The ethics of Darwin or the ethics of design

The vast majority of theistic writers in the origins debate has used, and still uses, primarily science in the defense of either an unidentified intelligent design or a defense of the biblical creation account. However, as important as it is to match scientific fervor with evolutionary naturalists, arguably their true vulnerability is exposed when the field of ethics is considered. In order to exploit this weakness, it became necessary to define and examine the history of evolutionary ethics. Since successful reproduction and survival are the filters through which every other evolutionary factor must pass, naturalism's ethical system contains virtually no boundaries whatsoever. Morality in this system necessarily becomes relative, as opposed to the moral absolutes of theism. Finally, in order to make the comparison complete, the Sermon on the Mount was selected as the representative sample with which evolutionary ethics should be compared. Using ethics as apologetics in this fashion was designed to point to the Designer's plan for human behavior as well as his plan to restore fallen humanity to himself.;This dissertation's conclusion is that a thorough comparison of the ethics of the naturalistic system popularized by two major works by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century against the natural law-based ethics of intelligent design and, ultimately, Christian ethics will help objective readers realize that the latter system goes much farther than the former in the goal of helping create a more virtuous society. The step from natural law to Christian ethics is consistent with the fact that classical apologetics is more effectively used in contemporary society once the evidential apologetics of intelligent design are established. Further, the contention of the research is that this examination of ethics could be the determining factor for certain objective seekers in the issue of the most vital of all questions involving eternal security that arise in this debate.