Why you should become a Bible-believing anarchist
who also believes the universe was created around 4004 B.C.
ChatGPT summarizes the political side of evolutionary philosophy:
Appendix: From Cosmic Purposelessness to Humanistic Sovereignty
Introduction
Darwinism did not rise in a vacuum. The appeal of evolutionary cosmology lay not simply in fossils or biology, but in its power to justify a cultural and political shift: away from Theonomy and covenantal order, toward human autonomy and sovereignty. As Aldous Huxley candidly admitted, the attraction of a purposeless world was not purely scientific — it freed him and his circle from moral obligation. Historian Gary North called this transition “From Cosmic Purposelessness to Humanistic Sovereignty.” Many of the proto-evolutionists and philosophers leading up to Darwin were not merely naturalists, but political theorists seeking liberation from biblical law.
This appendix highlights key figures and their cultural-political programs, showing how “science is downstream from culture” — and also downstream from politics.
Hobbes (1588-1679)
In Leviathan, Hobbes grounded political order in an artificial social contract enforced by an absolute sovereign. He dismissed higher law in favor of State authority. Revelation was subordinated to civil power. Hobbes’s move displaced Theonomy with man-made sovereignty, an early form of humanistic rule.
Spinoza (1632-1677)
In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza demystified Scripture, treating it as moral instruction and historical artifact. Philosophy and politics, he insisted, must be free from biblical revelation. Spinoza’s rationalist republic was the seedbed of secular politics emancipated from the Bible.
Locke (1632-1704)
Locke’s Two Treatises of Government shifted legitimacy from divine covenant to natural rights and social contract. While Locke still invoked a Creator, his framework relocated political authority from revelation to reason. This dual legacy would be read both as support for liberty and as a model for politics without biblical law.
Hume (1711-1776)
Hume’s essays on commerce and politics promoted a vision of civil society grounded in sentiment and convention rather than revelation. His skepticism undercut natural theology and placed morality in the flux of human preference — a platform for politics without binding divine law.
Diderot (1713-1784) and d’Holbach (1723-1789)
The Encyclopédie and System of Nature became secular “bibles” of the Enlightenment. They offered a vision of knowledge and society in which revelation was dethroned and philosophers guided the masses. This was not neutral science but an explicit cultural project of emancipation from biblical authority.
Lessing (1729-1781) and Herder (1744-1803)
Lessing’s Education of the Human Race relativized revelation, treating doctrines as temporary stages of human progress. Herder grounded cultural destiny in language and Volk rather than covenant. Both replaced fixed revelation with immanent cultural development, a precursor to historicism in politics.
Malthus (1766-1834)
Malthus’s Essay on Population reframed social ethics in terms of population pressures. Charity was reconceived, not as biblical duty, but as policy subject to demographic calculus. Here the seeds of modern biopolitics were sown, as human administrators assumed authority over life and death.
Kant (1724-1804)
In Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone and Perpetual Peace, Kant relocated religion to the private sphere and grounded public life in autonomous reason. Scripture was reduced to symbolic ethics. The political result was a republic governed by rational autonomy, not divine law.
Hegel (1770-1831)
For Hegel, the State was the “march of God in the world,” the realization of Spirit in history. Biblical revelation was absorbed and dissolved into the dialectical process. Politics thus became divine in itself: the State as the new sovereign, displacing covenantal authority.
Feuerbach (1804-1872)
Feuerbach’s projection theory made religion a human construct, eliminating divine law as a foundation for public order. Politics could now be constructed on human desire alone, a radical emancipation from revelation.
Marx (1818-1883) and Engels (1820-1895)
Building on Feuerbach and Darwin, Marx and Engels argued for “scientific socialism”: abolition of private property, central planning, and revolutionary sovereignty. Here biblical economics and covenant were replaced by State sovereignty justified by materialist “science.”
Spencer (1820-1903)
Herbert Spencer applied evolution to society in Social Statics and Principles of Sociology. Though he defended laissez-faire economics, he did so by appealing to nature’s progress, not biblical law. “Survival of the fittest” became a secular justification for market order divorced from covenantal justice.
Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Nietzsche declared the “death of God” and exalted the “will to power.” This radical autonomy rejected every trace of biblical authority. Politics became self-creation, morality a tool for the strong to dominate the weak. In Nietzsche, we see Athens fully enthroned over Jerusalem.
Lyell (1797-1875)
Though a geologist, Lyell privately admitted his cultural aim: to “free the science from Moses.” His uniformitarianism was not neutral; it was a deliberate project to expel Scripture from the public sphere and establish naturalism as the foundation of cultural authority.
Darwin (1809-1882)
Darwin’s Descent of Man extended evolutionary theory into human society, suggesting natural hierarchies and fitness as regulators of morals. Though not a policy writer, Darwin provided the creation story that justified secular politics and paved the way for the administrative state.
Comparison: Two Civilizational Options
Feature Newtonian / Biblical Vision Autonomy / Evolutionary Vision Source of Law Divine revelation, covenant, providence Human sovereignty, contract, State, or nature-as-law Chronology Anchored in Genesis (~4000 BC) Deep time, endless cycles, or progressive development Order of Nature Providentially upheld, contingent on God’s will Autonomous mechanism, uniformitarian necessity Political Authority Limited by God’s law; covenantal accountability Expansive, man-made sovereignty (Leviathan, State, Party) Economics Free market under biblical morality Managed markets or planned economies (Malthus, Marx) Culture Jerusalem: order, covenant, family, worship Athens reborn: autonomy, power, immanent progress
Conclusion
From Hobbes to Darwin, the pattern is unmistakable: so-called scientific advances were inseparable from political projects. Each thinker found ways to replace biblical covenant and law with human sovereignty — whether in the form of Leviathan, the Enlightenment republic, the Hegelian State, or Marxist revolution. Darwin supplied the “scientific” cosmology to underwrite it all. This trajectory fulfilled exactly what Aldous Huxley admitted: a desire for a world without meaning, so that man might enthrone himself as lawgiver and king. In contrast, Newton’s vision remained covenantal and providential, seeing laws as descriptions of God’s faithfulness, not autonomous powers. The choice between Jerusalem and Athens reborn remains the fork in the road for modern civilization.