Angilbert (fl. ca. 840/50), On the Battle Which was Fought at Fontenoy

The Law of Christians is broken,
Blood by the hands of hell profusely shed like rain,
And the throat of Cerberus bellows songs of joy.

Angelbertus, Versus de Bella que fuit acta Fontaneto

Fracta est lex christianorum
Sanguinis proluvio, unde manus inferorum,
gaudet gula Cerberi.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

DeTestimonio Quatuor Testibus: Consilium Divino

LIFE, INCLUDING HUMAN LIFE, it would seem, has to be one of two things: either it is a product of design, or not a product of design. There either is, or there is not, a Mind behind creation. And this Mind designed man, including his Deep Conscience. Man and the Deep Conscience is either "the result of a meaningless and purposeless process that did not have us in mind," the truth championed by Darwin, or it is the result of a meaningful and purposeful process that had us it mind. Budziszewski (2003), 83 (quoting Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution).

The Darwinian mechanism of natural selection no longer appears plausible as an explanation of reality. The incremental, marginal improvements required by Darwinian theory seem implausible in light of our modern understanding of the complex nature of life. The time demanded to make the uncountable chance modifications even reach the possibility of probability is immense. We may not have the billions upon billions of years of evolutionary process which is required to make the "'impossible' become[] possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain." Budziszewski (2003) (quoting George Wald "The Origin of Life") But even if Darwinian evolution adequately explained the nature of things, it would not explain life. And even if it explained life, it would not explain from where the components of life came. And even if it explained where the components of life came, it would not explain why those components existed, and not some other, and why those components came together to yield life. Life, and the underlying mix, seems, in the words of Fred Hoyle, a "put-up job," something "monkeyed with" by a "superintellect," quod Deus dicitur. The faith of the materialist is predicated upon irrational presuppositions. No, the faith of the materialist seems contrived.



We recognize immediately that nature requires an explanation beyond itself, that the things in nature are designed, that design requires personal agency. In short, we recognize immediately that we are created by the one true God.

Budziszewski (2003), 84.

Not only does the external design of things acclaim the existence of God, but there is an internal witness in man that fits with the conclusions of the external data. "He has also set eternity in their heart," Ecclesiastes tells us (3:11). There is in man a sensus divinitatis, an internus aeternus, a desire for the Other which is manifested in man and expresses itself in a panoply of religions which are nothing other than efforts to assuage this yearning or provide some outlet for it. A Darwinian materialist has one heck of a time justifying the existence of the nearly universal impulse in man. Why would a thirst of God, something without temporal "survival value," have been designed in man by an impersonal happenstance? "The best explanation for the sensus divinitatis," for an unbiased mind, would seem unquestionably to be "that we were designed by the Divinity to have it." Budziszewski (2003), 85.

The internal urge for God together with the external order of the cosmos bear witness to God's existence and his being the cause of the physical and moral orders, of truth and of right, of what is, and what is good. The witness of design is compelling: "For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable." (Rom. 1:20)

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