Chapter 6 : LIFE HAS MEANING AND PURPOSE

 LIFE HAS MEANING AND PURPOSE

生命有意义、有目的

We now know that we are more insignificant than we ever imagined. If you get rid of everything we see, the universe is essentially the same. We constitute a 1 percent bit of pollution in a universe .. . we are completely irrelevant.—LAWRENCE KRAUSS¹

Consequently Atheism turns out be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. —C. S. LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY²

ASTRONOMER CARL SAGAN WAS A PROLIFIC WRITER AND trustee of the SETI Institute (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) founded in 1984 to scan the universe for any signs of life beyond earth. Sagan's best-selling work Cosmos also became an award-winning television series explaining the wonders of the universe and exporting the belief not in an intelligent Creator but in potential intelligent aliens. He believed somehow that by knowing who they are, we would discover who we as humans really are. “The very thought of there being other beings different from all of us can have a very useful cohering role for the human species.”³ Sagan's reasoning? If aliens could have contacted us, knowing how impossible it is for us to reach them, they would be far more advanced than us as a species. Therefore, they would have the answers we seek to our ultimate questions. This thought process shows the desperate need we have as humans for answers to the great questions of our existence. Does life have any ultimate meaning and purpose? Do we as humans have any more value than the other animals? there a purpose to the universe, or more specifically, to our individual lives? These are the questions that grip our minds and potentially vex our souls.

The order of creation that we have studied in earlier chapters screams that everything was planned by an intelligent Designer. That's true not just for stars, galaxies, and tiny organisms but for humans especially. Because God exists we can know we were made on purpose for a purpose. However, when that reality is obscured, the consequences are devastating.

William Lane Craig, an American philosopher and theologian who has had a profound impact on millions of people through his vigorous public defense of the Christian faith, has summed man's condition apart from God: “My claim is that if there is no God then meaning, value, and purpose are ultimately human illusions. Theyʼre just in our heads. If atheism is true, then life is really objectively meaningless, valueless, and purposeless, despite our subjective beliefs to the contrary."⁴

MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING

Viktor Frankl was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. There he experienced the horrors of the death camps and the accompanying emotional despair of watching friends, family, and completely innocent people executed because of their ethnicity. He witnessed firsthand what happens when a human is stripped of every dignity and freedom and subjected to torment and torture from which there is no foreseeable relief. In the midst of these unspeakable evils, Frankl began to realize man's ultimate need is for meaning in his life. "Terrible as it was, his experience in Auschwitz reinforced what was already one of his key ideas: Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.”⁵

In his book Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl described how those in captivity who clung to some sense meaning the midst the madness were able to survive. Those who lost that meaning would inevitably die. He quoted Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how. ⁶

The Western world is suffering from the backlash of the meaninglessness of atheism and unbelief. Suicide is increasing. Drug abuse, especially the respectable version of the abuse of prescription drugs, is choking the life out of a generation desperately self-medicating in hopes of not drowning in a sea of emotional pain. This isn't surprising. When you tell people there is no God, that they are just animals that have evolved from lower life forms and are the product of random chance, you offer them little hope for deriving any sort of ultimate meaning out of that philosophy. The atheist quickly denies that atheism leads to meaninglessness, but it can lead to no other place. Nietzsche would agree: "So to live that life no longer has any meaning: this is now the 'meaning' of life. "⁷ This despair gripped the communist world for decades. The attempt to eradicate God from the mind and soul of nations only produced a greater void and a greater hunger for spiritual truth.

In communist China, Western missionaries were expelled the 1950s, and Chairman Mao replaced the Bible with The Little Red Book. Instead of Christianity disappearing as he had intended, it exploded. Millions of people worshiped in secret and spread the Word to others, risking imprisonment and even death. Today, the Chinese church is stronger than ever. Because following Christ is still very challenging in this environment, believers are more resolved to be faithful to the Lord. I have worked in China and have seen the happiness and peace that these believers possess. Think about it: if happiness came from material things, our families and other world citizens should be the happiest people on earth. Instead, our souls long for something beyond merely material existence. We are desperate for relationships, for significance, and for a real reason to live.

我们现在知道，我们比我们想象的更微不足道。 如果除去我们所看到的一切，宇宙本质上是一样的。 我们构成了宇宙中百分之一的污染...... 我们完全无关紧要。——劳伦斯·克劳斯（LAWRENCE KRAUSS）¹

 结果证明无神论太简单了。 如果整个宇宙没有意义，我们永远不会发现它没有意义。 -C。 S.刘易斯，纯粹的基督教²

 天文学家卡尔·萨根是一位多产作家，也是 1984 年成立的 SETI 研究所（寻找地外智慧生命）的受托人，该研究所旨在扫描宇宙，寻找地球以外的任何生命迹象。 萨根的畅销书《宇宙》也成为一部获奖电视剧，解释了宇宙的奇迹，并传达了对潜在智慧外星人而不是智慧造物主的信仰。 他相信，通过了解他们是谁，我们就会发现我们作为人类的真实身份。 “存在与我们所有人不同的其他生物的想法对于人类来说可以发挥非常有用的凝聚作用。” ³ 萨根的推理？ 如果外星人能够与我们联系，并且知道我们不可能联系到他们，那么作为一个物种，他们将比我们先进得多。 因此，他们会得到我们最终问题所寻求的答案。 这个思维过程表明，作为人类，我们迫切需要找到我们存在的重大问题的答案。 生命有什么最终的意义和目的吗？ 我们人类比其他动物更有价值吗？ 宇宙，或者更具体地说，我们个人的生活有目的吗？ 这些问题紧紧抓住我们的心，并可能困扰我们的灵魂。

 我们在前面的章节中研究过的创造顺序表明一切都是由一位聪明的设计师计划的。 这不仅适用于恒星、星系和微小生物体，更适用于人类。 因为上帝存在，我们可以知道我们是为了一个目的而被创造的。 然而，当这一现实被掩盖时，后果将是毁灭性的。

 美国哲学家和神学家威廉·莱恩·克雷格（William Lane Craig）通过大力公开捍卫基督教信仰，对数百万人产生了深远的影响，他总结了离开上帝后人类的状况：“我的主张是，如果没有上帝，那么意味着， 价值和目的最终都是人类的幻想。 它们就在我们的脑海里。 如果无神论是正确的，那么生命在客观上确实是毫无意义、毫无价值和没有目的的，尽管我们的主观信念恰恰相反。”⁴

 人类对意义的追寻

 维克多·弗兰克尔在二战期间被关进纳粹集中营。 在那里，他经历了死亡集中营的恐怖，并目睹朋友、家人和完全无辜的人因种族而被处决，随之而来的是情感上的绝望。 他亲眼目睹了当一个人被剥夺一切尊严和自由并遭受折磨和折磨而无法预见的缓解时会发生什么。 在这些难以言喻的罪恶之中，弗兰克尔开始意识到人类的最终需求是生命的意义。 “尽管很可怕，但他在奥斯维辛集中营的经历强化了他的一个关键观点：生活首先不是像弗洛伊德所认为的那样对快乐的追求，也不是像阿尔弗雷德·阿德勒所教导的那样对权力的追求，而是对意义的追求。 对于任何人来说，最伟大的任务就是找到自己生命的意义。”⁵

 弗兰克尔在他的《人类寻找意义》一书中描述了那些在疯狂中坚持某种意义的被囚禁者如何能够生存下来。 那些失去了意义的人将不可避免地死亡。 他引用尼采的话：“知道为什么而活的人几乎可以忍受任何方式。 ⁶

 西方世界正遭受无神论和不信仰的无意义的强烈抵制。 自杀人数正在增加。 药物滥用，尤其是令人尊敬的处方药滥用，正在扼杀一代人的生命，他们拼命自我治疗，希望不被淹没在情感痛苦的海洋中。 这并不奇怪。 当你告诉人们没有上帝，他们只是从低等生命形式进化而来的动物，是随机机会的产物时，你就没有给他们从这种哲学中推导出任何终极意义的希望。 无神论者很快否认无神论会导致无意义，但它不会导致其他地方。 尼采会同意：“因此，过这样的生活不再有任何意义：这就是现在生活的‘意义’。”⁷ 这种绝望笼罩了共产主义世界数十年。 试图将上帝从各国的思想和灵魂中根除的企图只会产生更大的空虚和对精神真理的更大渴望。

In The God Test, a small booklet of questions that serve to promote dialogue between believers and unbelievers, the question is asked of atheists or agnostics, Does life have any ultimate meaning or purpose?³ The answers to this question are revealing. Average people claiming to be an atheist or agnostic will be quick to say yes. They will cite their concern for education and for human rights as well as the pursuit of knowledge about the world we live in. But that isn't what ultimate meaning and purpose is. They are citing their own subjective pursuits, which certainly don't have an ultimate significance to them. The ultimate questions are easy to ignore by just staying busy and distracting your mind, but sooner or later they cannot be avoided by a thoughtful person. Is there any ultimate plan or design to the world, or are we simply “lucky mud”? If there is a plan, then where did that purpose come from?

在《上帝测试》这本旨在促进信徒和非信徒之间对话的小册子中，向无神论者或不可知论者提出了这样的问题：生命有什么终极意义或目的吗？ 这个问题的答案是有启发性的。 自称是无神论者或不可知论者的普通人很快就会说是。 他们会表达对教育和人权的关注，以及对我们所生活的世界的知识的追求。但这并不是最终的意义和目的。 他们引用的是自己的主观追求，这对他们来说当然没有最终意义。 通过保持忙碌和分散注意力，最终的问题很容易被忽视，但一个有思想的人迟早无法避免这些问题。 世界到底有没有终极的计划或设计，或者我们只是“幸运泥”？ 如果有计划，那么这个目的从何而来？

THE DESPAIR OF ATHEISM 无神论的绝望

As we mentioned in chapter 3 ( here), translating Darwinian evolution into a philosophy of life would be dangerous, according to Darwin himself. Richard Dawkins is the first to say that we should accept the truth of our situation regardless of how good or bad it is: "Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose. .”⁹ Bertrand Russell said we have no choice but to build our lives "on the firm foundation of unyielding despair."¹⁰ It's supposed to be a world of cold, hard facts and ruthless truth. That's because the universe doesn't care. Without God ultimate meaning is an illusion. French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre summed up the philosophical implications of reality without God, saying it is only a “vague dream of the possible bursting like a bubble.”¹¹ He believed that if life has no real meaning then we should face the sheer barrenness of our existence and realize that all this talk of meaning and purpose is absurd. It is the cruelest of cosmic jokes that we should feel compelled to continue this masquerade as if anything we as humans did really mattered.

Man's search for meaning takes a tragic wrong turn without belief in God, leaving man with an existential philosophy of despair. In other words, how could meaningless, random processes produce conscious, rational creatures who are aware of meaning and purpose?

正如我们在第三章（此处）中提到的，根据达尔文本人的说法，将达尔文进化论转化为生命哲学是危险的。 理查德·道金斯是第一个提出我们应该接受现实的人，无论情况好坏的人：“大自然并不残酷，只是无情的冷漠。这是人类最难学到的教训之一。我们不能承认 事物可能非善非恶，既非残酷也非仁慈，而只是冷酷无情——对所有苦难漠不关心，缺乏目的。”⁹伯特兰·罗素说，我们别无选择，只能“把我们的生活建立在不屈不挠的绝望的坚实基础上” 。” 1⁰ 这应该是一个充满冷酷、铁的事实和无情的真理的世界。那是因为宇宙不在乎。没有上帝，最终的意义就是一个幻象。法国存在主义者让·保罗·萨特总结了没有上帝的现实的哲学含义， 他说这只是“一个可能像泡沫一样破裂的模糊梦想。”他相信，如果生活没有真正的意义，那么我们应该面对我们存在的纯粹贫瘠，并意识到所有这些关于意义和目的的谈论都是荒谬的。 这是最残酷的宇宙笑话，我们应该感到有必要继续这场假面舞会，就好像我们作为人类所做的任何事情真的很重要一样。

 人类对意义的追寻在不信仰上帝的情况下发生了悲剧性的错误，给人类留下了绝望的存在主义哲学。 换句话说，无意义的、随机的过程如何产生有意识、有理性、意识到意义和目的的生物？

PURPOSE-DRIVEN EXISTENCE

目标驱动的存在

It's no wonder that the best-selling book of our time, next to the Bible, is The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. With 60 million sold and counting, it also has been translated into more than 130 languages, which makes it one of the most translated books. ¹²  Regardless of the culture or nation, humans long for a solid sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. There is something deep in the human psyche, a yearning for significance, a desire to believe that there is more to life than simply physical survival. Yet all that naturalists offer is the bleak news of a pointless universe with no real ultimate purpose. This posture is voiced clearly by Lawrence Krauss: "The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent of our desires. A world without God or purpose may seem harsh or pointless, but that alone doesn't require God to actually exist."¹³

难怪我们这个时代仅次于《圣经》的畅销书是里克·沃伦（Rick Warren）的《目标驱动的人生》。 该书已售出 6000 万册，并且还在不断增加，并被翻译成 130 多种语言，成为翻译次数最多的书籍之一。 12 无论文化或国家如何，人类都渴望生活有明确的目标和意义。 人类心灵深处有一种东西，一种对意义的渴望，一种相信生命不仅仅是肉体生存的渴望。 然而，博物学家所提供的只是一个毫无意义的宇宙，没有真正的最终目的的惨淡消息。 劳伦斯·克劳斯（Lawrence Krauss）清楚地表达了这一立场：“无论我们喜欢与否，宇宙就是它的样子。造物主的存在或不存在与我们的愿望无关。一个没有上帝或目的的世界可能看起来严酷或毫无意义， 但仅此一点并不要求上帝实际存在。”

Krauss and his comrades bristle at the notion that atheists do not believe there is such a thing as meaning and purpose. They regale their audiences with the overwhelming passion for the pursuit of knowledge and truth that comes from a life devoted to science, while asserting that they don't need God to believe in purpose or meaning. But honestly, they can only say that natural selection has given us this trait in our genetics to help us survive. So something so wonderful, so indispensable to life, so vital our mental and emotional health, was only the product of a pointless, meaningless, purposeless past. I doubt any of these guys are asked to give the pregame motivational speech at the Super Bowl or World Cup Final.

克劳斯和他的同志们对无神论者不相信存在意义和目的这样的想法感到愤怒。 他们用对科学的一生追求知识和真理的压倒性热情来取悦观众，同时声称他们不需要上帝来相信目的或意义。 但老实说，他们只能说自然选择赋予了我们这种基因特征，以帮助我们生存。 因此，如此美妙、对生活如此不可或缺、对我们的精神和情感健康如此重要的东西，只不过是毫无意义、毫无意义、毫无目的的过去的产物。 我怀疑这些人中是否有人会被要求在超级碗或世界杯决赛中发表赛前励志演讲。

But how could those same blind, impersonal forces produce creatures who are deeply curious about the meaning of life? Remember, science itself rose out of the Christian worldview that the world was rationally understandable and could be investigated and understood because God existed.

但这些盲目的、客观的力量怎么可能产生对生命意义深感好奇的生物呢？ 请记住，科学本身源于基督教世界观，即世界是可以理性理解的，并且可以被研究和理解，因为上帝存在。

Remember the fairy tales where the wicked witch would have a boiling pot some magic brew that could produce any desired effect imaginable? Even people or monsters could come out of that simmering pot. The naturalist believes that given enough time, everything living can come out of a similar boiling pot of chemicals, but it's absurd to think that love, beauty, morality, and meaning could develop in such a way (unless you are Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride). But that’s exactly what the atheist has to believe. As David Robertson pointed out in his letters to Richard Dawkins about The God Delusion:

First of all its presupposition and assertion/assumption that everything is chemical or the result of chemical reaction is itself an unprovable assertion. Secondly it is not an assertion that fits with the observable facts around us. Indeed it requires a great deal of special pleading before one can honestly come to the position that religion is just a chemical reaction, beauty is just a chemical reaction, evil likewise and the sense of God also. Furthermore the logical consequences of such a belief are disastrous. We end up with the absurdity of man as God-the most highly evolved chemical reaction. ¹⁴

还记得童话故事中，邪恶的女巫会煮沸一锅神奇的啤酒，可以产生任何可以想象到的效果吗？ 即使是人或怪物也能从那个沸腾的锅里出来。 博物学家相信，只要有足够的时间，一切生物都可以从类似的沸腾的化学物质锅中诞生，但认为爱、美、道德和意义可以以这种方式发展的想法是荒谬的（除非你是《公主》中的比利·克里斯托） 新娘）。 但这正是无神论者必须相信的。 正如大卫·罗伯逊在写给理查德·道金斯的关于上帝错觉的信中指出的那样：

 首先，它的预设和断言/假设，即一切都是化学的或化学反应的结果，本身就是一个无法证明的断言。 其次，这不是一个与我们周围可观察到的事实相符的断言。 事实上，在人们能够诚实地得出这样的立场之前，需要进行大量的特殊恳求，即宗教只是一种化学反应，美只是一种化学反应，邪恶同样如此，上帝的感觉也是如此。 此外，这种信念的逻辑后果是灾难性的。 我们最终得出了人为上帝的荒谬——这是进化程度最高的化学反应。 ¹⁴

Is man simply a highly evolved chemical reaction? Are the feelings of love, loyalty, and devotion the same? Atheism reduces all of life down to a natural process.

Is man simply a highly evolved chemical reaction? Are the feelings of love, loyalty, and devotion the same? Atheism reduces all of life down to a natural process.

THE TWO-STORIED HOUSE

两层楼的房子

But this leaves us in a tragic place as humanity when we desperately try to assert meaning where there isn't any. Francis Schaeffer explained this predicament by describing a two-storied house that modern man lives in. In the downstairs he lives in a world solely driven by human reason and natural forces where no God exists. But he can't live there consistently so he makes a leap of faith into the second story where there is meaning and purpose, but he has no rational basis for this jump. Existentialism, as Schaeffer would say, is like a peg "hung midair "¹⁵

This is the crisis that unbelief brings you to. Life is absurd without any meaning, so the atheist simply asserts that it is indeed meaningful. But what is the basis? Greg Graffin of the band Bad Religion articulates this faulty position: “However, people make a big mistake if they conclude from the anarchy of the physical world that life has no meaning. I draw just the opposite conclusion. The purposelessness of the natural world emphasizes the tremendous meaning inherent in the human world.”¹⁶ 

So in the atheistic worldview:

• Life came from no-life.

Meaning came from non-meaning.

This ultimate leap of faith is a prime example of the Nietzschean will to power phenomenon. Nietzsche taught that though life was meaningless, the superman simply asserts his own meaning by exerting his own will to push against the darkness of despair. This superman represented the next level of human evolution. Tragically, this is the philosophy of the Nazis who acted out this wrong idea to its fullest extent. Ideas do have consequences.

The critical point here is that humans cannot live without meaning and purpose. Though we may assert that God does not exist, we can't do the same where values, meaning, and purpose are concerned. In essence, God is the foundation, and the meaning, purpose, and values are the building blocks set on that foundation. And no house stands without a foundation.

Because God exists life has meaning and purpose. The logical reasoning would be the following:

1. If God does not exist, life has no ultimate purpose or meaning.

2. Life has ultimate meaning and purpose.

3. Therefore God exists.

但是，当我们拼命试图在没有任何意义的情况下维护意义时，这让我们作为人类陷入了悲惨的境地。 弗朗西斯·谢弗（Francis Schaeffer）通过描述现代人居住的一栋两层楼的房子来解释这一困境。在楼下，他生活在一个完全由人类理性和自然力量驱动的世界中，那里没有上帝存在。 但他无法始终如一地生活在那里，所以他信心十足地跳进了第二个故事，那里有意义和目的，但他没有这种跳跃的理性基础。 正如谢弗所说，存在主义就像一个“悬挂在半空中”的钉子。

 这就是不信给你带来的危机。 生命是荒谬的，没有任何意义，所以无神论者简单地断言它确实有意义。 但依据是什么？ Bad Religion 乐队的格雷格·格拉芬 (Greg Graffin) 阐明了这一错误立场：“然而，如果人们从物质世界的无政府状态中得出生命没有意义的结论，那就犯了一个大错误。 我得出相反的结论。 自然世界的无目的性强调了人类世界固有的巨大意义。”

 所以在无神论的世界观中：

 • 生命来自于无生命。

 • 意义来自于无意义。

 这种信仰的终极飞跃是尼采权力意志现象的一个典型例子。 尼采教导说，虽然生命毫无意义，但超人只是通过运用自己的意志来对抗绝望的黑暗来维护自己的意义。 这位超人代表了人类进化的新阶段。 可悲的是，这就是纳粹的哲学，他们最大限度地践行了这一错误想法。 想法确实会产生后果。

 这里的关键点是人类不能没有意义和目的而生活。 尽管我们可以断言上帝不存在，但在价值观、意义和目的方面我们不能这样做。 从本质上讲，上帝是基础，意义、目的和价值观是建立在这个基础上的基石。 没有地基就没有房子。

 因为上帝存在，生命才有意义和目的。 逻辑推理如下：

 1. 如果上帝不存在，生命就没有最终的目的或意义。

 2. 生命有最终的意义和目的。

 3. 因此上帝存在。

The existence of meaning and purpose one of the many ways to clearly see that God exists. Yet you can know God exists and lose sight of the reality that He has created you for a purpose and end up in despair as well. This is why it's so important to have a relationship with your Creator and not just an acknowledgment that He is real.

This past year I presided over the funeral of a wealthy man who took his own life. His house was one the most spectacular ones I've ever seen. The man had everything-except peace and real purpose. His family testified to dizzying lives of worldwide tours and experiences that should have brought happiness but didn't. Though he believed in God, he lost sight of the light of His hope, and he panicked in the darkness and took his own life.

When we attach our own meaning and purpose to life, it works until those things we are trusting in and leaning on give way and collapse. The reason that we are to have no other gods before the real God is because anything we lean on other than God will let us down. His desire is for our good, not for destruction. As John Lennox said to Richard Dawkins, “Man made gods are a delusion.”¹⁷ God made you for a purpose. It is imbedded deep within your genetics as well as in every living molecule. As God told the prophet Jeremiah,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;

Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

The infinite God who knows the stars by name (Psalm 147:4) knows you and desires a relationship with you. The crushing feeling of insignificance can be lifted as you look to God for the answers to the questions that science can only hint at. When you really believe God exists, your view of yourself should change dramatically. Life has real purpose and meaning— especially yours. Because purpose and meaning are throughout the universe, it is not a blind leap of faith to believe you were made for a purpose as well. You could say that both the atheist and the theist are making inductive leaps. The evidence is overwhelming that you should take that step toward God instead of toward the darkness of skepticism. We were designed to receive perfect love from our Creator, worship His beauty and wonder, and serve as His agents eternally to steward creation. Only perfect love and an eternal purpose will fill the longings of our hearts.

意义和目的的存在是清楚地看到上帝存在的多种方法之一。 然而，你可能知道上帝存在，但却忽视了他创造你是有目的的现实，最终也会陷入绝望。 这就是为什么与你的创造者建立关系如此重要，而不仅仅是承认他是真实的。

 去年，我主持了一位自杀富翁的葬礼。 他的房子是我见过的最壮观的房子之一。 这个人拥有一切——除了平静和真正的目标。 他的家人见证了令人眼花缭乱的环球旅行和经历，这些生活和经历本应带来幸福，但却没有。 尽管他相信上帝，但他却看不到上帝希望的光明，他在黑暗中惊慌失措，结束了自己的生命。

 当我们将自己的意义和目标赋予生活时，它就会发挥作用，直到我们所信任和依赖的那些东西让位和崩溃。 除了真神之外，我们不能有别的神，因为除了神之外，我们所依赖的任何事物都会让我们失望。 他的愿望是为了我们的利益，而不是为了毁灭。 正如约翰·伦诺克斯 (John Lennox) 对理查德·道金斯 (Richard Dawkins) 所说，“人造神只是一种幻觉。”¹⁷ 上帝创造你是有目的的。 它深深植根于您的基因以及每个活分子中。 正如神告诉先知耶利米的那样，

 “在我把你塑造在子宫里之前，我就认识你；

 在你出生之前，我使你成圣； 我任命你为万国的先知。” （耶利米书 1:5）

 无限的神知道星星的名字（诗篇 147:4），他认识你并渴望与你建立关系。 当你向上帝寻求科学只能暗示的问题的答案时，你的微不足道的压抑感就会消失。 当你真正相信上帝存在时，你对自己的看法应该会发生巨大的改变。 生活有真正的目的和意义——尤其是你的。 因为目的和意义遍布整个宇宙，所以相信你也是为了某个目的而被造的，这并不是盲目的信仰飞跃。 你可以说无神论者和有神论者都在进行归纳性的飞跃。 压倒性的证据表明，你应该向上帝迈出这一步，而不是走向怀疑主义的黑暗。 我们被设计为从造物主那里接受完美的爱，崇拜他的美丽和奇迹，并永远作为他的代理人来管理创造。 只有完美的爱和永恒的目标才能满足我们内心的渴望。

MAN IS NOT JUST ANOTHER ANIMAL 

人不仅仅是另一种动物

Beyond the philosophical and ethical implications surrounding the existence of God is the belief on the part the naturalists that man is simply another animal, merely a product of natural selection. This picture has been marketed and promoted from the halls of the Smithsonian to the textbooks in high schools. This campaign has been so thorough that the belief that man is just a highly evolved primate has become a societal fact. “People today are trying to hang on to the dignity of man, and they do not know how to because they have lost the truth that man is made in the image of God.¹⁸

除了围绕上帝存在的哲学和伦理含义之外，自然主义者还相信人只是另一种动物，只是自然选择的产物。 这幅画已经从史密森学会的大厅推销到高中的教科书。 这场运动如此彻底，以至于人类只是一种高度进化的灵长类动物的信念已经成为一个社会事实。 “今天的人们试图保持人的尊严，但他们不知道如何做到，因为他们失去了人是按照上帝的形象创造的这一真理。¹⁸

But is human macroevolution the truth? If man was not created separately from the animals and is just an evolutionary freak of nature, then how can we consider ourselves special? Would there be any real transcendent meaning to our human condition other than mere biological oddities? "It is because man is made in God's image, as Schaeffer constantly emphasised, that explained his longing for significance, and this is basic to the human condition, including the post-modern condition."¹⁹ This is the center the debate. Skeptics will concede that believers may have an intellectual argument for the existence of God based on things like the fine-tuning of the universe or the inexplicable existence of sequenced information in DNA, but this is where they take their stand: human evolution.

但人类宏观进化论是事实吗？ 如果人类不是与动物分开创造的，只是自然进化的怪物，那么我们怎么能认为自己是特殊的呢？ 除了生物学上的怪异之外，我们人类的处境还有什么真正超越的意义吗？ “正是因为人是按照上帝的形象创造的，正如谢弗不断强调的那样，这解释了他对意义的渴望，这是人类状况的基础，包括后现代状况。”¹⁹ 这是争论的中心。 怀疑论者会承认，信徒可能会根据宇宙的微调或 DNA 中序列信息的莫名其妙的存在等事物对上帝的存在进行理智论证，但这就是他们的立场：人类进化。

The psalmist asked, “What is man?" (8:4). Is there anything special about us? Is man just another animal? In the search for significance we come to the very essence of discovering if there is a transcendent meaning to our lives. At the urging of my wife, Jody, I sent off my saliva sample to 23 and Me to have my DNA analyzed and mapped. The results revealed over eight hundred others had similar genetic profiles and actually were distant cousins I never knew I had. More interesting, however, was a category that showed whether I was descended from Neanderthal lineage or not. There was a little artistic depiction of a Neanderthal man (with no clothes on, of course) matching the images I have seen countless times in biology books and Geico Insurance commercials. There was a small connection in my DNA to the Neanderthals. Thinking back over my family tree, I tried to imagine the relatives whom I might have suspected were a little odd, but this was no real help. Neanderthals were said to have become extinct over thirty-five thousand years ago, yet their DNA still lives in many of us?

诗篇作者问：“人是什么？”（诗篇 8:4）。我们有什么特别之处吗？人只是另一种动物吗？在寻找意义的过程中，我们到达的本质是发现人类是否有超越的意义。 我们的生活。在我妻子乔迪的催促下，我将我的唾液样本寄给了 23 和 Me，让他们对我的 DNA 进行分析和绘制。结果显示，超过 800 个人也有相似的基因图谱，而且实际上是我以前不知道的远房表亲。 有。然而，更有趣的是一个类别，显示我是否是尼安德特人血统的后裔。有一些尼安德特人的艺术描绘（当然没有穿衣服），与我在其中见过无数次的图像相匹配。 生物学书籍和 Geico 保险广告。我的 DNA 与尼安德特人有一点点联系。回想我的家谱，我试图想象那些我可能怀疑的亲戚有点奇怪，但这并没有真正的帮助。尼安德特人 据说它们在三万五千年前就已经灭绝了，但它们的 DNA 仍然存在于我们许多人的体内？

We discussed this in the last chapter when pointing out the miracle of the origin of life as well the origin of species. The Cambrian explosion refers to the sudden appearance of complex life in the fossil record, followed by minimal change within each species. When it comes to presentation of human evolution, great effort is made on the part of the naturalists to give a detailed presentation of humans and apes with a common ancestor. They will be quick to correct you if you say that humans descended directly from apes and you fail to mention the hypothesized common ancestor, but the notion of man emerging from lower life forms, yes primates, is still their belief.

我们在上一章指出生命起源和物种起源的奇迹时讨论了这一点。 寒武纪大爆发是指化石记录中突然出现复杂的生命，随后每个物种内部发生微小的变化。 当谈到人类进化的呈现时，博物学家们付出了巨大的努力来详细呈现具有共同祖先的人类和猿类。 如果你说人类是猿类的直接后裔，而你没有提到假设的共同祖先，他们会很快纠正你，但人类起源于低等生命形式（是的灵长类动物）的概念仍然是他们的信念。

Humans did not evolve from lower life forms. I can't say it any plainer or be any clearer. There are many brilliant people, much smarter than me, who believe God used the grand scheme of Darwinian evolution to produce all of life, including humanity. These people are sincere, and I would not question their faith in God. I do believe, however, the evidence from the fossil record (as well as the other distinctions we have discussed) indicate that humanity was created both male and female, and though humans have developed and adapted, we’ve always been human. The fossils that are linked to man are conjectured by the naturalist to be our ancestors, not because of direct observable evidence. Any similarity in those fossils or in the genetic codes of chimpanzees and humans can be attributed to a common Designer, not common descent.

人类并不是从低等生命形式进化而来的 。 我不能说得更直白或更清楚了。 有很多聪明的人，比我聪明得多，他们相信上帝使用达尔文进化论的宏伟计划来创造所有生命，包括人类。 这些人是真诚的，我不会质疑他们对上帝的信仰。 然而，我确实相信，来自化石记录的证据（以及我们讨论过的其他区别）表明，人类是由男性和女性创造的，尽管人类已经发展和适应，但我们始终是人类。 博物学家推测与人类有关的化石是我们的祖先，而不是因为直接观察到的证据。 这些化石或黑猩猩和人类遗传密码的任何相似之处都可以归因于共同的设计者，而不是共同的血统。

I am lingering on this issue because at the heart Darwinian evolution is the tenet that man is simply another animal, no more intrinsically valuable than any other life form. The only real distinction is our advanced evolutionary place, due merely to the vagaries of natural selection. If there is no God and, therefore, no ultimate plan, then at best we are simply freaks of nature. As legendary Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould affirmed, “Moreover and more important, the pathways that have led to our evolution are quirky, improbable, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable. Human evolution is not random, it makes sense and can be explained after the fact. But wind life's tape to the dawn of time and let it play again-and you will never get humans a second time."²⁰

Christopher Hitchens addressed his audiences as "my fellow primates.”²¹ Richard Dawkins claims he is “an African ape”²² and that we are all African apes as well. If that's what we really are, then we should simply get over it and admit it. Remember, if Darwinian evolution is really the true story of our origins and we were not designed or intended as anything special, then we must also jettison any notion of having any special place in the universe. Our sense of importance or distinction is just an illusion. Furthermore our death is no more tragic than that of any other animal. How arrogant of us to think our fate is any different after death than that of a cow or a pig.

HUMAN EVOLUTION: A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION

The main reason many believe humans are indistinct from other animals is that the theory of evolution claims we evolved from a common ancestor of modern primates millions of years in the past. This claim has historically been supported by pictures showing several stages of a monkey gradually evolving into a human. However, these pictures are quite misleading. Paleontologists have found various fossils that share different characteristics with humans. But interpretations of these specimens rely more on evolutionists' imaginations than on hard evidence. As biologist Jonathan Wells noted,

According to paleoanthropologist Misia Landau, theories of human origins “far exceed what can be inferred from the study of fossils alone and in fact place a heavy burden of interpretation on the fossil record-a burden which is relieved by placing fossils into pre existing narrative structures." In 1996, American Museum of Natural History Curator Ian Tattersall acknowledged that "in paleoanthropology, the patterns we perceive are as likely to result from our unconscious mindsets as from the evidence itself.”²³

As mentioned in chapter 5, new species typically appear suddenly in the fossil record with massive gaps separating them from their closest theoretical ancestors. The fossils connected with human evolution follow this same pattern. They are either fairly apelike or fairly humanlike, and the transition between the two groups took place suddenly without a clear progression of intermediate forms. “It appears that our own species, in particular, is the product of a remarkable event of quantum [massive changes taking place quickly] speciation."²⁴ This fact is also stated objectively by Stephen Gould: “Moreover, we still have no firm evidence for any progressive change within the hominid species. ²⁵

Given the problems with the fossil record, evolutionists often attempt to bolster their case with evidence from DNA. For instance, they often cite the fact that human and chimpanzee DNA share pseudogenes, which are genes with the same genetic errors. Several committed Christians, such as Francis Collins, claim that this evidence seems very compelling, so they have argued that evolution is compatible with Christianity.²⁶ However, even if God used an evolutionary process in the development of life, that process would still need to have been directed intelligently. For instance, the reprogramming required to create the human brain and the many other distinctly human characteristics would not have been possible in a geologically short time span by any undirected process. Moreover, pseudogenes and similar junk DNA shared by humans and other species have been shown to have actual functions, so common design then provides an equally valid explanation for the similarities.²⁷ Therefore, the cumulative evidence in no way supports the claim that humans gradually evolved from some apelike creature by the blind forces of nature.

THE VIOLENCE IN THE ANIMAL WORLD

The survival-of-the-fittest programming in the animal world is replete with aggression and death. Of all the species that have ever lived, 99.9 percent