As John Passmore has written, Kierkegaard ‘was happy to let science deal with plants and animals and stars’; but, Kierkegaard wrote, ‘ to handle the spirit of man in such a fashion is blasphemy.’
-Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man, p. 31
One of my primary problems with the evolutionary psychology I am studying is its treatment of man as though he is essentially no different than an animal. This is why evolutionary psychologists like Skinner could perform experiments on rats and apply the results to humans. One helpful point, reiterated over and over again, in The Restitution of Man, is that men like Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and others were fighting this battle long before my time. They saw the issues involved. We are now seeing the results that they anticipated.
Paradoxes abound. In evolutionary psychology, man debases himself by thinking himself no different from an animal, with the end result that he exalts himself, as in Nazi Germany, to keep his place atop of the food chain. By contrast, the Bible exalts man as particularly made in the image of God so that he can accept his creatureliness in humility. In evolutionary thought man starts low but makes himself high. In Christianity man starts high in order that he might be humble.
Great artticle, Heath!
Thank you Lucy. And thanks for dropping by the blog.