This is the tension that the leftist finds himself in; he refuses to worship God, the Creator, and so he must worship that which is created, nature. In this way of thinking, undisturbed nature is perfect, and man’s intervention does nothing but destroys that which is inherently good.
This is Part 5 in our series “The Leftist “Confession of Faith.” Click below to view the others:
Of all the dogmatic statements of leftism, this final one is likely the most condescending. It is almost as if this is used as a catch-all to condemn anybody who may disagree with them on any point. It is a smug, haughty dismissal of dissenters; the implication is that any person who does not fully embrace everything labeled “scientific” by leftists is in effect denying reality.
Intolerant?
The leftist stance is intolerant towards contrary data, alternate models, or differing interpretations of hard evidence, and its greatest weapon is to shame those who are not sold out to their conclusions as being foolish, backward, uneducated, and unenlightened. Opposition to the left is opposition to science. The leftist’s professed commitment to science touches several elements of their worldview, but mostly, it is used as a club to beat into the American consciousness the ideas of evolution and climate change.
By evolution, what is meant is the full package: big bang cosmology, natural selection, human descent from single-cell organisms over billions of years, total naturalistic materialism. This largely speculative theory is presented as incontrovertible scientific fact and is used by many to discredit the Christian worldview out of hand. Evolutionary dogma claims to scientifically dismiss Christianity and would even characterize the teaching of biblical creationism (which does have scientific backing) as something dangerous. It aims to silence the Christian worldview in the name of science.
This battle is one that mostly has been won by the leftists, at least in the political sphere; the current claims of belief in “science” have more to do with the dominant talking point of climate change. Leftists make use of the disastrous, apocalyptic predictions of climate change to justify the radical re-ordering of world culture and economics. This disaster prevention becomes the all-encompassing argument for imposing any restrictions or regulations proposed, no matter how much of an affront they are to liberty and national sovereignty, as well as for further consolidation of global power into the hands of several elites.
It is not the scope or purpose of this article to argue the reality or severity of climate change, but rather to once again pointing to how the leftist worldview weaponizes scientific research and data to accomplish its unbiblical–and in reality, unscientific–ends. Without diving into all the data, one thing that is clear in the leftist confession that “science is real” is that any alternate perspectives are intolerable; pointing to the fact that carbon for instance is actually not the primary climate change culprit as is often claimed, or simply contesting that climates have been changing throughout history, or even reminding that the previous generation of scientists fell flat in their prediction of a coming global ice age, are all anathematized by the leftists.
Have Dominion
Mankind has been given a mission from God to have dominion; to fill and subdue all creation (Gen. 1:28). Christians understand that part of responsible dominion is caring for the earth and the things in the earth, doing all possible to cause and promote flourishing. At the same time, it is also understood that man is made in God’s image and is therefore above the rest of creation, and the creation is there for man to use. This is a reprehensible position to the left; any claim of human supremacy over the rest of creation will be derided as speciesist, egotistical, and the very pinnacle of the attitude that has brought about this climate crisis. But let it be submitted that, for all the left’s accusations of human pride destroying the earth, their worldview is the one that places man in the seat of God as the only possible savior of the world.
This is the tension that the leftist finds himself in; he refuses to worship God, the Creator, and so he must worship that which is created, nature. In this way of thinking, undisturbed nature is perfect, and man’s intervention does nothing but destroys that which is inherently good. Yet at the same time, because the leftist does not believe in God who governs the world by His providence and promises the continuation of seasons and climates until the final judgment (Gen. 8:22), he makes himself, man the savior. It is a self-defeating religion of creature worship, inherently contradictory and devoid of any lasting hope. Because of this worshipping of created things, along with the undermining of man’s call to have dominion over the earth, the leftists’ religion of environmentalism must be rejected by Christians.
Irony Abounds
As has been observed throughout this survey of core leftist doctrine, irony abounds in these confessions. The reality is that the secular humanism of this worldview actually destroys the foundations of science. In their denial of God, they surrender the only foundation for predictability, the uniformity of nature. It is God who created all things, who upholds all things in an orderly fashion, whose very nature is one of order and consistency; the leftist seeks uniformity in randomness, chance, and chaos. Ultimately, a denial of God must lead to a fundamental denial of science, since all knowledge comes from the mind of God.
For this reason, the leftist claim to believe in science is clearly nothing but gross propaganda, as is painfully apparent in their most dearly held convictions. Their bloodthirsty defense of abortion flies in the face of basic biology which proves that pre-born children are irrefutably human. Leftist ideology wholeheartedly supports transgenderism, a denial of the most obvious observational science, claiming that gender is a matter of choice rather than a biological fact. Even the handling of the COVID-19 crisis–pushing mask mandates and arbitrary shut-downs which in fact contradict the best research, research which reveals that these policies do virtually nothing to prevent the spread–has made it clear that the left is not concerned with truth, but with power.
Be Sober-Minded
Christians are called to sober-mindedness to renew the mind through being transformed by the Spirit rather than being conformed to the world. God cares about the truth–indeed He is the truth–and His followers must care deeply as well.
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Col. 2:8)
