In 1 Peter 5:8, we are told by the Apostle Peter that the enemy, Satan, is prowling
around like a lion looking for someone to devour. For someone that has been to
church most of his life, I have come to believe the assumption that Satan’s dealings
are easy to spot; however, it is quite the opposite. Like a lion looking for prey, he is
very subtle in his way of dealing with people. One way that attacks is by persuading
people to believe appealing views that subtly push us away from the Gospel, like
evolutionary ethicists. i According to McQuilkin, our ethical beliefs have developed
through evolution to help us survive and reproduce. Some evolutionary ethicists
emphasize that we think we have duties; however, there is no real moral obligation
behind those beliefs.1
One of the biggest problems with this way of thinking, especially in light of what our
society is facing, is that we can make the worth of human dignity a part of God. Our
culture likes to justify the absence of God based on the immorality around us. The
argument that a loving God would not allow so much injustice around is constantly
thrown around. I love how McQuilkin defuses this way of thinking. He says, “It makes
better sense to say that value came from value—not that valuelessness produced
value.”2 These are similar words to the one that David coined when he wrote in Psalm
16:2, “I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” It is the
realization that there is no value apart from God.
In contrast, if we were to observe Satan's modus operandi, we would see how he uses
culture to persuade us to believe that dignity or value is found in things that this world
can give to us. We do not see our society recognizing that the cause of all the
problems around us is the absence of people believing in the Gospel, but rather the
absence of a righteous social system; that we do not have enough people to advocate
for people’s dignity, that dignity is found in fulfilling our pleasure and desires, that
doing what we love regardless of what it is can give us dignity… the list can go on and
on. The matter of fact is that what we truly lack as a society is a belief in the Gospel.
People need to recognize that without Jesus, there is no dignity. Jesus is the way, the
truth, and the life.
i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
1 J Robertson Mcquilkin and Paul Copan,
An Introduction to Biblical Ethics : Walking
in the Way of Wisdom
(Downers Grove, Il: Ivp, An Imprint Of Intervarsity Press, 2014),
180.
2 Ibid., 181.
