Andrew Bernhardt's Website

The world of nature we live in is amazingly complex and well-tuned, from the macroscopic (general cycle of life) level, down to the microscopic level. Virtually all of life works to keep the system in balance and flourishing. In one part of the cycle, bees pollinate flowers so plants can produce fruit. Animals eat the fruit, and in doing so scatter the seeds so the plants can reproduce elsewhere. All of the participants in the cycle benefit. It appears simple when you look at the overall picture, but it is mind-bogglingly complex when you examine the role individual creatures play to keep the cycle going. ¹

When we add man into the equation, however, nature tends to get out of balance. We pollute the air, the ground, and the water supply, we deforest, we eliminate some species and transport other invasive species, we wage wars, and so on. If evolution has so fine-tuned the workings of nature over billions of years, why are we, the supposed apex of evolution, so destructive to ourselves and the world around us?

For all the natural problems we cause, they are merely symptoms of a more severe moral condition. While we have a moral sense, corrupted as it is, we can’t even live up to our own ideas of right and wrong. This manifests itself through everything from breaking the speed limit, not wearing our seatbelts, and cheating on our taxes, to bribery and political scandals in the highest levels of government, to terrorism, torture, sexual slavery, murder… you name it. Animals are not moral creatures, yet overall, they behave better than we do!

Yes, we humans aren’t perfect. But most of us prefer not to get into the specifics (especially when it becomes personal). When we admit to failings, we usually refer to the occasional ‘minor’ moral infraction (such as telling a lie or stealing a pencil from the office), or something non-moral (such as breaking one’s diet). We believe most people, even hardened criminals, are essentially good deep down inside, and that the good just needs opportunity to express itself.

But this view of ourselves is just self-deception. Read today’s newspaper. It’s full of reports of crime across all levels of society. Criminals come both educated and uneducated, rich and poor, religious and non-religious, black and white, from the highest government offices down to the homeless living on the street. And the newspapers only cover a tiny fraction of our illegal or immoral activities.

Materialists explain our moral nature as just one more thing that came about through evolution. If we favor what is good and beneficial, it would certainly be advantageous to our species and increase our chances of survival. But why is it so difficult to do what is good and beneficial? Everything else that supposedly evolved about nature and ourselves is finely tuned. Why does it take more self-control to do the right thing than to do the wrong thing… even when we agree the right thing is beneficial?

I don’t see how evolution can explain our corrupt nature, because doing wrong always has a detrimental effect on our species. For all the progress we have made over the decades and centuries in terms of education, science, technology, medicine, infrastructure, and the like, mankind is still going down the proverbial toilet.

The Bible, on the other hand, doesn’t try to gloss over who we are. It is full of accounts of people like us today who were greedy, selfish, deceptive, violent, sexually immoral, robbers, murderers, etc. The Bible describes our nature as “sinful”, meaning we’re unwilling and unable to live in a way that is in harmony with God intent and the rest of creation. When I examine myself, I find my nature exactly matches what the Bible says about me. One of the four founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital (now the university) also recognized the same thing:

“Perhaps one of my strongest reasons for believing the Bible is that it reveals to me, as no other book in the world could do, that which appeals to me as a physician, a diagnosis of my spiritual condition. It shows me clearly what I am by nature—one lost in sin and alienated from the life that is in God. I find in it a consistent and wonderful revelation, from Genesis to Revelation, of the character of God, a God far removed from any of my natural imaginings.”

– Howard A. Kelly, M.D.

{Again, I have a two part argument. This first part is about man’s moral inclination and a general desire for justice. I don’t consider it as strong an argument as that from consciousness, but I feel it is strong enough to include here. The second part will be about the difference between what man believes morally and how he acts.}

Man is a moral being. Regardless of a belief in the existence of God, everyone believes some things are right and other things are wrong. We might have significant differences of opinion on these things, but we do have opinions.

If God does not exist, there are no absolute moral standards. Each of us can then define right and wrong however we please. What is moral to you may be immoral to me, or vice versa, and each of our opinions would be equally as valid.

Unfortunately, society tends to self-destruct if everyone acts on his own personal mores. If I intend to kill you, believing it is my right, but you believe it’s wrong for me to kill you, there is no absolute standard you can appeal to that says you’re right and I’m wrong. Your belief that I am wrong has no more weight than my belief that I am right. (Lest you think this is an extreme example, it is exactly the case with those who promote genocide or abortion today.) It’s pointless for one side to convince the other to do the right thing if the right thing is purely man’s opinion.

To prevent the breakdown of society, each nation has a government that enacts laws and subjects its citizens to those laws. Everyone operates under the same moral code. This sounds like a good solution in theory, but it raises some questions in my mind.

Where does a government get its authority from? Generally, authority is passed down from a higher to a lower. In the United States, the federal government gives authority for individual states to rule, and states give authority to town and city governments. But where did our federal government get its authority from? Our founding fathers believed it came from God ¹. However, if there is no God, authority can only come through consensus of the people or rebellion against a previous government.

Concensus might appear to be good grounds for authority, however every sizeable nation is going to have citizens who oppose the rule of their government. (Subjective morality implies there will be differences of opinion on moral matters.) What makes such opposition wrong if right and wrong are subjective? If man can make up his own mind on moral and ethical issues, then the actions of rebels are no more wrong than the actions of those who obey their nation’s laws.

With no God, eventually even consensus fails, and authority can only be obtained or retained by force. The stronger party gets to make up the rules: might makes right. With subjective morality, we eventually end up with oppressive governments like China and North Korea.

Even if every citizen supports their government and obeys its laws, this world consists of more than one nation, each having their own set of laws. One nation has one law, another has an opposite law, and who’s to say which one is right? What is good in one culture is seen as evil in another, and vice versa. If the majority of nations say slavery is good, what right would the minority have to condemn the majority? If there is no authority higher than man, then one person, as well as one nation, has no right to condemn another for slavery, murder, genocide, or any other moral or ethical issue. Whatever man says is right at the moment becomes right… at least until he changes his mind.

So far, I’ve only mentioned a few problems I see with subjective morality. None of these require the existence of God to somehow make everything right. We could be living in a world with unsolvable moral dilemmas. Neither do these problems disprove the existence of God. It only says man chooses to ignore Him if He exists. However, my argument really doesn’t center on such dilemmas.

The big question in my mind is if man is a product of chance, not having been purposely created by God, why should he have any sense of right and wrong at all? Why do virtually all people agree on certain moral issues? And why is it, when we see what we believe is wrong, we want to see justice done: we want it made right?

What does it matter if somebody steals something from you? Why do you get upset? Surely, there is more to it than just because, “It’s mine!” When people are wronged, they naturally want to see justice done, not just have things restored to normal. (Spend some time in a room with several young children and one toy and see how their sense of justice expresses itself!) This is our normal way of thinking, and if we don’t think this way now, it’s only because we had to unlearn it in the past.

True, different cultures have superficially different ideas of what is right and wrong. Not too long ago, betrayal and murder even of friends was considered normal in one culture in Papua New Guinea ². Killing a friend was a sign of coming of age. However, even this culture knew murder is wrong. If you were to ask the person being murdered if it was morally right, I’m sure you would get an enthusiastic “Of course not!” for an answer. He certainly didn’t think the “right thing” was being done to him. And deep down inside, the one doing the killing believes the same, for he would also think it wrong if the tables were turned and someone tried to murder him. Whether we’re talking about murder, theft, adultery, or whatever, the victim almost always has a truer sense of right and wrong than the perpetrator.

This sense of fairness can be changed or perverted, but not eliminated.

The materialist believes our universe came about by chance, not by the will of God or for His purpose. So what does it matter to a materialist that other people believe in God and want to share their beliefs with others? If the universe is purposeless, what does it matter if everyone becomes a Christian, a Muslim, or whatever. Everybody dies in in the end. If you’re happier believing a lie, what’s the problem? And yet, it angers an atheist to see a Christian promote his ‘dogma’. In an age of moral relativism where an increasing number of people insist there is no absolute right and wrong, what gives them to right to judge Christians?

The Bible, on the other hand, portrays men as moral creatures, created in the likeness of God. Since God is righteous, we were made to reflect His righteousness. (Right and wrong are not really a matter of opinion.) Our likeness to our Creator has since been corrupted, and our sense of right and wrong has been perverted through our disobedience to God. But we are still moral beings: we still have a sense of right and wrong. And we prefer the right, desiring wrong-doers to come to justice. Even in secular books and movies, we want to see the good guy win. This desire is evidence we were created by God. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Although we do not always see justice fulfilled in this life, there will eventually come a time when justice will happen and all wrong will be punished. Everyone will eventually appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the results of what they have done here on earth.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

– 2 Corinthians 5:10

(In this and the next post, I want to open the door for the atheist to consider the existence of the spiritual realm. Materialism is the biggest stumbling block towards belief in God. My purpose is not to convince the atheist that materialism is false, but to get the materialist to think it through so he himself can recognize the inadequacy of his supposition and discard it.)

Science and science fiction have dealt with the subject of consciousness. What makes someone aware of his existence? Many science fiction characters such as Andrew in Bicentennial Man, and Commander Data in Star Trek Next Generation have expressed the idea that an android can become self-aware, to the point of becoming a person. Of course, science fiction is fiction. But such a thing must appear theoretically possible to someone who believes pure material existence provides everything needed for self-consciousness. A materialist is forced to explain consciousness only in terms of matter and energy. He believes there is no need for an immaterial spirit or soul. I disagree ¹.

Let’s assume there is no soul or spirit – that the material universe is all there is. Such a universe admits no control or influence outside of its own natural laws. Everything you do, therefore, must be the result of one immense cosmic chain of cause and effect. You have no real choice in what you do because everything that happens is a result of what happened before. You lift your finger not because you decide to lift your finger, but because the state of your body at the time (determined by the previous state of your body and your environment) determines you would do so. You are no different than an automaton, blindly and inevitability performing its function. An automaton is not self-aware, why should you be?

You decide to develop a self-aware android. You create its body and the computer that runs inside. Now you start writing its program. At first the code is fairly simple, but you keep adding to it and improving it until the android has the ability to learn and modify its own programming based on its environment. It even has the ability to act convincingly like a human-being so others can relate to it as if it is human. But no matter how much you improve the program, at its core all you have is a complicated automaton. It may give the appearance of self-awareness, but it has no first-person experience of consciousness ².

Think about a very realistic 3D computer game or simulation, or a movie made with computer generated imagery. No matter how real the graphics may appear to us, the computer knows nothing of what we perceive. It is only mindlessly performing a series of logical and mathematical steps, and moving numbers around in memory as determined by its programming. Without a soul, an android can also go no further than this.

While I do believe it possible to advance in technology enough to make an android that looks, acts, and relates to us convincingly like a conscious human being, the appearance of consciousness would be an illusion to those looking on. Consciousness would not be something that the android experiences. It would just be running a very complex program that produces a predictable output for a given input. This is true whether the android uses Von Neumann, neural network, quantum entanglement, “positronic”, or some other architecture. This is also true for humans if we have no soul ³.

My personal theory is that self-awareness comes about through the union of the body and the spirit, kind of like the union of a car with its driver. You may know everything there is to know about how a car works, but that would not explain why the car ahead of you suddenly swerved into oncoming traffic. You might explain the swerve by saying the front wheels turned that way. You would then trace the cause-and-effect chain of events back through the steering mechanism to the steering wheel. But your knowledge of car mechanics cannot explain why the steering wheel turned. To do that, you have to go beyond the car and examine the driver.

Similarly, science cannot fully explain the root cause for a conscious act, such as lifting a finger. But I believe it possible, at least theoretically, to trace the act backwards on a molecular level through the body until you come to an effect without a material cause. At that point, you will have reached the interface between the spirit and the body, at least for that specific conscious act ⁴.