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February 12, 1809: Abraham Lincoln is born in Hardin County, Kentucky, Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The profound significance of what each contributes to the world’s current makeup is matched only by the breadth of the divergence of what each man’s ideological heritage implies.

In short: the difference is ethical.

Abraham Lincoln’s heritage is nowhere better reflected than in what may be the greatest speech in American History, the Gettysburg Address. (It took around two minutes to deliver, by the way, a fact which should not be lost on those of us always crying for another portion of an hour to finish our weekly church-speeches.) Here it is in its entirety, with emphasis on the portion most poignantly opposed to what will come from Darwin below.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln identifies the purpose of the Civil War with the cause of promoting the equality of men. The question for any society defending the equal worth of all individuals is whether it can survive rather than perish.

Although it is not in the direct purview of the Gettysburg Address, there is a consequence to regarding all humans as of equal worth which does not appear to promote the survival of the society which holds it. That is, it is hard to see how protecting the less intelligent, the weaker, the inferior in this way or that, will not lead to the ultimate decline of the society, not only in the specific areas of weakness being preserved by the moral laws of the land, but also by the economic drain on those who are the strongest producers.

But it takes Darwin’s theory to make that point. Hence the difference. Darwin publishes The Origin of Species in 1859. These few lines from the final paragraph of that work will suffice:

These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Again, I have italicized the most relevant lines. Darwin’s evolutionary mechanism is integrally dependent on the extinction of less-improved forms. And he certainly does not believe evolution is finished, implying that the extinction of less-improved forms goes on. While there is not a directly moral claim here—for instance, that the less-improved forms ought to perish while the stronger ought to prosper—there is an axiological (very closely related to moral) claim about the “beauttiful” and “wonderful” product of the process.

Again, it is not the direct intent of Darwin’s original document which is in question here, but rather its implications and the developments which arise from it. It is Darwin’s theory, after all, which leads to every form of eugenics as “guided evolution”. Noxious as Margaret Sanger’s claims about the mentally deficient and inferior races needing to be removed from the human genetic tree are, they are hardly unique to her. The ideology of everything from Nietzsche’s superman to early Twentieth Century American textbooks to the Nazi’s Arian supremacy is strongly rooted in Darwin’s provision of a mechanism of struggle for survival.

I am well aware that attempts to root evolution at the tribal or social level instead of the individual level claim to have found a basis for ethical development in evolution. But they do not. I have written a bit more on that topic here.

The point for this moment is simply how wildly divergent the ideas of two men born on the same day actually are. But the divergence should not be surprising. Lincoln’s idea of the equal worth of all humans is rooted in religious and philosophical concern for what is eternally the same (for instance, Plato’s world of being), while Darwin’s idea of struggle for survival is rooted in a secular concern for whatever may come (for instance, Plato’s world of becoming).

Well it’s my birthday, too. And I choose to care about what is eternal. So happy birthday to Lincoln and Darwin. But thanks—only to Lincoln.

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Not long ago I interviewed TK and Deidrea Laux (pronounced “LOX”) about the birth of their son, Thomas. The story of their love and respect for their son and for life is recounted in the photojournalism of the Dallas Morning News linked through the picture on the left. The story of Thomas’ brief life but persistent significance is undeniably moving.

During the interview I had with the Lauxes Deidra was pregnant with another child. Linked from the photo to the right is the Dallas Morning News’ record of the new life from that blessed event.

Kudos to the Dallas Morning News for meaningful, uplifting, and beautiful work with an equally beautiful family.

My interview with them on “Live from Criswell with Barry Creamer” is here.

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The pro-life position is not simply anti-abortion. Being against abortion is not sufficient to encompass what it is to be pro-life; there are, after all, still issues like eugenics and euthanasia. On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, trying to define the pro-life position in terms of enmity with abortion fails for a different reason.

Here’s an e-mail I received from a listener after a recent broadcast illustrating precisely this point. My response follows. (Oh, and the “next week” to which he refers is January 18-22, 2010, Sanctity of Life week, in observance of the anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision.)

Subject: Abortion…

I thought that subject line would get your attention. I did want to get your point of view on something, though, and maybe you can comment on it next week when you’ll be on-topic anyway. I would like to note before I begin that I agree with you that abortion for convenience of the parents is wrong without question.

Years ago, my mother Read the rest of this entry »

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Live Action is a youth-led pro-life organization. Here’s a video they created based on a visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin in September. You can view this video and more at their website, http://liveaction.org.

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This post is next in a long series on this site attempting to address (1) why it is challenging to understand how there could be a free will, (2) that it is much more theologically, philosophically, and ethically crippling to reject its possibility, and finally (3) both that it is possible that there is a free will, and that commitment to the reality of free will renews access to some of the essentials of a Christian worldview, including teleology. Posts to date are compiled here.

3.2.1 That people do not appear to be free does not change the possibility that they are free.

The phenomenological objection is that people do not appear to act freely. This objection is as plain as the nose on any observant and thoughtful face and manifests itself in practically every venue of life. On highways drivers are strangely animalistic, running in packs of cars and adjusting and maintaining speeds based on stimuli from, for example, the drivers around them, usually without any awareness of what they are doing and why they are doing it. In homes, parents and children spiral around each other in relational systems governed by hidden but practically omnipotent stases. Because they have no idea why their daughter is running amok, they seek counsel from someone who can explain the invisible system behind their behaviors and inject some new stimulus into the system to make a change. More poignantly, anyone who cares to see it can watch manipulators (from salespersons to politicians and, unfortunately, sometimes even preachers) use psychological tools to motivate automatic behavior in unsuspecting clients or followers. Indeed, the herd mentality so disdained by philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche is a frightening and disappointing reality of humanity.

However, the lack of freedom’s exercise is in no way a proof or even evidence of its non-existence. When a person’s will injects creativity into the world that person is active. When, on the other hand, she flows along with the causal chain of events she is passive. Sadly, almost everyone—even this author—lives predominantly in passivity. Some probably spend their entire existence, with one notable exception, in passivity. While it is wise to acknowledge that people often are not aware of what they are doing or why they are doing it (think of the myriad unconscious motions with which everyone is constantly busy) it is both liberating (with the power to do differently) and encumbering (often with the responsibility to do differently) to realize that there is at each person’s disposal a tool for breaking free from many of the behaviors which appear to govern existence within the material world.

It is no wonder, by the way, that people do not appear to be free. Most do not Read the rest of this entry »

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When I was still pastoring (1987-2004) I complained one time that it is impossible to cover any passage sufficiently in one Sunday morning sermon. My youth minister responded that it would make sense to cover the same passage on Wednesday night in Bible Study then on Sunday morning in a sermon. I took his advice, and went just a bit further. Every weekday morning I would get up an hour early, type notes on the next verse of the passage for Wednesday night & Sunday morning, then e-mail the notes to members and others who signed up for what turned out to be morning devotional material.
What I included in the material was a non-copyrighted translation (KJV), some commentary notes based on my reading and study for the morning, and an expanded paraphrase—the goal of the expanded paraphrase being to make the sometimes hidden implications of the passage explicit.

With my blessing, a friend, Ed Jent, recently took the initiative to approach Logos (the Bible Software company) with those notes. So here is my new page on logos.com. By the way, in response to the most common query regarding my notes: I am a futurist and, more specifically, pre-millennial and pre-tribulational, and those views are not hidden in my commentary. However, I do not believe those views are required to make sense of the interpretation provided in the work (and, having taught graduate hermeneutics for a while, I believe I am justified in making my claim).

Here’s what Logos has on that page:

In Revelation, Barry Creamer provides detailed verse-by-verse commentary on the entire book of Revelation. For each verse, Dr. Creamer gives exposition and notes, details on key words and phrases, and other important information on the text. He then provides detailed commentary which explains each section in its larger context, along with notes for application and notes on the purpose and setting of the book. Throughout the commentary, Creamer offers personal anecdotes, cross-references to other sections of Scripture, contextual information, and much more.

Creamer’s commentary on Revelation is Read the rest of this entry »

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This post is next in a long series on this site attempting to address (1) why it is challenging to understand how there could be a free will, (2) that it is much more theologically, philosophically, and ethically crippling to reject its possibility, and finally (3) both that it is possible that there is a free will, and that commitment to the reality of free will renews access to some of the essentials of a Christian worldview, including teleology. Posts to date are compiled here.

3.2 Will is an uncaused cause in the universe.

If it is the case that what the will does is actualize potentialities, then the will essentially becomes an uncaused cause. While everything else in the world (except God, of course, whose “in-the-world-ness” is entirely different) is a part of the causal chain of historical events, the free will is capable of interjecting an otherwise uncaused cause into the system.

Of course, it only looks like an uncaused cause because the original act of creating that will is all but forgotten. But as Romans 8:20 implies, even if a free will is entirely uncaused within creation, its presence in creation is evidence of its original cause, God. To say that God creates the will is not though to say that the will’s activity in a particular circumstance can be sufficiently explained in terms of that creation. The will is able to act creatively because and only because God has created it to do so.

In fact, on an individual level, I’m not sure the will is not the sole element God creates in each person which cannot be empirically explained in terms of the rest of creation; that is, it is God’s act of special creation to bring every person-as-a-volitional-being into existence. But as much as I like it, that claim is as yet more than I am trying to defend at length.

One material event is causing another throughout history right down to the grape and Joe, the table and his teeth, and even his hunger and behavioral training that eating the grape will sate him. Then the will intervenes miraculously and produces an inexplicable (in terms of prior sufficient causes) and unpredictable event—whatever Joe’s decision is. In the scheme of freedom, that act is a brand new injection into the causal universe. (I remind readers that the previous sentence is no more theoretically infeasible than God’s original act of creation.)

Aside from the dilemma presented at the outset of this discourse, there is a phenomenological objection to that scenario, and there are a couple of uncomfortable implications that attach to it. The presentation of and response to those objections and discomforts are next in this series of posts.

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My great friend and now pastor of FBC Gunter, TX, Jack Newton, spoke about why Christians should abstain from drinking alcohol recently. Following the presentation, an inquiring member wondered how to address the passages in the Bible which speak of wine and strong drink, sometimes without approbation. So Jack compiled the passages, categorized them, then wrote up his observations in a one page conclusion. My own argument, which is completely compatible with Jack’s, is in my post from last year entitled, “Capital T-Total: Why Abstinence from Alcohol.” Jack’s argument is immediately below, ending with a list of the passages he considered:

The Uses of Alcohol in the Bible
by Jack Newton

Overview
There are four categories where the words “wine” and “strong drink” are utilized in the Bible. The first three categories deal with the usage of alcohol and the fourth is other mentions of the words without a teaching on their usage.

The first category is that of the recreational use of alcohol. In this section it can be noted that there is NO positive example or teaching that endorses the recreational use of alcohol. There are some examples and teaching that are neutral or unclear but those are very few and in no way an endorsement of recreational use (Nehemiah 2:1 for example). It is easy to see the negative effects of the usage of alcohol in this way. People did things that were detrimental and hurtful due to their inebriated state (Genesis 9:21, 19:33, and Habakkuk 2:5 for example). This section also shows in a very positive light, those who refused to engage in this type of drinking (Jeremiah 35:2-14 and Daniel 1:8 for example). Proverbs 23 is the definitive teaching on this type of alcohol usage. It teaches that the wise approach to avoid the problems that alcohol brings into a person’s life is to avoid it altogether (Proverbs 23:31). Ephesians 5:18 makes it clear that the Christian is to be under the influence (filled with) the Holy Spirit rather than alcohol.

The second category is ceremonial use. Alcohol was used in ceremonies, feasts, and weddings. Wine was poured out in the drink offering (Exodus 29:40 for example). The person who took the vow of the Nazirite was to abstain from using alcohol for the length of their vow (Numbers 6:3, 20). Wine was also brought to the temple as an offering (tithe) to the Lord (Numbers 18, Deuteronomy 14:23, 26, 18:4 for example). It was also part of the wedding ceremony and feast (John 2). All of these are specific uses of the alcohol before the Lord and again are in no way an endorsement of its recreational usage.

Third there is the medicinal use of alcohol. There are only a few of these verses but they show that alcohol can be used for legitimate physical and emotional needs. This is not an opening for its abuse but a teaching that undergirds what we already know about the use of alcohol in certain medicines.

Finally there are those verses that mention alcohol but are not teachings or examples of its use. These verses fall into several different types. The first consists of the verses that acknowledge that alcohol was consumed but there is no teaching either positive or negative (Genesis 27:25 and Ruth 2:14 for example). The second are the verses that talk about the effects of alcohol but are not teachings on its usage (Psalm 4:7, Psalm 104:15 and Zechariah 10:7 for example). These verses deal with the euphoric effect alcohol has on those who consume it but they are in NO WAY an endorsement of its recreational use. Third, alcohol is used comparatively with something else. The best examples of this are in the Song of Solomon. “Your love is better than wine” (Song of Solomon 1:2). This is not actually a statement about wine at all, but a statement of the intoxicating nature of the love mentioned. It is also used to compare to the wrath, anger and judgment of God (Revelation 14:10 and 19:15). Fourth, alcohol is used to represent the provision or judgment of God (Proverbs 3:10 for an example of provision and Jeremiah 25:15 for an example of judgment). Finally, there are many mentions of alcohol that do not fit into any of the above categories or types (Job 32:19 and Matthew 9:17 for example).

In all of the different mentions of the words “wine” and “strong drink” there are some usages of alcohol that are allowed, mandated, and recommended in the Scriptures. It is important to study the passages in context and depth, but NONE of these usages are recreational. Therefore, the prudent and wise thing for Christians today would be to abstain from recreational usage of alcohol.

Recreational Use of Alcohol
Genesis 9:21
He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.
Genesis 9:24
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
Genesis 19:32
Come, let us make Read the rest of this entry »

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A long series of posts on this site have explained so far (1) why it is challenging to understand how there could be a free will, and (2) that it is much more theologically, philosophically, and ethically crippling to reject its possibility.
This entry begins to make the case (3) that it is possible that there is a free will, and that commitment to the reality of free will renews access to essentials of a Christian worldview, including teleology. Posts to date are compiled here.

3 It is both possible and advantageous to talk about a real and radical free will.

In contrast to the things described so far—that is, in contrast to the impossibility of freedom being what it was originally cracked up to be—suppose freedom is everything originally understood. What exactly would it be? There are two different ways to answer the question, and both are important here. One answer deals with the significant capability of a will. The other deals with just how and where to pigeonhole the will as a thing.

On the first answer, the will’s ability, the most direct route is simply to observe that an individual with a free will can act in different ways given exactly the same circumstances. On the second answer, the will’s metaphysical status, the thing to do is compare it to other things considered to exist. First things first. That is, the next goal is to establish that freedom can be taken to mean that a person has real choices to make; and within that goal, the first step is to demonstrate that such a conception of the will is meaningful even if not empirically demonstrable.

3.1 Freedom can be taken as the ability of an individual to actualize a variety of potentials.

3.1.1 That this view of freedom is empirically unverifiable does not eliminate its significance.

There is no way to prove empirically whether individuals have such a freedom or not. Since an individual can only actualize one behavior in a given circumstance, and since a given circumstance can only appear once, there is no possible way to verify that she could not have gone a different way, or that she could have. That impossibility—the impossibility of proving either way empirically—could lead some to claim that there is no real difference between the two ways of describing the world. One describes it as free, the other as determined. The contention is that both systems offer internally coherent descriptions of the world. For instance: Megan uses the term blue to describe color x, yellow to describe color y, and green to describe color z. Leah, on the other hand, uses the term red to describe color x, yellow to describe color y, and orange to describe color z. (Forget all the complication for the moment. For instance, the only thing that could be meant by “color x” really has nothing to do with what appears as color, but is instead a reference to a certain range of frequency of light.) If everyone agrees to use Read the rest of this entry »

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This Southeast Asian Proverb closes a letter I received a few days ago from a good friend and faithful disciple who is serving with his growing family as a witness for Jesus in a closed country. His use of the proverb is especially appropriate in light of both of the two prayer requests just above it:

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