I put this together hoping it might help some in their approach to witnessing to lost people. This may also be a worthwhile read for those Christians who believe the creation story was allegorical and God used evolution to create the world.
WORLDVIEWS: SECULAR HUMANISM VS CHRISTIANITY
Side by Side Comparison
Inspired by Dr. Voddie Baucham's Approach to Apologetics
“People reason from their worldview. [They] look at the world through a particular lens, and they understand everything through that particular lens. So when they're dealing with these various issues, they're dealing with these issues through the lens of their worldview. If their worldview is not biblical, it is inconsistent and it is inferior. I don't say that to be arrogant. I say that because I believe in God and I believe that God has revealed himself in his Word. Therefore, if God is real, and if God has revealed himself in his Word, then any worldview that is not based upon that will be inconsistent and it will be inferior.
So if we understand this, then we know that people are going to have inconsistencies in their worldview, and ultimately what's going to have to happen because of their inconsistencies, and because of the inferior nature of their worldview, they are going to have to borrow from the biblical worldview. For example, they'll talk about the way people ought to be treated, and they'll talk about how we ought to be kind to one another, or we ought to take care of the poor, or we ought to do this, or we ought to do that. Generally speaking, those are things that they stole from the Christian worldview. So they don't want to accept Christianity, but they want to make arguments based on the Christian worldview.”
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
I've simply summarized Voddie's speech on this subject and added some of my own insights and relevant quotes, as well as some scripture references that were not used in his lecture.
Everyone is dealing with four questions in one form or another:
QUESTION 1 - WHO AM I?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
“DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music”
- Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
“Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.”
- Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin”
- Charles Darwin, The Decent of Man
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
“Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.'”
- Genesis 1: 26-29
QUESTION 2 – WHY AM I HERE?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health... It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”
Personal comments – Secular humanism treats the weaker among us with contempt. They are worthless and no good for society. This is how abortion is justified. How euthanasia of the elderly is justified. How animal cruelty is justified. How racism is justified. How ill treatment of the poor is justified. How poor treatment of the mentally ill is justified. The irony is that we want to make laws that protect people from rapists, murderers, thieves, and so on, when in reality, from this worldview, the rapist, or the murderer, or the thief has only proven themselves stronger and more fit than their victims and have done nothing inherently wrong or evil.
This is where the secular humanist worldview breaks down and becomes inconsistent, contradictory, and inferior compared to the Christian worldview. To justify laws against these types of crimes, they have to borrow an ethical and moral standard from the Christian worldview, while still contradicting the Christian worldview through abortion, euthanasia of the elderly, racism, ill treatment of the poor, and so on. Secular humanism cannot offer any objective standard of morality on its own. Christianity offers this objective standard of morality through an absolute, transcendent lawgiver (God), which secular humanism has to borrow from while at the same time denying the existence of.
Children in school are taught secular humanism by means of evolutionary theory. They are taught survival of the fittest. But when a child turns around and bullies another child, we tell them to stop because they are wrong. Why? They are only acting out what they have been taught; that we are just animals, here completely by accident to prove who is the more fit among us and that another human life is unimportant if they are deemed weak or inferior. Anyone remember Columbine?
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
The Preeminence of Christ
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
QUESTION 3 – WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
I'll add my personal perspective on this under “How Can What's Wrong Be Made Right”
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned - for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. “
QUESTION 4 – HOW CAN WHAT IS WRONG BE MADE RIGHT?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
Personal Comments – My personal observation on this solution leaves me with some minor mixed feelings. While I'll admit that studies show that the more education someone has, the less likely they are to be incarcerated, I can't help but notice that those with more education simply work the system to their own selfish advantage in many cases. Some examples would be corrupt politicians, police officials, and doctors. We can see just as much corruption in these three highly educated people groups although they will often avoid incarceration simply because of their social status. The same is true for teachers. Teachers are considered intelligent and well educated, but this doesn't stop them from taking advantage of their position and committing crimes. Teacher after teacher is arrested for inappropriate sexual behavior with a student or students. I feel that more education simply creates a more educated criminal, and although it may minutely curb criminal tendencies, it in no way solves the problem, and in many cases only proves to make organized crime all the more sophisticated. We only create new, more sophisticated ways of killing each other.
So if education isn't the solution, then is more government the answer? We know from history that this isn't the case. The bigger a government gets, the more control it gains and the more corrupt it becomes. Even communist countries with absolute authoritarian control haven't been able to curb the crime rate and are often more corrupt than the citizens they rule over. Bigger government always leads to abusive government which always leads to corruption and from corruption, rebellion and war. The system collapses. Even our forefathers recognized this when writing the declaration of independence and put a clause in there for this very reason.
“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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...”
The Declaration of Independence
“It doesn't matter how often we're proved wrong; we continue down that same road. What do we need? We need to be better educated. We need more information. Really? Is that really correct? Has more information made us better than our ancestors? It's made us more efficient at killing one another. I mean, we used to have to stand there, you know, face to face, take out swords, and do the nasty business of slaughtering one another. Now we have drones and we don't even have to be there; and we can kill one another by the thousands – by the millions if necessary – with the push of a button. Much more sophisticated. But is that better?”
- Voddie Baucham
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
WORLDVIEWS: SECULAR HUMANISM VS CHRISTIANITY
Side by Side Comparison
Inspired by Dr. Voddie Baucham's Approach to Apologetics
“People reason from their worldview. [They] look at the world through a particular lens, and they understand everything through that particular lens. So when they're dealing with these various issues, they're dealing with these issues through the lens of their worldview. If their worldview is not biblical, it is inconsistent and it is inferior. I don't say that to be arrogant. I say that because I believe in God and I believe that God has revealed himself in his Word. Therefore, if God is real, and if God has revealed himself in his Word, then any worldview that is not based upon that will be inconsistent and it will be inferior.
So if we understand this, then we know that people are going to have inconsistencies in their worldview, and ultimately what's going to have to happen because of their inconsistencies, and because of the inferior nature of their worldview, they are going to have to borrow from the biblical worldview. For example, they'll talk about the way people ought to be treated, and they'll talk about how we ought to be kind to one another, or we ought to take care of the poor, or we ought to do this, or we ought to do that. Generally speaking, those are things that they stole from the Christian worldview. So they don't want to accept Christianity, but they want to make arguments based on the Christian worldview.”
- Dr. Voddie Baucham
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
- Romans 1:24-25
I've simply summarized Voddie's speech on this subject and added some of my own insights and relevant quotes, as well as some scripture references that were not used in his lecture.
Everyone is dealing with four questions in one form or another:
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- What is wrong with the world?
- How can what is wrong be made right?
QUESTION 1 - WHO AM I?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
- You are the result of random evolutionary processes. You are a cosmic accident. You are nothing more than an evolved animal. You have no inherent value, no inherent dignity, and no inherent worth.
“DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music”
- Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
“Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.”
- Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin”
- Charles Darwin, The Decent of Man
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
- You are the crowning glory of creation. You are not only at the apex, but you are the apex of all that God created. You were created in the image and in the likeness of God himself and were given authority to subdue and to be stewards over creation. You are separate and set apart from the rest of all of creation. You are not merely an evolved animal. You have inherent dignity, inherent value, and inherent worth because you are made in the image of God.
“Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.'”
- Genesis 1: 26-29
QUESTION 2 – WHY AM I HERE?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
- Your purpose is to survive, consume, and enjoy. You must be stronger than others. The weak are to be dominated by the stronger and purged. You are here to satisfy your own desires.
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health... It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”
- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Personal comments – Secular humanism treats the weaker among us with contempt. They are worthless and no good for society. This is how abortion is justified. How euthanasia of the elderly is justified. How animal cruelty is justified. How racism is justified. How ill treatment of the poor is justified. How poor treatment of the mentally ill is justified. The irony is that we want to make laws that protect people from rapists, murderers, thieves, and so on, when in reality, from this worldview, the rapist, or the murderer, or the thief has only proven themselves stronger and more fit than their victims and have done nothing inherently wrong or evil.
This is where the secular humanist worldview breaks down and becomes inconsistent, contradictory, and inferior compared to the Christian worldview. To justify laws against these types of crimes, they have to borrow an ethical and moral standard from the Christian worldview, while still contradicting the Christian worldview through abortion, euthanasia of the elderly, racism, ill treatment of the poor, and so on. Secular humanism cannot offer any objective standard of morality on its own. Christianity offers this objective standard of morality through an absolute, transcendent lawgiver (God), which secular humanism has to borrow from while at the same time denying the existence of.
Children in school are taught secular humanism by means of evolutionary theory. They are taught survival of the fittest. But when a child turns around and bullies another child, we tell them to stop because they are wrong. Why? They are only acting out what they have been taught; that we are just animals, here completely by accident to prove who is the more fit among us and that another human life is unimportant if they are deemed weak or inferior. Anyone remember Columbine?
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
- You here to bring honor and glory to the Triune God. I do not exist for me.
The Preeminence of Christ
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
- Colossians 1:15-18
- Voddie Baucham
QUESTION 3 – WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
- People are either insufficiently governed or insufficiently educated.
I'll add my personal perspective on this under “How Can What's Wrong Be Made Right”
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
- You. Me. Everyone. Sin is what's wrong with the world.
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned - for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. “
- Romans 5:12-14
|
- Romans 5:12-14
- Romans 3: 9-18
QUESTION 4 – HOW CAN WHAT IS WRONG BE MADE RIGHT?
Answer from Secular Humanism's Perspective
- More and better government. More education. More information.
Personal Comments – My personal observation on this solution leaves me with some minor mixed feelings. While I'll admit that studies show that the more education someone has, the less likely they are to be incarcerated, I can't help but notice that those with more education simply work the system to their own selfish advantage in many cases. Some examples would be corrupt politicians, police officials, and doctors. We can see just as much corruption in these three highly educated people groups although they will often avoid incarceration simply because of their social status. The same is true for teachers. Teachers are considered intelligent and well educated, but this doesn't stop them from taking advantage of their position and committing crimes. Teacher after teacher is arrested for inappropriate sexual behavior with a student or students. I feel that more education simply creates a more educated criminal, and although it may minutely curb criminal tendencies, it in no way solves the problem, and in many cases only proves to make organized crime all the more sophisticated. We only create new, more sophisticated ways of killing each other.
So if education isn't the solution, then is more government the answer? We know from history that this isn't the case. The bigger a government gets, the more control it gains and the more corrupt it becomes. Even communist countries with absolute authoritarian control haven't been able to curb the crime rate and are often more corrupt than the citizens they rule over. Bigger government always leads to abusive government which always leads to corruption and from corruption, rebellion and war. The system collapses. Even our forefathers recognized this when writing the declaration of independence and put a clause in there for this very reason.
“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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...”
The Declaration of Independence
“It doesn't matter how often we're proved wrong; we continue down that same road. What do we need? We need to be better educated. We need more information. Really? Is that really correct? Has more information made us better than our ancestors? It's made us more efficient at killing one another. I mean, we used to have to stand there, you know, face to face, take out swords, and do the nasty business of slaughtering one another. Now we have drones and we don't even have to be there; and we can kill one another by the thousands – by the millions if necessary – with the push of a button. Much more sophisticated. But is that better?”
- Voddie Baucham
Answer from Christianity's Perspective
- By being reconciled to God through Christ, by grace through faith alone.
“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
- Colossians 1:19-23
- Romans 3:21-25
- Ephesians 2:8-9
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