ASK CHALCEDON ~ EVOLUTION: A Dangerous Belief
- R. J. Rushdoony,
The following originally appeared 9/29/65 in the Freedom Press and answered by R.J. Rushdoony.
Why do you classify evolution as a chaos cult and a religion of revolution, and why do you regard it as a dangerous belief?
The concept of evolution is a theory without proof which is held mainly for religious reasons. Sir Arnold Lunn has written of Darwin, "His immense success was partly due to the fact that he happened to restate these theories at the precise moment when theophobia (the fear or dislike of God) was on the increase." Evolution was a religious alternative to God.
Two main results are found with the spread of evolutionary faith. First, if evolution be true, then man has evolved out of chaos, and chaos is the source of power and regeneration in the universe. Man's salvation then depends, as The Religion of Revolution points out, on chaos, his source of power and regeneration. Revolution is planned chaos. Not God but chaos then becomes man's savior. The rise of evolutionary thinking from Hegel on led also to the rise of revolutionary philosophies.
Second, if evolution be true, the logical step for man is to control his evolution. As one book title states it, Man Makes Himself. Man becomes his own god and maker and recreator. According to Titiev, a society becomes scientific to the extent that "the law of controlled causation" takes over. A scientific society, one in which man directs his own evolution, is a totally statist society; scientific socialism is totalitarianism. Science requires total control for experimentation, and if man is the great experiment, as evolutionists claim, and man's controlled evolution is the purpose of the scientific state, then freedom is a violation of scientific experimental requirements. Evolution leads to total statism. The scientists speak of licensed births, altered genes and controlled men as scientifically necessary to this end. Men become the experimental guinea pigs for the scientific elite.
Some conservatives belief in evolution; they are illogical. The logic of evolution leads to total statism. Marx welcomed Darwin's theory as the necessary idea to make socialism inevitable. Scientific socialism, i.e., Marxism, simply means the totally controlled experimentation with man to prepare him for the scientific state and make him ready to accept it.
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.