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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Bill, Ben, and a grenade


It is a well known fact that Evolution cannot account for morality. Unfortunately, it is also a well denied fact. Evolutionists, naturally, tend to want the best of both worlds; all the rights, none of the responsibilities. And so they come up with a number of ways to explain how they think morality evolved.

There is a fairly simple way to settle this: Present a scenario with an identical outcome, but disparate moral implications. So, let's throw a grenade at Bill and Ben.


Bill is quite a selfless individual. He loves Ben, and doesn't want him to die. So, he does the only thing he can think of: he throws himself on the grenade. The grenade explodes, killing Bill, but not so much as a shard touches Ben. Bill is a hero.

Let's get in our time machine and resurrect Bill. But because I'm not a particularly kind individual, I'm going to throw the grenade again. This time, rather than Bill willingly jumping on it, he tries to run away, but Ben pushes Bill on the grenade, again killing him, and saving Ben. Now, Bill is not a hero, but a victim.


In both scenarios, the outcome is identical: Bill is killed and removed from the gene pool, and Ben survives. However, the events leading to that outcome depend on the actions of the two men. In the first scenario, Bill is selfless. He willingly sacrifices his own life for the sake of his friend, Ben. This kind of thing is morally good. There is nothing more noble than sacrificing your own life for the sake of another. On the other hand, the second scenario involves a murder. Bill did not willingly sacrifice his life in an act of selflessness, it was forcibly taken from him in an act of selfishness.

Now for the part that really causes trouble for Evolutionary narratives. In the selflessness scenario, the action taken was on the part of the one who died. In other words, selflessness is not good for survival, and so if it was a heritable trait, it would be naturally selected against. By contrast, in the selfish scenario, the action was taken on the part of the survivor. If morality was a heritable trait, the selfish gene would pass itself on to the next generation. As it stands, morality is not heritable, but it still stands that selflessness, almost universally recognised as good, is not beneficial for Evolution, whereas selfishness, often recognised as evil, is.

In other words, Evolution is actually contrary to the morality we know and love. The Evolutionary story for how morality evolved doesn't work, and even if it did work, it still wouldn't mean that we should have certain moral views, because any appeal to consequence requires that there be good consequences. All the answer does is push the dilemma back one step and force Evolutionists to explain why survival and reproduction are good things.

So Evolution simply cannot account for morality. Certainly not the morality with which we are familiar. I wouldn't want to live in a world where the only goal is to survive and pass on my genes. But in a world where "do unto others as you would have them do to you" is all but a legal requirement, all of us would be better off. But this is a mantra that only logically stems from one religion: Judeo-Christianity. The Christian faith teaches that we are all valuable Creations of a Holy God, and that it is actually in His image we were created. What we do to each other, we're also said to do to Him. Even our enemies are to be loved. Sacrificial love not only makes perfect sense in light of a religion that has "love your neighbour as yourself" as its second highest commandment, it is absolutely necessary.


What's more is that our God isn't just sat on His throne barking orders. He actually leads by example. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to the earth to be born of the virgin, Mary, and live a fully human life. Jesus lived a perfect life. He had no sin, and thus He did not deserve the wrath of God. But He took it anyway. He took it because we deserve it. Each and every one of us has sinned, but because God is rich in love, He did all that so that we could inherit eternal life from Him. All it takes is faith. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

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