie.  Logically, the resurrection of Jesus Christ must be true, or none of his followers would have been willing to die for it.

Because of Jesus’ sacrificial death, human beings was able to be in communion with God for the first time since their fall.  God called to Himself a new people, purified from evil and wholly set apart from the rest of humanity.  In essence, He created an entirely new sort of human to serve and follow Him.

At this point, history is moving toward its fourth and final encounter with the pond’s surface: the return of Jesus Christ and the final judgement of all mankind.  It is at this moment that all evil will be wiped away, that all pain and sorrow ill be erased, and that all happiness will be made everlasting.  Christianity gives history true purpose in acknowledging that yes, there is evil in the world, but that God will destroy it and bring about an everlasting utopia.  This historical perspective is not irrational and unfounded, but is instead based upon historical evidence and logic.  Jesus Christ lived and died.  He was resurrected from the dead.  And the Bible, which is the most historically reliable ancient text in existence, teaches that He will one day return to save the world.  This is the only true view of history.

Economics

Perhaps the single most obvious conflict between worldviews in the United States is centered around economic difference.  The Occupy Wall Street movement, the government bailout of the auto industry, and the continuing increase of welfare programs were all key battlegrounds in the economic civil war currently raging in the United States.  There are two sides in this war: those who advocate greater government control over economics, and those who advocate less.

In order to properly address this conflict, one must look at the consequences each perspective has in the real world.  Government control over economics is an example of the state stepping outside the areas in which it has authority.  As in all such cases, such control has significant negative consequences.  Government control typically takes the form of higher taxation and more regulation over business.

What does higher taxation do?  In the long run, it stagnates the economy.  Taxes take many forms, but the primary ones are income tax and sales tax.  Income tax takes money out of people’s hands by preventing it from ever arriving there in the first place.  Consider this rudimentary example: suppose a nation has an income tax of five percent.  John is paid forty thousand dollars a year.  However, because of the income tax, his income is only thirty-eight thousand dollars a year.  Suppose that now the nation’s government raises the income tax to ten percent.  Though John is still being paid the same amount, his income has now gone down to thirty-six thousand dollars a year.  Imagine another scenario: this nation’s sales tax is five percent.  John wants to buy a television.  He does not need it, but his family would enjoy watching movies and TV shows on it, so he decides to purchase it.  The television he looks at costs eight hundred dollars.  Because of the sales tax, however, he has to pay eight hundred forty dollars for the television, which is not a terrible price increase.  However, the nation’s government raises the sales tax to fifteen percent.  Now the same television John wanted to buy, though it has the same price, will cost him nine hundred twenty dollars.  Given his recent decrease in income, John decides that he cannot afford to purchase the television at this new price.

What happened in this scenario?  The government’s increased taxation of John caused him to rethink his purchase of his television.  This is not a tragedy for John and his family, but the effects of this decision are felt throughout the economy, because John is not the only worker in the world.  For every John, there are thousands of Petes, Sams, Erics, and Mikes who have been placed in the exact same situation.  When all of them decide not to buy the new television because they cannot afford it, what happens to the television company?  It just lost thousands of purchases.  Suppose just a thousand people decide not to purchase the eight hundred-dollar television they would have bought.  The television company just lost eight hundred thousand dollars.  It cannot afford to pay as many workers as it currently has now that it has lost such revenue, so it closes a factory to cut costs.  The income of the workers at this factory suddenly went down to zero, which keeps them from purchasing other products they would have otherwise purchased.  This loss of purchases impacts other companies, which impacts other workers, which impacts other companies, and so on.  Government interference in the economy through raising taxes has caused problems for that economy that would not have been present had the government never interfered.

What does regulation of businesses do?  In the long run, it raises unemployment.  A prime example is the set of regulations that controls how and where a company can build a plant.  Suppose Arti-Organs International wants to build a plant for producing synthetic twelve-foot pipes for one of its most popular products.  They find the perfect location outside an American city and make plans to begin building.  This city has an unemployed population of twelve thousand, and the plant would bring five hundred new jobs to the area.  However, because of the zoning laws, the company would have had to pay significant fees and go through several layers of regulations and red tape before being approved to open this plant.  Therefore, they decide to move the plant outside the country and build it in India, where there are exponentially fewer regulations and employees are a fraction of the price.

What happened in this scenario?  Because of the government’s regulations on building their plant, Arti-Organs International moved the country to India.  Their plant created five hundred new jobs in that country, helping its economy.  However, five hundred American workers remained unemployed when they would have gotten jobs had the plant been built.  As in the previous scenario, the lack of income they continue to experience prevents them from purchasing products, which impacts other companies, impacting other workers.  Government interference in the economy through regulation of business has cause problems for that economy that would not have been present had the government never interfered.

Clearly, government interference in the economy does far more harm than good.  What is the proper solution to this?  It is simple: keep government out of business.  Free-market economies do far better than socialist ones.  During the Cold War, the United States won the arms race against the USSR precisely because it had a free-market economy versus Russia’s communist economy.  While the United States had the wealth to pursue greater militarization, the USSR’s economy had been bankrupted by corrupt government officials and failed Marxist economic ideas.  Their economy collapsed, prompting Mikhail Gorbachev to pursue his policy of glasnost, which was a significant factor in the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

Government regulation over the economy produces wealth for no one except government officials.  When bureaucrats and politicians control the wealth of a nation, the wealth disappears from the hands of the citizenry.  Though socialists dream of equalizing pay and producing greater wealth for all people, socialism produces the opposite effect: a tiny minority of the population becomes absurdly wealthy while the rest of the nation is plunged into abject poverty.  The only solution for government control is less government control.  The only solution to regulation is freedom.  The only way to produce prosperity is to allow private individuals to exercise their God-given right to personal property and allow corporations to produce jobs and wealth by practicing good business.

Politics

The state is one of the three aspects of the ideal society.  It possesses several key responsibilities that coincide with specific attributes and rights of human beings.  These responsibilities are to dispense justice, to protect freedom, and to maintain order.  Members of a society are expected to respect and obey the state only as long as it stays within the bounds of its responsibility; since the state has no authority outside the three realms of its responsibility, the society’s members are not required to obey it should it step outside those realms.  On the contrary, they are required to not obey it in order to prevent it from attempting to expand its influence, as is so often the case today.

The state’s responsibility to dispense justice corresponds to man’s fallen nature.  Justice is protecting the innocent from those who would seek to harm them.  This is necessary because, since man is fallen, there is evil present in the world.  In practice, criminals exist who would run rampant did the state not have the authority to punish them from their wrongdoing.  Laws against murder are just because they do no harm to the innocent (someone who did not murder anyone does not need to fear the punishment of the state) while giving the state the power to punish murderers.

The state’s responsibility to protect freedom corresponds to man’s inherent freedom.  When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them free will, not so that they could abuse it, but so that they could use it within the context of what was right in order to bring Him glory.  The same free will exists within each of their descendants: every human being has the right to make his own choices regarding what he will do with his life so long as those choices do not violate others’ safety or freedom.  This is the reason that, though cutting, anorexia, and bulimia do significant damage to the individual, they are not illegal: the person who cuts himself is not actively endangering or damaging another’s person or property and is therefore not prevented from doing so in recognition of his free will.  Not only does the state have the responsibility to not violate individuals’ freedom, but it also has the responsibility to prevent others from violating their freedom.  Anti-slavery laws are a prime example: enslaving someone and forcing him to do your will is illegal because it prevents the one you are enslaving from making his own decisions and pursuing his own future.  The state has the authority to punish slavery because it is required to protect individual freedom.

Finally, the state’s responsibility to maintain order reflects the order that is built into the world.  God did not design mankind to live in disorder.  Rather, He gave humanity the mandate to “fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28)  What are we to subdue if not the disorder inherent in untamed areas?  There is no such thing as a park or a garden where humanity does not exist.  Certainly, God designed the world in an orderly fashion—gravity, the seasons, and the water cycle are only a few examples of this—but it is to mankind He gave the unique opportunity and mandate to bring order into the chaotic realm of nature.  Such responsibility carries over into society.  Terrorists and vandals are notable examples of those who seek to bring disorder into society’s order.  Were it not for the state, humanity would descend into abject chaos. 

In conclusion, it is for these three reasons that the state exists: to dispense justice, preserve freedom, and maintain order.  In anarchy—the absence of the state—there is no safety, no freedom, and no order.  It is therefore evident that the state must exist for peace to be preserved.  Since the state was established by God to fulfill three specific responsibilities, members of society are required to submit to the state within the realms inherent to those responsibilities.  Unfortunately, since the state is made up of fallen and sinful humans, it has the inescapable tendency to seek to expand its power.  If society’s members cooperate with the state’s quest for greater power, they will soon find themselves under a totalitarian rule that upsets the balance in the culture and itself begins to work against the virtues it is supposed to protect: spreading injustice, creating slaves, and breeding disorder.  It is the individual’s responsibility to follow the state where it has authority and to disobey the state where it does not.  In doing so, the state will be enabled to follow its God-given mandate and preserve general tranquility.

Law

From an early age, children are taught that there are rules of what they may or may not do.  As they age, they learn to drive and discover that there are laws of what they may or may not do on the road.  When they become adults, the full weight of the law settles on their shoulders: a complex system of dos and don’ts that seem designed more to bewilder than anything else.  It is natural to sometimes question the rationale behind these rules and regulations, wondering what benefit can possibly be derived from something that seems plainly foolish.

Welcome to the discipline of law, one that is integral to daily life; however, it need not be as bewildering as common legal practice suggests.  This manifesto is not an exposition of laws themselves; rather, it is an outline of the foundation upon which a legal system should be based.  The goal of this paper is to first explain conflicting views on the law and then explain why one particular view is preferable.

Many people today believe in what is called legal positivism.  This is the belief that the foundation for the law is found in the state.  This is, in fact, a logical conclusion: since the state is the aspect of society responsible for making laws, it makes sense that it would be the source of authority from which the law is derived.  However, there is a fatal flaw involved in legal positivism: if the state is the source of the law, how permanent is the law?  In the United States, the government is constantly changing hands between political parties, transferring its allegiance from liberal to conservative and back again.  These sides have very different beliefs and agendas; therefore, what power gives the law general authority?  If the law is based upon the state, and the state changes its views every so often, what is to keep the law from changing just as often?  If such is the case and the laws in place this year may easily be replaced next year, why follow these laws when they will soon be obsolete?  Why waste time obeying a standard that has no foundation apart from political whim?

The main issue with this perspective is that it comes from an erroneous foundation.  People who embrace legal positivism also nearly always embrace atheism and some form of evolution.  Since they do not believe in any sort of deity, there can be no foundation for law outside of this universe.  Since evolution calls humanity the pinnacle of evolution, humanity is the only viable source from which the law can emanate.  However, humans are fatally flawed.  Take a look at the two world wars.  Millions of soldiers were killed in those wars without any side truly benefiting as a result.  Look at the slavery that existed, and still exists, across the world.  Do individuals who would chain and demean others of their own species seem responsible enough to create their own system of law?  Hardly.

Since humanity is not a viable foundation for the law, there must be another foundation.  The only other rational source of the law is God.  One cannot look to animals or to trees for legal systems: one would end up with a system mandating either killing and eating other humans indiscriminately or remaining stationary for life and attempting to grow as tall as possible.  Law must have an intelligent origin: if humans are not an option, God is the only choice.

If God is the source of law, how does He reveal it to humanity?  There are two channels He uses: the natural and the divine.  Natural law is that which is apparent in the structure of the world.  Everyone knows that killing is wrong.  It is easy to look at the world and argue that not everyone knows this, but such is not the case.  Cultures that embrace honor killings, for instance, still have to find a way to justify it.  No one says, “I am going to kill you because I want to.”  Instead, they say, “I am going to kill you because you dishonored your family,” “I am going to kill you because my honor dictates I revenge myself on my friend,” or some such rationalization.  All humans who do not have some sort of mental disorder know that killing at its core is wrong.  So it is with stealing.  “Mine!” is one of the first words a baby will scream at its sibling or its parent.  The concept of personal possession is deeply ingrained in the human psyche: it is not taught or learned, it is programmed into the very nature of who we are.  Having what is yours taken from you is a violation of your ingrained awareness of personal property and naturally results in indignation and, in some cases, fury.

However, natural law is not enough to govern daily life.  It is for this reason that God also utilizes divine law, which is the sum of His explicitly revealed mandates for behaviour as laid forth in His Word, the Bible.  It is this set of mandates to which lawmakers should look in order to determine how to specifically address certain situations.  In fact, the phrase “lawmaker” is inherently incorrect, as humans should in no way be making laws.  Rather, members of the state should be known as students of the law: people who read God’s divine law and apply it to daily life.

The most important fact to be aware of in this system, however, is that it relies on the students of the law being impartial: they cannot favor one person or group of people over another, or the legal system God has implemented will not function.  It is only when those who apply God’s law to the world look at the situation without personal motive or preference that this legal system will properly function.

In conclusion, law is derived from God’s nature and takes two forms: natural law is revealed in the world and is instinctively known by all humans, while divine law is revealed in God’s Word and must be applied impartially to specific instances by people who dedicate their lives to understanding the mandates of God.  It is this system that functions most ideally in the world in which we live.

Sociology

Perhaps one of the most key disciplines in a worldview is the discipline of sociology: that is, the study of human society.  There are several reasons for this, the primary one being its universality.  All human beings live in a society of some form or another, and the worldviews they hold will determine the form those societies take.  Since society is impacted by, and has an impact on every person, it is essential to form a well-developed view on sociology.

What is society?  Society is a group of individuals who live together in a community.  Thus, society has many different spheres: your family is a society, as is your neighborhood, your city, your state, and your nation.  In Europe, society can also be extended to most of the continent, since the nations have such frequent contact with each other.  Since the term “society” suggests a certain common ground of shared perspectives, it is too far a stretch to say that a man in New York and a woman in Beijing are in a society, since there are many cultural, political, and religious differences between the two.  Society, then, is simply the collective whole of a group of human beings who are living in general cultural similarity and close geographic or political proximity.  Thus, while California is significantly separated geographically from Florida, the political ties between the two (namely, they are both in the United States), coupled with their cultural connections, place them in the same society.

Perhaps the most important concept in sociology is that while society does influence individuals, the latter influence society itself just as strongly.  It is essential to understand that the form which society takes is directly decided by the ideas—you could say the worldviews—of its individual members.  This is the reason behind “culture shock,” which is when a person travels to another country and feels lost because this new country is so different from his own.  Another term that could just as correctly be used is “societal shock.”  This is because culture is merely another phrase for society.  They have different emphases, but the two are largely the same.  Culture refers to the perspectives and ways of living formed by a society and handed down to successive generations.  Thus, society is defined by its culture.  One begins to see the connection: society is defined by the views of its members; society is also defined by its culture; therefore, it is not unreasonable to say that the ideas of individuals form what is commonly known as culture.

No one living in this modern age of constant technological advances and international connectivity can live with the belief that all humans live the same way.  In the United States, one constantly hears about the plights of citizens in third-world countries: the very phrase suggests that those countries operate on a separate plane from first-world countries like the United States and Great Britain.  Nothing today more clearly demonstrates this fact than the stark contrast between Western and Islamic nations.  The differences between the values espoused by Islam and those cherished by Westerners are so great that they have given rise to multiple terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists against nations across North America and Europe, leading to the War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern nations.  Clearly, the cultures in Islamic societies versus Western societies are different enough to cause armed conflict.  This means that the views held by individuals in those two areas are alien to one another.

Most societies around the world can be pictured as a trident.  The haft represents the culture itself: an all-encompassing perspective on the world.  However, a closer look at society reveals that the culture actually has three prongs; typically, one represents society’s social aspect, one represents society’s religious aspect, and one represents society’s political aspect.  The fusing of these three prongs is what creates a strong and vibrant culture, which gives rise to a stable society (stable in the sense that it does not dissolve into chaos).  As this paper is being written from the bounds of a Western society, it is appropriate to explain how this society fits into the three-prong model.

Western society can also fairly accurately be called post-Christian society.  The influence Christianity has had on Western culture throughout the centuries cannot be ignored: values such as the right to life, women’s rights, and racial integration would not be present had not Christianity infused them into their culture (which, incidentally, is an example of individuals influencing society).  Therefore, while Western society has deviated significantly from its Christian roots, those roots are undeniable, and using the term post-Christian to describe it acknowledges this fact.  What is the basic form this culture takes?  The social aspect is centered around the family: one man and one woman, married to each other and raising their children in their home.  While this is the basic model for the family, several variations have emerged through the years.  Most significant are the emergence of cohabitation, divorce, and public education.  With these developments, the family has largely been stripped of its influence as parents move into and out of their children’s lives, and children are transferred into society to be raised by adults foreign to the home.  The religious aspect is centered around the church.  While this slot was once almost exclusively filled by the Christian church, such is no longer the case.  Certainly, the majority of Americans call themselves Christians, but church attendance is sporadic at best, and the rise of religions like Islam and Humanism belie those who claim Christianity’s influence today is as strong as it once was.  Finally, the political aspect is centered around the state.  In America, this state has limited constitutional responsibility and power; however, recent legislation and political movements reveal either an ignorance for these limits or a blatant defiance of the constitutional definition of the government’s authority.  Such moves have resulted in the Western state gaining increased power and influence.  In conclusion, Western society is defined by the three prongs of the family, the church, and the state.  However, the family and the church are rapidly becoming subservient to the state; this is not necessarily happening because the state is grabbing power (although some such grabbing is undeniably occurring), but rather because the family and the church are becoming atrophied and losing their influence on people’s lives.

Western society, though many people live in and cherish it, is not the ideal society.  Certainly, it is the best alternative available today, but it can definitely be improved upon.  The ideal society comes from a proper understanding of God’s nature, man’s relationship to God, and man’s responsibility in life.  The Christian model of the family, the state, and the church is a good foundation for society because it recognizes man’s fallen nature, raises him in light of this reality, governs him firmly to prevent his sin from harming others, and finally points him toward reconciliation with God.

In this view, the family is defined as a married couple whose responsibility it is to raise their children in their own home and lead them, gently but firmly, in the proper path.  Since marriage is defined as one man and one woman joining together for the rest of their lives, this family unit is a strong building block for society, with both the father and the mother working together to raise their children to become productive and prosperous adults.

The state is defined in terms of its primary role, which is to dispense justice.  Since justice is protecting the innocent from the wicked, the state has a far more limited role in the ideal society than it does in Western society.

Finally, the church is defined as the primary communicator of God’s nature and desire for His creation.  As such, it plays an incredibly important role in society.  Since it is responsible for preserving and dispensing proper instruction concerning God, it is both the most powerful of the three aspects of society and the most accountable to God.  Since all humans will be judged by God at the end of their lives, those who make up the church will have to answer to God for the way they fulfilled their duties.  If they lead astray those who are relying on them for accurate spiritual guidance, they will be severely punished by God at the final judgement.  (For biblical support of this concept, see Jeremiah 23:1-2.)

In conclusion, the ideal society follows the trident model of family, state, and church.  While each aspect of society has specific realms of authority and responsibility, certain aspects have greater or smaller realms than do others.  The state has the least authority of the three, existing solely to protect the members of the society.  The family has greater authority than the state; as its purpose is to provide foundational instruction both intellectually and spiritually, it has the great responsibility of shaping children into virtuous members of society.  The church has greater authority than either the family or the state; since it shepherds not only children and adolescents but also grown adults in the way of God, it must be given the respect it deserves for both its commitment to the truth and its accountability before God.  It is only when society follows this model that it will properly function in the way God desires it to.

Psychology

Most people in today’s world look at psychology through a monistic worldview.  What this means is that they answer the fundamental psychological question via monism.  To understand monism—and the competing view of dualism—we must first further examine the fundamental question of psychology: that is, what is human nature?  In other words, is human consciousness a natural phenomenon, or is it a supernatural one?

As previously stated, the commonly accepted view is monism.  Monism states that the human consciousness is nothing more than an epiphenomenon, or a mere byproduct of a certain set of circumstances.  When monists say the human consciousness is an epiphenomenon, they mean that it is a byproduct of the physical brain.  Thus, the real definition of monism: there is one single, natural reality in the world.  This has given rise to psychological monism, or the belief that mind and matter are one and the same.

When someone says that the human mind is tied solely to the physical human brain, he is really saying that personality, memory, identity, and ultimately all self-awareness are tied directly to the physical brain.  However, there is a problem with this view, and it is actually quite a significant one.  This problem is that the human brain is constantly changing.  According to developers, the physical structure of a human’s brain continues developing well into his twenties.  Yet even past that, its structure is constantly changing throughout the course of his life.

Can you see already the issue with psychological monism?  If personality is tied to the physical brain, everyone’s personality is constantly changing.  This is not the sort of change like taste in music, however, but is instead a significant and radical transformation: the sort that, if it were observed by an expert, would more than likely be labeled mental instability.  Imagine the chaos in your personal life if every member of your family were constantly transforming into another kind of individual.  One week, Matt is studious and conscientious, with a very generous and caring attitude.  By the next week, Matt is rebellious and apathetic, with a very self-centered and individualistic attitude.  It is impossible to have a lasting relationship with such a person, because there is no feasible way to form bonds of any sort with him when there is no guarantee he will be the same person the next day.

Additionally, the monistic concept of the mind being nothing more than a side effect of the brain forces the thinking individual to face the reality of memory.  If the human consciousness is truly tied to the human body, there must be a correlation between memory and the brain.  However, though scientists have been searching for this correlation for decades, they have been unable to find anything remotely close.  Even focusing specifically on those sections of the brain they can see as having some sort of relation to memory, they have been unable to find the direct memory-to-cell correspondence necessary to verify the idea of memories being housed in the brain.

However, if that is the case, monism’s entire foundation is pulled away, causing the rest of its perspective to crumble under the weight of reality.  All that is left in such a situation, then, is that fundamental psychological question: what is human nature?  As has already been mentioned briefly, there are two options when discussing this question.  The first, monism, can be seen to lack any real constitution under the pressure of logic.  That leaves one alternative: dualism, or what is more properly known as mind and body dualism.

This belief system holds as one of its fundamental precepts a belief in the supernatural.  However, this is not a blind faith in something unverifiable.  Monism answers the question of human nature by saying the mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain.  Dualism replies instead that the mind and the brain belong to two very different realities.  This is the only logical option, since it has already been demonstrated that they cannot belong in the same category.  The brain is very obviously a part of the body.  Thus, it is part of the physical realm.  If the mind cannot be of the same form as the brain, and the brain is physical, the mind cannot be physical.  What, then, is left apart from the spiritual?

The interesting dimension of this perspective is that it opens up possibilities as relates to the supernatural not available in monism.  Since the mind is part of the spiritual realm, it is possible to discuss human nature in spiritual terms.  From this ability stems the most rational explanation of the presence of evil in the world.

Monists hold to the concept of behaviorism, which is the belief that all human action is simply a product of the individual’s environment.  Behaviorism is basically the idea that every man is nothing more than a cause-and-effect machine: in goes a set circumstance and out comes a set behaviour pattern.  Under behaviorism, the reality of evil is a result of the environment in which the individual lives.  Every man is inherently good: it is from society that evil stems.  However, is society not made up of nothing more than many men?  If every human being is inherently good, and society is made up only of human beings, how is society evil?  This is obviously an irrational thought process that possesses a significant disconnect between concept and reality.

Dualism, on the other hand, allows one to take a standpoint that says: yes, every man is inherently good.  At least, every man was originally intended to be inherently good.  Every man, however, is very obviously not inherently good.  In fact, quite the opposite is true.  What happened?  Man sinned.  The word “sin” came from a Hebrew term used in archery, meaning to miss the target.  It is beyond the scope of this paper to reason on theological concepts of origin and the Deity behind it, but mankind was created by a God with every right to set certain expectations for His creation.  Humanity, however, had plans of its own, and so it high-tailed it away from those expectations.  Unfortunately, it is not exactly intelligent to head in a direction opposed to the plan set out by the omniscient Designer.  Suppose a lighter took it into its head that its purpose was to put out fires, and so at every opportunity it released its fumes on a flame in an attempt to smother it.  The results would be less than exemplary, would they not?

In the same way, humanity’s decision to turn from the One Who made it has resulted in nothing but pain, not only for society as a whole, but for each individual within that society.  This is the explanation for mental issues: the mind is a supernatural phenomenon, made to operate on a plane separate from the one the brain inhabits.  Humans are intuitive beings.  You know the feeling: your relationship with your best friend is strained in some way.  You may not have discussed it with your friend, but you know the issue is there, and it makes you incredibly sad and uncomfortable.  In the same way, your mind, made to operate on a spiritual level, knows it is not in a healthy relationship with its Creator.  Mental illnesses are very real, but they are not physical issues.  They are psychological issues, and they are real because guilt is real.

Problems with any human mind arise only when the individual is not serving the purpose for which he was created.  That is why God had to reforge His relationship with humanity through several drastic measures: the image has become so distorted, the purpose so lost, that the blueprint is nigh unrecognizable.  There is hope, though, because through turning around and accepting the offer of reconciliation with God, we can be freed from the guilt we all hold within us.  The guilt is real, and it makes our minds’ problems real.  Be freed from the guilt, and psychological health will follow.

Biology

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  These words, the first in the Christian Bible, form the basis for any Christian’s beliefs within the area of biology.  While there are disagreements within Christendom over methodology and timeline, all Christians agree that the universe came into being through God’s creative power.  In nearly all non-Christian circles, a rational outlook of logical discourse shuts down as soon as this subject is brought up.  This is because the standard view of Christianity as it relates to science is that it doesn’t.  Most secular experts would agree that religion has no place in science, and that all views promoted by Christians are a matter of subjective irrationality.  But if viewed objectively, the scientific evidence for Christian views is nearly overwhelming.

Teleology is the study of design in nature.  A teleological position postulates that there is an ultimate Designer who had a direct hand in creating the universe, and that this Designer did so in a set, orderly manner that left clear traces and patterns that can be observed without any previous scientific expertise.  Perhaps the most famous teleological argument comes from British philosopher William Paley.  In his watchmaker argument, Paley presented a hypothetical situation.  Suppose a man is walking through the woods and happens upon a watch.  Bending down a picking up the watch, he observes it for only a moment before concluding that someone must have made it.  Now suppose the situation is changed.  Suppose the man observes the watch for several long moments and finally concludes that it must have come about by a strange chance, by wind and water eroding the metals into their intricate shapes over a process of thousands, maybe even millions of years, and that finally, at just the right moment, lightning struck the watch and allowed it to leap into motion.  Any thinking human would call the man in the second situation mad, would he not?  And yet that is exactly what modern secular scientists do.  They peer into the microscope, or fit their eyes to the telescope, and stare at wonders men a hundred years ago would never have imagined in their wildest dreams.  And then they conclude, with a shake of their heads, that it is a remarkable result of an ancient explosion that could bring about such complexities.

But is it possible for a world to exist that was both made by chance and possesses such remarkably cohesive qualities?  Mathematicians today claim that numbers are arbitrary, and that it could just as easily be said that two and two equal nine.  Scientists claim that the physiological components of every species on this planet are merely random products of a mindless evolutionary cycle, and that another planet could just as easily produce life of equal efficiency with an entirely different physiognomy.  But if this is the case, why is it that structures in nature are tied to obviously mathematical principles?  The most efficient method for overlaying structures in a circular pattern follows a specific series of numbers known as the Fibonacci sequence, in which diagonal patterns within a circle will always fall on consecutive numbers in this sequence.  How interesting, then, that the seeds in the head of a flower are arranged in just that same pattern.  If you go outside and look for a flower with the same basic structure as a sunflower, you can count the seeds in diagonal curves around the seed head, then count those same seeds in diagonal curves around the seed head in the other direction, and you will always come up with two numbers that follow each other in the Fibonacci sequence.  The same pattern holds true—although it is less obvious—in the arrangement of the leaves around a flower’s stem.  A wondrous coincidence, isn’t it?

Here we have an example of mathematical and paleontological principles corresponding and complementing each other.  This is a prime example of evidence for teleological ideas.  How hard it must be to hold to ideas that do not hold to teleological principles!  Indeed, Charles Darwin, the great champion of macroevolution, wrote that the very thought of a peacock feather was enough to make him ill because of the evidence it presented for design.  Similarly, teachers today tell their students that it is important to always keep in mind that the molecular wonders they are observing through the microscope are not the product of design.  Why is it necessary to do this if they were not designed?  Why is there such overwhelming teleological evidence if teleology is not, in fact, true?  I would propose that it is because teleology is, in fact, true, and that evidence for design in nature is so tremendously present because the universe was designed.

And so, with one simple case study, the argument for chance as a major factor in the emergence of the universe is significantly weakened.  Further evidence helps to confirm this position.  A major factor in determining the presence of design, even from a layman’s observational standpoint, is the presence of language, or rather the presence of an intelligence-bearing sequence of symbols.  This is what allows the human mind to instinctively distinguish between random wisps of cloud and the pattern left behind by a sky-writing plane.  The one it recognizes as having no distinct order.  The other it immediately concludes is legible script bearing ideas in the form of symbols.  Part of this comes from past experience: we recall our own personal interactions with the symbols that we now recognize as making up new concepts foreign to us.  But another, equally important aspect of this recognition comes from the human mind’s natural ability to locate design.  Before the discovery of the Rosetta stone, archeologists had no idea what Egyptian hieroglyphics meant.  Yet even without the means to discern their meaning, the archeologists knew they had a set meaning, knew they had been written with a specific intent in mind.  How did they know this?  How could they discern that they were a form of written language rather than mere artistic decorations on the walls?  Through what could be termed the natural human design detector.

In the same way, when looking into the cell, man can observe the remarkable functionality of DNA and the way in which it is strung together possesses an order that is not just random, but bears a series of codes that communicate the information necessary to promote each and every one of the cell’s functions.  Such a code bears specific intent and is a series of recognizable patterns that communicate meaning: an obvious example of intelligent origin that reveals design.

Not only is this design present in nature, but the Bible addresses this issue in the first verses of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.”  The authors of the Bible got it; this is perhaps the original teleological argument.  All of nature points to an intelligent Designer.  The universe did not come about by chance—it was created.