Why Russell’s Teapot Fails

By Nate Sala
A Clear Lens

Oftentimes, when discussing the existence of God with atheists (or agnostics), the notions of supporting evidence and burden of proof are raised. This is important as good evidence provides a foundation for a reasonable inference on this issue, as well as the idea that those who make claims must support them with some kind of evidence. For example, if God exists then there should be some evidence to support claims of His existence. And, as Christian case-makers continue to show, there are a number of evidences that support the existence of God.

Unfortunately, some atheists believe that there can be no evidence for God whatsoever; and it is from this mistaken presupposition that a particular strategy involving a teapot floating in space has emerged. So the argument goes: we cannot conclusively prove that there is not a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere in outer space; but, given the lack of evidence for such a teapot, its likelihood is so low that the reasonable conclusion should be that it does not exist. Likewise, we cannot conclusively prove that God does not exist; but, given the lack of evidence for God, the reasonable conclusion should be that He does not exist.

This particular argument originated with philosopher Bertrand Russell in a letter he wrote in 1958:

“I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.”[1]

A number of decades later Richard Dawkins commented on Russell’s idea in The God Delusion:

“Russell’s point is that the burden of proof rests with the believers, not the non-believers. Mine is the related point that the odds in favour of the teapot (spaghetti monster / Esmerelda and Keith / unicorn etc.) are not equal to the odds against.”[2]

There are a couple of problematic elements in Russell’s and Dawkins’ comments. First, they both assume that there is no evidence for God. At least, it seems that Russell’s presupposition is that there is no evidence, thus allowing for his analogy; and Dawkins appears to accept Russell’s analogy wholesale. Second, Dawkins claims (via Russell) that, since there is no evidence for God, theists are the only ones that bear the burden of proof. This reminds me of a similar strategy amongst some atheists that attempts the same result, i.e. placing the burden of proof squarely on the theist’s shoulders. To read more on that, see “Why Atheism Is Not a Lack of Belief.”

Here is the problem with Russell’s presupposition. When an atheist states that there is no evidence for a teapot floating in outer space, he likely means there is no empirical evidence for it. In other words, to say that there is no evidence is to say that, as far as we know, no one has seen or touched a teapot in space. But to suggest that evidence for God is the same thing as empirical evidence for a teapot is to misunderstand the evidence for God typically appealed to by theists. As Dr. Brian Garvey writes, “God is invoked as an explanation for… why the universe exists at all, why it is intelligible, why it is governed by laws, why it is governed by the laws it is rather than some other laws, and doubtless many more things.”[3] Therefore, the evidences for God are the universe, its intelligibility, its physical laws, etc.

Russell’s analogy fails in large part because it likens two different sets of evidences, i.e. evidences for an object and evidences that are effects of an explanation. Russell’s teapot is not an explanation for anything. It simply exists as a rhetorical device. God, on the other hand, is an explanation for a number of things. With regard to the universe itself, consider the Kalam Cosmological Argument:[4]

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

Or a form of the Teleological Argument appealing to fine-tuning:[5]

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

In both arguments a causal agent, namely God, is inferred as being the explanation for the universe, as well as its features. This does not mean that God is a physical object floating in space, like a teacup. It just means that God is an inference to the best explanation. Considering God as an explanation for the universe (as well as the universe as evidence for God), Dawkins’ comment on the burden of proof should be reevaluated.

Whether or not Russell’s floating teacup actually exists is irrelevant to the universe: as I stated earlier, his teacup is not an explanation for anything. So one’s worldview of the universe is not devoid of explanation if Russell’s teacup does not exist. However, if God does not exist there must be another explanation for the universe and its particular features. To illustrate consider Garvey’s chart below:[6]



So in contradistinction to the theist who proposes God as the explanation for “the most general laws,” i.e. the properties of the universe, the atheist proposes “something other than God.” So atheism is not a passive enterprise by any means. It is a proposition that reality is explained by (other than). Thus, both theists and atheists are looking at the same evidences (the universe and its features) and drawing two different conclusions. This means that Dawkins’ assertion, that the theist is the only one who bears the burden of proof, is flatly false. Both parties have their own burdens to bear.

While Russell’s teapot is probably not very popular anymore (considering its circular nature), it, nevertheless, still floats around the internet (pun intended) as useful fodder for those who don’t know any better. However, its failure is largely due to the disanalogy between evidence for a teapot and evidence for God. So the next time you cross paths with Russell’s floating teapot, have an apple, and then an orange.

[1] Bertrand Russell, “Is There a God?” in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell Volume 11, ed. John G. Slater (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997): 547-548.
[2] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York, NY: Bantam Press, 2006), 76.
[3] Brian Garvey, “Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot” Ars Disputandi 10 (2010), 18.
[4] J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 468.
[5] Ibid, 484.
[6] Brian Garvey, “Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot” Ars Disputandi 10 (2010), 18.

How a Christian Worldview Influenced America’s Founding Fathers

By Andrew Stebbins

It might be fair to say that most Americans tend to take our freedom for granted. We forget that our freedom was hard-won and is not guaranteed. In fact, the liberties we cherish are privileges not many societies enjoy. Tyranny, in its many guises, is the historical norm. In truth, we do have an extraordinary amount of freedom in the United States, and there are profound reasons for that stemming directly from our Christian heritage.

As the founding fathers set up a new government, they started from what scholars consider a Reformed Christian worldview. Of the 54 signers of the Declaration, 29 were ordained ministers, and most of the others were deeply religious men. The idea that the majority of the founders were deist is an exaggeration passed on over time, as only a handful might be claimed as such, and even this is difficult to verify by our understanding of the term.

The founding fathers’ Christian worldview was “the single greatest influence on the content and interpretation of America’s foremost founding documents: The Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), and the Bill of Rights (1789).”¹

The biblical worldview can be summed up in three words: creation, fall, redemption. These three words birthed the equality of all humanity before God (creation), human nature as evil (fall), and the inherent value of the individual (redemption). These ideas lay at the root of the formation of modern democracy everywhere, most especially in America.

1. Equality of All Humanity before God

The Christian notion of equality says that people are equal because (1) God made humanity in His image; and (2) He loved us enough to have sacrificed His Son for each of us. Rather than being based on abilities, appearance (race, ethnicity, sex), achievements, or social position, a person’s worth is inherent. We are equal simply because God values us equally. Human worth is God dependent and God ordained; human assessment is irrelevant. The founding fathers recognized this view of humanity in the Declaration of Independence’s famous opening statements:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

The Christian view of equality runs counter to common human impulses and is unique to the Christian West. In most of the world’s cultures, social hierarchy is more or less rigidly prescribed and the rules of social engagement are correspondingly tight.

2. Human Nature as Evil

People often falsely equate being kind and considerate with being good. In the Christian worldview, however, God holds His creation to a far higher standard of goodness based on His law. Because of our fallen nature, humans fail to reach this standard.

This idea is also unique to the Christian worldview. Most worldviews see human nature as good, or at least not evil. The Confucian worldview, for example, and most modern secular humanistic worldviews, see humanity as inherently good.²

The founders’ Christian worldview, buttressed by their experiences, left them with a profound distrust of human nature.³ They believed that man could not be trusted with absolute power over their fellow men. By creating a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances—both of which were written into the Constitution⁴—the founders made it difficult for any individual or branch of government to gain too much control over human affairs.

3. The Inherent Value of the Individual

Despite our fallen state, God was still willing to sacrifice His Son, giving each of us an opportunity for salvation. Jesus’ redemptive act alone shows the incredible value God has accorded to each individual. In most societies throughout history, the individual is not the locus of identity. For most of the world, a person’s identity is subsumed in the group(s) they are a part of. The collective is the locus of identification, and is of far greater significance than the individual. Christians, however, hold a high estimation of individual worth and this biblical view was not lost on the founders.

So committed were they to the idea that any system not governed by the people would ultimately lead to tyranny that the founders enshrined this idea in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They believed the individual should have the right to partake in electing his representatives. This belief, in itself, was a radical notion for a government, brought on by the founders’ belief in the inherent value of the individual.

In creating the Bill of Rights, the founders sought to further protect the rights of the individual; Only a high valuation of the individual could possibly result in a society granting all people, regardless of race, gender, or social position, inalienable rights that no one, not even the king, could infringe upon.

Such ideas are unique in themselves, but even more so in combination. Their overarching influence in the formation of American democracy has been so strong that it is difficult to imagine our system of governance forming under any other ideological circumstances. These ideologies were central to producing the right of the people to choose their leaders, the separation of powers, the system of checks and balances, and the notion of the inviolable rights of the individual.

Do Biological Facts No Longer Matter?

By Nancy Pearcey
CNS News

The pushback has been swift and strong against Target’s unsafe bathroom policy, along with the Obama administration’s demand that all public schools adopt pro-transgender policies for showers and locker rooms. But for long-term success against these impositions, the response must also be strategic.

That means drilling down to the source of transgender ideology.

The roots of moral issues always bring us to questions about human nature. Both classical Greek and Christian philosophy regarded the natural world as purpose driven or teleological – from the Greek telos, meaning purpose or goal. To ordinary human observation, it is evident that eyes are for seeing and ears for hearing; fins are for swimming and wings for flying.

Because the human body is part of nature, it too was regarded as having a purpose. The delightful diversity of male and female was not some cosmic accident. Instead it showed that the human body is ordered to the purpose of opposite-sex pair-bonding and reproduction. Teleology is the basis for natural law ethics, which aims to tell us how to fulfill our true nature, how to become fully human.

Today it is popular among Western elites to deny teleology. The key turning point was Charles Darwin. He did not deny that nature appears to be designed for a purpose. But as an agnostic, he hoped to use science to demonstrate that the appearance of design was the result of purposeless material process – random variations sifted by the blind, automatic forces of natural selection.

As historian Jacques Barzun writes, “This denial of purpose is Darwin’s distinctive contention.”

The Darwinian worldview implies that the cosmos is merely a vast amoral machine. It reduces the human body to a lump of matter, a collection of atoms and molecules, not intrinsically different from any other chance configuration of matter. There can be no natural law ethic because humanity has no purpose to fulfill. Philosopher Charles Taylor explains, “The cosmos is no longer seen as the embodiment of meaningful order which can define the good for us.”

The implication is that our biological identity as male and female is a cosmic accident after all. The sexual differentiation of male and female has no special dignity or meaning. The body is reduced to raw material to be manipulated and controlled to serve human needs and preferences – like any other natural resource.

Suspicious of Sex

These are the assumptions lurking behind the language of the transgender movement. The Obama administration’s letter, sent out jointly by the Departments of Justice and Education, asserts, “A person’s gender identity may be different from ... the person’s sex assigned at birth.” What's the key word here? “Assigned” – as though a person’s sex at birth were purely arbitrary instead of a scientific, biological fact.

What does that language imply? That biological facts do not matter. Your biology gives no clue to your gender identity. It is irrelevant to the “authentic self.” The result is a fragmented, dualistic worldview that denigrates the physical body as inconsequential and insignificant – a worldview that alienates people from their own bodies.

Consider a recent case in the Fourth Circuit, in which a girl who identified as a boy named G.G. demanded the right to use the boys’ restroom. According to the majority opinion, “G.G.’s birth-assigned sex, or so-called ‘biological sex,’ is female, but G.G.’s gender identity is male.”

Her “so-called ‘biological sex’” – in sneer quotes? This is a judge writing a formal ruling for a federal court, and he treats the very existence of biological sex with suspicion and disdain. Apparently he thinks the girl’s physiology, anatomy, chromosomes, and DNA are less real or knowable than her subjective feelings about her gender.

The Lie of Liberation

Is this fragmented view of sexuality actually liberating? Many who have tried it say no. Jonah Mix, who writes for “Gender Detective,” spent years immersed in queer theory, wearing makeup and nail polish: “It was in those queer circles that I first heard the common admonition to never define a person by their body.”

Eventually, however, he realized the promise of liberation was a lie. To discover whether you “identify” as a man, you must define manhood. If you do not define yourself by your biological sex, then you must define yourself by your actions. Do you act stereotypically masculine? Then you are a man. Do you behave in ways that are stereotypically feminine? You must be a woman. Queer theory actually reinforces gender stereotypes.

By contrast, if you base your identity on your physical anatomy, you can engage in a range of diverse behaviors without threatening your identity as a man. Mix writes, “When we are defined by our bodies, the whole width of human experience remains open. ... There is freedom in the body.”

On a trans website a commenter named Trish wrote, “As a little girl, I enjoyed both ballet lessons and playing in the mud. ... I liked miniskirts and wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. It looks to me like the trans movement is fighting very hard to force everyone to choose whether to live in the blue box or the pink box, and no playing mix-and-match. To me this is the opposite of freedom.”

Contrary to what progressives say, there is greater diversity when we anchor our gender identity in the objective, scientifically knowable reality of our biology as male or female.

In culture war rhetoric, the existence of intersex people (hermaphrodites) is often used to disrupt the male/female binary. But intersex conditions are a matter of biology, not gender identity. A report filed to the European Commission in 2011 says, “Intersex people differ from trans people as their status is not gender related but instead relates to their biological makeup (genetic, hormonal and physical features).”
Denigrating the Body

Policies that impose transgender ideology on children as early as kindergarten are teaching them to denigrate their own bodies – to see their biological sex as having no relevance to who they are as whole persons. Bathroom policies are teaching them that their male and female parts are not worthy of privacy and safety.

We would do well to retrieve the ancient wisdom that nature is teleological, just as people have long recognized. A teleological worldview leads to a positive view of the body; it acknowledges the purpose and dignity in being male and female; it leads to harmony between biological identity and gender identity.

And it gives a basis for welcoming common-sense protections for boys and girls as they mature into men and women – which should be one of the self-evident norms of the adults who run our governments, schools and corporations.

Spheres of Awareness: 4 Unique Ways Humans Perceive Reality

By Kenneth R. Samples
Reasons To Believe

An implication of being made in God’s image is that human beings have a unique awareness of reality. That reality is wide and deep and extends to four basic philosophical spheres or dimensions of life. The awareness of and interaction with these spheres illustrates humankind’s uniqueness and makes the discovery of four critical truths possible.

Sphere 1: The Intellectual
Human beings are intellectual creatures. We are capable of rational thought, reflection, intentionality, and the capacity to use our minds to apprehend truth. The intellectual therefore focuses on the virtue of truth. For most of Western civilization, truth has been defined as that which corresponds to reality. So if my belief matches reality, then I know the truth (this is known as the correspondence theory of truth).

Sphere 2: The Moral
Human beings are moral creatures. We have a conscience and feel the pull of the moral ought or should. As moral agents, we weigh our duties and seek ethical goodness. The moral therefore focuses on the virtue of goodness. And the majority of Western civilization has viewed moral goodness as being prescriptive, objective, and discoverable rather than descriptive, subjective, and invented.

Sphere 3: The Aesthetic
Human beings are aesthetic creatures. We recognize, feel attracted to, and appreciate beauty. The aesthetic therefore focuses on the virtue of beauty. Aesthetics then involves the nature and appreciation of beauty, taste, and art. An aesthetic impulse seems to have been part of human culture from the beginning.

Sphere 4: The Spiritual
Human beings are spiritual creatures. We feel compelled to ask deep philosophical and religious questions. An intuition of God and a desire to be in right relationship with the divine characterizes the lives of the vast majority of people. The spiritual therefore focuses on the virtue of unity or wholeness. A spiritual need and drive seems to have been part of human culture from the beginning as well.

Reality in the Christian Worldview
The Christian worldview affirms that God is the transcendent source and ground of ultimate truth, goodness, beauty, and unity. Since human beings are made in God’s image, they possess intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and spiritual qualities and sensibilities. Humans alone are aware of and experience these four profound spheres of reality because they are like God. Exploring these four dimensions of reality brings great richness to human life because these spheres flow from and point to the divine being that is Ultimate Reality (the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Thus, serious reflection upon these spheres, something animals are incapable of, can tell us something special about God and ourselves.

Humankind’s fallen condition, however, negatively affects a person’s ability to fully recognize and appropriately embrace truth, goodness, beauty, and unity as God intended. For example, one of the ways that the Bible describes sin is “blindness” (Romans 1:18–32, 2 Corinthians 4:1–6), which distorts these virtues. Sin runs contrary to the qualities of God and instead causes human error, wickedness, ugliness, and disunity. Sin even causes human beings to misuse these four spheres of reality.

Yet redemption in Jesus Christ allows Christians to be united to the God of all truth, goodness, beauty, and unity. Through redemption, the image of God is restored within human beings so that they may properly appreciate and embrace these four profound dimensions of life.

Resources

• For more on the Christian worldview understanding of reality, see my book A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test.
• To understand how the ancients viewed these four dimensions of reality and how they might guide one’s life and vocation today, see If Aristotle Ran General Motors by Tom Morris.

Infertility and the gospel: My story

By Jana Howerton

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table (Ps. 128:3).

Recently, our young church has been filled with days of rejoicing for many mothers—Mother’s Day, hospital visits to a groundswell of precious newborns, child dedications, gender reveal parties. These are days of rich joy for many, but due to the effects of the fall (Gen. 3), they are days of deep pain for many others. The desire, longing and love to be a mother is there, and yet the olive shoots have not come.

My heart hurts for the woman who is experiencing the pain of infertility.  Infertility is a topic that people discuss very little, but I’ve read as many as 1 in 8 couples struggle with it. Infertility may not affect your family, but chances are you know and love someone it does.I understand and know the struggle because I have experienced the pain of infertility, as well.

The wait and the wondering

Every month, an eager bride excitedly waits to find out if this will be the month (finally!) she sees that beautiful little + sign. She spends her time dreaming of diapers and of the sweet little blessing God is surely going to add to her family. Be fruitful and multiply, right? Her doctor is so certain that she’s going to be able to get pregnant that she is starting to believe it, too. The thought of motherhood and babies is all too exciting, and her heart overflows with the dreams of what life will be like with children.

As the months pass and are then swallowed up into years, her doctor’s optimism starts to fade, and she is told that she will likely never conceive a baby without a miracle. She desperately tries to hang on to hope, believing she might be the exception. More time passes. Eventually, her enthusiasm and hopes fade, too, and she is met with the sorrow, shame and the extreme loneliness of it all. Questions fill her head: Who do I talk to about my heartache? Can anyone truly understand what I’m going through unless she’s experienced this herself? Why doesn’t God want me to have a baby? Is there something wrong with me? What does faith look like in my situation?

This may not be your story, but it is part of mine. The pain and shame I felt over not being able to give my husband a biological child was heart wrenching at times. It is a quiet pain that is often very lonely. But, in his timing, God does make everything beautiful. As God has worked in my heart, I can tell you that the story he is writing is our lives is full of his kindness, grace and mercy. He is good, and he can be trusted.

If you are struggling through the pain of infertility, please let me encourage you with a few ways that God has encouraged me.

1. We must counsel our hearts according to truth. Ask yourself: What does God’s Word say about you? What does God’s Word say about him? What is true and real? According to God, your infertility does not define you—his Word does. The cross says you are loved and accepted. You are not broken, and God is good all the time.
2. Don’t damage your friendships because you are in pain. You may be feeling hurt or jealous when you see others getting what you want. In this case, it’s a baby. Ask God to give you a heart that will rejoice with those who rejoice—one that is sincerely happy for others. And ask him for a friend who is able to weep with you as you weep (Rom. 12:15). Keep in mind that a friend loves at all times (Prov. 17:17), even if we are in pain; let us be people who give this unconditional love and who are able to receive it.
3. Reach out to a trusted friend. Sometimes, we might be tempted to think that if we don’t talk about it, it’s like it’s not real. I kept my pain and struggle hidden for many years, and it wasn’t until I starting talking about my sadness and being honest about it that I was able to start to allow God to deal with it and find peace in him. As I confessed all that was going on in my heart, God used the words of wise women and friends to bring healing to my heart (Prov. 12:18).
4. Jesus is our treasure. As much as we would like to think that if God would just answer our prayer for a child, we would always be happy and our longing would be satisfied, it just isn’t true. Yes, children bring joy and happiness, but they can never be the absolute focus of it without becoming idols. Jesus is meant for that place in our hearts and our lives. He must be the ultimate treasure of our hearts. Sometimes in his kindness, God allows us to continue without the thing we so desire because with it, we might not see Him; but, in our pain and longing our hearts might be turned to him.

Tim Keller says, “You’ll never realize God is all you need until God is all you have.” My prayer for you if you’re struggling through the pain of infertility is that you allow this time of longing for what God has not given you to draw you nearer to him. Our circumstances may not change, but we can allow God to change us, grow us and bear fruit in him.

You Can’t Have a Culture of Life if You Have No Culture at All

By Anthony Esolen
Crisis Magazine



It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a moment that it is always far easier to destroy than to create.  One bomb or wrecking ball can shatter in an instant the cathedral that it took human hands and minds fifty years to build.

What is true of buildings is true of culture generally.

During the early and dark days of World War II, when the British army at Dunkirk had the sea behind them and the Germans before them, they sent a message back home consisting of three words: But if not. 

It was a brilliant message, because even if the Germans managed to intercept it and decode it, it wouldn’t have done them any good. “But if not” … what?

But the army knew that their countrymen would understand. It was more than a message regarding strategy.  It captured the heart of the war itself, a battle for the survival of European culture and civilization against the diseased fantasies of the Third Reich.

 

The reference comes from the story of the Hebrew youths Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in captivity in ancient Babylon, who refused to bow down in worship before the statue of King Nebuchadnezzar.  The king summoned them before him in a fury and demanded their submission, lest he cast them into the fiery furnace.  Their reply was manly and direct:

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. BUT IF NOT be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

 

The British people then roused themselves to action—ordinary men, anyone with a boat and a heart that beat warmly for God and country.  They crossed the channel in defiance of the enemy and rescued more than three hundred thousand men.

The incident reveals more than a common language.  It reveals a common way of life, and a common view of life.  The sterling words of the old King James Bible, a work of the highest culture, had long come to inform and vivify the ways of ordinary people.

That message could not now be sent, either to England or America. It would be incomprehensible.  That is not because the culture has changed.  It is because it has been destroyed, and the most energetic destroyers have been the very people whom we charge with its care: teachers, professors, statesmen, and artists.

Thomas Molnar had this to say about it:

Culture has come to mean … anything that happens to catch the fancy of a group: rock concerts, supposedly for the famished of the third world; the drug culture and other subcultures; sects and cults; sexual excess and aberration; blasphemy on stage and screen; frightening and obscene shapes; the plastic wrapping of Pont-Neuf or the California coast; to smashing of the family and other institutions; the display of the queer [that is, bizarre], abject, the sick.  These instant products, meant to provide instant gratification to a society itself unmoored from foundation and tradition, accordingly deny the work of mediation and maturation and favor the incoherent, the shapeless and the repulsive.

 

All in a day’s work at your local school, CBS, the BBC, the CBC, The New York Times, the Guggenheim, Broadway, Harvard, Hollywood, Cosmopolitan, the Playboy Channel, Princeton, your local school, Young Adult Fiction, the halls of Congress, Planned Parenthood, the “Adult” bookstore with no windows, your local school.

We want to raise up young people in a culture of life. Well and good. But that means that we require a culture, and that doesn’t happen by itself, especially not now, when all the forces of “education” and mass entertainment are ranged against the very possibility of a culture.

Imagine a scene of wholesale destruction. Every old and venerable structure has been reduced to rubble. People relieve themselves in the street. Sometimes they copulate there, too. Their “music” is little more than grunting and groaning. Their rulers are on the take. There are hundreds of thousands of old books in the mountain of stone and mortar that used to be the library. Most of those books are far beyond the capacity of the people to read. They sneer and snort at Shakespeare, because they can’t understand him. They’ve never even heard of Virgil. A lot of these people have taken to cannibalism.

Now then—you have retained some vague memory of a more noble way of life.  You have therefore arrived at a great truth. It’s perfectly obscure to most of your fellow rubble-pickers, who mock you and call you a prude, a Neanderthal, a medieval monk, a madman, a hater of the hungry, and so forth. Your precious truth is simply this: it is wrong to eat human flesh.

Well, that is no great burst of enlightenment, but it is a beginning. So what do you do?  Will you be content to say, “My children will do everything that everyone else is doing, but they will not eat human flesh?” They will be subhuman and subcultural, but their taste in dining will be restricted just a little?  Is that all?

Will you say, “Our family is not anthropophagous, but we will send our children to be taught by the same fellow that all the other parents use,” the one with the squalid leer, dabbling in excrement, contemptuous of any wisdom from the past?

That is where pro-life parents find themselves now.

Should we expect any help from places like Yale? Those places sponsor weeks for show-and-tell by whores and peddlers of sex toys. Any help from your local school? That would be like expecting Belial to lead you in prayer. There is no help from “the culture,” because there is no longer any culture; only the rubble of what used to be a culture.

What do you do, then?  Turn back, O man.  It’s time to recover and rebuild.

What does it mean to be made in God’s image?

By David Closson

The Christian faith and worldview is predicated on a set of nonnegotiable truths. One of these is that human life is inherently valuable. Christians have articulated and acted upon this transcendent understanding of human dignity throughout history, whether opposing infanticide and child abandonment, fighting against chattel slavery or engaging in civil disobedience to protest segregation. The powerful idea that every single person has inherent value is rooted in the image of God, a doctrine expressed in the opening chapter of Genesis.

Although “image of God” has become ubiquitous in Christian literature and conversation in recent years, it has not been robustly defined. Perhaps this is due to the lack of agreement throughout church history on what exactly constitutes image of God, which no doubt stems from the fact that Scripture declares but does not elaborate on the axiom in detail.

But much can and should be said. The fact that human beings are created in God’s image shapes the Christian worldview and affects how we see God, the world and one another. It informs how we understand the rest of the Bible’s story and provides a theological foundation for ethics and engagement. In short, a proper understanding of the image of God should animate everything we do, and as a result, we should endeavor to define it biblically; this will enable us to then survey what issues Christians should care about.

Different understandings of the image of God
Throughout church history, there has been universal agreement that image of God is a significant theological concept. But debate has abounded regarding what the image fundamentally refers to.

Some have argued in favor of a structural view that believes man’s ontological (the nature of being) qualities, such as rationality and cognitive capacity, constitute the image of God. These qualities distinguish man from the rest of creation. Early church leaders, such as Irenaeus and Augustine, as well as John Calvin, held variants of this view.

Another position is the relational view that stresses the importance of man’s relationships. Emil Brunner and Karl Barth advocated this approach, where being made in God’s image fundamentally entails living in relationship with God and others.

A third view is the functional or “vice-regency” position that posits man’s derivative authority to rule on behalf of God defines the image. Unlike the rest of creation, it is man that functions as God’s chief representative in the world. This view stresses the command to exercise dominion (Gen. 1:26-28).

The image of God and Ancient Near Eastern culture
It is evident in Genesis 1 that the Bible is content with simply asserting that man is somehow like God. Further elaboration is not provided. Why is this? As Bruce Ware has noted, technical terminology in speaking or writing is usually introduced and not explained in contexts where the audience is already familiar with specialized language. It seems fair to assume Moses was operating with this expectation. Therefore, considering Genesis 1 in light of the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) usage of image of God might be helpful.

A seminal study on ANE images is David J.A. Clines' The Image of God in Man. Clines argues that ANE literature contains three commonalities in accounts that utilize image symbolism. First, a deity imputes a substance to an earthly king, enabling him to represent the divine. Second, the empowered king represents the deity by ruling as vice-regent. Third, only the king is ever given this privilege.

Applying this to Genesis, it is reasonable that Moses had this background in mind. First, God breathed into Adam the breath of life. Divine empowerment was requisite to function as God’s image. Second, man is tasked with exercising dominion and ruling as God’s vice-regent. Clines' third characteristic, however, does not apply. The Bible surprises us at this point by affirming that everyone bears God’s image. Clines' reconstruction of the ANE background is helpful and may account for why Moses did not furnish a more precise definition. His original readers would have had a framework to interpret image language and its connotations.

Through the lens of the ANE background, it is clear that certain aspects of the structural, relational and functional perspectives provide a holistic understanding of what it means to be made in the image of God (i.e., the structural serves the purpose of the functional carried out in relationship).

The image of God, therefore, includes both who man is and what he does. Ontological capacities and functionality are inseparably tied because the human person as a created whole is the image of God.

Man is like a statue erected by an ancient king—as the statue bore the image of the king and signified rulership, man bears God’s image in the cosmic temple of the world, representing his authority and dominion. Man is the visible representation of the invisible God. If one wants to know what God looks like, simply look at man, the crowning jewel of creation and the only creature made in God’s image and likeness.

The image of God and cultural engagement
One of the tragic results of sin is that man no longer properly images God; the remnants of the image have been marred. The relationship with our Creator is broken, and redemptive history bears witness to man’s inability to obey and honor God.

But the glorious truth of the New Testament is that restoration is possible through Christ, the perfect image of God (Col. 1:15), whose redeeming work restores the image to repentant sinners and establishes them as co-heirs with Christ.

In this light, the Biblical understanding of man’s creation in God’s image has stunning implications for Christian ethics. Not only is everyone created in God’s image, but every human being is a potential future ruler of the universe.

C.S. Lewis poignantly remarked: “It is a serious thing . . . to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”

In the new creation, God will once again set up his image bearers. But this time, God’s vice-regents will be perfect because of their union with Christ. Paradoxically, the new creation has already begun. It was inaugurated when Jesus was raised from the dead and will be consummated when he returns.

And as Christians waiting patiently for this day, we will endeavor to treat people made in God’s image with dignity and respect irrespective of gender, race, age, nationality or economic status because we remember our King’s words that as we did for “the least of these my brothers, you did also to me” (Matt. 25:40).

Thus, we will care for those caught in the vice grip of poverty. We will fight against human trafficking. We will uphold the dignity of the elderly and disabled. We will advocate on behalf of immigrants. We will work for religious liberty and conscience freedom. We will stand for marriage. We will promote racial reconciliation. And we will fight the culture of death in all its ugly forms.

We will do all this out of love for God and concern for those that bear his sacred image.