Evolving Marriage Is a Fruit of Darwinism
If everything evolves, then so do relationships.
Consequences, though, must hit the wall of reality.
Evolutionary theory contains no ethics. Whatever is, evolved— or as Alexander Pope quipped in his Essay on Man (1734), “Whatever is, is right.” Pope, however, was presenting an optimistic philosophy based on a belief in a benevolent God whose ways are inscrutable to man:
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, “Whatever is, is right.”
Pope’s ideas flowed downstream from Milton’s in an increasingly secular century moving from the Reformation to the so-called Enlightenment (c. 1685-1815). Unmoored from Biblical harbors, Pope attempted to justify the ways of God to mankind with a positive spin. It was an attempt at theodicy: an explanation for good and evil, with an underlying belief that since “God” is by nature benevolent, whatever we see must be “universal good.” However misguided Pope’s humanistic vision was (Voltaire was an admirer), given that “he ignores those events of history considered crucial by many, such as the creation, man’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, the birth of Christ, Christ’s death and resurrection, and the final days as predicted by the biblical book of Revelation” (source), his view of rightness vs wrongness was at least moored to a theistic worldview.
Darwinism and materialism harms real people.
Pope wrote in the wake of Newtonian science, which was exalting reason instead of Scripture (“Say first, of God above, or man below / What can we reason, but from what we know? / Of man what see we, but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? / Through worlds unnumber’d though the God be known, / ‘Tis ours to trace him only in our own”). He expressed a growing view that “The proper study of mankind is man” using unaided reason. The Biblical theology that had grounded Milton (1608-1674) when Newton was alive (1642-1727) slipped into the deism of Voltaire (1694-1778) as Newtonianism supplanted Newton himself. Then, the deism of the 18th century became a slippery slope to the naturalism of the 19th. Darwin severed the final rope holding theodicy to the harbor of theism, and set philosophy adrift into a shapeless sea, lacking gridlines or pole star, where everything evolves. Whatever is, is right – not because there is a benevolent God working all things together for good (Romans 8:28), but because the categories of right and wrong themselves have been abolished. Whatever is, is right, because rightness evolves. More succinctly: Whatever is, evolves.
Rubber Meets the Road
Here we are 163 years after Darwin’s Origin continuing to face the consequences of that drift away from Biblical morality. Darwin’s Century (the 20th) saw world wars caused by tyrants justifying atrocities on Darwinian principles. It saw the rise of scientific racism and eugenics, with philosophers and novelists (Brave New World and 1984) unable to base their warnings on any kind of objective morality. Darwin had had his scientific critics (Sedgwick, Owen, Agassiz) but, having already tossed Genesis, they were powerless against the juggernaut of scientific materialism. By the end of the Scopes Trial 97 years ago (1925), materialism with its own evolving ethics had taken over the intellectual world. What can stop any move by anyone who has power? Who can say with authority, “Thou shalt not”?
Only one thing is left to stop the evolutionary “anything goes” ethics: objective reality. A fool might identify with anti-gravity aliens, but if he jumps out the window, objective reality will teach him a lesson that some things don’t evolve.
This week the US Congress is debating whether to codify gay marriage into law. In 2015, conservatives were shocked by the judicial activism of the Supreme Court in Obergefell, when swing justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the four liberal justices and imposed homosexual “marriage” into law, instantly overturning laws in 35 states and thereby invalidating the votes of millions of people. The Family Research Council collected statements by conservatives who vowed in 2015 to support traditional marriage. What is even more shocking is that this week, 47 Republicans in the House voted with the Democrats in their so-called “Respect for Marriage” bill that would codify gay marriage. This bill was rushed by speaker Nancy Pelosi to the floor ahead of the November elections which many observers expect will be a “red wave” of Republican wins. Today, a vote in the Senate sits on a knife edge waiting to see if Republicans there will also cave. If they do, Biden will be sure to sign it and instantiate “gay marriage” into the law of the land.
How Darwinism led to racism, eugenics, Nazism, communism, and genocide.
Connecting the Dots
In his Breakpoint commentary today (July 26), John Stonestreet rightly links this situation with Darwinism.
If marriage is indeed just a product of abstract progress, untethered from any created intent or design, it suffers the same moral quandary as naturalistic evolution. There is no way to control what creature comes next, or to know, as Justice Kennedy assured us, that what followed would be better than what came before (or even if it will be good). There is no guarantee that marriage will remain an institution fundamental to society, that protects and ensures the well-being of children and contributes to human flourishing.
The evolutionary naturalists who undergird the progressives in Congress face one other constraint: reality. Stonestreet preceded the above with that fact: “Of course, this is not how reality works.” You can’t identify as Superman and jump out the window. You can’t change your name to Rockefeller and become rich. The Democrats cannot pretend that marriage is “a social construct that changes as society changes” if it is baked into reality. Justice Kennedy had acknowledged that traditional marriage—one man and one woman—was the understanding for millennia. Nature itself teaches that both sexes are required to procreate a species.
In fact, since Obergefell was decided, the rights of children to know their mom and dad, and to have their minds, bodies, futures, and most important relationships protected, have been replaced by the rights of adults to pursue their own desires and happiness. Justice Kennedy, it seems, has gotten his wish. Marriage has indeed evolved, or at least our conception of it has, but not for the better. Throughout human history, marriage was understood, including in law, to be a sexually complementary union, ordered toward procreation.
Like Tony Perkins, John Stonestreet urges Americans to contact their Senators to oppose this bill while there is still time. There are still many Christians who stand on God’s Word and deplore the breakdown of law and order and all the societal institutions being destroyed by the sexual revolution. They fear for the children who are losing their rights to know their Mom and Dad. As FRC warned today, the progressive left cannot be appeased. They will never be satisfied, and Republicans who try to go along never seem to learn.
The slippery slope is exactly what the late Justice Antonin Scalia warned about when the Obergefell ruling came down. With prophetic insight, he explained how five justices had just given the far-Left the only hammer they’d need to destroy thousands of years of human history, freedom, and faith. Not even a decade later, Democrats are proving him right — bulldozing their way through every possible social norm. The movement that promised to quit once it won marriage in the courts doesn’t even bother pretending anymore. The only limits that exist are your own reality — unless you’re a Christian. And then it isn’t “live and let live;” it’s conform or be punished.
John West shows the negative influence of Darwinism on all aspects of society.
But for non-Christians who might also be appalled by what is happening to our culture, what grounds do they have to stand on? If they accept evolution as “scientific fact” (but see 25 July and 6 July), why not let a culture define marriage any way it wants to? Why not let the children suffer the consequences? Stonestreet says that this vote, if it succeeds, will go far beyond so-called “gay marriage” as consequences since 2015 have already shown.
In effect, marriage would evolve into a genderless institution, not only unbound from its essential connection to children and sexual difference but to any embodied realities whatsoever. In other words, there would be no legal obstacle to extending marriage beyond couples to relationships consisting of multiple partners.
Even worse, redefining marriage not only redefines the definition of “spouse” but also “parent.” Parenting should be a sacrificial investment in future generations, but redefining marriage in this way has made it a self-determined right of getting “what we want.”
Progressives used to plead for “the children” in their campaigns for more government spending on social programs. The new bill rushing through Congress unmasks the reality.
Children have always borne the brunt of the worst ideas of the sexual revolution, especially when combined with new reproductive technologies. Rather than the fruit of a loving union, children are now increasingly treated as products of casually partnered consumers.
Today’s label “progressive” harks back to the Victorian “myth of progress” that created the social and political milieu in which Darwin lived, and without which his ideas would never have taken root. Whether Darwin himself would have supported “gay marriage” is left as an exercise.
There have always been wars, tyrants and atrocities, but the age of Darwin is different. In the past, people acknowledged the reality of the conscience and knew the difference between good and evil. Alexander Pope thought that natural evil could have a good interpretation if we just understood the mind of God. Evolutionary theory does away with the categories of good and evil altogether. Whatever is, evolves. Indeed, Darwinism justifies and rationalizes evil as normal and natural! (23 Oct 2016). Such thinking can make evildoers exceptionally brutal while committing their atrocities, as has happened in some of the worst genocides in the 20th century (12 Feb 2019, 11 Sept 2021).
From an evolutionary view, why not define marriage any way you want?* Why not hook up with any other member of Homo sapiens? —or of other species, for that matter? Why not legalize polygamy and prostitution? Why not act like the beasts that evolutionary biologists say we are? Why not identify as a werewolf or a cat or a witch? Why criminalize pedophilia and rape? Why not experiment on human embryos? Why not harvest organs from the powerless? Why not force infants to take puberty blockers? Why not entertain kindergartners with drag queen groomers? Why not take children from their parents and give them to the State? Why not genetically engineer human clones for our army to fight our enemies? Why not commit genocide if it helps our tribe? Why not kill off humanity to stop global warming or overpopulation?
Dr Eric Pianka, ardent evolutionist and genocide advocate. Illustrations by J B Greene. Used by permission.
Evolutionists, if “whatever is, is right,” at what point will reality hit home and make you realize that Darwin took humanity on a path of death and evil?
Someone who knew reality inside and out warned, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
Anecdote: In my trial preparations with JPL in 2012, an evolutionary scientist whom I had befriended was being deposed one day. I had lent him a DVD about intelligent design. He had taken it cheerfully but never watched it, he said, expressing his disgust with creationism. In a later conversation at work, he and I got into a heated discussion about Proposition 8 in California that would have declared gay marriage unconstitutional in the state (this was 7 years before Obergefell overturned Prop 8, which had won in 2008). With that background, listen to his answers to my lawyer’s questions about the meaning of marriage. The scientist had personal preferences but had no way to ground them in reality or tradition. When Mr. Becker had him cornered in a contradiction, he dodged with an “I don’t know” response.
Page 59
1 THE WITNESS: WHATEVER A COUPLE DECIDES TO DO
2 IS THEIR OWN DECISION TO MAKE.
3 BY MR. BECKER:
4 Q. A CONSENTING COUPLE?
5 MS. FOX: VAGUE.
6 THE WITNESS: I WOULD HOPE SO.
7 BY MR. BECKER:
8 Q. AN ADULT COUPLE?
9 A. YES.
10 Q. YOU DON’T ADVOCATE PEDOPHILIA, DO YOU?
11 A. NO.
12 Q. YOU DON’T ADVOCATE POLYGAMY, DO YOU?
13 A. NO.
14 Q. SO THERE ARE SOME THINGS PEOPLE ARE NOT
15 ALLOWED TO DO WHEN IT COMES TO MARRIAGE; RIGHT?
16 MS. FOX: OBJECTION. CALLS FOR A LEGAL
17 CONCLUSION. IMPROPER OPINION. OVERBROAD AND VAGUE.
18 BY MR. BECKER:
19 Q. RIGHT?
20 MS. FOX: DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION?
21 THE WITNESS: PLEASE REPEAT THE QUESTION.
22 BY MR. BECKER:
23 Q. WELL, DO YOU BELIEVE THAT FOUR PEOPLE WHO
24 ARE IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER SHOULD BE MARRIED?
25 MS. FOX: ASKED AND ANSWERED.
Page 60
1 BY MR. BECKER:
2 Q. THERE’S LAUGHING HERE, BUT THERE’S A TV
3 SHOW CALLED “BIG LOVE” ON TV THAT’S BEEN AROUND FOR A
4 WHILE. THIS ISN’T ANYTHING NEW. POLYGAMY IS NOTHING
5 NEW.
6 DO YOU BELIEVE IN POLYGAMY?
7 MS. FOX: ASKED AND ANSWERED.
8 THE WITNESS: I DON’T BELIEVE IT. SOME PEOPLE
9 DO.
10 BY MR. BECKER:
11 Q. DON’T POLYGAMISTS HAVE CIVIL RIGHTS TO
12 MARRY WHOMEVER THEY LOVE?
13 MS. FOX: ASKED AND ANSWERED. IMPROPER
14 OPINION. LEGAL CONCLUSION.
15 THE WITNESS: THAT IS UP TO SOCIETY TO DECIDE.
16 BY MR. BECKER:
17 Q. AND IT’S UP TO SOCIETY TO DECIDE WHETHER
18 GAYS CAN BE MARRIED; RIGHT?
19 A. YES.
20 Q. AND THAT’S WHY THE CONSTITUTIONAL
21 AMENDMENT WAS ON THE BALLOT; RIGHT?
22 MS. FOX: OBJECTION. CALLS FOR SPECULATION.
23 LACKS FOUNDATION.
24 THE WITNESS: I DO NOT KNOW WHY IT WAS ON THE
25 BALLOT.