Creationism, the American Founding, and Individual Rights

Introduction

The Declaration famously says that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Like many famous sayings, this one tends to roll over the surface of our brains, when it actually needs to burrow deep down into the very center of our brains, and from there into our hearts. Work with me for a moment and italicize Creator.

The American Founding was a creationist event, and precisely because it was a creationist event, we have enjoyed a truly solid foundation for the blessings of liberty. Although they are obviously under assault, we will continue to enjoy them just so long as a memory of our Creator does not vanish completely. If and when that happens, other things will most certainly vanish along with it.

Just So We Know Where We Are

Speaking of creationism . . . you may have guessed this from the opening, or perhaps you have visited this blog before, and have noticed that from time to time I subject the whole idea of evolution to withering scorn. As Malcolm Muggeridge once put it, in retrospect evolution will be seen to have been one of the great jokes of history, and with this sentiment I am in hearty agreement. And I don’t just think that the idea is erroneous here and there, I think it is a howler from start to finish.

To make matters worse, I am a young earth creationist. On top of that, I am what might be called a blammo creationist. God spoke, and here we all are. When devotees of Big Science start telling me what happened in the first two seconds after the Big Bang, my eyes roll back in my head, and I start biting the sides of my tongue to keep me from saying anything imprudent, untoward, or unkind. I don’t want to lose any more friends than I already have.

I know, I know. The learned observe me and my thinking powers with disdain. There I am, in my nightmare, standing in front of their inquisitional mahogany table, the knees of my trousers all baggy, and my shirt partly untucked, and a bit of grime on my face, and my hands all sweaty and grubby. “So, Dr. Cornpone, we have come to understand that you don’t believe in evolution. Would you care to give an account of yourself.” And all of a sudden, even in that hot mess of a pepperoni dream, I feel a lot better.

“You mean, like evidence?”

“Of course we mean evidence. What else did you think we might mean?”

“Ah, very good then. Here we go. The falcon’s eye. The suction cups on the octopus. The lactation cycles of mammals. Mandelbrot sets. Hummingbird hearts. The hinder parts of the lightning bug. The navigational abilities of honey bees. The way two random objects in the sky, the sun and the moon, can stack on top of one another, like they were a couple of quarters. Long-legged herons. The way a joey gets into the kangaroo’s pouch. The meadowlark’s call. And, if you want to go the short way around, Genesis 1-3.”

And then I wake up, refreshed, and ready for some coffee.

Ideas Have Consequences

But let us not get distracted. My point here is not to debate evolution as a separate topic. My point is to direct your attention to demented behavior of our ruling elites, and to the nonsensical angular and jagged objects they are trying to force down our throats, and to identify our widespread cultural denial of creation as one of the ur-culprits. Because they do not see or understand the implications, they think they are just trying to get me to expand my mind a little bit, and just try a spicy soup from Thailand. Because I do see the implications, I regard their efforts as trying to get me to swallow a coat hanger. It obviously won’t happen, but they are in earnest. “Try it sideways,” they say.

Richard Weaver wrote his provocative 1948 book Ideas Have Consequences, and it is a phrase that we ought to meditate on from time to time. My father once suggested that I should make sure the phrase was carved on my tombstone. Be it so. Ideas have consequences. He who says A must eventually say B.

Where we came from is directly related to who we are. It is related also to our accountability to Him, and notice that I capitalized Him. Atheism matters. Evolution matters. Creation matters.

Creationism is politically and culturally relevant. Its acceptance or denial touches everything and affects every outcome.

The Need to Go Meta

The difference between the creationist and the secular evolutionist could not be more stark. And the difference is not simply over the question of “how we got here,” as though it were a matter of asking whether Jones came to town by train or by plane. Jones could avail himself of either of those means of transport, and still be, when he got here, Jones.

But creation and evolution are not simply “means of transport,” or “ways of getting here.” If we were created by God as Genesis describes, and we are descended from our first parents Adam and Eve, then we bear the imago Dei. But if there is no God, and we clambered out of the primeval goop aeons ago, staggering blindly down to the present, then we are nothing more than meat, bones, and protoplasm. A pig is a dog is a boy is a man. This means that ultimately the question is not over how Jones got here, but rather it is a question of whether Jones is going to be Jones at all.

In one scenario, he is, and he will live forever before God as Jones. In the other, he is nothing more than sea foam on the rocks. deposited there by the impersonal waves.

And this of course has massive and practical political implications. We are actually debating whether or not there is such a thing as a human being. This is crucial, for if there is no such thing as a human being, then there cannot be such a thing as human rights. An evolutionist might reply that he certainly believes in human beings, and how dare I question otherwise? “But what are they?” I ask. Besides meat, bones and protoplasm?

We are already killing little ones in the womb because they are just a cluster of cells. But what are we but a larger cluster of cells?

Young Earth Creationism?

The critique I am applying here to the secular evolutionist does not apply to the old earth creationist, or to the theistic evolutionist. Anyone who acknowledges God cannot be critiqued in the manner I am employing here. There is a critique to be had, but it would run along the lines of “you guys care way too much what the secularists, those to whom the critique does apply, and I think you should stop doing that.”

You can believe in blammo creationism without being an ignoramus from the hill country, but that is a topic for another time.

Propositional Nation

Now this entire issue provides us with a clear insight into how the idea of America as a “propositional nation” fails, and fails in quite a spectacular way. The assertion that America is a propositional nation leads to a series of pointed questions, and to conundra galore, if that’s how you say it.

What sort of questions?

First, if we are a propositional nation, then what would the proposition be? In order to stay on topic, let’s stick with “all men are created equal.” Confronted with this, we have two directions we could go. We could realize that America is a propositional creationist nation, as in, you know, fundamentalist nation. Note the verb, people! That’s one direction. The other direction is to declare that this proposition is foundational to our democratic way of life, and that, while insisting on this, it is equally important, also in the interests of saving democracy, that we not actually believe this proposition.

You know, we are actually saying that “all men are ‘created’ equal.” Created has scare quotes. Fine. Two can play that game. So what this means is that all men are created “equal.” If we have no humans anymore, we have no human rights from God. We can still have privileges from the state, though, but we should recognize the difference. Creationists believe in inalienable rights. Atheists believe in alienable privileges.

The second question is this. If we want to be a propositional nation, gathered around “all men are created equal,” then what do we do with the propositional heretics, like the Darwinians? Can you be a real American and believe that human beings are nothing more than a concatenation of atoms? Can you believe that all of us are here because we are the end product of time and chance acting on matter? Any propositional denomination in which heresy trials are an impossibility is a denomination that is not really propositional at all. But where does that leave the Darwinian Americano? Is he an American just because his great grandfather believed in God? That is starting to verge toward the blood and soil stuff. Makes decent people nervous.

A third question arises, since we have already decided to go meta. If you are not a creationist, not only do you lose the idea of humanity, and human rights, but you also lose the whole concept of propositions. In a materialist cosmos, all we have are atoms banging around. But if that is the case, then what is happening inside our skulls is just more of the same, atoms banging around. Your thoughts are nothing—they are simply the brain gas that gets emitted under these conditions and at this temperature. You therefore have no reason for thinking that your thoughts are true, and this means that you have no reason to believe that your brain is composed of atoms. It turns out that any possible proposition is a wet paper bag with the bottom gone out. Human dignity, human rights, justice for all, fair play—all over the floor.

Intellectual Courage

What is needed in the church today is a return to intellectual courage. Resolve, under God, to follow the argument. And then, braced by the grace of God in Christ, make the argument. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? You will probably get called a Christian nationalist—but if you love Christ you are eventually going to get called that anyhow. This is because the secularists are more willing to follow this argument than the Christians are.

They know why we all need to be rounded up into cattle cars and taken away to Sunny Acres Reeducation Camp. But a good third of the saints in the cattle cars will still be fogged about it. Some will be muttering that “this violates the central principles of diversity and pluralism.” Actually, no, it doesn’t. It violates what Christ would have us do, but you decided some time ago to team up with the secularists in saying “we will not have this man rule over us.” And even though you cooperated with them fully . . . they hate you anyway. This is because you still believe in God, and that means that to them you are an incipient Christian nationalist. He who says A must eventually say B.

So the idea of a privatized truth, or private religion, is not simply an error. It is nonsense. If your idea of the First Amendment is that everybody in the country has the ability to retreat into their own private truth zones, then your time would be better spent in sweeping water uphill.

Take it down to the basics. If Christ is not over the state, then you are actually trying to allow the state to become your Christ. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.