Moral Darwinism

by Wiker, Benjamin

• ISBN13: 9780830826667
• ISBN10: 0830826661
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Ivp Academic

Summary

Abortion. Euthanasia. Infanticide. Sexual promiscuity.Ideas and actions once unthinkable have become commonplace. We seem to live in a different moral universe than we occupied just a few decades ago. Consent and noncoercion seem to be the last vestiges of a morality long left behind. Christian moral tenets are now easily dismissed and have been replaced with what is curiously presented as a superior, more magnanimous, respectful and even humble morality. How did we end up so far away from where we began? Can the decline be stopped?Ben Wiker, in this provocative and insightful book, traces the amazing story that explains our present cultural situation. Wiker finds the roots of our moral slide reaching all the way back to the ethical theory and atheistic cosmology of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Christian teaching had been in contention with this worldview long before it reached its pinnacle with the rise and acceptance of Darwinism. But it was Darwinism, Wiker contends, that provided this ancient teaching with the seemingly modern and scientific basis that captured twentieth-century minds. Wiker demonstrates that this ancient atomistic and materialistic philosophy supplies the guiding force behind Darwinism and powerfully propels the hedonistic bent of our society while promoting itself under the guise of pure science.This book is a challenge not only to those who believe Darwinism to be purely scientific fact but to Christian who have at times inconsistently lived out their Christian moral convictions and so have failed to recognize and address the ancient corrosive underpinnings of our present moral and intellectual crisis.

Author Biography

Benjamin Wiker is a Fellow at the Discovery Institute and lecturer in theology and science at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	7	(2)
Foreword	9	(6)
Introduction	15	(16)
It All Started with Epicurus	31	(28)
Lucretius, the First Darwinian	59	(16)
Christianity Versus Epicureanism	75	(20)
The Fall and Rise of Epicureanism	95	(16)
Newtonianism: The New Face of Epicurean Materialism	111	(32)
The Moral Revolution of Materialism	143	(35)
The Taming of Christianity, or Scripture Declawed	178	(37)
Epicureanism Becomes Darwinism	215	(40)
How We Became Hedonists	255	(34)
Conclusion	289	(34)
Subject Index	323	(6)
Scripture Index	329