Universal acid
Editorial: An analysis of Daniel Dennett’s book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea is the title of atheist philosopher Daniel
Dennett’s influential book.1 By this he doesn’t mean the
belief, predating Darwin, that one kind gave rise to another. He means the idea
that natural selection, acting on chance variations, has been capable of creating
all the wonders of the natural world, while producing the illusion of design.
He likens Darwin’s notion to a ‘universal acid’ which is so corrosive
that nothing can contain it. Darwinism ‘eats through virtually every traditional
concept’2—mankind’s most cherished beliefs about God,
value, meaning, purpose, culture, morality—everything. While lashing out at
creationists, Dennett says that they are ‘right about one thing; Darwin’s
dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs
than many of [Darwinism’s] sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even
to themselves. Even today, many people still have not come to terms with its mind-boggling
implications.’2
Many theistic evolutionists, particularly academics eager to preserve credibility
in both camps, try to dismiss the atheistic implications of Darwinism as merely
the overreaction of a few extremists. But it is turning out to be impossible to
‘contain’ this universal acid. Atheism is now almost universally espoused
by the leaders of evolutionary science.
Once you accept that chance and selection, the mindless processes of Darwinism,
produced our bodies and our brains, why should our minds be excluded from this process?
Which means that the products of our minds (thoughts, culture, ideas and behaviour
of all sorts) are ultimately the results of this same mindless process. The philosophical
choice has always been starkly clear. Either the universe is the product of intelligence,
or intelligence is the product of the universe.
Dennett points out that there is no logical stopping point for Christians and others
who want to flirt with Darwinism. For him, the question is not whether, but when
this universal acid will have totally dissolved the Christian worldview in our society.
Over the last century and more, the Darwinian ‘acid’ has seriously corroded
all of Western culture. Evolutionary thinking has long been implicit (there is no
such thing as absolute values or meaning in life except your own opinion). It is
becoming ever more explicit—such things as ‘Darwinian medicine’
are increasingly pushed. Or Darwinian psychology, which ‘explains’ everything
previously labelled as ‘sin’ in evolutionary terms.
Those clinging to a ‘big bang’ idea as a last bastion for a divine act
of creation are having that ground corroded out from under them by the universal
acid—the universe’s origin is now being ‘explained’ by Darwinian–style
selection from an array of eternally replicating and varying universes.
Many evangelical Bible colleges and the like have already suffered major corrosion
from the inside as a result of allowing this universal acid (and its closely related
stablemate, ‘progressive creation’) into the fold. Here, too, there
is no logical barrier to prevent it eating its way to ultimate unbelief.
Accept that the Bible is wrong about something as major and as obvious as no death/bloodshed
before sin, or the global nature of the Flood judgment, then maybe it is wrong about
other things concerning the nature of sin, the wrongfulness of homosexual behaviour,
Jesus Christ’s Virginal Conception, Bodily Resurrection, Atonement for our
sins, and so on. The acid just eats away until there is not even the vaguest resemblance
to the ‘faith which was once delivered unto the saints’
(Jude
3).
The good news is that there is an antidote to this ‘universal acid’.
We need to rebuild all of our thinking, not just about science and origins, on the
written Word of God. Creation magazine is a powerful part of the antidote—sprinkle
it around widely in your corner of the world, and watch the ‘fizz’.
May God continue to bring the light of His glorious Gospel to many through these
pages.
Further reading
References
- Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Simon
& Schuster, 1995.
- D. Dennett, ‘Darwin’s dangerous idea’, The Sciences,
pp. 34–40, May–June, 1995. Dennett is director of the Centre for Cognitive
Studies at Tufts University, Massachusetts.
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