Bad arguments for good ideas are a recipe for failure.  It’s almost as if conservatives pushing for intelligent design in our nation’s public schools don’t believe in it.  They haven’t prescribed the right remedy because they haven’t made the proper diagnosis.

The Columbus Dispatch’s October 3 editorial page heralded the debate question: “Should intelligent design get court’s approval in Pennsylvania school case?”  Jay Sekulow with the American Center for Law and Justice argued for the affirmative position while Barry Lynn with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State argued in the negative.  Sekulow minimizes the debate by simply describing this case as a question of whether or not school teachers should inform students that there are beliefs about the origins of life that transcend evolutionary theory.  He quotes an atheistic philosopher who became convinced by scientific discoveries that there is a God, and he cites the fact that intelligent design is becoming more popular, as if a democratic majority makes something right or true.  He denies that teachers would be teaching students religion when they inform them that intelligence designed the universe and all therein.

These are bad arguments for a grand idea, and Barry Lynn’s rebuttal is the case-in-point coup de grace.  He simply states the obvious: teachers must inform their students about an Intelligent Designer to put forth the theory of intelligent design.  Granted, most of the scientific arguments for intelligent design are simply rebuttals of Darwin’s theories and those of his followers, but it is undeniable that intelligent design theory presupposes Supreme Intelligence.  As Barry Lynn put it, “Although they (intelligent design theory proponents) stop short of saying that the designer is God, they offer no other plausible explanation.”  And all the sincere atheists as well as sincere theists bellow in unison: “Amen!” 

One could only wonder if Sekulow would disapprove of intelligent design theory being expounded upon in our public schools if he were convinced of what is obvious to everyone without a law degree, that intelligent design theory is primarily a religious concept.

One also has to wonder if Jay Sekulow, in his fear of appearing to violate the “wall of separation” between church and state, would have opposed the educational philosophies of our nation’s founders.  Thomas Jefferson, for example, was Superintendent of the School of Washington, D.C., and the Holy Bible and Isaac Watts’ Hymnal were the only required textbooks in every classroom.  Noah Webster, one of our nation’s first educational bureaucrats, said, “Education is useless without God and the Bible.”  In 1777, the year after the Declaration was signed, our forefathers spent $300,000 of taxpayer money to purchase Bibles for distribution in the nation’s public schools.  Whatever they meant by “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” it didn’t preclude them from using taxpayer funds to teach the Christian religion to public school children, and I think it safe to say that they knew what they meant in the First Amendment better than we.

Today’s Christian theists are content with something much more secular and pagan than what our forefathers envisioned for our nation’s public school children.  When will we see that education is inescapably religious, and the question before us is this: Which religion will have pre-eminence in the minds of our nation’s youth?  Darwinism or Christianity? 

We have believed the myth that nations and institutions can be neutral with regard to Christianity and its claims.  There is no neutrality as far as our Maker is concerned.  Jesus said that we are either for Him or against Him, that if we do not gather with Him we scatter abroad.  Friends of the world, according to the book of James, are His enemies; they are hostile to the Creator.  There is no middle ground, no demilitarized zone where the institutions of the United States of America can stand for a generic Deity compatible with all faiths, pagan or otherwise, and be at peace with the one true God.  Even Canaan had its Baal, which religion has no superiority to atheism in the eyes of God.  Indeed, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” but “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and every nation that forgets God.”  We side with the truth and with the one true God, or we side against Him.

Darwinists are up in arms against religious concepts being foisted upon the minds of our children in the name of science at taxpayer expense, but what they either fail to recognize or fail to admit is that even Darwinism has its religious presuppositions.  Darwinists, or neo-Darwinists, believe that all of life in its diverse forms evolved from lower forms of life and ultimately from a single common ancestor, and it is based upon an unproven religious assumption -- something taken by faith -- namely, naturalism. 

Naturalism holds that the only valid explanations for nature’s phenomena are naturalistic ones.  Naturalists consider only that which is empirically verifiable to be factual.  Supernatural explanations are not even considered plausible by scientists who reject all non-natural explanations at the onset.  “I will only believe to be true what I can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell,” they say.  That is one of the reasons they are so repulsed by the idea of Intelligent Design -- it is not factual, there is no empirical evidence, and the theory cannot be scientifically tested.  So, they argue, religious concepts like Supreme Intelligent Being (or Beings) belong around the family altar and in church, not in Biology 101.  You must be able to prove or disprove a theory empirically, with the five senses, or the theory is not scientific.

Their problem is that they cannot see, taste, touch, hear, or smell that theory, that naturalistic explanations are the only valid explanations for our observations of the world around us.  Thus, it doesn’t meet its own criteria for credibility, and is therefore self-refuting.  Their commitment to naturalism is not based upon empirical evidence, but rather is embraced a priori, before an examination of the scientific data.  It is a statement of faith, through which all data is filtered and examined.  It is a faith assumption that is palpably false.

When the priests of naturalism attempt to prove the theory that naturalistic processes are the only valid way to explain the universe, they then become the best argument against naturalism.  That is because in order to bring their arguments for naturalism, they must first presuppose Deity.  As Cornelius Van Til said, “Anti-theism presupposes theism.”  In order for the Darwinist to bring His arguments against Intelligent Design, he must first presuppose that which naturalistic processes cannot verify and which only the Christian worldview can; namely, the immaterial, unchanging, universal, and prescriptive laws of logic, as well as scientific induction, which assumes the uniformity of nature. 

Allow me a couple paragraphs to define my terms so as to be better understood by the philosophical layman.  The law of logic is a law of thought.  For example, the law of identity states that something is what it is, A = A.  The law of non-contradiction states that something is not what it is not: A does not equal non-A.  If someone were to start saying that trees were giraffes and giraffes were trees, we would call him illogical and not give him heed.  Naturalism cannot account for laws of logic because the laws of logic are:

1. immaterial -- they cannot be sensed with the five senses.  They are

2. unchanging -- this is assumed in all experimentation.  They are

3. universal -- they know no boundaries.  They are not man-made conventions.  And they are

4. prescriptive -- that is, they inform us of how we should think, and are not necessary descriptive of how we always do. 

Naturalism cannot account for the laws of logic because they cannot account for immaterial, unchanging, prescriptive universals, and yet they assume them to get their arguments against creationists off the ground. 

Scientific induction is the process of making generalizations from specific observations.  We do it all the time.  When a scientist performs an experiment, he assumes that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius in his laboratory, even though he may have never proven that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius in his laboratory.  There are endless assumptions in the typical scientific experiment where they assume that what was true yesterday in other places is true today where they are experimenting.  They can believe that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level everywhere, but they do not have the worldview, or the network of presuppositions, to support it.  Have they tested it at every conceivable location around the entire world?  Even if it had been tested at every conceivable location around the entire world in the past, upon what basis could they assume that what was true yesterday is true today?  Which empirical data justifies that assumption?  How can they, consistent with their naturalistic worldview, assume the uniformity of nature and apply scientific induction in their experiments?  Even the most dogmatic atheist must secretly rely on the theistic worldview when he performs an experiment, when he rails against the miracles found in the Holy Bible, or when he microwaves a cup of tea. 

Moreover, even the most dogmatic atheist assumes that which naturalism cannot account for in his reliance upon moral absolutes.  When he condemns the falsification of data in the Creationists’ claims, when he speaks against the evils of the Christian inquisitions, or when he question the honesty of the ACLJ attorney, he assumes that which his worldview contradicts in order to make sense.  The best arguments for Christianity are the best arguments leveled against it. 

Darwinism is primarily a religious theory that is patently false, and we must not be afraid to admit it.  Not since scientists believed the earth was flat has modern man been so deceived by an utterly false, self-refuting religious theory.  The Christian God is proven from the impossibility of the contrary.  Reject the Christian God, and you can’t prove anything!

In this debate over Intelligent Design in our nation’s schools, why have Christians picked a battle-line that virtually guarantees defeat?  Even if we win the present debate as it is framed, we lose -- because what we have fought for is compatible with a lie and less than the truth.  Why don’t we take the higher ground when it is available to us?  Why do we so often rest content with a comfortable defeat when the victory has been promised to us if we use the proper means?  We must have courage to speak the truths of God’s Word, we must faithfully prayer for what God’s Word says His will is, and we must refuse to make peace treaties with the father of lies.  We have the truth, and it’s always wrong to lie -- even in public schools in the name of the official government religion.

Dr. Johnston practices family medicine in Zanesville, Ohio, and is Vice Chairman of the Constitutional Party of Ohio. His ministry is Where the Truth Hurts.

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