When I argue against an issue in society, like abortion, I try not to use the Bible because I realize not everyone accepts the Bible as a valid universal source of morality. They could say, "well, I don't believe the Bible", therefore I try to reason from knowledge or common sense. Lately, I'm rethinking this strategy a little after reading The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener, which makes the point that no matter how much people protest the influence of the Bible in regard to morality, they are living by and adhering to the Bible without realizing it. Let me explain from his writings.(I'm not going to footnote, etc. Just assume none of these thoughts belong to me but all come from The Air We Breathe)
EQUALITY
You probably believe in equality of people. Where did you get that belief? Is it just common sense or intuitive? Actually, it's not. Back in 300-400BC, Aristotle and Plato taught the philosophy of natural inequality; nature herself taught that some were fitter, stronger, smarter, and frankly, better than others. There were superior races, sexes, and classes. How could anyone deny some people can govern well while others need governing. It was obvious that certain humans were born to be "living tools"; machines to be used by others. Justice was superiors ruling over you - that's what nature decreed and those most in tune with reason could see that. Even before Aristotle and Plato, ancient creation myths of man from Babylonians to Mesopotamians, to Greeks, all had a common theme and that was that man was made out of bloodshed to be slaves to the gods.
Is that what we believe today? You can just look at the reaction to CoVid in 2020 not just here but worldwide to see that our views have changed. CoVid 19 selectively killed the elderly, sickly, obese, immunocompromised who in pre-Christian era would have been considered lesser human beings. Yet, we and other nations effectively shut down our whole lives to protect those people who we deemed as equal in value to ourselves and were appalled by any suggestion to the contrary. What has caused this radical shift in our view of equality of mankind?
Human equality, human rights, and humanism can trace their sources back to the Biblical root that our inherent value is that we are made in the image of God. If we feel that life is sacred, that every person possesses dignity and equality, and that no one deserves to be trampled down simply because they are smaller or weaker or poorer, then we are standing on particularly Biblical foundations not taught by any pre-Christian thought.
COMPASSION
Today we are moved with compassion for the down and out. We are champions for the underdog and the whole Critical Theory that has permeated our thinking in the West of identifying the oppressed and delivering them from oppressors is something that would never have entered the minds of pre-Christian thought. Plato thought in order to be worth rearing, children must be "malleable, disposed to virtue, and physically fit.?" If they didn't prove themselves worthy parents should "properly dispose of them in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them." Aristotle thought defective children should be discarded at rubbish tips, abandoned on hillsides, thrown down wells or drowned in rivers. "Let there be a law that no deformed child should be reared", he stated. Infanticide was so widespread in the Roman world that the first known treatise on gynecology in the 1st century by Soranus of Ephesus included the vital section, How to Recognise the Newborn That is Worth Rearing.
What caused the shift in thought from "survival of the fittest" to compassion? Nietzsche identified the cause and blamed Christians for it. He stated, "Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made an ideal of antagonism to all the self-preservative instincts of sound life." In other words, Christians have put themselves on the side of the inferior, endangering the survival of the species. What caused Christians to think this way? If natural selection means the survival of the fittest and the sacrifice of the weakest, Christianity's moral revolution taught sacrifice of the fittest (Jesus) for the survival of the weakest (us). This thinking caused Christians to introduce Hospitals, orphanages, and stop the Roman death arenas and eventually slavery. William Wilberforce, a Christian, in his speech to the House of Commons in 1791 said,
" ...we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied. This is the first fruits of our efforts; let us persevere and our triumph will be complete. Never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name, released ourselves from the load of guilt, under which we at present labour, and extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic..."
implying that Christians were complicit in this travesty by nature of both turning a blind eye to it when they knew it was contrary to the teachings of the Bible, and in some cases participating in it.
If you consider yourself to be a compassionate person, don't pat yourself on the back saying, "I'm a good person." This does not come naturally. You have unknowingly adopted the teachings of the Bible.
CONSENT and ABUSE
When a patient comes into the hospital, they are inundated with consent forms. They sign consents for treatment, procedures, release of information, transfer of records and others because in the day we live we are very conscious of people's rights, privacy, and not treating them as objects or lesser beings. But it's not just medical facilities that require consent forms. With the abundance of "hook-up" apps, there are consent forms one click away to spell out what a person will allow in bed. This is done for protection against sexual abuse claims. Where did our concern for consent and abuse come from? Is it from our membership in the animal kingdom? No, animals don't behave this way. Just the other day I saw a duck holding down a female duck so another male could mate with it. If that was a human action, those two would get life in prison. Does it come from ancient thought? Let's see.
In the ancient world, gods were violent rapists, and sexual agency was solely in the hands of powerful men and sexual misbehavior consisted in the violation of reputations, not of bodies or wills. In other words, if a person was below you or beneath you or inferior to you, in the Roman culture, you could force yourself on them physically. Women, because they were considered inferior were required to be chaste and virgins at marriage and monogamous while men could relieve themselves with anyone beneath him. Adultery was considered wrong only because it was deemed a power play against another man. Pedophilia, abhorrent in today's culture was common in the Roman culture. All one had to do was buy a child as a slave and you could do what you wanted with them.
Then the teachings of the Bible came in. It said that everyone is equally made in the image of God. Women, children, men, slaves, races, impoverished all had equal value in the sight of God and no one could impose their will on another without their consent. In the area of sexuality, Jesus gave two options: lifelong monogamy or chaste singleness. When the disciples, who were steeped in the philosophy of their day heard this, they were shocked and stated, "then it's better off not to get married". Although consent and not Biblical sexual ethics has been adopted by our society, sociologists recognize that the Biblical sex ethic would suppress the male reproductive competition, drain the pool of unmarried men full of testosterone and low on responsibility, and tie men to their women and families. If this Marriage and Family Program (MFP) that the Bible teaches were adopted, society would flourish.
So next time you ask someone's permission or consent, you aren't doing what comes naturally or is intuitive. It only seems the rational thing to do because you have unknowingly adopted the teachings of the Bible.
SCIENCE
You might think that to say that your belief in science would come from Christian "brainwashing" when the contemporary view of science is at odds with the Bible. As Esqueleto (Skeleton) told Nacho Libre when Nacho asked Esqueleto if he had been baptized, "Why are you always judging me, just because I believe in science?" One of people's major objections to the veracity of the Bible is because of its apparent conflicts with science. Is this valid? Let's explore.
The basis of modern science comes from three unprovable premises: 1) The belief that the world is real and the human mind is capable of knowing its real nature. Einstein called this the "miracle of science". "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility... The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle", Einstein said. 2) The second postulate underlying the structure of scientific knowledge is that of cause and effect. 3) The third postulate is that the universe is unified. "These scientific premises define and limit the scientific mode of thought. It should be pointed out that each of these postulates had its origin in or was consistent with Christian theology."(Stanley Beck journal of Bioscience 1982)
Thus, science emerged among people who believed certain things. Specifically, they believed that science could be done. They believed in what Einstein called the "miracle of comprehensibility"- the wonder that puny human brains could figure out the mysteries of the cosmos. Here are some quotes by early scientists who believed in the Bible
Copernicus -"To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend... the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High."
Galileo - "The glory and greatness of almighty God are marvelously discerned in all His works."
Kepler - Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection of the mind of God. That men are able to participate in it is one of the reasons why man is an image of God."
Newton - "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of a powerful intelligent being."
Add to these four pioneers Joseph Lister (antiseptic surgery), Louis Pasteur (bacteriology), Robert Boyle (chemistry) Georges Cuvier (comparative anatomy), Charles Babbage (computer science), Lord Rayleigh (dimensional analysis), James Maxwell (Electrodynamics), Michael Faraday (Electromagnetics), Ambrose Fleming (electronics), Lord Kelvin (energetics), Henri Fabre (entomology), George Stokes (fluid mechanics), William Herschel (astronomy), Gregor Mendel (genetics), Louis Agassiz (geology), James Simpson (gynecology), Leonardo DaVinci (hydraulics), Matthew Maury (Hydrography), Blaise Pascal (Hydrostatics), William Ramsay (chemistry), John Ray (natural history), Bernhard Riemann (geometry), David Brewster (minerology) John Woodward (paleontology), Rudolph Virchow (pathology), James Joule (thermodynamics), Nicholas Steno (stratigraphy), Carolus Linnaeus (biology), and Humphrey Davy (thermokinetics) who were all Bible believing scientists.
Today's scientific method formulated by Bible believing Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is based on these Biblical principles; Investigating what is - God had the freedom to create the universe as He so desired and now we can figure out what is. Secondly, the world can be figured out. There are regularities in the way the world works and these are reliable. Thirdly, humans are fallible. Stephen Pinker said, "The signature practices of science, including open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods are designed to circumvent the sins of scientists who are human and vulnerable."
When you are "trusting the science", it's important to realize that science is standing on the broad shoulders of Christian thought.
CONCLUSION
Scrivener has several other arenas of thought or morality that he deals with which didn't resonate with me as much, so I didn't give them much time in this discussion. He considered the age of Enlightenment commonly referred to as the Dark Ages, where education, once considered a luxury for rich men, became a necessity for all. He also considered "Progress". Once history was thought of as a descent from the Golden Age, Christianity taught an arrow pointing onwards and upwards.
The obvious objection to this is that if Christianity teaches all these principles and world views that we have supposedly adopted, why have Christians been such major offenders of these? He gives this as an answer, maybe unsatisfying to critics and disheartened Christians alike, but nonetheless he makes a good point. He says that if you don't like the violence of the Old Testament wars or church history of the last 2000 years, it's probably because you have adopted the teachings of the One who said, "Put away your sword." If you recoil at Israel's ancient practice of slavery or the Bible-belt's adoption of slavery, you have probably inherited the Biblical notions of redemption, freedom and equality. If you are devastated by church abuse scandals, you are standing with Christ against the misuse of sex and power. Remember, Jesus saved his harshest criticism for hypocrites in the "Church". If you are bothered by hypocrisy, He was bothered more. If you abhor the church mistreating minorities, you are assigning a Christian value to the weak, poor and oppressed. If you consider the church to be on the wrong side of history, you are considering history and progress in Biblical ways.
He basically says that on all the points that critics judge the Church on violating all these moral principles, the straight line they are using to judge "crookedness" is the Bible. In a way, I feel that is a bit of a "cop-out" because it doesn't address the fact that Christians haven't practiced what they preached through the ages. In a sense though, (my thoughts) the very fact that we don't do what we know is right, beneficial, and would lead to our flourishing, illustrates the biblical truth of first of all, sin, which the Bible declares is our default nature - rebellion against God, and secondly a force warring against God, the Devil, who wants us to destroy ourselves and draw others away from God.
