Naturalism denies the supernatural and elevates the autonomy of humanity. The problem with this is that it takes away all possibility of personal responsibility in laws and ethics. Today on culturology we see how the 'natural' progression from the false freedom of naturalism ultimately leads to a reinvention of the wheel in postmodernism, or the despair of nihilism.
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Man Is A Responsible Being. When a person is tried in court for murder, the guilt or innocence of that person is described in terms of their responsibility. As a negative example, when the body of the murdered individual is found, the person who discovered the body thinks to themselves, “who is responsible for this death?” But in a more positive example, decreasing death rates in a crime-saturated town leads to the question, “who is responsible for this change?” Societies are preoccupied with addressing questions of responsibility, as they are the questions which must be answered if any society is to last. As such, different worldview adaptations have been proposed over the centuries as a way to view the world through the proper lense to foster the type of society to be desired.
One such worldview which rises to the occasion is that of naturalism. Naturalism, according to Carl Sagan is the view that “the cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” (Sire 68). That is to say, there is no other reality which can or should be considered besides that of the natural realm. Life in naturalism is as Sires puts it “the silence of finite space”. There is no voice from beyond to which man can look to for meaning.
The naturalistic worldview is very popular in academic circles. Naturalism is the lense by which the popularization of evolution took place, especially thanks to Charles Darwin. Because of the deep-rooted influence of this worldview in academia and the secular world, the question must be asked, on what basis does a naturalist believe man is a responsible being? To answer this question, a brief survey of naturalism and the logical conclusions as such will be analyzed briefly.
Naturalism teaches the eternality of the universe. While the mantra “nothing comes from nothing. Something is” seems to indicate that the eternality of the universe as expressed in naturalism speaks to time, it is better to understand this tenant of naturalism as speaking to authority. If the universe is eternal, then there is no authority or power that lies beyond or above the universe with the ability to speak into life objectively. Further, life cannot be considered ultimately as creation. Instead only matter exists, evolving and surviving in different expressions over time, forever and ever.
What then is the initial impact of this tenant when considering human responsibility? If the myth of objective authority found in other worldviews is finally put to rest, then all that remains in a purely materialistic world is that which exists as the supreme authority by means of evolution. In this case, that supreme authority is humanity. Yet at the same time, human beings are “simply a part of the cosmos”. This recognition indicates that the concept of responsibility is a moot point in naturalism, at least in the final analysis. Instead, naturalists are “a law to themselves” (Romans 2:14). For this reason, Sire asserts that the difference between naturalism and theism is this: “For a theist, God is the foundation of values. For a naturalist, values are constructed by human beings”.
What impact does this consideration have on society? Further, what impact does this consideration have on the responsibility of man? In one sense, naturalism al
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