Does Man Reflect A Supernatural
Image?
THE TERM instinct is used by scientists to mean an unlearned pattern of animal habit. It does not involve intelligence, nor does it embrace thought or learning or even memory. For example, when the temperature in a beehive rises 3 percent above 94 degrees, the bees position themselves throughout the hive and move their wings in harmony to produce acoustic waves that lower the temperature. Conversely, when the hive is too cold they create heat by metabolizing extra sugar above and beyond their normal diet.1 The bees do not reason this out. All of the needed information resides in their genetic structure.
We marvel at the discipline displayed by ants when we see their armies march in columns with military precision. We're in awe at the engineering skill evidenced in the complicated underground passages and chambers they build. Moreover, who of us isn't impressed with how they grow fungus for food, how they milk aphids for honeydew and enslave other ants to do the numerous tasks needed for their survival? Yet, as astounding as these things may appear, the most amazing thing of all is that the ants do not reason these things out.
Although it may seem that such activities are directed by highly intelligent creatures, what's really true is that the ants are doing exactly what their ancestors did before them with no thought whatever as to why.3 These tiny
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creatures are driven by a genetic program rather than an act of will, and the patterns of behavior defined by their DNA nucleotide sequences create habits that are energized at birth and which continue until they die.
Although the ants may appear to be intelligent, it is more accurate to regard them as tiny, preprogrammed, organic machines that function and communicate in ways not unlike the satellites and space probes we sent to explore distant planets. In ways surprisingly similar to animal life, these space probes "see" radiation and "hear" magnetic fields, store the information in memory banks, and then communicate what they've found to others, namely us. Animals do likewise. They see and hear, remember what they've found and then communicate it to other animals with similar genes.
Insects "see" ultraviolet landing patterns on flower leaves; bats avoid obstacles by detecting sound waves transmitted by their sonar system; bees, birds, and bacteria all have magnetic fields in their navigational repertoire.4 The animals and space probes share something in common. Both operate under instructions from the intelligence that created and programmed them, and neither has a will of its own in the sense of decision-making that parallels human thought.
When our spaceships "see" and "hear" the radiation and magnetic fields in their outer space environment, they store and then manipulate the data under preprogrammed instructions designed to facilitate its transmission to earth. The operation of these interplanetary probes is not unlike that performed by a scout bee that locates food and communicates the information to the other bees in the hive. Like the space probe, the bee functions in alignment with preprogrammed instructions. These genetic instructions exist throughout the animal kingdom and are responsible for the migration patterns of birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, and even invertebrates.5 The control exercised by the genes of particular species is so strong that in some cases the animals die following them. For example, hundreds of whales and dolphins have succumbed on beaches at locations where they followed the magnetic field of certain rocks, mistaking that attraction for the earth's natural magnetic field, which is weaker in those regions.6
These considerations lead us to the startling conclusion that in the absence of human intelligence, all animal communication is the result of a genetic program the animal acquires at birth. This means that in the absence of human intelligence, all animal communication appears to have been preprogrammed.
Universal Rules
As best as can be determined, every species of animal life communicates with members of like kind under instructions contained in the genes it receives at conception. The communication occurs in the form of genetically-preprogrammed signals that are unique to the species, and which involve the transmission of physical energy between two or more of them. This energy will
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be in the form of light,7 sound,8 or chemicals.9 These signals are automatically generated inside the animal, either in response to something in its environment or because a biological change takes place in its body. What's truly astounding is that despite the intricate details and complexity of the various kinds of communication animals employ throughout the world, all of their communication appears to lie in only three areas: mating, aggression, and food.
In the case of mating, chemicals of differing kinds may be involuntarily dispersed that are unique to a particular species. Moths, for example, do this, but it happens automatically and without any conscious act or decision on the part of the moth.10 At the appropriate season and time of year, chemicals are released and the moth has no say-so whatever in the matter. This is true for all insects, as well as animals, birds, and fish. Communication regarding mating is a phenomenon that lies outside the control of the members of the animal kingdom. This is so not only for chemicals, but also for other forms of energy as well.
Crickets for example, employ sound energy to sing a song whose frequencies and pitch are genetically preprogrammed by the central nervous system.11 Likewise, light energy allows the change in colors along each side of the cuttlefish to be communicated to another cuttlefish of opposite gender to lure it for the purpose of mating at the appropriate time. Even deep-swimming fish are equipped with sensitive light detectors.12 The fish has nothing whatever to say about the romance. This lack of say-so as regards mating is a "romantic assent" that is imposed throughout the animal kingdom. It is a universal constraint for which there is no known exception. Succinctly put, if you're an animal, you must do your thing. In fact, were there an exception, given enough time the species would become extinct. However, unlike in the animal kingdom, this rule does not apply to man. When it comes to mating, people are free to say no. In the animal kingdom, once the chemicals are dispersed or the song sung or the light lit, the insect or animal or bird or fish must respond and eventually copulate. They are in bondage to their instincts and for them no alternative course of action is possible. They do what they do because of what they are.
The second form of communication lies in the area of aggression. This too operates under a universal rule. In this case, all animal communication is genetically preprogrammed to produce behavioral changes that create the temporary illusion that the animal is larger than its actual size. Examples include ruffled feathers, extended fins, raised crests, open mouths, and bobbing heads. The charade is effective because the adversary is bound by a similar genetic program that corroborates the imposter's buffoonery. Humans need not be as easily impressed with such antics because humans are free to override their instinct by exercising will.
For instance, when confronted by an ape beating its chest in a jungle, man can decide to stand his ground, aim his gun and shoot it. This is not true for animals. Their genes either compel them to fight in fury or run in
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fear. Moreover, the way they fight or run is likewise genetically prescribed to them. Humans, on the other hand, are free to decide how to fight. In the movies, for example, heroes fight "clean" whereas the bad guys fight "dirty." Animals are denied such choice. As regards behavior they are neither "clean" nor "dirty"; they are animals.
The third area of animal communication concerns food. Here, the universal rule is that the more intense the signal and the longer its duration, the greater is the distance one must travel to find the food. This is true of zebras, of butterflies, and of fish. Ants are bound by this rule as well as elephants. The genetic program dictating the edict is common to each, and it shows no favor. We might expect that this would not be the case had the rule evolved in accord with the modern synthesis. Wouldn't it seem more natural to have differing selection rules for food in an anthill than on an African plain? Why should the environment of birds perched in trees produce the same rules as for fish swimming in the depth of the sea? Clearly, something else is at play here, something that has given animals, fish, and birds alike a universal rule to which they must all adhere, and from which they cannot depart.
So we see that throughout the animal kingdom there is communication,13 but it's all genetically confined to these three areas. These universal laws of communication not only mandate how the transmitted signals are to be interpreted within the animal kingdom, but what categories of dialectical intercourse are permissible. Animals don't discuss great works of art, nor do they decide which musical concert to attend. They don't plan recipes for the week's meals, and they don't argue over which religion is right. Instead, they have one goal in life — to survive. In order to achieve that goal, there are only three things of concern to them: mating, aggression, and food.
Language
We now have a glimpse of the divine imprint that impregnates human life and separates man from every creature within the animal kingdom. Why is it that man lands on the moon while monkeys land on trees? The answer is that man alone has the capacity to distill into his mind the collective experience and knowledge of thousands of years of prior generations, enlarge upon it, and then transmit all of it to a future generation. But how is he able to do this?
The answer is that out of the 11 million species of life on earth, only man has the capacity of the "word," the ability to crystallize coherence out of chaos by creating within the mind ordered composites of mentally synthesized abstract elements which he then translates into various physical forms suitable for communication to other human life. Animals cannot do this. Every animal that's ever been born must survive with the same information that was available to its ancestors, and that will be available to its offspring. All the generations of animals are similar; none carries with it any
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advantage unavailable to its forefathers or its progeny. The reason for this is that an animal's actions are controlled by the instincts it obtains from the genes of its parents. In the absence of human intelligence, all inputs derive from the time period of the birth and life of the animal, and all the information available to the animal is confined to events that occur in the space and time of its physical environment.
This is not so with human beings. A parent can deliver to a child knowledge of events that transpired in the space and time of another age. Whereas animals are in bondage to the time period into which they are born, man is free from such constraint and is able to lift himself up and outside the space and time of his physical existence. Of all God's creatures, man alone has the capacity to receive, supply and transmit information through time. This is significant because it provides a basis for human accountability beyond the space and time of any one generation of human life.
Morality
In the last analysis, all morality is based upon the ability of humankind to receive an absolute code of moral dos and don'ts through time. For example, the Ten Commandments that laid claim on the behavior of human beings living thousands of years ago likewise impose moral bounds on the behavior of people today. This isn't to say that everyone living today acknowledges these commandments as morally binding; but the commandments haven't changed in thousands of years. The Bible's explanation for this state of affairs is that the commandments come from a settled Mind that is absolute in its pronouncements.14 Since truth doesn't change, but circumstances and feelings do, one would think that after three thousand five hundred years a fickle mind would have offered an Eleventh Commandment — or at least improved upon one of the ten. But this hasn't happened. The Ten Commandments stand today as they were originally given, and they illuminate a standard of human behavior that would usher in Utopia itself were we just willing and able to do what they say. (For further discussion of Christian doctrine on this point, see Appendix 8, "Reprogramming Humanity.")
However, there is another kind of moral standard which is not absolute, but relative. It goes under a variety of names, but the one that's perhaps most descriptive is "situational ethics." Among other things, this belief asserts that ethical behavior does not depend upon a code, but a situation. Thus what is moral is relative to the situation in question, so that the same behavior can be morally right in one situation, yet morally wrong in another. The concept of relative versus absolute values is old; people have traditionally found a relative standard attractive because it gives one the freedom to interpret situations in ways that permit self-serving behavior to appear morally right.
But consider what it means to submit oneself to a relative code of dos and don'ts. In doing so, do we not accept as a basis for right and wrong
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only the events that transpire in the space and time to which animals are in bondage? And do we not abandon as a standard for morality the transmission through time of rights and wrongs that transcend the instincts and impulses of any one generation?
Of all God's creatures, only human life can receive and understand moral instructions through time. But if we ignore the demands or refuse to obey, then we are so much as saying that we are the highest authority and that all morality is consigned to culture rather than creation. In this case man is accountable to no one but himself. Thus the distinction between what's moral and what's honorable disappears, and behavior that's civil is soon accepted as moral. The restraint on man's self-serving nature disappears, and changing laws liberalize existing mores into license for free expression of human desire. Morality as a restraint imposed by accountability to a higher Authority is thus redefined, in effect, to permit free expression of the flesh.
The conclusion, then, is that true morality is based upon the transmission through time of an absolute moral code of rights and wrongs that transcend the instincts and impulses of any one generation. Were it otherwise, morality would cease to be a constraint external to man's self-serving nature. Nor is morality the social expression of man's collective desire. Moral law isn't social law. Morality imposes restraints on human passions and appetites whereas society displays indifference to all indulgences that do not endanger its members.
Uniqueness
Of all God's creatures, man alone is a moral being. But when we abandon absolute morality in favor of rights and wrongs relative to the time frame of our generation, we foolishly elect, as a basis for determining what is right and wrong, the circumstances and environment to which animals are in bondage. This means that we are voluntarily constraining ourselves to instincts and impulses whose central thrust is instant gratification. Moreover, to abrogate an absolute code of dos and don'ts that has instructed thousands of years of human life is to elect as moral a set of standards relative to the time period in which we live. In this regard, how do the basic environmental inputs that guide human life differ from those that guide animals? Does not human uniqueness come from man's capacity to lift himself outside the time constraint into which he's been born?
Unlike animals, we are able to free ourselves from the limited experience and knowledge of only one lifetime by receiving and acting upon time-tested information. The moral basis for human behavior is a set of instructions whose intrinsic wisdom transcends the instincts and impulses of any one generation. To this end, the Ten Commandments constitute an absolute code of moral precepts that embraces the essence of man's stature as a moral being. But whenever man succumbs to the impulse of a particular lifetime and abandons this absolute morality in favor of a contemporary ethic, he lowers himself
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into the animal kingdom. This will happen whenever the impulse of man's lust dominates the sanity of his mind. Here he will vent the bias in his heart toward a moral code that allows him to do what he wants to do because it satisfies his fleshly appetites — cravings not unlike the animal world.
We noted earlier in this chapter that all animal communication lies in three areas — mating, aggression, and food — needs common to both animal and human flesh. However, human aggression presupposes personal rights that, when violated, lead to anger. In the animal world these rights are confined to one's mate, territory, and food. But human flesh is predisposed toward lust, pride, and greed, which respectively distort his perceived rights into cravings for sex, dominance, and wealth. Lust pants for the body, pride finds reason to scorn, and greed envies another's good fortune. These encourage aggression, not because legitimate rights have been violated, but because selfish goals have nurtured indifference to the rights of others. This aggression is unique to man because it's rooted in human desire instead of need. And it is seductive because it stems from a pliant ethic that responds to self-serving beliefs. History bears witness to uninterrupted evil on earth because each generation disregards the timeless moral code that would bridle its desires.
In God's Image
Thus, it is the capacity of human life to receive, supply and transmit the "word," as recorded through the generations, that separates us from all other known life forms and gives us dominion over the planet earth. It's fascinating that the divine imprint of this ability was foreshadowed thousands of years ago in the opening chapter of the Bible. Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, declares that man is made in the image of God; verse 1 of the first chapter of John's Gospel states that the Word was God and became incarnate in the person of Christ. Thus we find man's unique image, namely, the "word," identified by the Bible with the Creator. Furthermore, the same Bible verse that says man is made in God's image also teaches that man will have dominion over planet earth. What unique distinction gives man his commanding position over all other life forms? Is it not his capacity to transmit information through time and receive the distillation of thousands of years of prior knowledge into the present?
This means that the very attribute identified by John's Gospel with God, namely the Word, is found to be possessed by man as the very attribute separating human life from the animal kingdom.
Eternity
Thus man's regal distinction, the unique human quality that positions us in absolute disunion from all other known forms of life, is a divine imprint, a consecration, as it were, with eternity in view by virtue of an absolute code of moral rules that self-evince Authority over human behavior under
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the penalty of eternal judgment. Such hope is inaccessible to animals. It is available only to a life form capable of receiving and transmitting absolute truth through generations of its existence. We are this life form. (Readers interested in the origin of these rules as well as the Person who fulfilled them will find Appendix 9, "The Moral Code," of value.)
So whereas man can refuse moral precepts, animals are denied the choice. They live and die under instincts that are genetically propagated through reproduction, and that regulate their survival while on earth. Human beings do not wear a genetic strait jacket; therefore instincts do not bind human choice. The freedom of human life to accept or reject moral commands that propagate through time identifies that life as moral, and certifies man as a moral agent who is accountable for his actions.
Chapter Nineteen || Table of Contents
1. The bees also regulate swarm mantle and core temperatures by adjusting the percentage of swarm space they occupy, thereby controlling convective heat loss from the swarm interior, and the porosity and swarm surface area associated with passive loss from the exterior.2
2. Heinrich B. Science (1981) 2121:565 May 1.
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14. Psalm 119:89 and John 17:17.
