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And groupings and subdivisions of clauses that language is capable of. To suppose that evolved borders on nonsense. And finally, the learnability thing. Eric Bickerton points out what is involved in learning a language? Do see. A single sentence presents a prodigious problem for a speaker-hearer who lacks a language system. That's a basic language faculty. Try to rearrange any ordinary sentence consisting of ten words. Well, here's a sentence, this one here, look.
Do see, this first one. Try to arrange any ordinary sentence consisting of ten words. That are, that's 10 words in that sentence. But for them to make sense, they've got to be in the right order, haven't they? It's no good saying, you see here, uh, rearrange sentence, try ordinary of consisting two words. It won't make any sense at all. To get the meaning out of those ten words, they've got to be in the exact right order, yes? There are, in principle, exactly three million six hundred twenty eight thousand eight hundred ways in which you could arrange those ten words in that sentence. That's statistically speaking.
But for the first sentence of this paragraph, only one of them gives a correct and meaningful result. That means that three million six hundred and twenty eight thousand seven hundred and ninety nine ways of organizing that sentence are ungrammatical. How did we learn it? How on earth do we manage to get our words the right way round? You see, I don't always manage to do it all the time, but on the whole. It's an extraordinary thing a child learns, isn't it? How does it manage to learn it and to sense it and be able to express itself and gets it words in the right way round, and the concepts that those words are expressing, because God in his mercy, like Chom- Chomsky would say, without bringing God, there is inbuilt in the human psyche this language faculty without which we should not be able to s- learn or speak any language to any extent at all.
That means, uh, uh, ladies and gentlemen, I can't let you have your tea and buns without, uh, taking advantage of the occasion to have a little exhortation. Luther said, keep at language, for language is the sheath that carries the sword of the spirit. I hope all of us, and the younger ones present particularly, see the implication of it. There has been an educational crime committed in our schools in this last thirty years by the left-wing educationalists that, to some extent, to my knowledge, have deliberately forbidden schools to teach language in the sense of grammar and syntax and logical analysis.
So that our young people, many of them, unlike their grandparents, find it very difficult to analyze a piece of writing of any substance. They go for the impression, if it has a big hot impression immediately, but analyzing it and understanding the logical connections in the flow of thought, that they find very difficult, even at university level, as I le- learned from my course. And it's not their fault. It's the fault of people like the Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools that said to an ex-pupil of mine, who was a headmaster in a new school, when he found out that they had appointed a teacher of English that taught spelling and paragraphing and and pracing and logical analysis and paragraphing and all that kind of stuff.
Told the headmaster to get rid of the teacher. Means so that our young folks sometimes can't, can't, can't cope with a sermon that lasts more than two minutes. So you will hear the sermons on BBC four radio. Not now a sermon of ten minutes, but half a minute, minute, and then some music, another little minute, and then some music. All my dear brothers and sisters, we're not all meant to be equally intellectual, are we? But God has written his word for all the people of God. I look back upon grandmothers who could sit and enjoy God's holy word.
I'd been taught at least the basics of the logic according to which language works. Have mercy on our young people, but you young people, give yourself to language. And that means to scripture and the language that he who is the word of God has written for our sakes. That we may in our turn honor him who gave us the language faculty, that we might understand the things that are so freely given to us of God in language. And I come to this final s- uh, little point, silly little point, isn't it? What is the difference in function between its and its?
How on earth would you know which is the right one to use? Mm-hmm. Consider these two sentences are both about Mr. Smith's dog. It's not mustard, it's beef steak it likes. Why would you put IT apostrophe S there and here? But here, no apostrophe. It's food it likes very much, it's its kennel that it doesn't like. What is the difference between it's with a comma up there and it's without a comma? Like, like, like, like here. Recently, a university that shall be nameless, lest I be covered with shame, published an advertisement for a post that had two glaring grammatical mistakes in it.
And so I hear recently, from DC, some local education authority issued pamphlets to school teachers how to teach. We too, remarkable juicy. Misspellings in it? That is not merely a superficial thing, ladies and gentlemen. In the end, it comes down to basic logic. The key to it is it with a it's with a comma here, that's an abbreviation of it is, and the comma marks that you've left the I, the second I out. Instead of saying it is, you say it's. It is. It is not mustard. It is beef steak.
It likes. But it's, without the comma, is a different thing altogether, actually. It's a possessive adjective in the neuter. Compare his food, that's Mr. Smith's, her food, that's Mrs. Smith's, and its food, no comma, you notice, any more than his has a comma or her has a comma, because this is an adjective, its food, neutral, the dog's food. Why do I mention it? Well, the fact that our public gets it wrong nowadays fifty one times out of a hundred is evidence that the logic is missing somewhere. This is only a small matter. We're going to understand the things given us of God in Holy Scripture.
We shall need, of course, the Holy Spirit's illumination, but we shall need the illumination to understand what God has written in logical categories, grammar and syntax, and so forth. Oh God, give us the wisdom to pay him the compliment when he's given us such great potential that we see to it that we develop that potential to the maximum of our ability. And now, my good friends, as you heard, we have a question with which to begin this present session, so that I would ask the questioner, whoever he or she is, if he or she will announce the question in Stentorian voice, and then I will try to repeat it, uh, for the benefit of the tape.
And the question is as follows: how do we understand the matters relating to time, and particularly the stages of the creation as given us in Genesis chapter one, the succession of days? And thirdly, do we correlate those days with the so-called geological ages that we find in the rocks, or some scientists say we find in the rocks? And how in general, uh, do we understand those days? Are they, so to speak, Earth days, or, uh, long periods of time, or so forth and so on?
Now, that is a very important and perceptive question, sir. Thank you for it. Eh, I despair of answering it, eh, in a few moments because it is such a, a fundamentally important question. So I simply give you the present state of my thinking, which is extraordinarily obscure, eh, on the topic, uh, not to avoid your question. I emphasize its importance, but I think there are a lot of elements that go toward the answering of that question. Eh, one, when I said that, uh, creation was, uh, done in stages, I meant it to refer to the fact that Genesis one does not tell us that in the beginning God spoke, and the whole universe came into being forthwith at once and immediately.
Doesn't say that. If you ask me, could God have done it that way? Well, I say God is almighty, and he could have done it that way if he pleased. The question is not could he have done it, but what he actually did. And according to Genesis, I understand it on whatever interpretation you give it, uh, he did not do it all at once. He did it on a succession of days. And when we look at what he did, it wasn't just repeating day after day for a cumulative effect. It was a progression from the less simple to the much more complicated, and a succession that brings you to day six with the creation of man.
That has theological implications, doesn't it? It, uh, seems to imply that the creation was done in progressive stages, getting ready for the crown of creation at that moment, which was the creation of human beings. Next, I was calling attention to the fact that each of those stages in the creation were initiated by a word of God, and God said. It is further to be noted in that connection that whereas in most of the days the phrase and God said, it comes once at the beginning, there are two days in which the phrase occurs twice.
On the first occasion that it occurs twice, it occurs at the bridge between inorganic and organic material. God said, on the third day, the dry land and so forth, dulce, pia. But then when it comes to the creation of plant life, you have another on that same day, and God said. In other words, the inorganic did not become organic simply by development. Now that is significant because God has used the principle of development in the course of creation.
The outstanding example, of course, is human beings themselves. God made one man and one woman. Paul asserts, Acts chapter seventeen, that of one, that is of one person, God has created all the races of men, red, yellow, black, and white, all being precious in his sight. But red, black, yellow, and white are not special creations. They are developments of the original creation, are they not? That is what scripture itself asserts. And God, having created the human gene pool, deliberately created it so that it could, uh, give rise to variation in all sorts of features within the human species, not, uh, frogs developing into humans, but what is normally called microevolution, that is development within a species, and that God has deliberately done.
So all the different colors and races and so forth and characteristics of the humans have come by development out of the original creation. So God has used development, and that is an important thing to notice. Uh, but the bridge between organic and inorganic was not by development. It required another input of, uh, the divine word. And so it also is on day six. The first half of the day, and God said he made animals. In the second half, human beings, but not human beings by development out of animals.
On that day, the phrase and God said is used twice, because the in- in- in- uh, introduction of human beings into the world required another input of energy. I say this with all rever- reverence. Coming into our world of the God-man Jesus Christ was not by a simple process of development. It meant nothing less than the incarnation of the Word of God. So that's what I meant, sir, by status. Now, if you ask me, uh, uh, what I think is your next question, those days that are listed in Genesis, what were they?
Were they days, earth days, so to speak, of twenty four hours? Or were they, as some people assert, is it a phrase covering long periods of time? And a third question worth asking, were they the days of one earth week? Or were they days of twenty four hours spaced out over a a a an undefined periods of time, with periods of time between those days? That is not an absurd suggestion.
The seven days would still, even if they were interspersed with a long period of time, they would still produce a series of days on which our human Earth week could be constructed with its six days of work and one of rest in the seventh. The debate has continued from time everlasting, and I dare say will continue until we all get home to glory. Being a fence sitter by inclination, do you see? I like to listen to the evidence from all sides. I wouldn't, uh, uh, presume to be dogmatic on it, uh, in five minutes, do you see?
What I think, uh, one can say is, one, if it comes to the point of a creative word and God said, let there be light, I don't suppose God has to take more than a split second to say it, if you see what I mean. Because I don't think he has ages to say that, because I believe not just in development, believe in a creative input, command, input of information. And that creative input of information, that word, I don't suppose God has to spend ages in, in saying it, so to speak. What I do think is, uh, uh, open to much thought and, and, and perhaps interpretation.
If the actual word of saying, let, uh, you see, means that what was commanded and created was created in a split second, and God said, let us make man. And the human pair appeared out of nowhere in that same split second. Well, Genesis itself will say that's not so. Genesis one just says God made man and woman, you'll see, male and female. Genesis two explains that he took some time about it because he first made Adam, and he called all the animals in front of him, and uh, then he asked Adam to name them.
And then eventually he said there wasn't a meat, uh, help meat for him among the animals. Eh, you'll see. And uh, then he put him into a deep sleep, and he made Eve. That took some hours, didn't it, I suppose. You'll see. So it didn't even then happen in a split second. Did it happen in a day of twenty four hours? And did all the other things happen? God made the sun, the moon, and the stars in, uh, days of twenty four hours. There I'm impressed by some Christian, uh, scientists. There's a book over there, I think, on the table there by certain Humphreys, who, uh, uh, used to be a young earth, I think.
Uh, the explanations of it he has revised. I'm impressed by a Jewish physicist who wishes to be, uh, loyal to the Old Testament scripture and creation and believes it. Both of these point to the, uh, concepts of time as Einstein formed them. Not only is time relative throughout the universe, it's not the same in all places, but in certain conditions, if you believe, for instance, in a Big Bang, then is what is called the event horizon. Sorry about these jungle of terms, I haven't got the time to expound them. What is called the event horizon, as it shrinks, uh, you'll see, uh, is mathematically demonstrable that time will s- uh, uh, increase, be stretched.
It is called the gravitational, uh, stretching of time. Not just space being stretched, but time being stretched. With the result that something, if we measured it from Earth's point of view, we might say was a day. If you were to regard it in its own time relevant part of the universe, would perhaps involve millions of years. You'll see. Now that is, uh, uh, uh, modern physics, so to speak. I'm not an expert enough to, to tell you whether it be right or wrong. I refer you to the literature. You'll see. So the question of these days, uh, uh, and, uh, is the formation of the stars and the heavens and so forth and all that, uh, is Genesis saying it happened in one of our days, but does that necessarily imply that our twenty four hour days, as we call it, uh, apply throughout the universe?
I think that's another thing altogether. Our days are twenty four hours, but you say, what is an hour? Well, an hour is the twenty fourth part of the time it takes our planet to turn around once. So time on Jupiter is rather different, because it turns round rather quickly. Yes. And a year, the time we take to go around the sun, but that's a rather different, uh, length of thing for, uh, people, uh, if there were any, on, say, Venus or Saturn or so forth and so on. I think, therefore, we have to allow for these things. That's one element in it.
Secondly, I do notice that whereas the days of Genesis all begin with the phrase, and God said, uh, if they are always the same, then day one doesn't begin till verse three of Genesis, and God said, let there be light. But there were things happening before day th- day one then, in verse two, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. What is the deep? You say, and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, moved on the face of the waters. What waters?
The Bible doesn't stop to explain, but it seems to me a strong case can be made out for the fact that not everything was done in six days. There were things before the six days started, namely verse three. you'll see. And then, as I say, it is conceivable to me that the days were days of twenty four hours, but not necessarily the days of one earth week, days of command, and then times of development of the implications of the command, and then subsequently another day. One day, not the first day, one day, and so forth, day two, and so on.
More than that, sir, I wouldn't want to say, because if I said more, I should be unfair to both sides in the, uh, uh, debate. Except to comment on one further thing. Those of our dear brothers and sisters in Christ who, uh, feel very strongly in a young earth, as distinct even from a, a, a universe, a young earth, urge that if, uh, uh, the claims of the geologists, uh, you'll say, paleontologists and things are right, then there were long ages when dinosaurs were around, and death and destruction happened, and that was death.
And they say it is quite contrary to the Bible to suppose there was death before Adam sinned. They quote to that effect Genesis Ch- uh, R- Romans chapter five: By one man's sin, one man's disobedience, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so that death passed upon all. Another question is all lions and tigers and things, or just all human beings? Was there no death at all before Adam? If the Bible actually teaches that, well, I say in advance I believe it. I believe whatever the Bible says. Good Lord, my brother here, elder approves of that.
Eh, do you see? Aha. So I believe that, do you see, if that's what the Bible actually says, do you see, and means. There are moments, some Wednesdays and Friday afternoons, when I wonder whether the Bible means that there was no death at all before Adam sinned. It's not meant to be a joke or facetious to say that Adam only had to walk across the ground in the Garden of Eden, and many biological living things were crushed out of existence. And the whole question of the food chain, and so forth and so on. More strong is the scripture in Romans eight that says God subjected the earth, or Adam did, to vanity, to frustration.
Vanity, mataiotes is the Greek. And one day creation shall be delivered from her bondage to corruption. I think I would need still to be convinced that the word vanity and corruption should be applied to the food chain. I'm not sure myself that when our Lord ate fish, for instance, part of the food chain, that this was an instance of corruption. Disease, yes, is corruption and frustration.
But that smaller thing should be food for the sardines that then I eat in the food chain. Whether to call that corruption and vanity, that I'm not so sure. But I think it is a thing that we all should take seriously. I say that meaningfully. This is not condescend- condescension on my part, and I'm out for all the help I can get in thinking and deciding about these things. With that, I want to come, and this time briefly, not to tie you beyond all powers of life, eh, to deal with two further topics that arise out of our contemplation of creation, and where, as Christians, we shall be obliged to think and think again as to what the, our Bibles say on these two particular themes.
And I beg leave to mention them, though you will all be tired, uh, um, uh, to the point of near exhaustion, but simply to point out that in our modern day, as things will go on, these questions, always important, will come to the fore perhaps more pressingly than they have done hitherto. And we shall need to be, uh, in a position, if we can, by God's grace, to understand exactly what scripture says, and therefore to stand for God's truth. The first is the question of the basis and authority of morality.
Now, we divide morality up into morality and ethics sometimes, and in ethics we're talking about actual nitty-gritty practice, you'll see. Should a doctor, if a per- per- person is in a vegetative state, should a doctor come to the conclusion it were better for all concerned to switch off the life support processes? That was being argued yesterday, if I seem to remember. Was yesterday Friday? Well, I think it was. Uh, or was it this morning when I woke up? They were arguing this case, uh, you'll see, and some good lady protesting that they had told her that her life support system should be switched off from her mother, who had been in a vegetative state for some weeks, you'll see.
And, uh, she resisted it and was subsequently very glad she did because her mother revived and lived another five years. You'll see. The ethics of the case. These are complicated, practical questions, but our decisions at that level must be based on a, a, a prior consideration. Morality as a whole. What is the authority behind our, our concepts of right and wrong. Is there a final authority? Or is morality a something like the rules of a game?
The players get together and make up the rules. Do see. So if somebody says that was a foul, then you consult the rules as to whether it was a foul or not. So it's the rules, and then there's what you might call the ethics. How do you apply this? Is tripping up the goat man as he was about to score a goal and punching him in the nose with your elbow, is that wrong? Is that unethical? Well, then you would go back to the rules. But who made up the rules? Uh, uh, the authority behind morals, simply that. You make up the rules, you all agree to play by the same rules.
And therefore, each individual case of ethics is, is decided on the basis of rules you've made up. And if you get to a point where you decide you'd like to change the rules, well, if everybody agrees, you play the rules. I mean, superior people play rugby, and that has their rules, and you're allowed to pick up the ball. They're other, rather less, uh, broad in their opinions, uh, and they play football, you see, and you mustn't pick up the ball there. I don't know why you should have those, uh, restrictions on life and liberty. But you say, well, they're two different games, you know, you can play which game you like, so long as you all agree. Is that how morality is?
There are some modern theories of morality that would have it that way. Morality is simply, uh, uh, uh, an agreement that you humankind make among themselves. These are the rules we'll agree, uh, to, uh, follow. You mustn't put your finger in my eye. Why not? Well, if you do, I shall put my finger in your eye. We shall both then be minus an eye. So that isn't a sensible way to carry on. So let's make up some rules. We shall agree not to put our fingers in other people's eyes. And that's all there is. You go to another part of the world, you come across people playing by a different game, rules.
They're cannibals. You say you shouldn't eat people. And the man would say, why not? Well, because we don't think that's good. Oh, but I'm playing a different game from what you are. You made up your rules, I make up my rules. And how, if that is the authority behind morality, how would you prove that wasn't a very good game the cannibal was playing? And why should he submit to your rules? And if morality is like that, it would be worse still, wouldn't it, if it's a matter of taste. You'll think it's not good taste to gas six million Jews.
Well, you try and tell Hitler that. He would say, but you don't like gassing Jews? But don't gas them then. I do like gassing Jews. And what's the difference? You like oranges? Well, I don't like oranges, I like bananas. I see. Well, you say, yes, okay, old boy. You don't like oranges? Well, don't eat oranges then. You like bananas? Well, eat them. I hate bananas, you say. I can't enforce my way on you if it's a matter of taste. This whole business, therefore, of right and wrong, and what is the authority behind it? Is there any? And we know, of course, what the Bible says, and the Christian gospel says as a presupposition of our need of the gospel.
Romans chapter two. There is a law written on our hearts by God as creator. A universal sense in the human heart of what you might call right and wrong. Not in particulars that this necessarily is right and that in necessarily wrong, but the basic principle, the basic consciousness that some things are right and some things are wrong. Some things are fair and other things are not fair. It is a feeling that even a young child has, doesn't it? On the nursery floor, they have it.
Quite fair, says the infant. Where did he get the idea from that the world was meant to be fair? As he grows older, that sense of it not fair will become a bit cynical, won't it? Because we live in a world where lots of things aren't fair. But the infant is surprised to find that things aren't fair. Where did he get the idea from they would be fair? We have a conscience, says, uh, uh, Paul, because we have the law written on our hearts, and we show it by our very behavior. Here's Mrs. Brown talking to Mrs. Smith about Mrs. Pink, you'll say.
You heard what Mrs. Pink has done? No? She's run off with another man. Well, says the one woman, that isn't good. Yes, says the other, but you see her husband was a rotter. So one is accusing, and the other is excusing. Why should you bother to do either? If there's no standard of right or wrong. The very fact that we accuse some and excuse others, says the apostle, shows that we have a knowledge and awareness of a standard of right and wrong. Put there, of course, by God.
And means we shall be answerable for it in the day of judgment. Or so if a man or person tries before the final judgment to say that, uh, they didn't know there was any such accountability, God will simply play back their life, will he not? And show them making the decisions, accusing, excusing, showing an awareness that there is an absolute authority. Good. Well, now that's what Bible teaches, and if there is an absolute, uh, uh, authority, in the end it doesn't, um, isn't a matter of social contract merely, not a matter of culture.
Utilitarianism, you know, we behave to to to, um, s- secure the maximum pleasure for the maximum number of people. Sounds nice, doesn't it? We organize morality and behavior on the utilitarian principle. We maximize the good for the maximum number of people. Leaves the question open, what is good? Who decides what is good? Cambodia, old Potti, whatever his name is called, Pol Pot, decided that intellectuals weren't good. There's about half a million of them. Maximizing good for the maximum number of people.
Get rid of all the intellectuals, and the majority in the country will have a lovely time. Right? Who decides what's good? Let me remind you of some of the egregious ideas that have come up in the course of history. When, uh, Darwinism was, uh, uh, young, so to speak, there rose, uh, people who thought that social, uh, that Darwinism would not only explain, as they thought, how human beings came to be by evolution. They thought that that principle of evolution governed also our behavior, so that the survival of the fittest was not just the law in the jungle, so to speak, but that it was the way people were meant to behave anyway.
So that eventually the, as as Darwin himself put it, given a number of years, the Aryan race, already superior to the Negro race and a lot of other lesser lights, as Darwin thought. The Aryan race would have eliminated all the other races. The survival of the fittest, good Darwinian mutation and natural selection. And a chap called Chamberlain, Englishman, alas, got that kind of stuff eventually into Hitler's head with his doctrine of the superiority of the Aryan race, with what results we know. Hideous, wasn't it?
Making the principle of evolution the governing principle of morality and behavior. Of course, that has become very old fashioned. More popular from the nineteen seventies onwards is what has been called sociobiology. It was given its, uh, famous statement by a certain E. O. White. And E. O. White was originally a Baptist, professed to be a believer, became a militant atheist. In his one of his books, he explains that his faith began to falter when he found his minister smoking a cigar, and he became an atheist.
Oh dear. Well, anyway, that's sad enough, you'll see. But that is what he says in one of his scientific books. Now, his notion is not social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, but his notion is that our social ethics are built upon our biology. It is our genes that are the basis of morality. Do you see? Uh, because, according to him, we are nothing but the product of our genes. From the end of your hair to the toenails on your feet, you are the production of your genes and all that lies between, including the brain and everything else and the circuits in your brain are controlled by the genes, and that's all there is.
So that your morality, your sense of right and wrong, is ultimately built upon the genes. And it's Leo White's thesis, explained in many a book, that if we want to behave like good human beings, what we have to do is to consult our genes. I don't know how you go about it. Difficult thing to do before breakfast anyway, to get hold of the genes and talk to them as to what they intended. But you see, that's his notion, you see. You come across difficulties, don't you, in that?
Genes? Are we nothing but genes? Well, then how would you find fault with Master Adolf Hitler, to quote him once more? He could say, it's my genes made me do it. So he, oh, White has to come to some very difficult explanations. Well, the genes, they do control us, but they've got us on a long leash, you know, like a puppy dog on the long leash that goes wandering all over the place, you'll see, largely out of control, but every now and again the owner pulls on the leash and pulls it back. And the genes have got us on a long leash, and when we come, you know, wander all over the place morally, then eventually the genes call us back again.
Well, if you're going to reduce things to that kind of theory, then exit rationality, I suppose. Because what made us go wrong in the first place? The old dog inside us that went and stretched the leash and tried to get off it, what was he made of? Something that wasn't genes? Master Dawkins of Oxford, professor of the public understanding of science, you'll see. Uh, he, um, has a similar theory. Gene-based morality, I mentioned, uh, A.
O. White. Richard Dawkins, author of the famous book The Selfish Gene, holds a similar view to that of E. O. Wilson, sociobiology, on the genetic basis of human morality. Our genes are concerned, so he says, solely with using human bodies for the purpose of replicating themselves. This then is their strategy, and it is this strategy that is written into the genetic code in every cell in our bodies and brains. So they control us morally then, as well as intellectually, our genes. Yet Dawkins assures us that somehow, he doesn't explain how, we are free to rebel against our genes.
Marvelous. We are built as gene machines, so he says, but we have the power to turn against our creators. Well, that's good news. We alone on Earth can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. It's almost comical, isn't it? For we are nothing but genes. How do we get to rebel against our genes? What on earth is there in us that isn't controlled by our genes, if we're nothing but genes, according to Dawkins? Are the genes themselves divided and are warring amongst themselves or something? So one lot of genes rebels against the other lots of genes?
And if that is so, how would you decide between the genes? It would be nonsense, wouldn't it? But it's Dawkins, professor of the public under- understanding of science in Oxford, and very popular in his writings. This is sheer nonsense, logical nonsense. Take not my word for it, but listen to Stephen Rose. I don't know that he believes in God either, you'll see. If on the, uh, on the other hand, says, uh, uh, do you see, uh, Professor Stephen Rose acutely observes, if on the other hand it is not our genes that are rebellious, what other options are available?
Dawkins never says, but implicit in his argument is that somewhere there is some non-material, non-genetic force molding our behavior. For if there weren't some non- non-genetic force within us, how could any of us rebel against our genes if we are nothing but genes? So even Stephen Rose would point out to us, you'll see, how nonsensical that is. What authority outside is there?
Well, the Bible, as I've said, already tells us there is a God. He's written his law on our hearts. He's guided us by the very mechanisms of nature, but way and beyond that, he has been pleased to reveal himself through the prophets and finally and supremely through Jesus Christ our Lord. So God then is the authority behind morals. People will argue against you and say, hmm, but if that were so, why are people's, uh, behavior so different all around the world? Do you see? So some people think it's right to, to burn your parents when they die, and other people won't burn them, they bury them, and other people don't burn them or bury them, but eat them.
Uh, do you see? So h- h- how do you account for if there was a God who sets the moral tone of everywhere? Do you see? So they try on that way to, to argue against it. But look at this, if you can... So it's coming from a long, long while ago now, this is, you'll see. The idea was that after death, a person had to face the final judgment, which would decide, so they thought, whether he or she would be admitted to eternal life or not. That's what they thought. We know that eternal life is a gift, but for the moment, that's beside the point. The document therefore contained the person's defense statement, so to speak, claiming that he or she had not done wrong and broken the moral laws.
What moral laws? Well, here is this ancient Egyptian of centuries and millennia ago, giving expression to what he feels is right and wrong, claiming he's not done wrong. I have not committed evil. I have not stolen. I've not been covetous. I've not robbed. I've not killed man. I've not damaged the grain measure. You know, that's commercial malpractice. I've not caused crookedness. I've not told lies. I've not been contentious. I've not practiced usury, I've not committed adultery. How many would you disagree with? I mean to say, as moral laws. No. No. What a similarity they show, don't they?
All over the centuries of a man's consciousness of what is right and wrong, even to particular ethics. Interesting, isn't it? Bible says that God has written this sense on our hearts, and along with that mechanism, he's put one or two other mechanisms. Uh, conscience. It's an uncomfortable affair, conscience, wouldn't you agree? It's like the alarm clock in the morning when it wakens you at the proper time, but inappropriately, so to speak. Uh, you feel like bashing it hard, turning it off, you see. Well, if you do it enough times, then you'll mess the mechanism up and it won't ring anymore.
But conscience is an inbuilt thing, isn't it? Uh, my conscience wouldn't let me do that, even fear of what would happen if we did it. Or I've got a bad conscience about doing this. Did you try to engineer conscience? Where does conscience come from? Linked with this sense of right and wrong. And even the physical thing, some people can't blush, you know. It's a pity, isn't it? The prophet said somewhere about the people of Israel, they were such hardened sinners they couldn't even blush. A funny thing that, isn't it? Conscience of having done wrong will cause us sometimes to blush even, if we're healthy. Mechanisms put into our heart by our creator, of course.
Look at the sense of right and wrong over time, even down to particulars. But there is one big argument used against the notion that God is the author, the authority, so to speak, behind morality, the authority that will keep us, uh, will hold us to account in the day of judgment. And the argument that is brought by the philosophers against that idea that God is the authority behind the moral sense is called the Eusefo problem, which is rather an obscure thing to raise before dinner at night, isn't it? But anyway, it's called the Euthyphro problem because it was first put forward and, and explicitly stated by Socrates in a dialogue in which he was supposed to be discussing things with a man called Euthyphro.
And Euthyphro was trying to define holiness. What is holiness, says Socrates to Euthyphro. Now, how would you define holiness? And uh uh uh Euthyphro thought for a while, and he said, well, holiness is what the gods like. Oh yes, I thank you very much, said Socrates. It's a very nice answer that. So holiness is what the gods like. But just another question, said Socrates. He was an irritating chap, Socrates. Just another question, um, tell me, holiness is what the gods like. Tell me, do the gods like it because it is holy? Is that the way round it is? It's holy, so the gods like it. Or is it that the god likes it, so then it becomes holy?
So, uh, Old Eutifo took quite a few paragraphs to digest that. You have my permission to take a bit longer if you want to. Which way round is it? If God is the author, the authority behind morality and tells us what is good and what is bad? Which way round is it? Did God approve of it because it is good in itself? Or does it become good simply because God commands it? And the philosophers, you say, would say this, you see, if God commands it because it is good, so their argument goes, then it must be good independently of God's command.
It's already got good, and that's why God, looking at it, says, well, that's good that there, so I'll command it. Well, then the good exists before God commands it, and it would mean that goodness is a standard to which God himself is subject, and that in turn would mean that there is something above God that controls God, namely goodness, and that God is not the supreme authority, but some standard of goodness way above God. Well, that's impossible. Let's take the other side. If something becomes morally good just because God commands it, whatever he commands becomes good, that would mean that God could command anything at all, however bad or shocking, and it would become good simply because God's, of God's arbitrary command.
And that would s- mean that God was no better than the worst of dictators. And so they say both of those things are impossible, therefore it must be that it isn't God who stands behind morality. Morality must be completely autonomous. If you haven't met the argument before, well, thank the Lord for that. But if you're going to argue the case seriously, there are lots of people that have heard of the argument, only they don't go to gospel halls normally, you'll see. I've heard of the argument. What is the answer to it? Have you got the answer there, sir? There it is. The argument is fallacious, of course, and springs from a failure to realize that we are here dealing with both God's will and command on the one hand, and God's essential character on the other.
Let's take one of God's basic commands. Be you holy, for I am holy. The command to us is to be holy. It is not the arbitrary command of an unscrupulous tyrant. However, it is based not on some law external to God either. It is based on the essential character of God. You be holy because I am holy, says God. So it's not a question of his arbitrary command. He does command it. He has the right to command anything he pleases. But in commanding things, anything he pleases, it is only what he pleases, and what he pleases is controlled by his own innate, essential, holy character.
Yes? That's why God in his own being is the sum total of perfection. That is why, for instance, he cannot lie or be unfaithful, because he cannot deny himself. He cannot act out of character. He can't command anything out of character with himself. He's both the sovereign who has the right to command, but he is the perfection of all holiness, whose commands are always consistent with his own character, not with some external law superior to him. Enough of that then, uh, for the moment. The authority for morals, says Holy Scripture, behind morals is God himself.
It is in practice provable that ultimately people cannot be good without God. That is not to say that everybody who's an atheist is a downright evil and vicious person, as bad as bad could be. It is making the logical point that if our systems of morality are to be properly founded so that when the storm comes, they don't fall and collapse, our moral systems must be built on God as the ultimate authority, moral authority in the universe.
One more problem, and this time I'm only going to, uh, briefly mention it. This question of morals and the basis of it is going to come to the fore. There's a book on the table that I brought along, not to persuade you to agree with it, but it is entitled The Genetic Gods. I was at a conference yesterday on bioethics, and that necessarily is going to become a more increasingly important topic of debate, isn't it? The greater power that the experts get into their hands for mani- genetic manipulation is going to raise huge, gigantic ethical problems.
It's no good of us being ostriches on damning all science, genetic science. It offers much, uh, promise of good to mankind, of the healing of diseases that are genetically based, and so forth and so on. But it will raise inevitably big questions. Cloning of humans. Is it anything more than what happens to twins in the womb? What is life? It's not merely the experts, for they will arrange conferences such as I was at yesterday, on considering where ethics can come into the modern developing, rapidly developing science of genetic manipulation.
But it is, of course, with us too. If one of your relatives has Alzheimer's, and the doctors say, well, look here, through in vitro fertilization, we produce a number of spare embryos. We let them grow a little while and develop stem cells from them. We could take those stem cells and inject them into the brain of your relative. That would retard, if not cure, the Alzheimer's. What would you say? Is it right to produce embryos and let them grow in vitro in a cell, in in a dish or something?
Is it right to engineer and create human beings to solve the medical problems of other human beings? If somebody was willing to donate a kidney to you, wouldn't you take it? Where does spare part surgery cease to be wrong? If you can technically clone a human being, should you? These are enormous problems to be thought through at the level of ethics, are they not? But behind the ethics, we must keep hold on the ultimate authority.
The moral authority is with God and human beings made in the image of God, and not made simply to be a means for other things. These things are very important, therefore, exceedingly important. The other problem that's going to be large is the question of the mind-body problem, the mind-brain. As I said before, we should not doubt that we all have brains. The question is, is the brain the same thing as the mind?
Or to put it another way, is the brain formed of chemistry and electrical things, neurons and what have you, is that all there is? Or in addition to the material, the physics and the chemistry of the brain, is there a non-material part in a human being? There is no doubt, of course, what scripture says. Scripture does indicate, say what you will, that man is not just matter, physics, chemistry, but there is a non-material part.
There is spirit as well as flesh. And we see that in the way scripture talks of hu- uh, the death of believers. I have a desire to depart and be with Christ. I must soon put off this tabernacle. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. Or the other way around, present in the body, in that sense, absent from the Lord.
And I would rather, says Paul, be absent from the body and present with the Lord. It's not true to say, according to scripture, that when a believer dies, that's the end of him pro tem until the resurrection comes. And supremely is that true of our Lord. Did our Lord cease to exist for the three days and three nights he was in the tomb? The thing is unthinkable. But there are a surprising number of people, and not only atheists, but evangelical Christians nowadays, in thinking about these things, have come to the conclusion that man is just one thing, physics.
They are what are called technically monists. There's a book recently written, published, I think, by IVP of America, Whatever Happened to the Soul, in which its writers, most of them evangelicals, all of them theists, argue that man is a soul, he doesn't have a soul. They are monists. There is no spirit part of man. Man is just material. They don't deny that he will eventually be raised from the dead. They do deny that he's anything other than, say, physics.
That is going to be very important as computer science gets on towards making computers that come more and more resem- to resemble the human brain, if ever they manage it, the question of what man is will become exceedingly important. Now, here would not be the place to examine the many different permutations held by the monists. Though they are, uh, uh, uh, uh, agree that man is but one substance, they have all sorts of permutations of that particular stance, and I shall not try to, to, to, to describe them.
I pointed out, to be fair to them, that they don't all agree on how you would explain man in monist terms. Eh, but uh, let me take some examples. Here was old Gilbert Ryle way back in the Dark Ages of the dinosaurs, uh, nineteen forty nine, you see, and assuring the world that we have to give up this idea that there's a ghost in the machine. In other words, we are but machines in one sense, and there's no sort of spirit or soul inhabiting us. We are but matter. And he's apologizing for the view, man need not be degraded into a machine by being denied to be a ghost in the machine.
That's the notion. If you claim, uh, that your body is not the whole sum of you, but there is a soul in you or a spirit in you, a non-material part, Gilbert Ryle would have called you as one who believes in a ghost in the machine, you see. Ghosts being unsubstantial, nobody much believes in them. Listen to this by Paul Davis and John Gribben, much later, uh nineteen ninety one, in the book The Matter Myth. Today, on the brink of the twenty first century, the new science that was already in- in started when this man came up with this phrase was undermining him already.
Now, today, on the brink of the twenty first century, we can see that Ryle was right to dismiss the notion of the ghost in the machine, not because there's no ghost, but because there's no machine. For what is the machine made up of? And we come back to the point of what we're talking about this afternoon, information being prior to matter, spirit preceding matter. That's interesting for this, as I say, these two, they don't believe in God, as far as I know. The basic difficulty, you'll see, uh, is felt about the other side.
Let's see what the other side say, the dualists. I quote just two of them. Karl Popper, the great famous philosopher of science, his reprint of his book in nineteen ninety eight. he says, yes, the mind as the pilot of a ship, the body, is a simile which I regard as in many ways excellent and adequate. Popper believed, he didn't believe in God, but he believed that there is a part of the human that is like the pilot in the ship, not to be confused with the ship, nor with the engine of the ship, but the one who, uh, he acted upon by the engine and looks at the controls, but is independent of them and fight takes the final decisions, you'll see.
A mind as the pilot of the ship, the body, a simile which I regard as in many ways excellent and adequate, so much so that I can say of myself, I believe in the ghost in the machine. Yes, there are a lot of things in our brains, aren't there, uh, that carry on for us. You've got a problem, you can't think it out, you've thought about a lot of it, your mind is tired, you say I'll sleep on it, you go to bed, and in the morning you've got the answer because the old brain boxes have been working underneath and sorted out the problem for you. If you were a driver like me, coming down the M one or something like that, you will presently say, have I come by Hillsborough or not?
I can't remember it. It was on autopilot, I suppose. Of course, when you come to go fast with all the endless traffic, then you've got to concentrate, haven't you? But a lot of things are done for us by our brain. We mustn't forget it. But are we simply brain? Super duper computers. Or is there a non-material part in us, the mind? Spirit, if you like. Look at John Eccles, Nobel Prize winner for neurophysiology, a believer, alas, in his days, uh, believing in the evolution of the body, but as he would have it, in the creation of the self or the soul.
Do you see? Since materialist solutions fail to account for our experience uniqueness, I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the self or soul to a supernatural spiritual creation. To give the explanation in theological terms, each soul is a new divine creation, which is implanted into the growing fetus at some time between conception and birth. So he was a dualist, and what your view on that would be, I'm not quite sure. You have an immortal soul like the gospel preachers tell us, or spirit. How did you get it? Did it come through your parents?
Or did God implant the soul in you, direct from God, sometime between conception and, uh, birth? I shall not attempt to solve that one for you. I hope I do provoke you to start thinking and looking at what scripture says about the thing. You'll see. I submit that no other, the certainty of the inner core of unique individuality necessitates the divine creation. I submit that no other explanation is tenable, neither the genetic uniqueness with its fantastically impossible lottery, nor the environmentable differentiations, which do not determine one's uniqueness but merely modify.
A word to the geneticists. The conclusion is of inestimable theological significance and strongly reinforces our belief in the human soul and its miraculous origin in God. There speaks a neurophysiologist, neuroscientist, brilliant in his day, Nobel Prize winner, and a believer. It shocked a lot of his colleagues and some of his evangelical colleagues as well. We'll see. The heart of the matter, let's come to the heart of the question, which sometimes the, uh, uh, scientists, uh, point at, you'll see.
What is the difficulty in thinking that man is part spirit as well as material. The argument is, this, however, is the idea that materialistic monists find impossible to accept or even to conceive of. How can an immaterial entity, they ask, call it self, mind, soul, or spirit, or what you will? How can an immaterial, non-material entity act on, impinge on, affect, move, cause to act a material entity, the brain? Their first difficulty, so they say, is this: science knows nothing of invisible, imma- immaterial entities.
It cannot measure them nor conduct experiments on them. Science cannot allow that they exist. They are figments of people's imagination, ghosts in the machine, and like all ghosts, non-existent. I see. Well, if scientists can't deal with non, non immaterial things as scientists, yes. But of course, our whole basic faith is based on this, that God is spirit. You can't put God in a machine. You can't detect him by that method. But if non-material spirit can't impinge on matter, how on earth did God create the universe to start with?
Let's hear what some of the other scientists say, and with this we'll finish. Scientists who talk like this say they can't allow that things that they can't measure, they can't allow they exist. Scientists who talk like this are not really being consistent. No scientist has ever yet seen a quark. But scientists all believe in quarks. They infer their existence from the effect they have on other particles and the trail that this leaves behind in a cloud chamber. Moreover, no scientist has ever yet seen energy. Indeed, now notice this, please, no one knows or can say what energy is.
Now do notice that, ladies and gentlemen. If you want a little fun at dinner time and you're sitting next to a scientist, ask him in all innocence as you're swallowing your carrot, ah, oh, it's a thing that's been puzzling me recently. I wonder, could you tell me what is energy? And they will start to explain, well, energy can neither be created nor lost, and it is the power to do work, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when you've eaten a potato or two, say, that's very interesting, that was. Uh, yes, this is what energy does, but what is it? And sometimes they'll say, what do you mean, what is it? Because scientists are not given to answering, asking silly questions. But wait a minute, is it a silly question?
What is energy? This is what Feynman says. Uh, now you'll see. Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner again. He devotes a chapter of his book to the topic of the conservation of energy. In the course of that chapter, he remarks, it is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is. Shall you deny there is such a thing as energy? Will you deny that energy can impact upon matter?
That would be nonsense, wouldn't it? We don't know what energy is. We can't see it. We can see its effect. As our Lord said in a humble analogy, the spirit blows, the wind blows where it will. You know not whence it comes or whither it goeth. You see its effect. You can't see it itself. And Popper points out, for his part, the notion that only like things can act upon each other, and therefore an immaterial mind cannot act upon a material brain, is not borne out by the rest of nature.
Perhaps the clearest physical example against the thesis that only like things can act upon each other is this. In modern physics, the action of bodies upon bodies is mediated by fields, by gravitational and electrical fields. Thus, like does not act upon like, but bodies act first upon fields which they modify, and then the modified field acts upon another body. And with that, fearfully reduced lecture on the topic, I leave the topic.
I have been, my motive is to draw it to your attention and encourage all of us as we can, by God's help, to think about these matters. The time will come when the second beast, the false prophet, will make an image of the first beast. It will be given him to give... What will he give to the beast? So that the beast can tell who and who hasn't got the mark of the beast. Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, and they opposed him when he cast down the rod and it became a serpent.
They cast down their rods, and they became serpents. How far will God allow men to go? We need to give some thought to it, do we not? The consistent en- e- emphasis of scripture is that in the last days there shall come horrible deceits, sophisticated deceptions. The lie. Though we may not be here to see it, gone home to glory. Already Antichrist, says John in his day, is with us, there are many Antichrists.
God give us the grace and strength to think about these things, to search our scripture, to see what is the mind of God and the evidence for what a human being is, that we might be ready to stand boldly in our witness for the Lord in the coming generations while he leaves us here.
