Christianity Supplies Sound Basis for Society, Don Asserts

Friday, May. 29, 2009 Posted: 3:16:09AM HKT

In an ongoing debate over the role of religion in public discourse, university professor Thio Li-ann has suggested that the Christian faith offers a better way of organising society than secular humanism.

The Nominated Member of Parliament was highlighting the individual and collective importance of an accurate worldview in her new book, Mind the Gap: Contending for Righteousness in an Age of Lawlessness, offering a Christian response to militant secularism.

Science is at a loss to tell people how they should live, think and make decisions. Pragmatism, on the other hand, is not “entirely satisfactory” in view of the fundamental human need for more than simply pragmatism, the National University of Singapore law professor argued.

Nor is humanism the answer, though it promises to champion individual dignity. The NUS don, who earned three law degrees including a doctorate from three top colleges in the U.K. and the U.S., had only to cite the instances of communism and capitalism with their “dehumanising proclivities” to make her point.

Christianity, on the other hand, works differently, according to the professor.

“Christianity, which espouses the principle that all persons are of intrinsic worth, supplies a firm basis for protecting individual dignity,” said Dr Thio. “A human being is valued because the Creator of the Universe accords value to humanity.”

Moreover, the academic did not fail to show that the Christian and humanist worldviews are both not provable empirically, in spite of the latter’s claims to rationality.

“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith,” she wrote, quoting GK Chesterton. “Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

"If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic?...’ The young sceptic says, ‘I have a right to think for myself.’ But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, ‘I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.’”

In the rest of the illuminating chapter on The Contemporary Face of Lawlessness, Dr Thio analysed the two worldviews, juxtaposing their tenets as follow:

The Christian worldview as compared with the humanist worldview

Belief in uncreated Creator God as compared with the belief that the Universe is self-existing and in naturalism

Belief that God is Personal and concerned with the lives of men and women and that He has revealed Himself through His prophets, the Bible and the life of Christ on earth as compared with the belief that there is no God(s), that man is master of his own fate and that religion is a superstition that modern man has outgrown

Belief that the end of life is to know God and its purpose is to found in submission to His will as compared with the belief that the end of life is for human beings to maximise their potential and self-development

Belief that knowledge is obtained through reason and Revelation as compared with the belief that knowledge is obtained through reason and 'science'

Belief that God is the source of moral absolutes which are to guide man and society as compared with the belief that morality is relative and changes to meet the needs and desire of man

Belief that salvation is in the atoning work of Christ alone and the transformative work of the Holy Spirit as compared with the belief that 'salvation' is to be found in human intelligence and will, and in a benevolent ethic of mutual co-operation and that human progress is rooted in the achievements of science and the curative effects of education

Dr Thio's book is a new publication of Armour Publishing.

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com