The past two decades have seen the entry of an organized "religious right" into the political arena. This is an interesting contrast to earlier times when overt political activism with the Christian stamp was considered by many Christians to be somehow improper in American society. Much of the change in viewpoint can be traced to a frustration with increasingly activist Federal policies that follow the lead of secular theorists and that seem not only to contradict traditional Christian values, but at the same time force Christians as well as all taxpayers to subsidize a broad social culture that is accelerating the trend to social degradation and chaos.

Is there a valid rational basis for Christian input to a secular culture? It is argued that such a basis does exist and consists in an understanding of creation law—laws that were built into Creation. Christians have a special contribution to make to secular society in understanding and sharing these laws as they are disclosed in the Creator's special revelation, the Bible, especially as they conflict with the assumptions of secular policy makers.

The discussion begins with a consideration of the role of Christians in a secular society, particularly the role that follows from a proper respect for a government that operates under the principle of the Constitutional separation of church and state. Following this, the concept of creation law is introduced and illustrated with a range of examples that serve to demonstrate both its breadth and limits.

After this general introduction, the discussion then turns specifically to the issue of social laws, which are the laws that would form the basis for Christian political action. The special difficulties that come with the treatment of social laws are particularly noted, which help to explain the reasons for secular failures as well as reinforce the benefit that Christians receive by a careful understanding of what Scripture says about these laws. Following this, a number of creation laws are suggested, and then the discussion ends with a summary of how these laws can be used to form a basis for Christian involvement in society.

There is some likelihood that in dealing with a "hot" topic such as politics, some readers will disagree with certain conclusions, with assertions regarding specific creation laws, or with the interpretation that is given to certain Scriptural passages that are discussed. Hopefully such disagreements will not obscure the overall purpose of this discussion, which is to get Christians thinking about whether and how they can and should try to participate in secular society, and to consider the way that the concepts of creation law can contribute to that participation.
 
 

As a person who has worked for over thirty years trying to "get it right" in computer software, I am impressed with how easily the average human mind "gets it right" most of the time, and with how dauntingly difficult it is to translate common mental tasks into logical steps that can be performed by a computer and presented to the user in a way that reflects common sense. So perhaps it is not surprising that my own concept of social policy tends toward methods of implementation that leave the heavy work of getting it right to the lowest possible level of society. The failures of central planning, both in our own society and in other socialist societies worldwide simply reflect and reinforce this skepticism about the central planner's ability to get it right.¹

Some theologians trace these failures of society to the sinful condition of humans. I agree that the inclinations of man are to evil as a result of his sinful nature, and yet I do not see this as the only cause for social dysfunction. Even heavily Christian societies—such as the Massachusetts Bay Colony or the Geneva Experiment—managed to make drastic mistakes of central planning. Without for a moment trying to turn Christians from their calling to evangelize the world, I maintain that there is a lot that can be done to improve government on a secular level, and that is what I seek to discuss in these remarks about the role of creation law in human society.

Throughout the history of this country, Americans have relied on academicism to formulate governmental policy, particularly at the Federal level. The Constitution itself was the work of wise but practical intellectuals, and is remarkable for its relative freedom from the corrupting influences of power and moneyed interests. But in this century, as academia has become stridently secular and self-assured, and as the reach of the Federal government has been used in ways never contemplated by the founding fathers, to force social changes that have proved disastrous, the "great vice" of this quote has yielded its unfortunate fruits. As these failures become painfully evident, a real danger is that America may take on a spirit of thoughtless anti-academicism, turn to the tyrannies of demagogues, and fall prey to the very interests that this country spurned in its founding.
 

The fundamental issue is this: What, if anything, should Christians do in the face of this social meltdown? Is there a rationale for Christian involvement in secular society, or in contrast to this, do we simply hunker down and await the apocalypse? This paper argues that there is a valid rationale for Christian involvement in secular society, based on the concept of creation law, and that Christians, as followers of the Creator's written revelation, have a unique ability, and so the responsibility, to promote secular policies that are consistent with creation law.
 

1. Secular Society and Creation Law.

What is "Secular"? According to one author³ the very distinction between "secular" and "religious" is due to Christ's own teaching, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God, the things that are God's." [Mt.22:21, KJV]. In Jesus' day, there was a near universal mixing of secular and religious, so that, for example, Rome deified its emperors and used religious fealty to the Caesar as a test of patriotism. The very coin shown to Jesus when he made this statement bore an image of Caesar with the inscription "Son of the divine Augustus"; the semi-divine title "Augustus" itself implies religious devotion (stronger than "Reverend", something like "Revered One"). This muddled intermixing of the religious with secular spheres lay behind much of the state-sponsored persecution of Christians. It is through the influence of Christian thought that (after millennia of indifferent success and many detours) a modern sense of a proper distinction between the secular and religious spheres has prevailed.
 

Distinguishing between religious and secular spheres is not the same as saying that they are completely separate. This notion is a modern overreach promoted by many secularists that is refuted in the book The Myth of Religious Neutrality by Roy A. Clouser, who argues:
 
 

He defines a religious belief as "any belief in something or other as divine", where "Divine means having the status of not depending on anything else."⁵ >From this point of view, Jesus was not arguing for the separation of religious and secular but for the recognition of the religious and secular elements in society, and to argue against confusion of the two spheres.
 

Among secularists there is a general denial of a religious element in "secular" claims. Perhaps the starkest example of this by secular American society is in the definition of "science" given by the National Academy of Sciences⁶, which excludes by definition the possibility of a non-naturalistic cause for any observable effect. In the desire to separate between secular and religious, the N.A.S. adopted a metaphysical assumption that in no way can be derived from a study of nature. In effect, it presupposes that "brute matter has the capability to arrange itself into higher levels of complexity,"⁷ simply based on the fact that such complexity is observed in nature, even though there is no plausible explanation for how this complexity came about. In effect, "reality" is equated with things that science can study (measure), and so the possibility of supernatural intervention in Creation is ruled out by fiat.
 

What is the Christian Role in the Secular Arena? Our particular interest here is in the Christian side of this issue: (1) Should we as Christians properly recognize the distinction between the secular and religious elements of society? If we do, (2) Is it a proper Christian role to be actively involved in secular society? If so, (3) Do Christians have a particular secular message to give? Since our interest here is in the third question, I will only make a few remarks about the first two, both of which I answer "Yes."
 

Regarding the first question: The history of the world is rife with examples of how governments have tried to use the force of law to impose religious views on their citizens. Sometimes (but not usually!) this has worked to impose a form of Christianity. State-sponsored Christianity has almost always been a perversion of the true Gospel message, from the moment that it became a state religion in the days of the Roman Emperor Constantine. This sad history demonstrates the wisdom in Christ's pronouncement, and is the reason why the U.S. Constitution has the Religious Establishment clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…".⁸ I certainly can and do fault the interpretations of this clause that seem to put the government in a position of overt hostility to religion, and such a position is rightly to be opposed. But on the other hand, we Christians need to be careful that what we do propose as principles of Government do not in effect violate that clause, which some policies of the past have in fact done, just as surely as slavery violated the principle that all men are created equal, as stated in the Declaration of Independence. I believe that we have ample warrant to resist the temptation to reverse the sense of this amendment, even if Christians are in the majority and have the power to force such a change, because history demonstrates that such seeming good intentions invariably turn to folly in due time.
 

Regarding the second question: Should Christians be actively involved in secular society—for example, by participating in organizations such as the Christian Coalition? There seems to be considerable argument on both sides of this question, and some Christian sects such as the Amish pointedly avoid such activity, but I firmly believe the answer is "Yes." Christ said that we are the "salt of the earth." Although this might conceivably be interpreted in the same sense as "light of the world," I believe that the meaning is larger than just a beacon that beams out the Gospel. The examples of Daniel, Nehemiah and Esther show that believers working in and through the secular government can be tools used by God to combat moral and spiritual decay and to foster and encourage believers.
 

Now to the third question: What is the secular message that Christians have to give? The quote at the head of this paper expresses a general despair regarding the destiny of a society that is led by the ideas of intellectuals and experts. Ironically this is exactly the "ideal" society that Plato postulated in his book, The Republic, and it is largely the kind of centralized society that characterizes America today as it follows the lead of social reconstructionists and policy experts. A byproduct of the modern scientific age is that collective knowledge is compartmentalized into ever more restrictive and narrow specialties, thus increasing our dependence on narrowly-focussed experts. Big government can fail in big ways. The temptation to use the vast resources of Government to engineer society is nearly irresistible, but if the engineering is based on ideas that have a narrow experience base and lack objective authority, the results are too often failures that reflect faulty perceptions.
 

Christians do have an objective authority, based on revelation from the Creator of the world that we live in. Built into the creation are creation laws that govern how things work and that ensure the stability and long-term endurance of his creation. Not so coincidentally, this Creator has a lot to say about his creation in Scripture, things that are essential to the continuance and well-being of creation, as distinct from things that specially concern believers and their relationship to him. These creation laws are essentially secular in nature. By understanding and heeding these creation laws, Christians can derive ideas for secular policy that are based on truths that will not prove empty when they find fulfillment.
 

It is not necessary for secular society to acknowledge the Biblical source or objective nature of the Christian's authority, if the results prove out, just as it is not necessary to know where a mathematician got the inspiration in order to acknowledge the validity of a mathematical proof. Nebuchadnezzar did not follow Daniel's advice because of Daniel's objective source of authority in Scripture, but because the results proved out: he "distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities." [Dan.6:3]. What the Christian offers is a substitute for the self-appointed authority of academicism which acknowledges that it has no objective basis and so uses the subjective authority of academic credentials as a substitute.
 

As we discuss creation law, I don't want to give the impression that the spiritual dimension to God's revelation is unimportant; in truth, it is central to our lives as believers. I interpret passages such as Prov. 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" in the narrow sense that it is not possible to have true wisdom unless the reality of God is part of our thought processes. For example, I believe that I as a Christian can view the observable facts of physics and biology with an equanimity and lack of bias that is not possible for a secular scientist, because I am perfectly free to take facts as they lie, without having to superimpose on them an assumption that the universe is the way it is due to mindless chance. If it turns out that there is a clear, logical and credible explanation for how living material evolved from nonliving material, such a fact does not conflict with my belief in God; but an atheistic scientist (or one who accepts the definition of "science" discussed above) has no choice but to force such an explanation. The evidence to date is that there is no credible sequence of events that can explain such a transformation. Hence, my mindset based on a belief in God is more scientific than that of a secular scientist.
 

What is Creation Law? A creation law is a principle that is built by God into his creation that governs how his creation works, or that ensures the stability and long-term viability of his creation. Roughly speaking, what we refer to as the "sciences" have as their legitimate focus the search for and expression of creation laws. We intend to use the term "law" in a broad sense that concerns all details of creation, and not just comprehensive generalizations (as the term tends to be used in Physics and other grand unifying sciences). We will shortly give a number of examples, but our particular interest in the discussion of Christian contributions to a secular society is in social laws of human behavior: built-in characteristics of humans as individuals and as social creatures. There is much that Scripture says and implies about such creation laws.
 

By "creation law" I do not mean "natural law" as the term is used by theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. Natural laws are principles that are arrived at as the end result of philosophical contemplation. A natural law attributed to Justice Story (an early Supreme Court Justice) is that what may not be done directly may not be done indirectly. For example, if it is unlawful to commit murder, then it is also unlawful to hire assassins to commit murder.⁹ Creation laws cannot be derived by mental analysis alone; they are built-in features of Creation that can only be discovered in one of two ways: by direct observation of Creation, or by special revelation from God. For example, there is no way to come by Newton's laws by intellectual analysis.
 

Two things are important to realize from the outset. First, creation laws are not necessarily flagged as such, or even explicitly stated in Scripture; in many cases, what we see there are the implications of creation laws rather than the laws themselves. It is our task to study Scripture to determine the nature of the underlying creation laws. Second, creation laws by their very nature are not "arbitrary" in the sense that they can be ignored without penalty, although in some cases the penalty may be delayed.
 

The Basis for Creation Law. Christ alluded to creation law in his discussion of divorce in Mark 10:6-8 where he says, "At the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.'" Jesus is saying in effect that the family unit that is formed in marriage is a characteristic of creation itself—it is a creation law. In addition, he also implies that the practice of offspring leaving the parental family unit to form a new family unit is also a creation law.
 

Creation laws reflect the craftsmanship of God displayed in his creation. As a scientist, I take particular interest in Psalms 19:1-4a, because I believe that it describes this handiwork of God:
 

The word translated "sky" is "firmament" in the King James translation and comes from a word that means to "stretch out" as by beating. The picture is that of a highly skilled goldsmith hammering out thin sheets of gold overlay. Gold is very malleable, and it can be hammered out into a sheet of such microscopic thickness that it becomes translucent. In David's day, the goldsmith was the picture of ultimate skill and craftsmanship, and so he uses this analogy to describe God's work.
 

The word "knowledge" refers to insight rather than news; that is, an understanding of the Craftsman Creator God. This passage asserts that careful study of his creation can give the observer insight into God's nature as reflected in his work. This is also the message of Romans 1:20, which asserts that God's qualities are clearly seen in his creation.
 

The word "where" in verse 3 is supplied in the translation. The word translated "voice" in verse 4 is literally a "line". The word is used elsewhere for a stretched-out measuring line. In this context the image is that of a tuned harp string. In my mind I picture David composing this Psalm with his harp in hand. As he composes the words and music, he looks down at his harp, and sees a picture of how the "voice" of the heavens proclaims the Glory of God. God's Creation is like a perfectly tuned harp. The harp by itself is mute: "there is no speech or language; their voice is not heard." But the voice is there, in the tuned harp strings: all that lacks is the fingers of a talented musician who makes the effort to pluck the strings, and the speech will pour forth: "their line goes out into all the earth; their words to the ends of the world." This line goes throughout the world, so that it can be heard (by those who play and listen) everywhere in his creation.
 

What this passage tells me is that God revels in his creative work, and that inquiry into his creation tells the skillful inquirer much about who he is. It is significant that Paul quotes this passage in Romans 10:18 in support of his claim that God's good news has indeed "gone out into all the earth."
 

I believe that a warranted inference from this Psalm is that God takes special pleasure in honest and skillful inquiry into the nature of his creation, and that he rewards such inquiry with insight into his nature. In short, God loves an honest scientist, and the honest, skillful study of his creation will not lead to false information about the nature of God or of Creation.
 

Creation laws are the mortar that governs this finely crafted creation and holds it together. They are the "tuning" of the fine instrument of God's creation. You can't really violate a creation law in the long run: you may pretend that the law of gravity doesn't exist, but if you jump off a building you will fall to the ground nonetheless. By extending the concept of creation law to other areas than physics and the hard sciences, what I assert is that they can't be violated either: if you pretend they don't exist, you will suffer the inevitable consequences in due time. To put it another way, there are some things in life that qualify as "alternative" ways of doing things in the sense that each way will lead to a stable and sustainable end state: "there is more than one way to skin a cat." But creation laws are not optional in this sense: failing to obey them leads to an unstable, unsustainable or self-destructive end state.
 

Creation Law as the Basis for Christian Action in a Secular Society. The past 20 years or so have seen the growth of various Christian or quasi-Christian organizations with active political agendas. In the early 1980's we had the Moral Majority; today we have the Christian Coalition and similar groups; some, such as the Heritage Foundation based in Valley Forge, are not specifically religious but promote causes that many would associate with Christianity. I admit that I have mixed feelings about such groups, especially with the way that they attach the name "Christian" to some of their causes.
 

An understanding of creation laws that underlie Scripture provides a valid basis for "Christian" involvement in the secular political arena by Christian or quasi-Christian groups. I am not arguing against a vigorous Christian outreach to propagate the faith as, for example, in evangelism or in defense of Christian beliefs; but I do not believe that these should be part of a political movement. To me, one of the sad things that happened to the Moral Majority in the mid-80's is that the Christian message got watered down, as the special Christian values and viewpoints were questioned, as they attempted to broaden their appeal, and as they maintained their claim to represent the "majority" viewpoint. In my view, this process came about as a result of fuzzy thinking about the nature and identity of creation law. It would have been far better if the message had not been "Christian" in the first place, but rather focused on creation law.
 

There is a good Constitutional precedent for taking Biblical expressions of creation law and making them a fundamental part of the fabric of society. Built into the U.S. Constitution is the conviction that humans are not by nature selfless, that they can be tempted into corruption and thus it is necessary to have a government of checks and balances so that no group or social class can rule unchecked. This conviction amounts to a creation law, possibly brought on by the Fall, which has been encoded into our form of Government. This is not the form of government in Britain or in any other society of the time, which had monarchs and ruling classes that were presumed to have the good of the society in mind due to their high breeding. In these other governments, there was the notion of the divine rights of kings and nobility to rule; that notion of government is patterned about the theory of the "good despot" that Socrates promoted in Plato's Republic. Incidentally, liberalism has at root this ruling class conceit—the notion that society is best governed by an educated elite, with laws that enforce their pronouncements. We saw this elitism in the way that the health care reform proposals were drawn up and presented in 1993-4. An essential part of liberal social science involves the ability of an educated elite to control society by legislation, so that it must follow a prescribed behavior. These notions are contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.
 

Many Christians seem to have adopted a fatalistic attitude toward issues such as effecting changes in social behavior patterns of secular society. Personally, I am not so fatalistic, because demonstrable changes in social attitudes have occurred in the recent past. I would like to give an example or two. One of the most destructive aspects of the modern entertainment industry is the messages that it gives (under the guise of free speech) to young people about the "rites of passage" to adulthood. By holding up certain behavior as typical of normal adults but denied to children, the inevitable message to unguided minds is "to be grown-up (or to appear grown-up to your peers) you must engage in this behavior." To restive young people who are anxious to enter the adult world, this message becomes, "By all means, do this as soon as you can." Look at the things that are glorified in the media: smoking, drinking, drug use, sexual activity, violence and so on.
 

But here is the interesting thing. Forty years ago, smoking and drinking were glamorized in films: every macho male and liberated female was seen lighting up a cigarette or taking a drink. Today such images are much less common. Smoking and drinking patterns in the U.S. have changed dramatically, mostly for the good—except, significantly, among young women, where smoking remains a symbol of liberation. It is remarkable to me to note in offices and public places how often it is the young women who smoke, while the men, expecially professionals, do not.
 

To give another example: twenty years ago, homosexuals in San Francisco considered it their fundamental "right" to do as they please in the public bath houses and loudly protested attempts to control that right. Today, the bath houses are shut down, despite this "right".
 

To my mind this demonstrates that change is possible in the secular arena; not that change is easy or rapid, and much more needs to be done, but there is at least a clear (if somewhat hypocritical) "message" in secular society that smoking and drinking are no longer necessary rites of passage to adulthood. Some progress is also being made in drug use; regress rather than progress is occurring in the area of sexual activity, which is glamorized by an irresponsible entertainment industry that conveys the message that "to be fully human, one must be sexually active."¹⁰ Christians should take heart in the progress, and see it as demonstrating the potential for further changes.
 

The challenge is to present calls for action in the secular arena based on creation law rather than religious principle. Later we will attempt to make a case for proactive teaching of moral conduct and virtue as a consequence of creation laws, including the law that moral conduct is not an inborn characteristic of the human will, and must be taught. The present-day theories that prevail in public education and social welfare policy are exactly opposed to these laws, and the result is that we have raised a generation of young people who have very little moral anchoring, creating a social climate in which many young people seem to have no moral concepts of right or wrong, and over a third of all births are to unwed mothers. The significance of this problem extends far beyond the issue of religious belief; it has created a situation that threatens the ability to maintain civil democratic government as we know it. A stark example of this is the increase in killings at the hands of children and adolescents. In a talk to the National Prayer Breakfast in 1993, Mother Teresa linked this violence to the social acceptance of abortion:
 

2. Examples of Creation Laws

I would now like to give some examples of creation laws, to show the variety and scope of what I have in mind. For now we will stick to easy examples; later we will focus on human social relationships for a more extensive discussion.
 

Laws in Physics. In physics, mention of the word "law" brings to mind Newton's laws of motion and gravity. To the extent that they are accurate statements of natural forces, these are "creation laws" because everything we experience in the material world reflects these laws.
 

One should not think of creation laws in Physics as necessarily few in number and broad in scope; in fact, the very opposite is true. Some of the most remarkable findings of modern science over the past generation or so, concern the realization that the very existence of the earth as a life-supporting planet, depends on a myriad of details (laws) that might seem arbitrary—even accidental—but are in fact essential to our existence. For example¹², during the summer of 1994 we saw a dramatic example of one such law at work when the comet Shoemaker-Levy collided with Jupiter. Question: Why are the outer planets of our solar system—Saturn and Jupiter—so massive? Answer: Because they act as shields for Earth, protecting us from comet and asteroid collisions by acting as massive attractors for these objects. But the inquiry doesn't end there: Second Question: Why are the orbits of these planets so regular (nearly circular and in the same general plane with all of the planets)? Answer: If these massive planets had less regular orbits then their gravitational attraction would cause the inner planets to have such chaotic orbits that Earth would have an unstable climate, and the inner planets might "pop" right out of the solar system. In other words, life could not exist. This is just one small example of a whole host of finely tuned "coincidences" of the material world that turn out to be essential for our existence, collectively known as the Anthropic Cosmological Principle. These are examples of creation laws, described in detail by several authors over the past decade¹³.
 

Laws in Biology. Creation laws in biology concern the laws that govern the existence and propagation of living material. These laws are much more difficult to pin down precisely than are physical laws (not that they have been completely pinned down in physics either!) because the very concept of "life" is itself exceedingly mysterious. Many of the biological laws are statistical in nature because of the vast complexity of the organisms that they deal with. Mendel's laws of heredity, for example, are a sort of statistical creation law concerning the transmission of traits between generations. Since the discovery of the role of DNA around 1950, biologists are learning more and more creation laws that are built into living matter.
 

Every biology text that describes the activities of the living cell, covers hundreds of details that amount to creation laws built into the way that a cell functions. This activity is almost unimaginably complex, even for the so-called "simple" one-celled life forms. For example, the cell's process that builds protein molecules from DNA coding is remarkably complex, and seems to require the prior existence of a large array of intermediate mechanisms.
 

A fascinating area of interest to Bible students is the question of the natural limits of "species" (the Biblical "kind"). Very slowly scientists are discovering biological reasons both for the broad range of variation in some life forms, such as viruses, and their remarkable ability to modify themselves (form new species in effect) as a means of self-perpetuation, as well as the apparently narrow limits of variation of many other species. The issue here, not only among believers but among all scientists, is to discover the driving creation laws (although the secular scientists would not refer to them in these terms).
 

Social laws. We will particularly focus here on creation laws concerning human social relationships. Human society is governed by a number of creation laws that are important for us to understand so that we can have a stable society. That such social laws exist in nature is obvious from the study of various animal "societies" such as bee and ant colonies, lion prides, gorilla bands and so on. There is an extensive structure of built-in social arrangements that is part of the creation of these species. The structures are so stable within a species that they can be studied definitively, which is of course what a "law" implies. Social laws also extend to individual behavior traits. Again, it is possible to study the behavior laws of cats, dogs and other species, and to see a trend in sophistication as you move from lower to higher species complexity.
 

3. Nature and Purpose of Creation Laws

God has created a universe that is governed by creation laws. The laws accomplish two general things: first, there are the basic rules of how things work, such as the classic laws of physics, genetics, and so on. Second, there are the laws that ensure the stability and long-term viability of the creation order.
 

Stability. The issue of stability is an interesting one. It is curious that God chose to leave so much potential for instability in his creation. Why, for example, did he place the earth in an asteroid belt? Its nice to know that Jupiter and Saturn provide protection, but why the asteroids in the first place? Why did he leave a hot core in the interior of the earth, with the resultant periodic volcanoes, earthquakes and other catastrophes? One of the remarkable things about scientific discovery in recent decades is the way that it reveals that many of these things that seem to denote instability are actually needed to provide the life-supporting world that we enjoy.
 

Why is the earth's ecosystem so apparently unstable? Hugh Ross gives a fascinating example of this: changing the mean temperature of the earth by a few degrees either way would be catastrophic. Since ice and snow reflect the sun's radiation back into space, lower temperatures, leading to more ice and snow, would cause more radiation to escape, leading to lower temperatures. On the other hand, higher temperatures lead to less ice and snow, more water vapor and carbon dioxide (due to more plant growth) in the atmosphere, leading to greater retention of solar radiation—called the greenhouse effect—leading to higher temperatures. It's interesting to note that God used the greenhouse effect in the early days of life on earth to retain heat when solar radiation was about 35% less than it is today. As the sun heated up to its present state, the life mix changed from plant to animal forms and the greenhouse effect decreased to maintain a life-sustaining temperature range that avoided both extremes of runaway heating or cooling.¹⁴
 

As a mathematician and physicist, one area of study that I find most fascinating is the so-called many body problem. The solar system is an example of a fairly stable many body problem: eight or nine planets and innumerable asteroids and other objects orbiting around the sun. The only reason that astronomers in the time of Galileo were able to compute these orbits is because the sun is so massive and the planets so far apart that for practical purposes, each planet's motion can be computed as a two body problem: that planet, viewed as a point mass, orbiting around the sun, also viewed as a point mass. An example of an unstable many body problem is two or three bodies of similar mass orbiting each other at close distances (close enough that it isn't reasonable to view each as a point mass)—many examples exist in astronomy: I believe that one example in our own solar system is Pluto and its moon. In these bizarre cases, the orbits are generally not stable, so that the separation of the bodies varies over a very broad range (leading to a very unstable environment, or to the possibility that the bodies will fly apart under the influence of other heavenly objects), or so that one body eventually crashes into another.
 

In the analogy to the many body problem, many creation laws are rules that lead to stable orbits in the midst of potential instability. The examples of the Cosmological Anthropic Principle illustrate this, where "stability" means the ability to create a life-sustaining environment. It's not that you can't design other orbital configurations, but that they will not be stable. The question, of course, is how to identify the stable situations.
 

4. The Inscrutability of Creation Laws

One thing to keep in mind as we discuss creation laws, is that we are working in the area of human interpretations and are limited by our current perceptions. Most of the creation laws are not explicitly stated in Scripture, and so can be understood only after considerable effort. And those understandings are fallible.
 

Just as Newton's predecessors and he himself postulated creation laws that proved to be fallible, just so that is the case with any that we discuss here. One of God's creation acts was to create humans in his own image (Gen. 1:27). What does this mean? I am convinced that one thing it means is that God has given us the ability to think. This ability is certainly one thing that distinguishes humans from all other animals, and so it doesn't seem too farfetched to conclude that it is part of what is meant by God's image. One of my favorite verses along these lines is Eccl. 3:11,
 

Note the juxtaposition of beauty with inscrutability: what is beauty? Why is beauty? These are deep questions—the easy answer of the evolutionists that everything has the purpose of survival of the fittest is woefully inadequate. I call this inability to fathom what God has done the itch of eternity that God has placed in the heart of every human. This frustration, combined with the evident beauty in nature, combined with the observation later in the same passage that "we are like the animals" is the fire that fuels the urge to investigate his creation, to make rational sense out of it, and discover the "speech" that Psalm 19 talks about.
 

I believe that God intends for us to study and ponder his creation and discover its laws. The admonitions and commands of Scripture give general indications of the fundamental laws, but it is only by careful study and analysis of the failures and successes of humankind and as we scientifically investigate and ponder his creation that we can zero in on what they are. After all, if it took over 2000 years of deep study to come up with the familiar laws of physics and mathematics. Why should we feel that the much more subtle and complex creation laws of biology or of human social behavior should be easy to find? This inquiry is not Ex Cathedra: we can be in error, and the history of knowledge is one of gradually refining our collective knowledge over long periods of time.
 

Job's Ostrich. One of my favorite descriptions of God's creation activity is his answer to Job's complaints recorded in Job 38-41. For the most part this passage is a series of questions. The exception is God's description of the ostrich in Job 39:13-18. In my imagination I think that God is repeating back Job's own thoughts that occurred to him once as he came upon some ostriches roaming about in the desert. What a comical creation! Almost useless wings that flap about joyously but serve no useful function in flying. The hen lays her eggs right on the ground with no protection, too dumb to realize the foolishness of that habit—why, some animal's foot may accidentally crush it, never mind the intentional destruction of a predator. When the chicks are born, her nurturing instincts clearly are defective: she treats them harshly, not in a manner that appears designed to ensure survival. God did not endow her with much wisdom, or give her a share of good sense; yet she can outrun a swift horse and rider. Why would God have created such an unlikely species? All indications point to swift extinction, and yet there it is! And how could this strange creature actually best the horse, one of God's more noble successes?
 

God uses the example of the ostrich to point out that things are not necessarily as they appear, and that wisdom in creation is not always what we as humans would expect. In particular there is an apparent built-in instability that somehow turns around and actually enhances stability. In our pride, we might think: If I were creating the earth, I certainly would not have placed it in an asteroid belt. And who can imagine creating life on a planet that has a hot core, with the resultant periodic convulsions of the earth's surface? By implication, God says to Job: is the ostrich creation really all that foolish? He conveys the thought that from a human perspective, the creation looks unstable, but that is because Job is not God, and God has through his wisdom assured the survival of the ostrich despite its apparently foolhardy behavior.
 

5. The Special Case of Human Social Laws

I would like to spend the rest of this paper discussing creation laws as they concern human social relationships, because these are the laws that provide the basis for Christian involvement in secular society. My mention of creation laws in other areas was primarily to convey the sense of continuity: social laws are not some strange forced structure imposed on humans; rather they are part of a general pattern or rule of law throughout creation—and to caution that identifying creation laws of human relationships may be tricky.
 

The Twentieth Century has been a century of grand social experiments, many of which have proved to be disasters. The social sciences deal with theories of human behavior. Their theories range from the now-discredited Marxist/Communist and Nazi theories to the modern notions that have taken hold of public education and the government social programs of recent decades.
 

Two things separate social theories from the empirical sciences. These are: the nihilist premise; and the way that the social sciences view the real world.
 

The Nihilist Premise. The nihilist premise is the notion that there is no such thing as objective truth. In the absence of objective truth, what is taken to be "true", that is, what is taught as fact, and the basis for held beliefs, depends on a political agenda rather than on an objective standard. It is my opinion that the academic world has become increasingly nihilistic in the past generation, in all but the "hard" laboratory sciences—mathematics, physics, chemistry, molecular biology, etc. In part this is due to the "dumbing down" of academia, so that most people who get higher academic degrees today are ignorant of the methods of precise mathematical reasoning, so that what passes for logical deduction becomes an exercise in persuasion. In part, it is a conscious radical movement. Many educators are practical nihilists, but it is extremely unlikely that a mathematician—my own training—is a genuine nihilist.
 

The most startling manifestations of the nihilist premise are in areas such as history where there are attempts to revise the facts of history, not based on any objective analysis but on a particular political agenda. In effect such people are saying that what I did yesterday or this morning is not fact but is subject to revision. A second area where practical nihilism occurs is in government-sponsored research. A large amount of government-sponsored science is constrained by the requirement that the findings be politically correct: thus scientific investigations must support government policies on the dangers of asbestos, radon, the equality of the sexes, the nature of homosexuality, and so on at the risk of losing funds. These "scientific studies" are essentially based on the nihilist premise. I would argue that most work of "consultants" is of this sort.
 

The Role of the Real World. The major event that led to the scientific revolution was the concept of empirical science. This concept was able to get around the fundamental block to learning that is posed by the faulty senses, a problem that stumped Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Empirical science does not mean that all theories and constructs are obtained by experimentation, but rather that all theories are subject to experimental verification through comparison with the experiential world. The hallmark of an empirical science is the design of repeatable experiments that produce repeatable results that confirm (or deny) a theory.
 

As an empirical scientist, I am free to postulate the theory that bodies fall upward. As such, this postulate is as good as any other as the start of an empirical theory. But having made this assertion, it is my burden to design repeatable experiments that show that this postulate indeed explains the observed results. I think I would have a hard time doing that. Empirical verification is the essence of empirical science.
 

Perhaps Einstein was the most spectacular practitioner of the empirical sciences in this century: he derived his theories as an intellectual process that appealed to mathematical beauty. The general theory of relativity is based on a very simple concept: that there is no fixed or preferred coordinate system in the universe. This means, for example, that it is impossible to find the "true" velocity of the earth, or the sun or any other object; all that is possible is to measure the velocity of one body relative to another (hence "relativity"). Once Einstein had derived his general theory, it was necessary to design experiments that show that the predictions of his theory agree with the empirical observations. One of the remarkable things about the past 30 years—a full 50 years after Einstein's original theory was set down—is the way that many of his predictions—which could not be tested in his day because of the crude instrumentation available (and so by definition could in no way have been called "empirical" at the time)—have proved accurate.¹⁵
 

The Empirical Difficulty of Social Sciences. The problem with the social sciences is that their view of the real world tends to make many of them practical nihilists, whether or not they explicitly acknowledge the nihilist premise. The reason for this is that to the social sciences, the real world is the problem, not the ultimate test of reality. In their view, the real world, called the environment, is to blame for most of the ills of society, and the way to fix society is to change the environment, according to whatever theory that particular scientist proposes. Social scientists generally have the point of view that society is very moldable, and that you don't "discover" an ideal society, you impose it. In contrast to physics where the real world is the ultimate crucible and moment of truth for a theory, in social science the real world, called the "environment" is a major part of the problem.
 

In the Communist theory, for example, the essential activity is to cleanse society of its evil components so that the good can flourish, guided by careful propaganda. This is the opposite of empirical science, because it seeks to impose a structure on society, and then manage society so that it will produce the results that the particular social theory predicts. Thus, Marxism blamed the capitalist system and religion as the roots of all evil, and claimed that if these influences were removed, society would become fair-minded and equitable. The Soviet Union was a grand experiment that took some 70 years to prove the folly of that notion.
 

Since the 1960's social scientists have imposed their notions of the natural goodness of humans to free public school students and the welfare system of externally imposed concepts of morality, punishment, frugality and the like, and to free the human spirit to do whatever feels good. The result is a massive breakdown of the family structure, particularly in poor urban settings, the exploding incidence of teenage pregnancy, child mothers raising children, and drug/sex related epidemics. Basically, what has happened in both the case of Marxism and American social engineering is that the social theorists have largely succeeded in changing the environment, but the result has been demonstrable failure. I am told, for example, that in the early 1950's less than 1 out of 5 black children were born and raised in single parent homes. Today the figure is close to 3 out of 4. Among whites the corresponding number is 1 out of 3, compared to 1 in 20 in the 1950's. As far as I can determine, nearly everyone except Murphy Brown agrees that the two-parent family is essential to the development of children into healthy adults. In fact, we will argue below that the two-parent family unit is a provision of creation law, necessary for the well-being of the human species.
 

Paul Johnson, in his recent book Intellectuals remarks:
 

The Personhood Problem of Social Science. A second problem with the social sciences in addition to the empirical problem is that social theory deals with a human's personhood, not just external circumstances that a person happens to live under. The "environment" that these theorists talk about is inextricably tied to the person's soul, to his or her sense of self-worth and well-being. Marxist theory and the modern social theories wouldn't matter a bit if people were content with themselves and their situation. People can be physically deprived and still be spiritually complete; but if a person's inner being has been destroyed, no amount of physical advantage will substitute for such a loss.
 
 

6. The Scriptural Response to the Empirical difficulties of Social Science.

Given the empirical problems with social science, how can we then proceed? There are three facts that help to resolve this apparent dilemma, and provide the rationale for Christian involvement in the secular arena. First: we recognize that the accumulation of experience over the ages of recorded history provides valuable insight into what theories work and what don't work. The secular socialists do not give this accumulated wisdom much attention. Second: we acknowledge that much of this experience, together with other insights and rationale is recorded in God's written word. Third: we believe that this revelation is a faithful and accurate expression of truth given to us by the Creator himself. Because of the non-empirical nature of social theories, the creation laws that form the basis of the Bible's teachings on social relationships take on even greater importance, and this isn't only limited to believers: the laws concern all of society.
 

As to the first point: what it means is that there is something in the human experience called "wisdom", which the dictionary defines as "accumulated learning." Christians do not have a monopoly on wisdom—something that we would be good to remember—but we do have an advantage in that we have God's own endorsement of the wisdom that we find in Scripture.
 

Modern secular social science tends to disparage wisdom as found in the historical record and in accumulated human experience. Perhaps this is the reason why Paul Johnson in his book cited earlier, says that "a dozen people picked at random on the street are at least as likely to offer sensible views on moral and political matters as a cross-section of the intelligentsia."¹⁷Randomly selected people tend to respect wisdom!
 

To illustrate this modern bias against the past, consider the following, taken from a college textbook on sociology:
 

As I remarked to my wife after reading this to her, "I wonder how George Washington ever got across the Delaware River with so many infant bodies littering the way." I doubt that even the most narrow-minded missionary to the most benighted heathen culture would offer such a statement as truth. It illustrates how social scientists throw away and discredit the record of history, which is—by definition—the source of wisdom.
 

The attitude expressed in this quote is so patently false, biased, unscientific and inclusive that it defies description, but it is just an extreme example of the self-congratulatory bias that can be found in social science circles. As my wife accuses me of saying, "It leaves me limp." It promotes the notion that until the new age of social enlightenment, social theories were beneath contempt. The consequence of course is that with such an attitude it is impossible to learn from the past. There is no such thing as wisdom that we can turn to.
 

As possessors of a historically-based faith, Christians have a special advantage over the secular world in that we have a built-in inclination to respect the wisdom records of the past. In addition, we have the confidence of faith in God's revelation that enables us to sift through this mixed wisdom record to identify the true reflections of creation law. In contrast, the secular social scientists have nothing to go on but their own narrow vision and limited imaginings. This doesn't mean that the Christian's task is easy, but that we have a solid and confident starting point to proceed from, and we don't have to start from scratch. Let's look at some of the Scriptural tools and insights that they give about creation laws concerning social behavior. As we noted before, there are two sources of information about creation law: empirical experience and special revelation.
 

The Old Testament Wisdom Literature. The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are examples of Old Testament Wisdom literature, and contain many teachings that reflect the accumulated wisdom of experience, culled, modified and extended by the Creator's own insight.
 

The very reason these wisdom books exist reflects a basic creation law: that acceptable social behavior must be taught, and that the collective wisdom of earlier generations is a basic part of this teaching. Humans are not born with innate wisdom.
 

As an aside, it is an exceedingly interesting and open question as to the extent that other species share this trait of passed-on wisdom. Recent experiments with migrating geese (led by "Father Goose" in an ultralite aircraft) are an example of attempts to answer this question as it concerns the nesting and wintering grounds of migratory geese. Are the wintering and nesting sites built into the DNA of these geese or are they acquired knowledge that is passed on from generation to generation? This is a fascinating area of inquiry.
 

The concept that human wisdom is acquired has not been universally held. In one sense the modern social theorists' belief that positive social virtues are innate is a 2500 year throwback to the thinking of the golden days of Athens. Plato and Socrates thought that all wisdom is inborn: humans are born with all of the wisdom required for living. Socrates claimed that his main function as a teacher was to bring out what his students already knew (this is the rationale for the Socratic method of teaching). Plato had the view that everything we encounter in the world already exists in our minds in an ideal form. This is not so ridiculous an idea as some might think. In fact, it is obvious from the observation of lower life forms, and even of humans, that many social traits of even quite complex nature are inborn.
 

Part of the reason why the Greek philosophers thought this way is deeply rooted in their analysis of the philosophical problems of learning: how do we learn truth? How do we gain knowledge? They were deeply aware that every channel that the human has to gain knowledge is demonstrably faulty: the eye can see things that aren't really there; the ear can misunderstand; and so on. As a result, they were stumped by the question of how we could ever learn true things about our surroundings through the filters of our senses. They were stumped because they had not yet fully thought through the concept of empirical learning, with its ability to convey information even through faulty senses because of the consistency of repetition. To resolve this dilemma, some assumed that true knowledge must already be present in the human at birth.
 

The modern day social fallacy which is somewhat parallel to this is the notion that one's inner being is good, and that people (unless they are sick) will naturally make good social choices once they clearly understand the facts and can sort through all of the confusing and conflicting messages that they receive from their environment via the senses. The key word is "self-actualization", to cite a term from Rogerian psychology. One textbook in Psychology says of this:
 

Note that in Rogerian psychology only sick people take on the values of others. In contrast, the Biblical teaching is that wisdom and values must be "taken on"—they are not inborn—and that left to itself the natural inclination of a human is toward waste and self-centered dissipation. This is the reason why the Proverbs and other wisdom literature emphasize the importance of training, nurturing and discipline.
 

In confronting the social scientists, it is important to realise that they have no objective basis for their presuppositions. In fact, they generally deny the concept of objective truth, and instead substitute positional authority and academic credentials as a sort of ad hoc authority. This is a form of elitism that has no defense other than bombast. Christians do not need to be apologetic about urging the replacement of this baselessness with Biblically-based creation laws.
 

Nothing that we have said thus far requires that the various proverbs or the implied creation laws are unknowable unless they are directly revealed by God. In fact, proverbs express the collected experience of people who have seen good and bad, and they are designed to be passed along to children so they can benefit without having to experience the down side themselves. Much of creation social law is like that: if we ignore the collected wisdom of the past, then we will waste our lives repeating the same mistakes. The advantage of revelation is that we have confidence that they are accurate observations of life and correctly reflect the built-in laws set in place at Creation.
 

The Judaeo/Christian heritage has no monopoly on this wisdom. In fact, a number of the proverbs that appear in the book of Proverbs originated in other societies. A good example is the "thirty sayings of the wise" in Prov. 22:17-24:22, which closely parallel the 30 sections of the Egyptian "Wisdom of Amenemope" (in fact the translation "thirty sayings" in 22:20 [RSV and NIV], is derived from this parallelism: the phrase in Hebrew is obscure and so is replaced in these translations by the corresponding wording of Amenemope)²⁰.
 

It is worth mentioning here one other characteristic of the Proverbs: they express the wisdom of experience by stating the normal expectation. In fact, most social theories deal with expected, normal or average outcomes: they tend to be statistical in form. In the case of the Proverbs, it is good to keep this in mind and not to read the proverbs as if they were deterministic cause and effect statements: if you do this, then that will surely follow. For example, "Train up a Child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" is a good general rule for child raising, but it doesn't rule out willful disobedience, a la Adam and Eve. Harking back to Job's ostrich: despite God's provision for the preservation of that species, a particular ostrich may well be done in by its improvidence!
 

The book of Ecclesiastes is a special case in wisdom literature that is particularly valuable for today's "do your own thing" society. An overall message of this book is a plea to the reader to avoid dissipating his life in empty pursuits. It is exactly this dissipation that characterizes the lives of people who pursue careers in the arts and operate under the assumption that you can't be wise until you have personally explored every life experience, however depraved.
 

7. Creation Laws of the Human Species

We will next discuss selected creation laws of human behavior that we can see in Scripture. The discussion is in two parts: laws that humans share with the rest of creation, and laws that are unique to the human species.
 

7.1 Laws Shared with Other Species.

There is a curious passage, Ecclesiastes 3:18,19: "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals, the same fate awaits them both…." In the immediate context the subject is death and the inability to know what lies beyond the grave. But I believe that the passage makes a larger point: that many characteristics and constraints of humans are shared by the animals, and that we can learn something about ourselves by looking at other species. I do not have to be an evolutionist to see the point to this: that we can see parallels to human social relationships in the relationships that we find in other species. In our immediate context, the implication is that the parallels point out things that are very likely built into the human species at creation—creation laws—rather than acquired social or religious customs and conventions.
 

Among the creation laws that humans share with other species we will discuss laws that derive from considerations of disease and the transmission of inherited traits, and laws that concern social organization and arrangements within the species. Many people see these laws as intolerable constraints on their personal liberties, and seem to assume that they fall in the category of technical details that can be evaded by the advances of science. It is at least as valid—and in line with God's revelation— to assume, given the long reign of these laws throughout creation, that they are inherent in the human condition and cannot be finessed by modern technology, simply because they are hostile to a one's personal view of how things ought to be. When the AIDS virus first arose in the early 1980's, some advocates of unrestrained sexual behavior expressed outrage with the illiberality of Nature for allowing such a virus to arise. In fact, though, fidelity in sexual relations is a creation law for the human species, that is necessary, along with taboos against mating of close relatives, to avoid propagation of disease and genetic defects.
 

Laws of Disease and Inheritance. A number of creation laws for the social behavior of animal species pose limits of "safe" behavior for the species. Two types of behavior are of particular interest here: sexual promiscuity and incest. Many species have built-in social laws restricting one or both types of behavior.
 

Promiscuous behavior spreads disease, a fact that is generally acknowledged. Built into the nature of viruses, bacteria and other primitive life forms is the capability to change genetic structure as a random byproduct of genetic replication. The success of this depends on the opportunity to find hosts to generate many new generations of the virus. Built into the higher life forms is the ability to develop resistance to specific infections. Thus the spread of disease becomes a race between the infecting agent and the development of resistance.
 

The tendency for random errors to arise in genetic codes is a survival mechanism for viruses and bacteria: as the infected host develops defenses against a viral strain, the virus undergoes genetic changes due to these random errors, and eventually a new strain develops, which defeats the defenses. In higher life forms, this genetic variation is almost always harmful. The key to "success" for these viruses is to infect new hosts who do not have effective defenses, and to continue the process of infection until enough generations of the virus have passed so that the random genetic changes can produce a resistant strain. This feature leads to a second line of defense for animal species: avoid behavior that infects new hosts. This leads to creation laws of the species concerning sexual promiscuity and other activities that tend to propagate disease. These laws are not simply religious laws with arbitrary taboos, but have a solid epidemiological and genetic basis.
 

Every higher-order animal is in effect a microcosm of infections and built-in immunities. This fact is the rationale behind the use of vaccinations and other immunity-building medications. When sexual mating occurs, the separate infection pools of the partners are shared. This is why it sometimes happens that a couple shortly after marriage experiences a temporary period of discomfort, as each shares and adapts to the other's infections. Since the immunities are typically carried by the blood stream, the immunities are not typically shared along with the infective agents. Taboos against promiscuity within a species and cleanliness habits built into the species limit the ability of viruses that are transmitted by direct contact or in bodily fluids to find hosts that have not developed effective resistance, thus limiting the opportunity for sharing of pools of infection. In limiting the opportunities for replication, the development of new viral strains is retarded or suppressed.
 

The AIDS virus arose as a result of a viral genetic mutation. It arose originally and was originally spread by promiscuous homosexual contact. Because of the nature of the virus, and its relative inability to be propagated casually, it became an epidemic as a result of specific promiscuous sexual activity. After it arose, infected victims could transmit the virus by blood transfusions, intravenous drug injections, and other means. The most common cause of infection still remains sexual activity between an infected and non-infected partner. Faithful monogamous or even restricted polygamous practices are almost certain protection against the AIDS virus, if other sources of direct blood infection are avoided. The critical behavior is sexual purity prior to and during the relationship, in keeping with creation law.
 

Incest taboos reflect a related genetic mechanism. Many higher species avoid mating of siblings and close relatives, a practice that helps to avoid the transmission of genetic defects. These genetic defects amount to changes in the DNA genetic code. The errors occur in several ways: random copying errors during cell duplication, errors induced by radiation, errors caused by tampering of the DNA code during viral infection, etc. When these errors occur they tend to become part of the genetic code and are duplicated during cell reproduction. However, since sexual reproduction mates the DNA from the two parents, only very close relatives are likely to have the same genetic defect in the same portion of the DNA, and so defects tend to die out over time, provided the mates are not too closely related. In genetics, the selection of mates from outside the immediate family is called "renewing the genetic pool," and is recognized as an important feature in many of the higher species. One would expect incest taboos to be strongest in those species that are most vulnerable to harmful genetic defects.
 

From the viewpoint of social policy, it is interesting to note that neither of the mechanisms discussed here—development of variant viral strains or transmission of genetic defects—can be prevented by advances in medicine. Therefore the acknowledgment of creation laws concerning promiscuity and incest are critical to the well-being of society and are a legitimate basis for social action.
 

Laws of Social Organization. Laws of social organization include issues such as the makeup and organization of the family unit. Many species, particular in the bird and mammal families, and particularly among the primates, have social structures built around a family unit. The family unit exists for mutual protection, for nourishment and training of infants and immature offspring, and reflects the taboos against promiscuity and incest mentioned above. The family unit also tends to limit promiscuity, with its debilitating consequences.
 

To give one example among the primates, extensive observations of gorillas in their natural habitat show the following social features²¹:
 

There have also been extensive studies of chimpanzees, baboons and other primates, with varying social arrangements, some of which conflict with these. I do not by any means wish to argue for the descent of humans from gorillas or other primates, but only to note that issues such as headship of the family unit are a normal provision of creation law for some species.
 

Of particular interest to us are the issues of family headship and the use of a family unit in the raising of offspring. In my view the male headship of the human family is a creation law (not a consequence of the Fall, which we will discuss in the next section), and reflects basic differences between the make-up of males and females and in their roles within the family unit. It is not insignificant in my view that the male ego is oriented toward a leadership role, and in my view this is a built-in (not acquired) characteristic of the species.
 

One of the unfortunate features of modern social policy has been the devaluation of the male role—by dispensing with the family unit itself in some instances, and by replacing the provider and protection role of the male with social welfare—which leaves the male unfulfilled and prone to direct his energies in wasteful and antisocial directions.
 

A connection between "single parenting" and child abuse was also observed in a study of offspring abuse by single gorilla mothers in captivity. One study found:
 

The conclusion of this study is that single gorilla mothers who do not have the support of a family unit become frustrated and tend to abuse their children as a result. Commenting on this, the study concludes:
 

One author recently wrote:
 

We have already discussed the need for directed training of children and the need for proper training and modeling in a family unit. In the next section we will extend this discussion into a consideration of how the mind learns and assimilates knowledge.
 

7.2 Laws Unique to the Human Species.

Next we will consider creation laws that are unique to the human species. At its root, what makes humans unique and separates them from the rest of creation is that they are created in the image of God, and that they are under the specific curses of the Fall.
 

Equal Participation of the sexes in God's Image. To begin with, the Bible pointedly affirms the creation law that males and females are equal participants in God's image. This point needs emphasis because one consequence of the Fall (which we will discuss shortly) is that the record of male/female relationships tends to belie this fact—this is probably the reason why Scripture goes to some pains to make the point.
 

The expression of the full humanity of both sexes is in the creation account in Genesis 1:27, further amplified in Galatians 3:28 and I Peter 3:7. Genesis 1:27 states, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." At first glance this seems to be a rather wordy way of making a point, but on reflection, it is clear that the point of the wordiness is to emphasize that this image is shared by both sexes. Galatians 3:28 makes a similar point, emphasizing that this equality extends to the spiritual domain: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." I Peter 3:7 makes the point to husbands, urging a respectful treatment of their wives as "heirs with you of the gracious gift of life…." The Declaration of Independence could have benefited from a similar bit of wordiness in its declaration that all men are created equal.
 

Why is it necessary to make this point? Because in the history of humans this creation law has been widely ignored—a consequence of the Fall. Most societies through history have treated women as inherently inferior to men; in fact, many religions treat them as if they are sub-human. In ancient Roman society and in Asia throughout history, female infanticide has been common. I recently read that in parts of India today, male infants outnumber female by almost 3 to 2, a statistic that can only be interpreted as the result of female infanticide.
 

It is precisely because this equality of the sexes is obscured by the Fall, and the subsequent reign of sin in humanity, that it is particularly valuable to have this creation law revealed in Scripture, because the Fall makes it doubly difficult to come by this law through empirical wisdom alone. Ironically, the modern-day drive for women's rights is based, not on this revelation, but on a general disdain for the record of history and the accumulated wisdom of the past.
 

This historical mistreatment of women is in fact the outworking of a curse that came about as a result of the Fall. Unfortunately, faulty exegesis has obscured the issue, and so I would like to spend some time on a focal point of this event, the curse of Genesis 3:16b: "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." The question is, what does this mean, and what is its impact on humanity?
 

The meaning of this curse pivots on the meaning of the word translated "desire". This word appears in only two other places in Scripture: Gen. 4:7 and Song of Solomon 7:10. In Gen. 4:7, "sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it," the meaning is "to dominate"; in Song of Solomon 7:10, "I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me," the meaning is "to possess". According to one commentator, the word root implies a desire bordering on a disease, a "violent craving"²⁵. Putting this together, I would paraphrase the curse as follows: "You will seek to dominate your husband (literally 'man'), but he will in fact master you by force." Expressed in this way, it is an accurate commentary on the history of relations between the sexes throughout all of history, extending into the present. It is truly one of the most destructive curses in its effect on what should be normal male/female relationships.
 

As with any curse of the Fall, this one expresses a human tendency that can be overcome through clear-eyed awareness, and with the appropriate checks and balances. Concerning personal behavior, this curse warns women not to fall into its trap by evading the creation law regarding the headship of the husband, and warns husbands to avoid the primordial urge to dominate, but rather nurture the wife so that she will feel secure (and hence not feel the need to dominate) under the husband's leadership, an admonition further amplified in Ephesians 5:22ff.
 

The footnote on Genesis 3:16b in the NIV Study Bible is typical of the exegetical confusion about this curse:
 

This equates desire with sexual attraction and rule with headship of the family unit, neither of which is a curse, but rather are characteristics of the human species built into creation: headship of the man in the family unit is no more a curse than is the headship of Christ over the church—which is given as an analogy in Ephesians 5:23.
 

The creation law of full humanity of the sexes and equal sharing in God's image does not contradict or displace the creation law regarding the headship of the male in the family unit. It is important to realize that headship does not imply essential superiority or qualitative difference—in fact the temptation to make that bridge is part of the curse that we have just discussed.
 

Human Self-centeredness and the Itch of Eternity. We previously noted the itch of eternity that is built into every human's spirit. The effect of this itch is a basic recognition of and discontentment with human limitations. The theme of Ecclesiastes is that all human pursuits lead to emptiness and do not provide ultimate satisfaction. As a result it is important for secular society to recognize the importance of the spiritual or religious dimension in humanity, even if it is secular. Attempts to totally remove religious elements from society lead to an empty, fatalistic, mechanistic and despairing society. It is not an accident that the societies that are the most "advanced" in terms of a social agenda (such as Sweden) are also the ones with the highest incidence of suicide. The irony is that the ultimate goal for total security of the human by humanistic means is destructive of freedom: a caged animal may be very secure, but that is not a happy end for a human.
 

The basic elements of the human spirit that revolve around this itch of eternity include:
 

Unfortunately, much of the modern methodology for handling "inappropriate" social behavior intrudes on these elements in a striking way: in the movement to avoid corporal punishment, for example, modern sociologists substitute psychological pressure or behavioral stereotyping, such as labeling anti-social behavior with medical terms such as "compulsive disruptive behavior", which robs the person of the sense of self-worth and the opportunity to change internal attitudes.
 

One creation law that has found its way into the American Constitutional government of checks and balances, which we have already discussed above, is the question of human self-centeredness. The essential point is this: that humans are self-centered and seek individual pleasure even if this conflicts with the good of human society as a whole. It is a misunderstanding of this point that leads to Rogerian psychology and other foibles of current social policy as we have already noted. It is the reason why children must be taught virtue and morals rather than left to their own imaginations and constructions.
 

One could question whether the characteristic of human self-centeredness is a creation law or a consequence of the Fall. In my view it is a creation law, and I come by this view from the fact that the Fall came about primarily because Adam and Eve desired to become more self-aware. I also believe that the point could be made that one of the roles of the family structure among primates is to train offspring to turn their exclusive attention away from self-gratification and toward the social group. Thus, recognition of self-centeredness as a creation law implies the need for training and discipline during child-rearing.
 

As is characteristic of creation laws, this human tendency is not purely negative, and in fact can be a powerful force for positive achievement and also for self-understanding. In a sense it is perhaps a natural outgrowth of such characteristics as individuality and self-awareness. The success of the capitalist economic system, with the motivation for individual success based on innovation and personal advantage, is a positive force in society that leads to many social gains. It is interesting that this force is at root self-centeredness. Societies in the recent past that suppress individual expression have faltered economically, as the Soviet example abundantly demonstrates.
 

The human capability to reach beyond its circumstances is basic to survival of the human race in the face of the constantly changing environment, and so it is a positive creation law built into the human species. But this law also has an underside, and this is the reason why there is a need for checks and balances, in establishing government (as in the Constitutional separation of powers). Indeed a major role of government is to place a damper on the negative aspects of this human instinct; thus the use of government to regulate self-expression when it can become destabilizing to society, as in monopolies, slavery, and other social problems.
 

Human Learning and Mental Processes. I would like to conclude this discussion of creation laws that are unique to humans with some remarks on the human learning process and creation laws that derive from it. I first began to look into creation law in connection with my principal life work, artificial intelligence. One thing in particular that has impressed me in this work is that many of the strange "quirks" in the way the mind works actually have their origin in vital survival mechanisms—in effect, creation laws. A number of years ago I wrote on the subject of artificial intelligence and noted that the mind has mechanisms that it uses to cope with impossibly high rates of data that it receives from its senses:
 

This mental modeling activity is necessary for survival because the alternative is to become bogged down in detail: it is built into Creation; it is a creation law. This modeling activity, while necessary, also has its down side, and thus can manifest itself in some of the great evils of humanity. For example, prejudice is at root a mental model gone awry: we receive some data and our mental model applies un-warranted attributes to the data.
 

A graphic example of how mental model-building works is found in the video 1-2-3 Magic! by Dr. Thomas W. Phelan.²⁷ This video, intended to help parents of young children, presents two models of child rearing:
 

In Dr. Phelan's view, the first method is a dead end: "words and reasons don't usually do any good in dealing with kids" (his words) and often lead to the "talk, persuade, argue, yell, hit syndrome." The 1-2-3 Magic! method is a simple way to carry out the "Animal Trainer" model, by counting out misbehavior: "that's 1, that's 2, that's 3: take 5" with the child banished to his or her room for five minutes. Evidence shows that the method works with most young children, despite its apparent simplicity.
 

For our discussion of mental modeling, the important point to note is that these are very sketchy descriptions and yet given even this minuscule amount of detail, the hearer can conjure up a fairly complete image including ramifications and expectations. This is the primary reason for the success of the approach. If our children are little adults, then we don't expect to have to repeat our requests ninetyfifteen times. But mention of the wild animal trainer model immediately calls up things that we have learned over our lives about how one should go about training a wild animal, and almost surely a part of this concept is a greatly reduced expectation about how effective a single request is, and an increase in how many repetitions it takes to nail down a point. In addition, most people have been taught some things about training an animal, such as "Don't hit a dog with anything stronger than a folded newspaper," which is an argument against extreme punishment.
 

An effective counselor always tries to generate positive head pictures in counseling. If the attempt is successful, it does two primary things. First, the counselor can save a lot of breath, because a good head picture is literally worth a thousand words. Second, the counselor provides the client with a ready-made model to replace a defective one that he or she may have developed in the past. Incidentally, the use of analogy, which the wild animal trainer model is, is a major tool that the mind uses in its modeling work.
 

We have already mentioned earlier the issue of innate knowledge in the discussion of the role of the real world. An important creation law of learning is that humans are born with a self-centered orientation and it takes careful nurturing to turn this into a wholesome direction. In essence, virtue must be taught, it is not inborn. This is the point of a number of proverbs which distinguish between the "simple" person (who is essentially amoral but with negative tendencies toward self-centeredness), the "fool" who has not learned or rejects self-control and discipline, and the "wise" person who has learned and assimilated the wisdom of his elders.
 

The combination of the use of mental models in the mind's activity, with the fact that the human does not have built-in virtuous instincts, leads to the result that it is necessary to give careful attention to mental hygiene in mental model building. This is not just applicable to raising children, it is also important as adults. Many proverbs and sayings in the Bible concern this mental hygiene as an adult. I firmly believe in what I call self-propaganda: that a wise person must constantly control his thoughts and his circumstances to ensure as much as possible that they will lead to healthy mental modeling. Many Biblical admonitions can be viewed as examples of this. Perhaps the best-known is Philippians 4:8, "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." The motivation behind Bill Bennett's Book of Virtues is exactly this sort of thing.²⁸In essence, what is at stake here is the construction of good head pictures and suppression of bad ones by careful control of what goes into the senses.
 

This verse from Philippians is a proverb of positive action; the negative effect of exposure to evil is expressed, for example, in Proverbs 22:24ff: "Do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared." In Proverbs 27:20 we get some additional insight on the effect of exposure to evil, "Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are the eyes of man." This last proverb implies not only that there is a danger in absorbing a bevy of bad mental models but that the human in fact lusts after such images, so that there are possible additional creation laws at work: forbidden fruits are intriguing to the mind, and lust enjoyed generates more lust. Actually both of these laws are simply negative aspects of what can be positive traits built into the human spirit—a sense of curiosity and a desire to repeat enjoyable experiences—both of which we use to good effect in child raising.
 

In contrast to this positive attempt in self-propaganda is the experience in the world of the secular artist. My son-in-law, who is a very solid Christian, is a violinist in a professional symphony orchestra, and has spent his entire adulthood in the middle of the art culture. We have often talked about the high incidence of dysfunctional social behavior in that culture, particularly sexual perversion and substance abuse. It is no accident that so many in the so-called world of culture have AIDS, which is in almost every case a disease of personal lifestyle. One might ask, why is this so characteristic of the art culture? The answer, I believe, comes to the matter of self-propaganda. Although one might even imagine a verse such as Philippians 4:8 engraved over the entrance of a hall of fine arts, the fact is that artisans seem to be obsessed with the need to immerse themselves in every human experience. They seem to ask, "How can I judge that something is bad unless I have experienced it?" And so they end up with their heads filled with a lot of depraved models.
 

I will admit that at one time in the past I enjoyed reading and watching mysteries. I no longer do that, except for classics such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy Sayers. For me the attraction to mysteries was the logical tangle of the plot. But unfortunately, it is easy to go from this to find oneself in a race with the author to see who can think up the most novel way of committing bizarre crimes. When my mind switches from a logical game to seeing whether I can out-do the writer, things have become unhealthy. This is an example of what I mean by self-propaganda.
 

In summary, understanding of the creation laws regarding the mind, how it begins in an amoral but negatively self-centered focus, how it learns and assimilates information through modeling, and the importance of the environment in nourishing good mental models and concepts, are fundamental to the development of virtue and strong positive character traits. Conversely, denying these laws and constraints on behavior leads to socially destructive life styles.
 

8. Creation Laws as the Basis for Social Action.

The creation laws that we have discussed here imply underlying principles for the human species that are radically different from what many secular social activists assume. Lacking a concept of objective truth, secular scientists follow principles and assumptions that seem right in their own eyes based on whatever seems to be in tune with their own inclinations and the public mood of the day. The results have been disastrous.
 

The issue is not whether society will assume some form of social laws, but whether its assumed laws are valid. As we pointed out in the introduction, the first task is to press home this point: to force secular scientists to concede the element of faith and metaphysics in their position—to clarify, in effect, both the distinction and the inter-relatedness of the secular and religious spheres. Granted this, then it is possible to proceed to a discussion of the form and content of alternative secular laws: in this debate the Christians have a great contribution that they can make to society because they have the insight of what the Creator has said in the Bible about his creation.
 

Without denying the value of academic wisdom and careful intellectual thought, we must release public policy from the vice-like grip of the intellectual and academic in the formation of public policy. The moral track record of intellectuals in this century is not very inspiring. Paul Johnson, in his recent book Intellectuals points out the nearly universal moral bankruptcy of the personal lives of these intellectuals, which betrays a view that they are above the law, and not subject to their own pronouncements²⁹. But he notes a hopeful sign:
 

At the same time, we need to honor the memory of those deep thinkers who were responsible for building this nation, and avoid a thoughtless know-nothing attitude toward all academic inquiry.
 

We have discussed a number of places where creation laws conflict with current premises of social policy. A summary of some of these is given in the table below.
 

One of the most important areas of creation law that we have discussed is the value of wisdom, that is, of the accumulated human experience. At the same time, we must avoid the thoughtless acceptance of everything the past stood for, because there were indeed many injustices perpetrated in the past in the name of wisdom. Again, Scripture provides a good standard of measurement, and in fact warns us not to thoughtlessly adopt what the world considers to be wisdom.
 

A second critical area of creation law is the fact that humans need to be taught acceptable social behavior, including morality and virtue, in a protected family environment. The social programs that are based on an assumed inborn "virtue" in the unguided human, and that seem to work against the nuclear family have proved disastrous. Creation law appoints the nuclear family to provide the nurturing environment in which these things can be taught, and uses the wisdom of accumulated experience gained over generations to formulate the form and content of this nurturing. Social policies that substitute other institutions for the nuclear family, or that otherwise discourage it, and that propose radical departures from the accumulated wisdom of experience, are opposed to these laws and ultimately lead to failure.
 
 

In this paper we have discussed a number of creation laws and some of the reasons for these laws. The purpose for this is to start building the groundwork for Christian involvement in the secular arena. Our aim has been to sketch out the general outline of the type of analysis that is needed. If followed, I am confident that we can have a positive impact and carry out our responsibility as Christians to be the salt of the earth.
 

David C. Bossard
 

NOTES

1. For further on the failures of central planning, see Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America. Random House, New York, 1994.

2. Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal Nov. 17, 1994 by Arnold Beichman of the Hoover Institution, quoting Lionel Trilling.

3. Harvey Cox, The Secular City, MacMillan, 1965, and Religion in the Secular City, Simon and Schuster, 1984. Harvey Cox is to my tastes a very liberal theologian, and I certainly do not agree with his version of Christianity, but his claim that Christians were the first to distinguish between the secular and religious spheres is very compelling.

4. Roy A. Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories, U. Notre Dame Press, 1991, p.2.

5. Ibid, p. 21.

6. Darwinism: Science or Philosophy? Jon Buell and Virginia Hearn, Eds., Foundation for Thought and Ethics, Richardson, TX 1994. See Phillip E. Johnson,"Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning", p15. The NAS pamphlet cited is Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences (1984).

7. Ibid. Stephen C. Meyer, "Laws, Causes, and Facts" pp. 29-40. Meyer and Johnson both argue effectively that attempts to soften the metaphysical implications of the N.A.S. position—including their own denials of an essential conflict with religion—misstate the essential point (and true metaphysical position) expressed in this statement.

8. First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

9. First Things, May 1992, "Natural Law and the Law".

10. Sex Education, Emmaus News, Box 21, Ambridge, PA 15003. Oct. 1994, Vol 1, No. 39 lists seven assumptions of current secular sex-ed programs. The first three are: 1. The sex drive is the primary drive of human nature; 2. The sex drive has a multitude of ways of expressing itself… 3. To be fully human, one must be sexually active.

11. Jim Finnegan, Abortion's Moral Blindness, Manchester Union Leader, Jan 4, 1995, quoting Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast February 3, 1994. Jim Finnegan is an editor of the Union Leader.

12. This example is from Hugh Ross, "Jupiter's Stability" in Facts & Faith, Fall 1994 Vol 8 No. 3.

13. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, NavPress, 1993; John D. Barrow & Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford, 1986.

14. Ross, ibid., pp 126-7.

15. See Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, 1993, Chapter V "Tales of Theory and Experiment" for further on the final verification of Einstein's theories.

16. Paul Johnson, Intellectuals, Harper and Row, 1988, p342.

17. Ibid. p. 340

18. Ian Robertson, Sociology , Third Edition, Worth Publishers, New York,1987, p133

19. Paul D. Meier, Frank B. Minirth, Frank Wichern, Introduction to Psychology and Counseling Baker Book House 1982, p304.

20. See Derek Kidner, Proverbs: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Inter-Varsity Press, 1964, p23.

21. Dian Fossey, Gorillas out of the Mist, Houghton Mifflin 1983.

22. A Parent Aide Pre-Service Training Manual, Linda Grossi Paolino, Parent Aide Program New Hope, Inc., 140 Park St., Attleboro, MA 02703. Undated. Reprinted article, "Gorilla Mothers Need Some Help From Their Friends" by Maxine A. Rock, Smithsonian, Vol 9, July 1978, pp 58-63, quoting Ronald Nadler, a psychologist at the Yerks Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

23. Ibid.

24. David Blankenhorn, "Taps for the Fatherhood Idea," Wall Street Journal, 28 Feb 95.
Mr. Blankenhorn is author of Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, Basic Books, 1995.

25. C.F.Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, Eerdmans.

26. David C. Bossard, Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt: Logical Deduction and the Reasoning Process. Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute report No. 31, 1986. The distinction between enjoyment and contemplation is discussed in C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy.

27. Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D.,1-2-3 Magic! , Child Management, Inc., Glen Ellyn, Il, 1990. Video and course material

28. William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues, Simon and Schuster, 1994.

29. Paul Johnson, Intellectuals, Harper and Row, 1988. The index to this book lists the following under "Intellectual Characteristics":  anger, aggresssiveness, violence, cowardice, cruelty, deceitfulness, dishonesty, egocentricity, egotism, genius for self-publicity, hypocrisy, ingratitude, rudeness, intolerance, misanthropy, love of power, manipulativeness, exploitativeness, quarrelsomeness, self-deception, gullibility, selfishness, ruthlessness, self-pity, paranoia, self-righteousness, shiftlessness, spongeing, snobbery, intellectual snobbery, vanity

30. Ibid. p. 342.