Is the Origin of Life a Scientific Question? | Answers in Genesis

Is the Origin of Life a Scientific Question? | Answers in Genesis

Is the Origin of Life a Scientific Question?

by Dr. Danny R. Faulkner on May 20, 2016

The Origin of Life: What Are the Possibilities?

The origin of life has been debated for a long time. Basically, there are four possible explanations for the existence of life on earth:

1. Life on earth arose spontaneously.
2. Life on earth has always existed.
3. Life on earth came about through a supernatural act of creation by an intelligent Being.
4. Life was seeded from space.

The Application of Science to the Question

Science is supposed to be about things that are observable. That is, science can probe only things that we can detect with our five senses. Science also must be repeatable. This means that when an experiment or observation is repeated, we get the same results. These restrictions on science have led to what we call the scientific method, the general rules that we follow in doing science. The scientific investigation of the origin of life presents us with at least two problems. First, since life began before people were around, we hardly can observe the process. Second, since the origin of life appears to have been a unique event, we hardly can repeat it.

How do these four possibilities stack up? The fourth possibility doesn’t really explain how life came about, but instead passes the question off to some other location. Many would object that the third option is unscientific and hence ought not to be considered. If we restrict the definition of “scientific” to questions that can be answered through the application of the scientific method to natural processes, then option three may be considered unscientific. However, what is the status of the other two options? Option one is the assertion of abiogenesis, the belief that life must have arisen from non-living things through a natural process. However, abiogenesis has never been observed. To the contrary, it has been shown numerous times that biogenesis is true, that only living things give rise to living things. That is, abiogenesis has been scientifically disproved. To persist in belief in abiogenesis, one must believe in something that clearly is unscientific.

What about option two? Life can be eternally existent only if the earth and the universe are eternal. However, the overwhelming scientific consensus today is that the universe is not eternal but instead had its origin a finite time ago. This conclusion most often is reached by appeal to a big bang origin for the universe. In fact, the vast majority of scientists today would opine that the big bang is a scientific fact However, not all scientists agree with the big bang model, but one may scientifically conclude a finite age of the universe by other means. For example, the second law of thermodynamics requires that the universe will eventually suffer a “heat death,” where no usable energy remains. This clearly is not the case presently, so the universe cannot be eternal.

Hence, to accept either option one or option two requires violating basic conclusions of science. Since neither option one nor option two is scientific and option four does not answer the question of the ultimate origin of life, only extreme bias against any possibility of the supernatural origin of life would lead one to reject the third possibility. The fact that none of the four options are scientific underscores the fact that the origin of life is not a scientific question.

THE FACT THAT NONE OF THE FOUR OPTIONS ARE SCIENTIFIC UNDERSCORES THE FACT THAT THE ORIGIN OF LIFE IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION.

Attempts to Answer the Question

Perhaps the best solution to this dilemma is to conclude that life does not exist. Some may insist that is a silly response. It is, but it is no sillier than some other suggested responses. For instance, some people may say, “Well, we’re here, so option one must have happened.” As reasonable as that may seem to the person saying it, it hardly proves that life arose spontaneously. One could just as easily say, “Well, we’re here, so option three must have happened.” A person who believes in the eternality of the universe could just as easily assert that option two must be true, because we are here. This approach commits the informal fallacy of begging the question (i.e., assuming what you are trying to prove while making an argument).

A better approach might be to assert that the only reason why we have not observed abiogenesis is that it so rarely happens. That is a logical possibility, but it has no empirical evidence to support it. Belief in abiogenesis is the reason why so much attention is given to the search for evidence for life elsewhere in the universe. This search takes many forms, such as programs leading to the discovery of extrasolar planets, planets orbiting other stars. So far, we have found about 2,000 other planets, but none are clearly earth-like, that is, suitable for life. Another manifestation for the search for life elsewhere is the seemingly never-ending missions to Mars. Each mission to Mars reveals no evidence for life on Mars (and frequently shows just the opposite to be the case), which is followed by the next mission that appears to be based upon the premise that we just haven’t looked in the right parts of Mars yet. Then there is SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. SETI operates by listening for radio broadcasts from planets orbiting other stars. The first SETI program was in 1960. Today SETI operates almost continuously, and it has generated a tremendous amount of data. What has been the result of all of this data? We have found no evidence of any alien transmissions.

There are other avenues that the search for life elsewhere has pursued. Suffice it to say that none have produced any encouraging evidence for life elsewhere. Therefore, as far as science has been able to demonstrate thus far, life does not exist anywhere else. One may object that all the data are not in. That is true, but when are all the data ever in for any question in science? By this reasoning, we can never reach a conclusion in science, because some future data might contradict the conclusion that the current data leads to. In science, we work with the data that we have in hand. Sometimes further data overturns an earlier conclusion. That is the nature of science—it changes. However, that never can be the justification for reaching the opposite conclusion suggested by the data that we now have. Only bias in favor of abiogenesis causes abiogenesis to persist as a real possibility in the minds of many scientists.

THE PROSPECT THAT LIFE IS UNIQUE TO THE EARTH IS UNSETTLING TO MANY SCIENTISTS.

The prospect that life is unique to the earth is unsettling to many scientists. That would leave the door wide open to the possibility that the earth has special status. In turn, that has theistic implications. But what if the best data, the best science, lead to that conclusion that there might be a Creator? Only extreme atheistic bias would preclude God’s existence. It is no wonder that some scientists have concluded that their science tells them that there is no God—that was the assumption that they started with. Once again, we encounter the informal fallacy of begging the question.

The lack of the existence of life elsewhere, along with recognition of the extreme complexity of even simple life, and the fact that matter does not spontaneously order itself into complex machinery such as required by life has led some to posit the eternal universe. They reason that the probability of life arising spontaneously from non-life is vanishingly small, so small that life could not arise in a universe even billions of years old. However, they believe that if the universe is eternal, then even an event extremely improbable as the origin of life eventually will happen. In a universe with a finite age, it is inconceivable that life could arise, but in an eternal universe, it is inevitable that life will arise at least once somewhere. Many people who believe in option four, that life originated elsewhere and was seeded on the earth, believe in an eternal universe. However, as previously stated, there are good reasons to believe that the universe is not eternal, not to mention God’s revelation that He created the universe.

The Multiverse

Enter the multiverse. The multiverse is the idea that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, collectively referred to as the multiverse. The proposal is that existing universes give rise to new universes all the time. Each universe in the multiverse has a finite age, but collectively, the multiverse may have always existed. In this sense, the multiverse is a return to an eternal entity. The multiverse has been invoked to explain a number of physical and cosmological difficulties. Just one of these problems is the origin of life. If the origin of life is so improbable as not to have occurred in a single universe of finite age, then increase the odds by positing an infinite number of universes, even though each universe has a finite age. The reasoning is that this still amounts to an infinite number of chances, which means that in at least one universe life will arise. It is not happenstance that we are in that universe, because we would not be here to contemplate this question if we were not.

To most people, the multiverse idea seems desperate and just a wee bit crazy. But this idea has gained tremendous traction among cosmologists, astronomers, and physicists. They even talk of some sort of observational tests for the multiverse. They claim that early in the existence of our universe, other universes might have left an imprint. However, if another universe really could breach the barrier between universes, wouldn’t that universe then be a part of our universe? Otherwise, that situation would seem to contradict the very definition of universe, the totality of physical existence. Ultimately, the existence of other universes, if they really are other universes, lies beyond the realm of science, because they are not part of physical existence, at least the physical existence that we will ever be able to probe.

IF SCIENCE CANNOT TELL US THE ORIGIN OF LIFE, THEN IF WE WISH TO LEARN ABOUT LIFE’S ORIGIN, WE MUST LOOK ELSEWHERE.

Conclusion

Let us return to the question of the origin of life. Every attempt to explain life contradicts science. But don’t feel bad about that, because science is a very limited practice. There are many things, such as the answers to moral questions that we cannot learn from science. Clearly, a Creator is a logical possibility (yes, this is a possibility, scientifically). If science cannot tell us the origin of life, then if we wish to learn about life’s origin, we must look elsewhere. The first few chapters of Genesis are an account of the origin of life and everything else in our universe. We know that the Bible is inspired by God and hence is authoritative and reliable. The few other possibilities briefly discussed here contrast with the simplicity of the creation hypothesis. This illustrates the futility of man’s thinking that the Apostle Paul wrote about (Romans 1:21; Ephesians 4:17–18).

What Is the Scriptural Understanding of Death? | Answers in Genesis

What Is the Scriptural Understanding of Death? | Answers in Genesis

What Is the Scriptural Understanding of Death?

Creation and the Cross

by Prof. Andy McIntosh on May 23, 2016

Increasingly, the view that God could have used evolution is permeating our evangelical churches. Dr. Terry Mortenson and Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson, two of our speakers at AiG, recently visited the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta, Georgia. Papers were discussed this year that 15 years ago one would never have thought of being seriously put forward. Some papers are still being called evangelical even though they express doubt that Adam ever existed. This is serious indeed. Even the great John Stott stumbled in not recognizing the seriousness of espousing the view that God somehow used a gradual development of ape-like creatures and that one of these creatures was breathed into and became Homo divinus.1 In his day, Spurgeon spoke of a Down-Grade Controversy, which is what we have today concerning the authority of the Bible, particularly in Genesis.

So why is Genesis theologically important? Genesis is important because it teaches that death came as a result of the Fall and was not present beforehand. In the ensuing sections we will see that death has a two-fold aspect and involves separation.

Man Died Spiritually and Physically as a Result of the Fall

The Fall and the Effect of the Curse on Creation

When sin came into the world, man died not just spiritually but also physically. He was not dying before.

The origin of all death is certainly spiritual and is taught in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” and Hebrews 2:14, “That through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”

Adam was told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil— Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Literally this means, “dying, thou shalt die.” It is the view of the author that Genesis 2:17 could suggest two deaths (because this is explicit later in Revelation 20), but it is fully recognized that the repetition of Hebrew words is often used to add emphasis. Was physical death included? Yes, because after the fall, in Genesis 3:19, God states, “For dust you are, And to dust you shall return”

As we read the terrible events of Genesis 3, we see what death is: separation. First there is spiritual death, as Adam and Eve know they are separated from fellowship with God, whereas before sin, they enjoyed perfect fellowship with Him (some believe Genesis 3:8 hints that God had walked with Adam beforehand). The Lord knew where Adam was, but the question He asked him in verse 9—“Where are you?”—can also be applied to us. We see this developed inRomans 5:18: “Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation.” God calls to the whole of the human race, “Where are you?” So Adam was already experiencing spiritual separation as he tried to hide with Eve from the presence of God and as he tried to clothe himself with leaves, which would wither. God then pronounces that Adam would die physically when He says, “To dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). And some nine hundred or so years later, Adam dies physically (we do not know how long it was between the Creation of Adam and the Fall).

This matter of spiritually being separated from God in the immediate consequence of the Fall is an important point when dealing with the argument of theistic evolutionists who maintain that Adam did not immediately physically die when he ate of the fruit. They are right of course that Adam did not immediately die physically, but he didimmediately die spiritually. Those who believe in theistic evolution then go on to teach incorrectly that, therefore, it was only spiritual death that came as a result of the Fall. To resist this error, we need to understand that in Genesis 2:17God was speaking not only of the immediate effect of separation from Him as a consequence of eating the fruit, but also of the physical death that would follow. In order to withstand the false teaching of theistic evolutionists who make the false assertion that spiritual death was the only consequence of the Fall, we must scripturally understand what death really is. And it is this that we look at in the following three sections.

The Fall and the Effect on the Covering of Adam and Eve

The pathetic covering of leaves is replaced by animal skins, which the Lord provides: “The Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). So God killed an animal (possibly two)—perhaps from the goat/sheep kind. The first record of death is that performed by the Lord Himself. The Cross of Christ, and redemption to come, is already casting its shadow across Eden.

Notice also that the curse for sin does not come upon Adam and Eve but on the ground. God states in Genesis 3:17, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” Here we see God’s love for man in not immediately banishing him to everlasting death (separation from God for eternity in hell). God sets the example of bringing a blood sacrifice, which, years later, may have been at the heart of the difference between God’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice and not of Cain’s in Genesis 4.

God also curses the serpent, but the curse does not come on Adam at this juncture.

The Fall and the Two Deaths Which Come on Humanity

The theological significance of two deaths (spiritual and physical) is borne out at the end of the Bible whereRevelation 20:14–15 specifically states, “Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” The second death is referred to inRevelation 20:6, which states, “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power” (see also Revelation 2:11). It is evident that those who believe in Christ will not experience the awfulness of being separated from God forever, but those who rebel against God will receive the final, irreversible punishment (Revelation 21:8)—the second death. As we shall see in the next section, the reason for this is that Christ took the awfulness of the second death on the Cross as He experienced the wrath of the Father against sin (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Having established that the Scripture speaks of two deaths at the end of the Bible, it is clear that the first death is what we all experience as we leave this world—separation of body from spirit. This came as a result of the sin in the Garden of Eden.

Paul shows that this is the case in Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Physical death was not known before the spiritual disaster that took place in Eden. And Paul again summarizes the contrast with Christ who brings life in 1 Corinthians 15:21–22: “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” There is no doubt that 1 Corinthians 15 is concerned with physical death and physical resurrection, so the clarity of this chapter and Romans 5 leaves no doubt that physical death followed the Fall of Adam.

Christ’s Death on the Cross Pays the Full Penalty for Sin

Having established that the punishment for sin involves the double penalty of separation of man from God and separation of spirit from body, let us now go to the Cross to see how these two deaths work through the amazing redemption purchased by Christ for us. Christ took the full punishment for sin in His own body. Christ was on the Cross for a total of six hours—He goes on the Cross at the third hour (Mark 15:25), and darkness comes upon the land from the sixth hour until the ninth hour (Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44). Most authors regard the first three utterances recorded in Scripture as being in the first three hours while Christ was on the Cross (see the Figure 1).2Now at the ninth hour (Mark 15:34), Christ utters the last four sayings one after the other. The intensity of the fourth saying is very powerful as He cries out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” He quotes Psalm 22:1and addresses God in a way different from the customary “Father.” He now is distant and separated from God the Father, and the second death comes upon Christ as He experiences God’s wrath against sin—what would be an eternity in hell for ordinary men. Never is His Sonship in doubt; yet it seems that, in a way we cannot fathom, He experienced separation from His Father. Perhaps the deepest statements in terms of the theology of the Cross are in these two verses:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

He Himself is the propitiation [appeaser of wrath] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

Then He says, “I thirst” and cries out one word in Greek, Tetelestai, which is a legal word meaning “Complete”/“Done” (the obligation is fulfilled or brought to an end). The payment had been made. So why did Jesus not get off the Cross at this point if, in fact, the only payment for sin was spiritual death?

Those who believe in theistic evolution and that God made Adam from a pre-existing brute have a real issue here in broken theology. They have no reason for Christ to go through the physical death which now follows, and it is important to grasp that physical death does now follows as Christ states, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). In John 19:30 we read, “And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit” (Greek: “He delivered His spirit”). The tense is active and not passive, so it is important to observe that Christ actively controlled His own physical death. As He stated in John 10:17–18, “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” The giver of life at creation is now the one who controls both His own death and His own Resurrection. In fact, all of the Trinity are involved since it also says that God raises His Son. “He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). According to Romans 8:11, the Spirit also raises Christ from the dead: “The spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead.”

Figure 1.

Why did Christ physically die? Because that was indeed part of the penalty for sin, and His glorious Resurrection assures us that we also will eventually receive a new body. It is not in this body full of sin and death that I shall see Him, but in a glorious, resurrected new body. This mortal and corruptible body will become immortal and incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:53).

When you understand the extent, magnitude, and far reaching effects of the death of Christ and the redemption He has purchased on our behalf, there is no way that this is consistent with a God who has made man from a pre-existing, dying creature beforehand. Theistic evolution undermines the Cross of Christ.

Footnotes

1. “But my acceptance of Adam and Eve as historical is not incompatible with my belief that several forms of pre-Adamic “hominid” may have existed for thousands of years previously. These hominids began to advance culturally. They made their cave drawings and buried their dead. It is conceivable that God created Adam out of one of them. You may call them Homo erectus. I think you may even call some of them Homo sapiens, for these are arbitrary scientific names. But Adam was the first Homo divinus, if I may coin a phrase, the first man to whom may be given the biblical designation ‘made in the image of God.’” John R. W. Stott, Understanding the Bible: Special Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 43.
2. Some have suggested the possibility that the saying of Jesus recorded in Luke 23:34 might have been said toward the end of His crucifixion (because of John 19:28 following immediately after the record of John 19:27, “Woman, behold thy son.”). In this interpretation, Jesus would have asked the Father to forgive them just before He says, “It is finished.” This author would not subscribe to that view because of the statement in Luke 24:34band 35 which describes the soldiers casting lots over Jesus’ garments and people looking at Him with some speaking to Jesus on the Cross—all suggestive of the initial three hours of light. So the cry, “Father, forgive them,” in Luke 23:34a seems to be just prior to this (see also John 19:23–24). Whichever order one takes, the argument concerning Christ’s atonement and taking both aspects of death as the penalty for our sin does not rest on the suggested order of Figure 1.

What a 19th Century Political Thinker Can Teach Us About 'True' Conservatism

What a 19th Century Political Thinker Can Teach Us About ‘True’ Conservatism

Self-identified conservatives are at odds with each other. What American conservatism means today, who defines it, and who is or is not a “true” conservative, is the flashpoint of bitter controversy. So, too, is the ever-shifting definition of that broadly despised thing called “The Establishment.”

But there is a North Star that should simultaneously guide and unify American conservatives: fidelity to the Constitution and a clear understanding of what Alexander Hamilton called the “new political science” undergirding it. Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint put it neatly:

Conservatives don’t revere the Supreme Law of the Land just because we love tradition. We revere the Constitution because we recognize it as a comprehensive blueprint for a freer society. The Founding Fathers left a lot of power in local hands for a reason: They knew just how bad things could get when a distant, out of touch government called the shots.

In the current issue of The American Conservative, senior fellow at the Liberty Fund, Richard Reinsch, and I strongly endorse such a renewed appreciation of America’s unique constitutional achievement as explicated by Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876). For good reason: The late Russell Kirk hailed Brownson as a foundational figure of American conservatism. In 1865, Brownson published “The American Republic,” amasterpiece of political theory and spirited defense of the federal Constitution.

In the spirit of President Abraham Lincoln, Brownson favored clemency toward the defeated South, but in “binding up the nation’s wounds” he insisted that the victorious Union leaders get federalism itself right, and thus oppose a national consolidation of power while arresting the national disintegration of secession. They didn’t.

The ingenious political order the Constitution reflects is, or should be, the primary object of preservation among those who claim the conservative mantle. Wrote Brownson, “I find, with Mr. Madison, our most philosophic statesman, the originality of the American system in the division of powers between a General government having sole charge of the foreign and general, and particular or State governments having, within their respective territories, sole charge of the particular relations and interests of the American people.”

The Constitution simultaneously channels and limits political power, thus allowing the non-political institutions of civil society to thrive and flourish. Partisan politics and fleeting popular opinion, wrote Brownson, must never obscure this basic truth:

The only authoritative will of the people under our form of government is that which is embodied in and expressed through the Constitution, and it is the only will of the people the representatives is bound to obey, or even to consult. To suppose an authoritative will outside of that, or independent of it, is to convert the government from a Constitutional government into a government of popular opinion, varying as that most fickle of all things, popular opinion, varies. It supersedes the Constitution, renders it worthless as so much waste paper, and converts the government into the worst possible form of democracy; and democracy was held in horror by the fathers of the republic.

A journalist and a formidable Catholic apologist, writing passionately about the issues of his own day, Brownson was sometimes quite wrong. But most of the time, he was dead right, particularly about the major issues that trouble Americans at the present moment.

Blazing out of the past, Brownson’s prose is a bracing reminder that today’s fight for common sense, good government, and personal liberty is an endless battle:

On National Debt and Spending. “The first duty of the government undoubtedly is, to contract no more debts, to vote away to corporations no more of the national domain, to grant no more subsidies to business corporations, to impose no duties to swell the profits of iron, steel, coal or any other interests, amply to protect themselves, and to reduce taxes to the lowest point practicable with the raising of revenue sufficient to pay the interest on the public debt, and to provide for the most rigidly economical administration of the government, and the maintenance of the army and navy, both of which are far below what is really necessary, and leave paying of the principal of the public debt to a more favorable opportunity.”

On Career Politicians.  “I see men come here worth only their salary as members of Congress, and in two or four years return home worth from a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars.”

On Free Trade and the Poor. “We do not adopt the free trade policy as a policy for all nations, and for all times, and under all circumstances; but we cannot respect very highly the policy that lays a heavy duty on imported woolens for the benefit of the home manufacturer, and a corresponding duty on imported wool to encourage the wool grower. It is simply a policy that gives with one hand and takes away with the other, with no other effect than an increased tax on consumption, from which the laboring classes, as the greatest consumers, are the principal sufferers.”

On Religious Liberty. “The enemies of religion must understand, that if they require the state to use its power against religion, or to suppress it, they violate the first principle of civil and religious liberty. Religious liberty does not mean the liberty of infidelity to use the state or the civil power to suppress religion. The state, under the control of infidelity, and establishing atheism, is, to say the least, as hostile to religious and civil liberty as the state under the control of the clergy, and establishing the Roman Catholic Church.”

On Marriage and the Family. “Marriages are much happier and domestic life much more peaceful and pleasant, where divorces are unknown, and not to be thought of, than where they can be had very nearly for the asking, as they can be in several states of the Union.”

American conservatism transcends partisanship. It was never an “ideology”; a closed system of abstract formulas to be applied or imposed on social or political reality—Marxism being an iconic example. Nor is conservatism simply defined by a particular stance on a particular issue at a particular point in time. No; American conservatism, at least as presented by the modern movement’s founders, such as William F. Buckley Jr. and Russell Kirk, is characterized by the primacy of constitutionally protected personal and political liberty, a reverence for religion and tradition, gratitude for the many gifts of preceding generations, and deference to the nation’s organic communities, what the great Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” of society.

Back to the Basics. A conservative acts in the present, embraces the best of the past, and works to preserve what is good for the future. In a powerful essay, “Liberalism and Progress” (1864), Brownson wrote:

We belong not to the party that would restore the past, but to that which would retain what was true and good, and for all ages, in the past; we are not of those who would destroy the past, and compel the human race to begin de novo, but of those, few in number they may be, who see something good even in Liberalism, and would accept it without breaking the chain of tradition, or severing the continuity of the life of the race, separate it from the errors and the falsehoods, and bitter and hateful passions with which it is mixed up, and carry it onward. We are too much of the present to please men of the past,  and too much of the past to please men of the present; so we are not only doomed, Cassandra-like, to utter prophecies which nobody believes, but prophecies which nobody heeds enough either to believe or disbelieve. … Hence, though we know that we speak the words of truth and soberness, we expect not our words to be heeded. Popular opinion decides us all questions of wisdom and folly, of truth and falsehood, and popular opinion we do not and cannot echo.

That’s a tough assignment, but fidelity to the Constitution and the transmission of the best of the past to future generations is the unending task of American conservatism.