Confronting the Dehumanizing Impact of Modern Thought

This webinar with Richard Weikart was presented on 18 September 2018. Many secular thinkers argue that human life has no objective value or moral significance, because it is the product of accidental processes without plan or purpose. This has led many intellectuals to devalue human life. Darwinian thinking has promoted biological determinism, the notion that human behavior is merely the product of our heredity, while Marxism is a movement (among others) that advanced environmental determinism, the idea that humans are just inputs from their environment. Some secular thinkers, following Nietzsche’s lead, reject determinism, but still have no basis for valuing all humans. However, while devaluing human life, secular thinkers are often inconsistent, because in various ways they show that they do indeed value human life. Christians can take advantage of this to show that our understanding of the value of human life points to the existence of God.