Western civilization is under attack in France. Knowing that we could learn at any minute that the Louvre, among other spirtual monuments, is on fire, it feels a little bit surreal to be thinking about intelligent design, or about cheesecake.
But after a moment’s reflection, I think you’ll agree it’s more than appropriate.
“Different aspects of creation speak to individuals differently,” says computer scientist George Montañez in a new video. “For some, the heavens declare the glory of God’s handiwork. For others, it’s a piece of cheesecake.”
From the Chemical Elements on Up
He goes on to have a strikingly serene conversation with molecular biologist Douglas Axe and software engineer Onsi Fakhouri about the beauty of biology as it points to purpose and design in life, and about the wonder of nature that leads all the way from the chemical elements up to our being able to enjoy something innocent and delicious like a piece of cheesecake. Says Dr. Fakhouri,
Here we are and you can take all of these different ingredients and somehow put together this supremum of dessert and then enjoy it. To me, it’s as if you can construct an entire almost like a theory of, “What did it take to get to the point where I can enjoy, really relish this delicious dessert?” … We live in a world that isn’t about bare minimal survival. We live in a world that is open to creativity, to beauty, to these qualia that are just glorious, right? Just beautiful.
It’s a profound point, offered so sweetly and gently that in the context of the day’s news, it almost makes you want to cry. Axe adds that, “God is not only the supreme engineer, but also the supreme artist. I want people to see, no one [that is, no human] has engineered things like this, but if you think he’s not an artist…”
Says Fakhouri, the author of the design is “the great artist-scientist, the great poet-engineer.” They agree that “the things we love as humans,” we do so because God loves them, loves beauty and all the other good things.
Hatred for Beauty
Except that not all humans love beauty. Some despise it, which is why they deface and burn it where they find it. That’s what happening in France, as the mixed multitude of criminals and anarchists (the preferred euphemism is “students”) sweep through the streets, with no agenda other than to destroy and to humiliate whoever created the beauty around them.
As Rod Dreher writes, aptly citing the poet Eliot, “You can’t fight something with nothing. De-Christianized Europe has nothing. To paraphrase T. S. Eliot on the eve of World War II, for Europe’s current moment: ‘If you will not have God, and he is a jealous God, then you should prepare to pay your respects to Allah and Lenin.’”
The “Spiritual Depravity of Communism”
That indeed captures the present moment. Our political scientist colleague John West talks, also very aptly, with Eric Metaxas. The subject here is the aftermath of the Soviet conquest of Poland, and the “spiritual depravity of Communism”:
The Nazis were bent on mass murder, but the Leninists “wanted your soul.” Says Dr. West, “Students need to know this. They don’t understand that these bad ideas have bad consequences. And it’s like playing with fire.”
That’s no mere figure of speech. In France, it’s not only like that. It’s exactly that, as the people who should be the defenders of Western civilization — under the sway of the usual bad ideas, seeking to “fight something with nothing” — step aside and let the barbarians set everything aflame.
It’s not just a museum that could burn. It’s the vision of the West, with its roots in our thinking about the world’s cosmic design.