by Jean Stapleton
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We are told that many children in the UK are sad and anxious, some even turning to websites with information about self-harm, and even suicide. Why are some of our children, with all the possibilities of life before them, feeling like this? With all the family instability that we have at the present time, it could be that they fear, or have experienced, breakdown in their own family. It would not be surprising that this could be a major cause of anxiety. However, I would like to suggest another possible reason.
From their earliest years, our children are taught that they have random lives in a meaningless universe. Richard Dawkins tells us that evolution is a blind, undirected process through which life has reached its present position. This, of course, is his world view and not true science. In spite of being accepted at all levels of our society, there is actually no scientific evidence that change between species has ever taken place. We know that living things have a wonderful ability to adapt to their changing environments but, after all, Darwin’s finches were still finches and peppered moths are still moths! We know so much more than Darwin did about the instructions in our DNA. How could changes occur without new information, and whoever heard of information arising without intelligence?
If it could be proved that we arrived here through evolutionary processes, we would no doubt have to grit our teeth and live our lives as best as we could. For the atheist, as Francis Schaeffer says in his book Death in the City, “… modern man thinks that there is nobody home in the universe. Nobody to love man, nobody to comfort him …” (Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City, Inter-Varsity Press, p. 17). But all the real evidence points to design, and design points to a Designer. Would you expect a blind, undirected process to show forethought? So without it, why would we have an immune system or a blood-clotting system, or why would giraffes have valves in the blood vessels in their necks to prevent them killing themselves when they bend down to drink? Looking at the larger scale of things, why would the earth be just the right distance from the sun so that we neither freeze nor get scorched?
So what should we be telling our children? The simple truth that we have a wonderful Creator Who cares for those He made. The apostle Paul tells us that the creation shows us clearly that there is an eternal, powerful God –
“… because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1: 19-20).
Sadly, human nature is antagonistic to God because we prefer to go our own way, rather than admit that the Creator has a perfect right to give us rules for living in His world. As our God is a loving God, it is obvious that such rules are not arbitrary, but for our best good (Exodus 20: 1-17).
Unlike other religions, which tell their adherents how to make themselves acceptable to the god they worship, Biblical Christianity tells us that we are unable to make ourselves acceptable to God, Whose standard is perfection. The Bible tells us of the initiative that God has taken to reconcile us to Himself:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
© Jean Stapleton 2022.
