The Hobbesian World of Darwin

Ken Connor:

Darwin's views add up to a life without ultimate meaning. In Darwin's City there is no ultimate goal to life, only existence, whatever existence is. William Shakespeare captured the horror of this perspective in his play, Macbeth: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more; it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing."

The secularist-chance view of life breeds hopelessness and despair. Human beings are mere creatures of chance, beyond the reach of truth, left to try to find meaning in existence when there is none. The secularists maintain that we come from nothing and we are destined for annihilation, yet somehow in-between we are something special. To paraphrase Francis Schaeffer, these secularists have both feet firmly planted in thin-air.

In Darwin's City there is an unholy trinity when it comes to man—he lives in a world without dignity, without truth, and without meaning. How will human beings respond in such an environment? Might they be corrupt in politics, dishonest in business, and boorish in entertainment? If not accountable to a higher power, might they deem themselves accountable only to themselves? Would men like Jack Abramoff and businesses like Enron feel at home in such a place?

Juxtaposed against Darwin's city, there is the "Shining City on the Hill," the one envisioned by Rev. John Winthrop in his famous 1630 sermon. Residents of this place are convinced that, even though human beings are fallen in their nature, they enjoy a fundamental dignity because they are created in God's image. They also have infinite worth because they have been redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ..." (1 Peter 1:19) The Creator has endowed them with the inalienable rights of life and liberty. This is the city of the American Founders. It is the city envisioned by Abraham Lincoln when he said that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..." It is the city of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream, where he could say, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" It was the place Ronald Reagan said was "a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace."

There is no place for love or art or joy in the secular materialist world, only the grinding struggle to eat more of your neighbor's young before they do the same to yours.

Is it any wonder that as the secularists have taken hold of the culture, the culture has become utterly incapable of producing anything of significance or beauty?

Bach's cantatas are beyond our reach now, as are Michelangelo's sculptures or Rembrandt's paintings. We have traded them in for the freedom to rut, cuss, and kill as we like.

Sounds like Hobbes nightmare view of uncivilized man to me.