Man is “In the Dock,” Not God

The “Liberal Democrat” political party in the United Kingdom is demanding that a Christian politician, in defense of his beliefs, must prove in court the divinity of Jesus Christ. C.S. Lewis wrote a series of essays that were compiled and published in the book God in the Dock. To be “in the dock” means to be on trial. In the case proving the divinity of Jesus and the existence of God, the creature puts the Creator on trial, that is, “in the dock.” Man becomes prosecutor, judge, and jury. Throughout his trial for murder, Tyrone Power’s character in the 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution stands “in the dock” during the courtroom proceedings.

Using Classic Films to Teach the Christian Worldview

Real life is about real conversations, and classic movies provide a great virtual training ground for thinking and living in the real world of ideas and consequences. Also includes illustrated PDF ebook that helps to reinforce and explain the concepts discussed in the lecture, as well as Gary’s 89-page movie recommendation list.

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In biblical terms, man is in the dock. He can’t account for his own existence, morality, or the reasoning ability God has given him to question God in any form or fashion.

Atheism is a religion. It is a worldview driven by faith in a system of thought supposedly generated by a brain evolved that randomly emits electrical impulses throughout its gray matter that scientists call the “mind” But how can the evolved matter-only brain-mind be trusted to know anything authoritatively or claim that certain behaviors are morally right or wrong? C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our thought processes are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the materialists’ and astronomers’ as well as for anyone else’s [thought processes]. But if their thoughts—i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident would be able to give correct account of all the other accidents.[1]

An atheist is an “interloper on God’s territory. Everything he uses to construct his system has been stolen from God’s ‘construction site.’ The unbeliever is like the little girl who must climb on her father’s lap to slap his face…. [T]he unbeliever must use the world as it has been created by God to try to throw God off His throne.”[2]

Given atheistic assumptions, why is anything “harmful”? Why is it wrong to discriminate against someone? Evolution is the very definition of “discrimination” and “bullying.” Where in our evolutionary homo sapien past was it ever wrong to weed out the misfits, the unproductive, and the weak? Homo sapien means “wise man” or “knowledgeable man,” hardly a materialist designation. How do these human traits emerge from elements from the Periodic Table?

John West of the Discovery Institute had this to say about the real-world implications of Darwinism in a must-read interview with J. C. Derrick in World Magazine:

Where has Darwinian thought had the most influence on society today?

The area of faith. Darwin’s theory wasn’t just about change over time—it was that we’re part of an accidental process. So Darwin has been the greatest gift to people who would like to deny that God exists. But it’s gone way beyond that: We’ve seen Darwinism used to devalue human life, because Darwin thought humans are basically animals. At the end of On the Origin of Species he says it’s through death, disease, and starvation that the best things have come about in nature.

It seems like some of these ideas are not always connected to Darwin because people read On the Origin of Species without reading his later book, The Descent of Man.

Exactly. I have met scholars who say Darwin has nothing to do with religion or morality—it’s just about science. I ask: “Have you read The Descent of Man?” No. That is where Darwin talks about religion, morality, mind, and social policy, about how he thinks we’re destroying the human race by inoculating people against smallpox and helping the poor.

Let the weak die on their own.

Correct. Darwin was a kind and compassionate man [because he was raised within a culture based on a Christian worldview], so he worried about the implications, but that’s what he thought the theory meant. He thought that if we follow reason, we probably shouldn’t be doing things to help the people he thought were defective.

Ultimately, atheists live off borrowed capital. They pontificate on what they claim is true and right, and yet can’t account for their own existence or anything else. They claim to use reason, and yet given materialistic assumptions about the nature of reality, there is no way to account for it. Show me empirically that reason exists. Don’t retort, “Well that’s first-year philosophy stuff.” Atheists search for empirical evidence to prove God’s existence, so present empirical evidence that reason.

Atheists never explain how an inert beginning to the cosmos became a cosmos with meaning, rational beings, and moral precepts. Where did the encoding of the DNA come from? What is the origin of organized information? Richard Dawkins claims the cosmos only “appears” to be designed. That’s like saying a Corvette, a much simpler “design,” only appears to be designed. No one would ever assume that an automobile spontaneously arose into a seemingly designed marvel.

Below is an image of what looks like giraffes. On first seeing it, what do you think an archeologist would conclude? Carved or evolved? I’m guessing that anyone seeing this image would conclude that it was carved by someone. And yet, fossils of people and animals, far more complicated in design, are claimed to have had an evolutionary origin.

This makes atheistic evolution one of the most irrational worldviews around. It only has credibility because there are scientists who have attached their names and reputations to it and it discounts the existence of God.

Consider the following from John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University:

Science proceeds on the basis of the assumption that the universe is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to the human mind. No science can be done without the scientist believing this, so it is important to ask for grounds for this belief. Atheism gives us none, since it posits a mindless, unguided origin of the universe’s life and consciousness. Charles Darwin saw the problem. He wrote: “With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.”[3]

Loren Eiseley, writing in his book Darwin’s Century (1958, 1961), admitted that “the philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its method in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a Creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation…. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by the assumption” (62).

But you’ll say, “But now we know better.” No, we don’t. Consider this:

In 1985 biologist Michael Denton noted—in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis—that Darwinism was cruising for a bruising. Now he’s back with Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, which shows—with three decades of new research—that Darwin’s theory needs hip replacements, for “there is now a growing chorus of dissent within mainstream evolutionary biology.”

He’s right. Darwin himself wrote, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” It has broken down, as advances in paleontology, genomics, and developmental biology show.

For example, mainstream researchers Douglas Erwin and Eric Davidson have noted that “classic evolutionary theory, based on selection of small incremental changes,” is clearly inadequate. Günter Wagner in Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation writes, “Adaptive modifications often involve only the modification of existing cis-regulatory elements,” but truly new developments “require large-scale reorganizations of the gene regulatory network.” (World)

If atheists were truly consistent with their atheistic, naturalistic, and materialistic assumptions, they could not live together since there would be no justification for the prohibition against killing, what we call murder because of biblical absolutes. Look at a short video clip titled “Cruel Logic” and ask whether those in the “Liberal Democrat” political party in the United Kingdom can do better than the professor tied to his chair.

I’ve heard the claim made that the human mind invented God. This is a curious assertion given that it’s the atheist mind that says there is no God. Which is it? Why is it wrong to accept what the mind once thought and now it’s OK to accept what the mind now thinks? Atheism is a worldview driven by faith in a system of thought supposedly generated by a brain that evolved from a pre-biotic soup of chemicals that randomly emits electrical impulses through its gray matter no different from a build-up of energy like static electricity or lightning. But how can a materialist know that an evolved brain can be trusted to know anything authoritatively or claim that certain behaviors are morally right or wrong given purely materialistic assumptions?

Atheists assume certain things to be true because they must be true. That’s not good enough.

Why It Might be OK to Eat Your Neighbor

The most damning assessment of a matter-only cosmos devoid of a Creator is that we got to this place in our evolutionary history by acts of violence whereby the strong conquered the weak with no one to support or condemn them. Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor repeatedly raises the issue of accounting for the conscience, good and evil, and loving our neighbor. It’s shocking to read what atheists say about a cosmos devoid of meaning and morality.

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The Apostle Paul wrote, “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?” (Rom. 9:20).

Putting God in the dock already has been done, which resulted in a well-deserved strong rebuke:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,

“Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,
Who set its measurements? Since you know.
Or who stretched the line on it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Book of Job 38:1-7).

Those in the “Liberal Democrat” party may in time get their wish by putting the Lord of Glory in the dock. He may respond by chastising them with the scorpions of Islam.

[1] C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), 52-53.

[2] John A. Fielding III, “The Brute Facts: An Introduction of the Theology and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til,” The Christian Statesman 146:2 (March-April 2003), 30.

[3] “Why Atheism and Science Don’t Mix,” Evolution News (July 17, 2020).

American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources