BEING RESPONSIBLE
By Pastor Glen Mustian, Nov 16, 2015
One of the first substantial indications that a young person is growing into maturity, is that they start becoming more accountable for their own actions. No longer do they play the blame-game of obfuscating their responsibilities and pointing the finger at someone else, but they tend to stand up for themselves and acknowledge the moral and ethical obligations that they must meet in society. It is at this point that we can truly say of them, “He has become a man!” or “She has grown into a woman!” We would never say this of a machine, however, at least not yet. Can you imagine saying this about your 1994 Toyota Camry? “Well, the ol’ girl really has grown up, hasn’t she? She has become so responsible and accountable for her actions, and I’m so proud of how she has matured into a morally upright and ethical member of our society.”
Obviously we would never say that, even about a computer capable of Artificial Intelligence, because it is still just a machine capable of supporting concepts, but incapable of the special capacity to be responsible, moral, or ethical, which is reserved exclusively for the human race. We say of machines and other assortments of matter, that they grow old, worn out, or obsolete; they don’t become wiser, more knowledgeable, or morally and ethically aware. Wait just a minute though! What about us human beings? Are we not said to be just machines who have also evolved, “from the goo, to the zoo, to you”, as well? What makes us so special, so that we possess these characteristics, and that all other machines do not? This is a major problem for the Naturalist Worldview, and this essay will discuss the tenuous arguments that they use to support a naturalistic basis for why man is believed to be a responsible being.
Naturalism is of course, the worldview that presumes the unreasonable notion that, “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” and that, “Nothing comes from nothing. Something is. Therefore something always was. But that something… is not a transcendent Creator but the matter of the cosmos itself” (Sire 68-69). Further extrapolation from this premise leads them to the conclusion that, “…there is but a single substance with various modifications. The cosmos is ultimately one thing, without any relation to a Being beyond; there is no “god,” no “creator” (Sire 70). For a Christian Theist, this presents all kinds of difficulties of course, but even when you just stand back and honestly evaluate their assertions about man being a responsible creature, it doesn’t add up very well either.
As mentioned previously, one of the first inconsistencies which must be taken into consideration with regard to their hypothesis of man as a responsible being; is their insistence that man is merely a biological machine; a complex machine granted, but a machine nonetheless. For man to be a responsible being, he must have the ability to think and distinguish between what is right and what is wrong, and naturalists must conclude based on their philosophic model (not on scientific fact) that, “…mind [is] a function of machine… the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile” (Sire 72). While this may have been a compelling argument in the eighteenth century, it hardly stands up to scientific scrutiny today, knowing how complex human brain activity is.
Naturalists offer anecdotal evidence in defense of this premise saying that, “…we are unique among animals because we alone are capable of conceptual thought, employ speech, possess a cumulative tradition (culture) and have had a unique method of evolution” (Sire 73). Still, this doesn’t satisfy the question of how we came to acquire these special abilities, and merely saying that we evolved them and therefore we can, is a circular reasoning at best. However, this is in fact the main basis for their argument; “…our distinctness from the rest of the cosmos…” (Sire 73).
A second naturalistic basis for man’s unique moral consciousness, oddly enough, comes from the Christian worldview of which they so despise. Since ethical considerations didn’t play a significant role in the development of naturalism, most early adherents of naturalism, “…continued to hold ethical views similar to those in the surrounding culture” (Sire 76), i.e. Christianity! However, they have drifted significantly from these moorings over the years, and have continued to develop their own sense of morality and religious dogma. Chief among these is the notion that, “…values are constructed by human beings… and if there were no ability to do other than what one does, any sense of right and wrong would have no practical value” (Sire 77). This convoluted reasoning means essentially that; there is no right or wrong, just do what you feel is right in your own eyes, because there is no absolute truth or “…natural law inscribed in the cosmos” (Sire 77).
This follows right along with the secular humanist’s who maintain that morality and ethics are, “autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction” (Sire 77). Still others within the ranks of naturalism go so far as to borrow theological terms from Christianity, and modify them to support their own ideas about human responsibility, recognizing that they have a religion or, “moral impulse” and that humans have a spirit or, “moral faculty” (Sire 80). Naturalists have taken such great pains to develop this system of morality that, “…even Christian theists must admit that many of the naturalists’ ethical insights are valid” (Sire 80). However, valid insights do not a comprehensive worldview make, and Sire goes on to note that, “…we can learn moral truths by observing human nature and behavior, for if women and men are made in the image of God and if that image is not totally destroyed by the Fall, then they should yet reflect – even if dimly – something of the goodness of God” (80).
In summary, naturalism has no real basis for concluding that man is a responsible being, other than what they have borrowed from the Judeo-Christian values system found in the Bible, and from their pragmatic observations of the fact that man is obviously a responsible being. However, merely agreeing that man is responsible, is a far cry from a cogent scientific theory for how he came to be responsible, and why, if man is only a complex machine, are there no other complex machines within the known universe that possess this quality, given the supposition that evolution actually works, and that it was the prime mover in developing this capability within man. Faced with this dilemma, the naturalists are forced to punt, and just say that man is, “…an interrelation of chemical and physical properties we do not yet fully understand” (Sire 71), rather than acknowledge that man is a responsible being because he was created in the image of a responsible Being.
Works Cited:
Sire, James. The Universe Next Door. InterVarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL: 2009 (5th Ed.).
