22 Chapter 2: Integrating Biblical Truth into the Teaching of Sociology Robert G. Parr In His response to a lawyer’s question about which commandment is the greatest commandment in the Law, Jesus answered that the greatest and foremost commandment is that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). A proper understanding of God as revealed in the Bible and how human beings may rightly relate to Him serves as the lens through which Sociology is viewed at Cedarville University. Whether one is an atheist, an evolutionist, or a believer in Jesus Christ, each one will sift knowledge through a mental grid or worldview which gives meaning and significance to life. All human minds begin thinking and knowing with presuppositions, assumptions, or starting points that are taken for granted. These assumptions cannot be proven but they are accepted by faith. This so-called circular reasoning is the only way humans can think. There are no neutral, valuefree, objective ways for humans to begin their approach to knowledge. The atheist “proves” the nonexistence of God by beginning with the problems of pain and suffering. The presupposition is that a good and all-powerful God would not permit the pain and suffering we see in the world. Therefore, God is either (1) all-powerful but He does not care, (2) good but impotent to do anything about pain and suffering, or (3) God does not exist. The atheist concludes that the nonexistence of God makes the most sense, more so than the other two options. The evolutionist “proves” the fictitious nature of the first 11 chapters of the Genesis account by beginning with the presupposition of the uniformity of nature. This fundamental “unprovable” starting point assumes that the laws of nature have always operated as they function now in the physical world. If a star is located millions of miles from the earth, then that star must have existed in that location long enough for light to travel that distance under current conditions. At Cedarville, we begin with the fully completed, created universe of the first two chapters of Genesis, a universe that God made with the
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