“The gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers” – Dr. Victor Frankl who survived the Holocaust in a Nazi death camp

Submitted Nov 06, 2023 by Bob Pratico at Southern Seminary

Introduction
Scripture clearly warns about the dangerous consequences of entertaining false ideas. Paul issues a caution regarding the consequences of turning away from the faith as a result of false ideas in 1 Tim 6:20: “Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge” (NIV). In 1 Tim 1:3-5, Paul warns Timothy to beware false ideas. Col 2:8 cautions us to beware of “empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking” (NLT). The Greek word used for ‘philosophy’ is philosophia and denotes the love and pursuit of wisdom and investigation of truth.¹ The reformer Philipp Melanchthon asserts that the reference in Col 2:8 is to false ideas and not to sound philosophy which harmonizes with Scripture.² John Davenant agrees, writing that we should listen to philosophy when it pronounces “about (correct) things subject to itself according to the light of right reason.”³ At the end of his life, Paul speaks of the emergence of people who will gladly harbor false ideas (2 Tim 4:3), and warns the Ephesian elders that after his departure, “fierce wolves” will emerge from within the church to proclaim false ideas (Acts 20:29-30). The Spirit warns in 1 Tim 4:1 that false teaching (ideas) will inevitably lead some away from the faith. The apostle John exhorts us to test any ideas that we are presented with, in order to sift out the false from the true (1 John 4:1-7). Paul is explicit in Rom 15:4 that the ideas portrayed in Scripture have the natural consequence of producing hope in us.

False ideas by definition veer us away from truth. The scale of an idea is directly proportional to its subsequent effects (consequences). “Ideas do have consequences, and some consequences are astronomical in size or effect in comparison to the idea that brought them forth. This in turn means that, depending upon the attitude and goal of the idea-giver, the result can either be massively beneficial or massively destructive.”⁴ The grander the scale of an idea, the greater the subsequent potential impact for either good or evil. The idea presented in Eden to Adam and Eve, that they could ultimately be like God (Gen 3:3) had devastating cosmological consequences (Rom 8:18-22). The entirety of the Universe was cataclysmically affected as the Second Law of Thermodynamics reveals. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system and describes how much energy is not available to do work. The more disordered a system and higher the entropy, the less energy is available to do work. As I wrote in my Masters Thesis Argument From Evil,

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the total entropy of a closed system either increases or remains constant in any process; it never decreases. In layman’s terms—the Second Law explains why everything (in the Cosmos) decays, runs down or wears out. The Second Law is instrumental in the universal pain and suffering throughout the cosmos. James Shin, PhD in Systematic Theology, authored a fascinating book entitled Natural and Cosmic Theodicy: A Trinitarian Panentheistic Vision which wrestles with God’s involvement with a world “ridden with natural and cosmic evil.” He postulates that “the problem of pain, suffering, and death is contingent but inherent in the fabric of the universe because the second law of thermodynamics is universal.”⁵

He is correct; there are no known exceptions to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (with the exception of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ).⁶

False ideas have proliferated in this fallen world since Eden. It is not always easy to ascertain the potential effects of an idea in advance; sometimes we must wait to see the practical consequences come to fruition. If the Genesis account is true, then mankind’s ability to always reliably formulate and process true and useful ideas is seriously and inevitably hampered. The progressive blurring of good and evil is a catalyst for fatally flawed ideas, fueled by the egotism of modern man. The Second Century church father, Clement of Alexandria, warned that false ideas corrupt true knowledge.⁷ The Reformer John Owen commenting on 1 Tim 6:20, writes that all real, useful ideas are “an effect of God opening our eyes by the illuminating grace of his Holy Spirit.”⁸ Apart from God’s truthful revelation and because of the Fall, we tend to invent all sorts of false ideas and inappropriate ways of living.⁹ The unending proliferation of false ideas pertaining to salvation is prima facie’ evidence. Romans 1:30 observes that we devise new ways to do evil. Dave Wagner warns that “we do not want to believe that the ideas we embrace today will have definitive consequences tomorrow.”¹⁰ The entrance of evil into creation and the subsequent fall of man plays havoc with our ability to process ideas. The Scholar and Professor Richard Weaver wrote,

Surely we are justified in saying of our time: If you seek the monument to our folly, look about you. In our own day we have seen cities obliterated and ancient faiths stricken. We may well ask, in the words of Matthew, whether we are not faced with “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world.” We have for many years moved with a brash confidence that man had achieved a position of independence which rendered the ancient restraints needless. Now, in the first half of the twentieth century, at the height of modern progress, we behold unprecedented outbreaks of hatred and violence; we have seen whole nations desolated by war and turned into penal camps by their conquerors; we find half of mankind looking upon the other half as criminal. Everywhere occur symptoms of mass psychosis.¹¹

Weaver warns that the “‘natural evil’ that is put out the front door by science, re-enters at the back door, sometimes with renewed potency for harm.”¹² Ultimately, Weaver identifies what he terms as “mass psychosis” which he views as rooted in the rejection of the metaphysical world, resulting in the substitution of sensation for reflection. He views the loss of transcendent values as the end of what he insightfully terms the “ideational life.”¹³

I shall argue that ideas have consequences and start with the origin of ideas, asserting that it was the ideas behind a Biblical worldview that gave rise to modern science. While modern science has produced many wonderful (true) things, it also fostered the deadly (false) worldviews of naturalism and materialism. I shall trace the rise of Darwinian ideas from the worldview of naturalism and some of its fatal consequences: (1) its functional role in the horrific rise of the Nazi Third Reich, (2) its dark impact on Eugenics, (3) its justification for the bizarre “gender ideology” movement, and (4) its endorsement of the common delusion that fallen man must be inherently good or at least morally neutral. All ideas produce fruit in the real world—both intentional and unintentional and either good or bad. Unfortunately, we now seem to be past the tipping point as false ideas increasingly cascade into our culture, fueled with mass-media technology, and are often swallowed “hook, line and sinker” without examination or reflection. The inevitable result is now emerging—societal chaos and anarchy.

The Origin Of Ideas
Where do ideas come from? What is their origin? Thomas Aquinas viewed faith as a guide in the progress of our knowledge, in the origin of our ideas.14 For Aquinas, the mind must be infused with “divine light” for intelligibility. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines ideas as “that with which we think, or in Locke’s terms, whatever the mind may be employed about in thinking” that “provide the way in which objective knowledge can be expressed.”¹⁵ The ability to think in abstract terms is surely part of what it means that man is created in the image of God. The enlightenment rationalist philosopher Nicolas Malebranche argued that the human mind participates in God when it contemplates ideas and eternal truths.¹⁶ Theologian Wayne Grudem concludes that theology emphasizes ideas while ethics focuses on situations we face in life.¹⁷

Ideas are powerful and by definition present differing views of reality. Any grasp of reality that is short-sighted and does not accurately portray all reality, will always have detrimental consequences. This is why all other worldviews, other than the Biblical worldview that is espoused in Scripture, always self-destruct if followed to their logical conclusion. The Enlightenment criticism of traditional Christianity was based upon the principle of the “omnicompetence” of human reason.¹⁸ A fatal flaw was the belief in the omnicompetence of fallen human reason, opening the door for the acceptance and proliferation of false ideas. Cutting loose from the divine anchor of revelation and elevating human reason to the hierarchical top of values removed our rudder and left us adrift with societal currents . . . as is now increasingly and unfortunately evident.

The Rise Of Modern Science
There is little question that the most significant influence shaping the modern world is science.¹⁹ But why was Europe the birthplace of modern science? Why did it arise there and not anywhere else when other cultures (from Chinese to Arab) had produced a higher level of learning and technology than medieval Europe?²⁰ The founders of modern science—men such as Johann Kepler, Issac Newton, Michael Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, Blaise Pascal—all held a Biblical worldview and were said to be “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”²¹ In fact, it was the Biblical worldview that made science even possible as men believed that God had created an ordered universe that was governed by physical laws that could be discovered and harnessed. The idea that a rational order existed in nature had no practical benefit unless it was not accompanied by the idea that humans could discover that order.²² Science subsequently made possible many wonderful and amazing things that just a generation ago would have been heralded as science fiction.

J.P. Moreland argues that if the church is to speak to the modern world and interact with it responsibly, it must interact with modern science.²³ John Henry Brookes elaborates on the four ways that Christianity influenced the rise of modern science:²⁴

• 1) Christian ideas served as the presuppositions for the scientific enterprise (the conviction that nature is ruled by law was inferred by its creation by a rational God)
• 2) Christian ideas sanctioned science (science was justified as a means of alleviating toil and suffering)
• 3) Christian ideas supplied the motive for pursuing science (to demonstrate the glory and wisdom of God)
• 4) Christian ideas played a role in regulating scientific methodology

Pearcey and Thaxton conclude, “Among professional historians the image of warfare between faith and science has shattered. Replacing it is a widespread recognition of Christianity’s positive contributions to modern science.”²⁵ In the final analysis, it was the ideas inherent in a Biblical worldview that fostered the rise of modern science.

But is science the end-all panacea that many ascribe to it? No, it is not because false ideas can arise even within science. Like all human disciplines, science is not immune to false ideas. However, because science is held in such common high regard, the false ideas that emerge therein have the potential for much more damaging consequences. I hold a degree in Aerospace Engineering and recognize the inherent limits of science. Scientism is the view that science is the paradigm of truth and rationality; everything else is merely a matter of subjective opinion. Moreland argues that science is not all-encompassing and that its inherent limits irrefutably demonstrate two things: (1) scientism (the view that science alone is a rational approach to the world that alone secures truth) is false, and (2) the limits of science weaken its epistemic authority, depriving it of its claim to dominate or overrule theology and philosophy.²⁶ Moreland correctly points out that scientism is ironically self-refuting when it claims that “only what can be known by science or quantified and tested empirically is true and rational.”²⁷ That statement is of course immune to empirical testing or quantification, and is therefore self-refuting. As Moreland concludes, ‘the definition, aims and justification of science are philosophical presuppositions about science and cannot be validated by science.”²⁸ Yet, the idea commonly prevails that science holds the ultimate answers to reality.

Ultimately, the refusal of science to recognize the existence and operation of a transcendent, intelligent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being is its weak link. It is also an assumption that grounds the resulting worldviews of naturalism and materialism. Materialism is the view that the world is composed entirely of matter while naturalism asserts that everything can be explained by the natural sciences.²⁹ The ideas inherent in materialism and naturalism foster a worldview that self-destructs if lived and followed to its logical conclusion. Neither materialism nor naturalism permit the existence of any transcendent moral values. In the worldview of naturalism, love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain. Moral good and evil do not exist. Of course, no sane person can live in such a worldview and follow it to its logical conclusion. Thus, we consistently encounter naturalists who illegitimately borrow transcendent values from the Biblical worldview which is grounded in transcendent reality. The import of true ideas from the Biblical worldview is a futile attempt to keep the sinking ship of naturalism afloat. Naturalism’s most destructive fruit emerged in the ideas espoused by Charles Darwin.

The Rise Of Darwinism
Gregory Claeys identifies the two most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century as Charles Darwin and Karl Marx, writing that “two of their central concepts, class struggle and evolution, both focused on the idea of ‘struggle’ and clearly had some common origin.”³⁰ Charles Darwin’s ideas arguably had the most disastrous impact upon the 20th century. Atheists regard the ideas of Darwinism as strongly supporting their worldview and its influences on such various fields as psychology and sociology.³¹ What is Darwinism? Core Darwinism is defined by atheist Richard Dawkins as “the minimal theory that evolution is guided in adaptively nonrandom directions by the nonrandom survival of small random hereditary changes.”³² What is this idea of “evolution” that Darwinism refers to? It is important to understand that it is idealized as an unguided and mindless process.³³ The distinction must be made between microevolution (the God-ordained diversity within species) and macroevolution (the theoretical rise of new species from the mindless, unguided process that Darwin was espousing). As evolutionist Gaylord Simpson proclaimed, the emergence of mankind is therefore an unplanned outcome.³⁴ At its core, Darwinian evolution heralds the idea of mindless, purposeless, unguided change. The destructive consequences of Darwinian ideas were enormous, supporting the rise of both the Nazi Third Reich and Eugenics, and continue to play out today with the insane emergence of gender ideology.

Darwinism gave rise to the idea of theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is not easily defined. The core idea is that the natural world is governed by God who uses evolution as a means of creating higher life forms. While theistic evolution has Christian proponents such as William Lane Craig (there is no implication that Christian theologians and leaders who embrace theistic evolution are not true disciples of Jesus Christ), there are serious problems with the idea of theistic evolution which denies the historicity of specific events recorded in first three chapters of Genesis.³⁵ Greg Allison at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary argues that theistic evolution is incompatible with historic Christian doctrine.³⁶ Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick, warns that, “Theistic evolution should be understood as a deformation that results under these conditions. Its advice to the faithful is to keep calm, trust the scientific establishment, and adapt accordingly, even if it means ceding the Bible’s cognitive ground.”³⁷

(1) The Devastating Impact Of Darwinism On The Nazi Third Reich
The role of Darwinism in the rise of Nazi Third Reich is undeniable. Claeys identifies Social Darwinism with both Eugenics and the holocaust.³⁸ “Nietzche’s role in transmitting a particularly vicious form of Social Darwinism to Nazism is undoubted.”³⁹ Darwinism was the “icing on the cake” for the Third Reich and combined with Nazi ideology to form the perfect storm. Richard Weikart in The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought documents that “Germany’s leading anthropologists in the Third Reich, including those in the SS, were uniformly Darwinian in their approach to the evolution of humans and races.”⁴⁰ Weikart concludes that,

Nazi racial ideology—and the many policies based on it—were profoundly shaped by a Darwinian understanding of humanity. Certainly many non-Darwinian elements were synthesized with Darwinism: Aryan supremacy, antimiscegenation, antisemitism, and many more. Nonetheless, Nazi racial ideology integrated all these factors into a worldview that stressed the transmutation of species, the evolutionary formation of the human races, the need for advancing human evolution, the inevitability of the human struggle for existence, and the need to gain Lebensraum to succeed in the evolutionary struggle.⁴¹

Dr. Jerry Bergman (holds nine different degrees and has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology) characterizes the Nazi Holocaust as “government-sponsored mass murder inspired by social Darwinism.”⁴² Bergman presents compelling evidence that almost all the Nazi party leaders (including Hitler, Mengele, Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels, Goring, Heydrich, Rosenberg, Streicher and Lebensborn) were enslaved to Darwinian ideas. When asked what the centerpiece of Hitler’s worldview was, Hitler scholar and Yale University Professor Emeritus Fritz Redlich responds, “social Darwinism and his anti-Semitism, both which flowed from his Darwinian worldview.”⁴³ The Nazis used Darwinian-inspired Eugenics to justify the removal of “inferior races.”⁴⁴ Georges Van Vrekhem chronicles the central role that Darwinism played in causing the Holocaust.⁴⁵ Darwinism provided the Nazi’s perfect justification under the guise of “science.”

Historian Christian Zentner, author of the mammoth reference The Encyclopedia Of The Third Reich, notes that racism and Darwinism enter “into a symbiosis in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”⁴⁶ Racism was easily justified under the umbrella of Darwin’s theory of evolution. It did not take long after the 1859 publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for Darwinism to start bearing deadly fruit. Max Nordau noted as early as 1889 that “Darwinism was becoming the supreme authority of the militarists in all European countries: “Since the theory of evolution has been promulgated they can cover their natural barbarism with the name of Darwin and give free play to their bloodthirsty instincts as their being the last word of science.” (emphasis is mine)⁴⁷ George Mose notes that by 1900 “there were several rival racial theories. Most of them had grown with the refinement of the anthropological criteria and had incorporated elements of the survival-of-the-fittest axiom of Social Darwinism.”⁴⁸ André Pichot, a French epistemologist and historian of the ideas underlying science, writes “however fictitious the evolutionary degree may have been as a criterion of the hierarchization of the races, it worked perfectly within the social-Darwinian ideology of the time, and it supported its inherent racism by giving it a semblance of scientific justification.”⁴⁹

In his massive work The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer comments on Hitler’s view of life: “Like Darwin but also like a whole array of German philosophers, historians, kings, generals and statesmen, Hitler saw all life as an eternal struggle and the world as a jungle where the fittest survived and the strongest ruled—a ‘world where one creature feeds on the other and where the death of the weaker implies the life of the stronger.’”⁵⁰ Richard Weikart writes “When Hitler explained how he hoped to harmonize human society with the scientific laws of nature, he emphasized principles derived from Darwinian theory, especially the racist forms of Darwinism prominent among Darwin’s German disciples.”⁵¹ Weikart asserts that “Hitler’s Darwinian-inspired moral code called for the eradication of the weak, sick, and those deemed inferior, rather than universal love.”⁵² Weikart explores the role of Darwinism within Nazi ideology in The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought in German Studies Review 36 (2013), writing that “Darwinism underpinned specific elements of Nazi racial ideology, including racial inequality, the necessity of the racial struggle for existence, and collectivism.”⁵³ Weikart concludes that Nazi racial thought was shaped by Darwinism.⁵⁴

(2) The Devastating Impact Of Darwinism On Eugenics
The tragic consequences of the ideas spawned by Darwinism were not limited to the Third Reich as Eugenics (the idea of culling the “unfit” from the genetic pool) spread to many nations including the United States and Canada. Bergman reports,
in the first half of the nineteenth century the United States was “infatuated” with eugenics and its promise of strengthening the human race by culling the “unfit” from the genetic pool. Along with the “feebleminded,” insane, and criminal, those so classified included women who had sex out of wedlock (considered a mental illness), orphans, the disabled, the poor, the homeless, epileptics, masturbators, the blind and the deaf, alcoholics, and girls whose genitals exceeded certain measurements. Some eugenicists advocated euthanasia, and in mental hospitals, this was quietly carried out on scores of people through “lethal neglect” or outright murder. At one Illinois mental hospital, new patients were dosed with milk from cows infected with tuberculosis, in the belief that only the undesirable would perish. As many as four in ten of these patients died. A more popular tool of eugenics was forced sterilization, employed on a raft of lost souls who, through misbehavior or misfortune, fell into the hands of state governments. By 1930, California was enraptured with eugenics, and would ultimately sterilize some twenty thousand people.⁵⁵

More disturbing is Darwinism’s impact on our contemporary culture. The Swiss theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar warned in a penetrating analysis in 1982 that “Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.”⁵⁶ Darwinism dangerously exiles all transcendent values and truths into irrelevance and non-existence. Moral good and beauty do not exist in Darwinian ideas; their perception is not based in reality but merely reflect an apparent, grand subjective delusion. Unfortunately, the impact of Darwinian thought continues to play out today with the emergence of the delusional gender ideology movement.

(3) The Devastating Impact Of Darwinism On Gender Ideology
The tentacles of Darwinian thought are still wreaking havoc today. The contemporary fascination with gender ideology has its origins in Darwinian ideas. Harry Benjamin, associate of Alfred Kinsey the notorious sexual “researcher” who was addicted to sexual deviancy, wrote the first book on transsexualism in 1966. Benjamin argued that the logical outcome of accepting Darwinism was assenting to gender fluidity.⁵⁷ Sharon James (who studied history at Cambridge University, theology at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and has a doctorate from the University of Wales) writes that one result of embracing Darwinism is a “future where scientific and medical advances would make it possible to change a biological male into a woman with full capacity to reproduce.”⁵⁸ Benjamin prophetically wrote in 1966,

Darwin’s theory has pointed up the identity of male and female origins. Out of the same basic living molecules there were evolved different sex patterns, male and female. Thus the old language of opposite sexes, derived from the theological mythology that God (male) created male and female as absolutely separate creatures, has been modified by modern biology. Out of the same molecules the chemist can produce estrogens and androgens . . . Out of the same nucleic acids the chromosomes that make a man or a woman are evolved. Medical arts can bring about the dramatic womanization of a man, or manization of a woman.⁵⁹

Darwin’s theory wrongly predicted that animal breeders would succeed in creating distinct species.⁶⁰ Although of course this never happened, the next logical consequence of Darwinian thought was that mankind should be able to manipulate the human species. That has produced the insanity of gender ideology with ‘dozens’ of human genders now proposed, in addition to the bizarre belief by people professionally trained in science (i.e., degreed physicians) that they can medically “reassign” gender. This has resulted in outrageous medical experimentation on a par with the horrific medical experiments of Nazi Joseph Mengele, as children are given hormone blockers and undergo surgical removal of body parts. It is noteworthy that Europe which was years ahead of the United States in gender reassignment surgical techniques is now rethinking the wisdom of this practice. European “governments and medical authorities in at least five countries that once led the way on gender-affirming treatments for children and adolescents are now reversing course, arguing that the science undergirding these treatments is unproven, and their benefits unclear.”⁶¹ BBC news reports that Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a new law banning gender reassignment surgery. The law will also ban people changing their genders on state documents.⁶²

There is no end to the damaging consequences of Darwin’s ideas. Yet another of those consequences is the fatal idea that man must be inherently good—or at least morally neutral—since moral evil does not exist.

(4) The Devastating Impact Of Darwinism On The Delusion That Man Is Morally Neutral
Those that reject the Biblical doctrine of original sin commonly adhere to the idea that mankind is inherently good. Nigel Barber, PhD, espouses the common position but admits that “Humans may be inherently good . . . we have assembled a horrifyingly long rap sheet over the past five thousand years, and it is not getting any shorter.”⁶³ The idea that man is inherently good is necessarily fatal with respect to his/her relationship with God, producing a salvation-by-works mentality. There are also practical damaging consequences to this idea, a natural corollary to Darwinism. Most people recognize that something is wrong with the world—i.e., we have an instinctive awareness that something is amiss in a world filled with poverty, injustice, rape, murder, deceit, theft, and armed conflicts. Of course, the Biblical worldview presents the answer as sin, both original and inherited, resulting in a cursed creation. Darwinism, on the other hand, posits moral indifference to man who is merely the product of mindless, purposeless change over eons of time. In Darwinism, moral evil and good cannot and do not exist. By Darwinian definition, man must be morally neutral. Thus, for those who believe that man is inherently morally neutral, the problems must be external to man. Consequently, the solutions must also be external in contrast to the Biblical worldview which mandates inward spiritual transformation. The various solutions to “fix” what is wrong with the world are thus to be located in never-ending external proposals as better healthcare, more pay, more money, better education, better jobs, nondiscrimination, gun-control, etc. The idea that man is inherently good leads to a never-ending cacophony of external solutions, many of which may be good in and of themselves, but none of which offers a permanent resolution. The idea that mankind is inherently good is a one-way ticket into moral quicksand, for the problem—and therefore solution—ultimately resides in the human heart.

Conclusion
People generally comprehend that actions produce consequences. What may not be as well understood is that actions themselves originate from ideas; it is fundamentally the ideas that generate the consequences. Ideas are the impetus for action. The ultimate tragic end of false ideas is nihilism—the state of believing in nothing and having no purpose.⁶⁴ Viktor Frankl, Austrian holocaust survivor, knew the origins of the Holocaust were to be found in the ideas of scientists and philosophers. “I am absolutely convinced,” Frankl said in The Doctor and the Soul, “that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”⁶⁵ Philip and Saneesh bemoan the contemporary “rise and spread of harmful ideas, which in turn has been creating a milieu in which malevolent ideas receive greater praise and appreciation than benevolent ideas.”⁶⁶ The impressive technology of mass-media now enables the spread of ideas at a speed and to an extent that was previously not possible. Ideas can now literally spread around the globe in hours. Philip and Saneesh soberingly warn that “The time is ripe today for all crusaders to spread their ideas most economically, most easily, and instantaneously, to an unbelievably large number of willing listeners . . . Unfortunately, the number of people who wish to spread deviant ideas is way ahead of the number which is involved in spreading wholesome ideas.”⁶⁷

Trying to short-circuit false ideas once they have been generated and spread, is a quixotic, difficult tilting at the windmill akin to trying to corral birds that have left a columbary. As the axiom says—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The most effective combat strategy is to destroy the root of false ideas with objective, transcendent truth. Unfortunately, our contemporary culture has largely abandoned its most effective weapon———objective, transcendent truth. Paul’s warning from two millennia ago rings true . . . “claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22).

¹W.E. Vine & Merrill Unger, Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words: With Topical Index (Word Study), (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson), 1996, 4060, Kindle
²Philipp Melanchthon, Notes on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians 2:8, Reformation Commentary On Scripture, New Testament XI, (Graham Tomlin, editor), (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic), 2013, 177
³John Davenant, Exposition of Colossians 2:8, Reformation Commentary On Scripture, New Testament XI, (Graham Tomlin, editor), (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic), 2013, 178
⁴Dr. Johnson C. Philip & Dr. Saneesh Cherian, Moral Relativism And Christians; Ideas Have Consequences, Brethren Research Group, 2013, 79, Kindle
⁵James Jongseock Shin, Natural and Cosmic Theodicy: A Trinitarian Panentheistic Vision, Eugene Oregon, Pickwick Publications, 2022, 228, Kindle
⁶Robert Pratico, Argument From Evil, Master Thesis, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2023, 7
⁷Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament IX (Peter Gorday, editor), (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic), 2000, 227
⁸John Owen, The Causes, Ways And Means Of Understanding The Mind Of God, Reformation Commentary On Scripture, New Testament XII, (Lee Gatiss & Bradley G. Green, editors), (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic), 2019, 211
⁹Stephen T. David & Eric T. Yang, An Introduction To Christian Philosophical Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic),), 2020, 29, Kindle
¹⁰Dave Wagner, Ideas Have Consequences, (White Lake, WI), 2012, 1368, Kindle
¹¹Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), 2013, 2, Kindle
¹²Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, 172, Kindle
¹³Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, 27, Kindle
¹⁴Kato Kiszley, The Origin of Ideas According to St. Augustine and St. Thomas, Masters Theses, (Loyola University Chicago), 1937, 75-76, https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1582&context=luc_theses
¹⁵Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2016, 232-233, Kindle
¹⁶Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 2008, 275, Kindle
¹⁷Wayne Grudem, Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Biblical Moral Reasoning, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway), 2018, 38, Kindle
¹⁸Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology; An Introduction, (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 1994, 81
¹⁹J.P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science; A Philosophical Investigation, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books), 1989, 26, Kindle
²⁰Nancy R. Pearcey & Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul Of Science; Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, (Wheaton, IL : Crossway Books), 1994, 21
²¹Henry Morris, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science, The Henry Morris Signature Collection, Green Forest, AR: Master Books), 2020, 347, Kindle
²²Pearcey & Thaxton, The Soul of Science, 29
²³Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science, 26
²⁴Pearcey & Thaxton, The Soul of Science, 36-37
²⁵Pearcey & Thaxton, The Soul of Science, 37
²⁶Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science, 56, Kindle
²⁷Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science, 1187, Kindle
²⁸Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science, 1187, Kindle
²⁹Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 294, 321, Kindle
30Gregory Claeys, Social Darwinism, The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge Companions to Literature, (Gregory Claeys, editor), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2019, 162, Kindle
^31Stephen C. Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion: 300 Terms Thinkers Clearly Concisely Defined (The IVP Pocket Reference Series), (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), 2013, 31, Kindle
³²Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 119, Kindle
³³Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books), 1997, 14, Kindle
³⁴Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 15, Kindle
³⁵Wayne Grudem, Theistic Evolution; A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique (J.P. Moreland, Stephen C. Meyer, Christopher Shaw, Ann K. Gauger, Wayne Grudem, editors), (Wheaton, IL: Crossway), 2017, 838, Kindle
³⁶Greg Allison, Theistic Evolution; A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, chapter 30,
³⁷Steve Fuller, Theistic Evolution; A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, 32, Kindle
³⁸Claeys, Social Darwinism, 163, Kindle
³⁹Claeys, Social Darwinism, 176, Kindle
⁴⁰Richard Wiekart, The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought, German Studies Review 36/3, 2013, https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/History/Faculty/Weikart/Darwinism-in-Nazi-Racial-Thought.pdf, 543
⁴¹Wiekart, The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought, 552
⁴²Jerry Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazi Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History, (Ontario, Canada: Joshua Press), 2014, 575, Kindle
⁴³Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, 269, Kindle
⁴⁴Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, 581, Kindle
⁴⁵Georges Van Vrekhem, Hitler and his God: The Background to the Nazi Phenomenon, (Stichting Aurofonds), 2014, 225, Kindle
⁴⁶Vrekhem, Hitler and his God, Kindle
⁴⁷Vrekhem, Hitler and his God, 214, Kindle
⁴⁸Vrekhem, Hitler and his God, 233, Kindle
⁴⁹Vrekhem, Hitler and his God, 225, Kindle
⁵⁰William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, (New York: Rosseta Books), 1961, 144, Kindle
⁵¹Richard Weikart, Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich, (Washington DC: Regenery History), 2016, xiii, Kindle
⁵²Weikart, Hitler’s Religion, xxiiii, Kindle
⁵³Richard Weikart, The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought, 537, https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/History/Faculty/Weikart/Darwinism-in-Nazi-Racial-Thought.pdf
⁵⁴Weikart, 538, The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought, https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/History/Faculty/Weikart/Darwinism-in-Nazi-Racial-Thought.pdf
⁵⁵Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, 316, Kindle
⁵⁶Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Glory Of The Lord, A Theological Aesthetics, Vol 1: Seeing The Form, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press),1982, 180, Kindle
⁵⁷Sharon James, Gender Ideology: What Do Christians Need to Know?, (Oxford: Oxford ebooks), 2019, 47, Kindle
⁵⁸James, Gender Ideology, 46, Kindle
⁵⁹Harry Benjamin, The Transsexual Phenomenon, (New York: Julian Press), 1966, Appendix B: Complementarity of the Sexes by Gobind Behnan
⁶⁰Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 43, Kindle
⁶¹Freida Klotz, A Teen Gender-Care Debate Is Spreading Across Europe, April 28, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/04/gender-affirming-care-debate-europe-dutch-protocol/673890/
⁶²https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66200194
⁶³Nigel Barber, Are Humans Naturally Good, or Intrinsically Evil?, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/202107/are-humans-naturally-good-or-intrinsically-evil
⁶⁴Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 331, Kindle
⁶⁵Matthew Scully, Viktor Frankl at Ninety: An Interview by Matthew Scully, https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/04/viktor-frankl-at-ninety-an-interview
⁶⁶Philip & Saneesh, Moral Relativism And Christians; Ideas Have Consequences, 89, Kindle
⁶⁷Philip & Saneesh, Moral Relativism And Christians; Ideas Have Consequences, 117, Kindle