Richard Dawkins and Down’s Syndrome
Richard Dawkins has again made headline news after his recent comments about Down’s syndrome appeared on social media. The controversial evolutionary biologist was responding to a woman who said, “I don’t know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down’s syndrome, a real ethical dilemma”. His response was, “Abort and try again”, adding, “It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you had a choice”. He indicated that such a life would cause too much suffering.
So Professor Dawkins, who does not believe in the God of moral absolutes, can peremptorily make a moral judgement that a mother should kill her disabled unborn child. Is this what his belief in evolutionary theory leads to? A human being who may have a below-average IQ is to be cruelly disposed of, suggesting that the survival of the fittest is the criterion. The subsequent outrage by Christians and others is entirely understandable.
Professor Dawkins is no stranger to controversy. He was brought up in an Anglican home and attended a public school with Christian principles. He admits that, in his early years, he was deeply impressed by the complexity of life and felt that there must be a Designer, a Creator, behind it. In his mid-teens, however, he was influenced by Darwinism and the philosophies espoused by Bertrand Russell. These theories turned him away from his early impressions. (No doubt the enemy of souls was in it too.) He thereafter embarked on a crusade against all religions, particularly Christianity.
He considers faith as “one of the world’s greatest evils” and through his charity, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, strives to abolish all teaching of Creationism in schools, while vigorously promoting theories of evolution as “fact”. This formidably intelligent, but spiritually blind, man held the Chair for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University from 1995 to 2008 and has received a series of academic awards. He is now vice-president of the British Humanist Society and a spokesman for several other secular causes.
In 1976 his gene-centred view of evolution came into vogue with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Later he wrote The Blind Watchmaker, seeking to counteract the Christian analogy between the world and a watch. It argues logically for a “Watchmaker” – a supernatural Creator behind the “watch”. Dawkins contends that there is no mind behind the watch – the watchmaker is blind and all living organisms come into being by natural selection over aeons of time.
Perhaps less well known is Dawkins’ book, River Out of Eden. In it genes are described as flowing down a river through geological time, resulting in the formation of organisms. In this book one senses he is almost awestruck by the order and beauty he cannot help but observe in the natural world; he seems to be stretching out to something further but then he resolutely and arrogantly refuses to acknowledge any Intelligent Designer, or Creator, behind this “river out of Eden”.
Dawkins’ real notoriety came to the fore in 2006 when his book, The God Delusion, went on sale. He argues that a supernatural Creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion – a “fixed false belief”. We must not underestimate the harm this book has caused: by 2010, 2 million copies had been sold and it has now been translated into 31 languages. In one chapter he tries unsuccessfully to refute another argument, that the probability of higher life-forms emerging by natural selection is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard, given enough time, might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials scattered throughout the yard. Dawkins will not accept the fact of a supreme un-created, infinite, intelligent God behind all life, a Creator – corresponding to someone who planned and constructed the Boeing aircraft.
The woman’s question was purely hypothetical, but the answer was categorical. Evidently the atheistic perspective implies that human life has no worth below a certain level of understanding. The atheist does not believe in the existence of a soul. He considers humans to be animals existing briefly in this world – and in the animal kingdom, the strong live, the weak die. Many comments supporting Dawkins’ response have emphasised that people with a learning difficulty are a burden to society and require too great an input from our limited resources. How readily we can regress to the dangerous position of advocating euthanasia for almost any condition! Whatever it may claim, humanism is selfish, callous, and lacking in compassion.
However, some comments were critical of the professor’s stance. One said, “994 human beings with Down’s syndrome (were) deliberately killed before birth in England and Wales in 2012. Is that civilised?” Dawkins brazenly replied, “It is very civilised. These are foetuses before they have human feelings”. Dominic Lawson, ex-Chancellor Lord Lawson’s son, spoke in glowing terms of his 19-year-old Down’s syndrome daughter, describing her as a “robust young woman with an irrepressible joie de vivre”. He added, “It is not suffering that makes him [Dawkins] think Down’s people would be better off not existing: it is the fact that they have below-average IQs and so don’t have a great deal to contribute”. Lawson continues, “Dawkins’ argument that people with Down’s syndrome suffer more than others could only be believed by a person who has never taken the trouble to investigate the matter”.
In our own experience of friends and relatives with Down’s syndrome and other disabilities, we see firsthand the joy and love they give and the contribution they make to society. Above all, like the rest of us, they have souls which are to exist for ever. Can God not work in their hearts according to His grace and their capacity, and make them heirs of salvation? Does He not make known in His Word a special care for the poor, the needy and the vulnerable and many warnings to those who would oppress them? It will be seen in the great day of judgement that the Saviour said, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Mt 11:25). Then it will be known who are the truly wise.
KHM
Formal Commitment to the Use of the Authorised Version
The Free Presbyterian Church is formally committed to the use of the Authorised Version of the Bible (AV, also known as the King James Version) in the public worship of God. There are several good reasons for this, one of which is that the AV is probably still the most accurate English translation, particularly when the underlying Hebrew and Greek texts are taken into account. This is not to say that its accuracy could not be enhanced, but it is a curious fact that when people embark on the work of correcting blemishes in the AV, a restless spirit overtakes them and they seldom stop meddling until they have marred far more than they have mended.
Perhaps the day will come when the AV is superseded by a better version, but if so we would expect the translators of that version to be of quite a different spirit from the modernisers who have been involved in recent translations. We would expect them to be men who loved the AV, and the “old paths” of religion that it represents, and who had some warrant for their work from the whole of the English-speaking Church. In the present climate we see no prospect of such a version emerging, and we think that re-iterated calls for a revision of the AV tend to be unhelpful and unsettling.
One advantage of a formal commitment to the AV is that the choice of Bible version is not left to the inclination of each minister or office-bearer who may conduct a service, with all the division and vexation that ensues when different versions are used. Harmony and unity are of very great importance in the Christian Church, and the unilateral introduction of modern versions has done more to destroy unity in Evangelical circles than almost anything else. This is a danger that should be recognised by those who continue to use the AV, and they should take steps accordingly to preserve the unity that they have.
DWBS