This weekend, our newsfeeds have been crowded with words like “atrocious,” “heinous,” “inhumane” and “barbaric.” All around the world, it is recognized that the attack made on Israel was reprehensible. But what is this judgment based on? Do you realize that without God, nothing can be called “wrong” or “right”?
As evolution has become more and more accepted as fact, atheists have struggled to find any basis for a system of morals. You may ask, “Why is that so difficult?” Consider this. If mankind is nothing more than the result of a mindless series of happenstance over billions years, then what separates us from the animals? Nothing. Humans just happen to be at the top of the food chain.
Atheists have attempted in several ways to patch together a moral framework. Some say that morality in an evolutionary reality means that what is right is what is best for the species. But this falls apart easily.
First, if these morals apply to humans, then we should see them in the animal kingdom as well. Why, then, should a human be punished for killing another human when we don’t put chimpanzees in prison for killing other chimpanzees? Why are we so special?
Second, who gets to determine what is “best” for any species? Adolf Hitler’s exact point in justifying the Holocaust was that evolutionary progress relies on weeding out undesirables from the gene pool. If evolution is true, then who could say Hitler was wrong? Who could say Hamas is wrong?
However, we all know they were wrong because we follow a natural law given to us by God (Rom. 2:14-15). Man is not just some animal without purpose. Man was created by the eternal mind of God to bear His image (Gen. 1:26). We do not have to wonder what is right or wrong. We have an objective basis for morality: God.
Before even the Ten Commandments, God established the sanctity of life. In Genesis 4, God punished Cain for killing his brother Abel, exiling him from his people. And, in Genesis 9:6, God decreed, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.”
This weekend, a disgusting act of barbarism was enacted upon innocent civilians in Israel. Those who find it difficult to say whether or not it was wrong do so because they have no objective basis for morality. The God of the Bible is not ambiguous in this matter. All of mankind, regardless of ethnicity, was created in the image of God. Therefore, we must uphold the sanctity of life. Let us pray for the innocent on both sides of this terrible conflict as it continues to escalate.