I have just finished watching a documentary on Channel 4 which followed the stories of three people who rushed to the aid of dying victims of the 7/7 bombings in London. So moving were their stories that I will never forget their names. Suzanna Pell, Tim Coulson and Jason Remmie defied their natural instincts to walk away from the scene of the exploded bomb on the Edgware Road tube train to help the dying and wounded. Having watched their stories I was left with questions as to where the courage came from for those people to behave the way they did on that day despite their instinct to save themselves, see their families and not die in such a horrible way. What is it in the human psyche which causes us to help the dying, to preserve lives when it will have no effect on our own?
It could be argued that the answer is altruism, a need to save the gene pool of our kind in order to preserve our existence. The three who showed selfless bravery on that day were doing so out of an unspoken and hidden biological desire to keep the human race alive, to preserve our genes so that they could be passed to the next generation. But that seems rather banal to me. Darwinian explanations always do. They are cold, indifferent and ignorant of so many other factors influencing the human spirit. Dawkins succinctly espouses his views on the purpose and meaning of life when he says
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.
River out of Eden (1995)
Now this may be a neat little sound bite which can be wrapped up and boxed away to explain our existence but I don’t believe that it sufficiently answers the question of why these people behaved the way they did. After all they were defying Darwin. No purpose? No meaning? Then why do we feel a sense of pride for these people who went above the call of duty to help their fellow humans? Is it all an illusion? We can talk all we want about scientific theory and we do very flippantly. We can regurgitate our understanding of natural selection, the idea that nature selects the random mutations which fit best to the environment they live in. It’s arbitrary, unguided and led by a chance event emanating from a mutation in our genes. But deep on the ground, in the cold light of day, when a fellow human screams in pain because part of his body is detached from the rest of him, Darwinism cannot explain the human spirit which strives to save that person despite the risk to their own life. Greater still, it cannot explain the greater question of why if, at the bottom of it all, we are subject to the selfish processes of our genes, would certain human beings feel the instinct to help a person they have never spoken to nor known in their life?
What answers does the programme offer? Tim Coulson had to leave his job as a teacher because of the trauma of what happened that day. He is a brave man for doing what he did and the programme acknowledges this but it offers no real insight into why he did it. It leaves us with a declaration that one of the victim’s faith in human nature has been restored because of what happened that day. But it was human nature that also detonated the bomb so which are we to prefer over the other? If human nature was responsible for acts of bravery it cannot be denied that it was also the cause of the behaviour which led to that bravery. This wishy washy approach left me asking more questions. Then I was reminded of what C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity when speaking of the Law of Nature
These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human
beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave
in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do
not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it.
These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and
the universe we live in.
http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt
Why do human beings have an inbuilt instinct to help those who are in trouble? What drives some of us, despite our better instincts, to dive headlong into a situation in which our own safety and even life will be at risk? And it we do not help, what causes us to feel guilt for walking away when we somehow know we could have done something? I believe the answer is given to us when Paul wrote to the Roman Church
For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another
Romans 2:13-15
We have a moral conscience, something which guides our instincts and tells us that certain things are right and wrong. In my opinion, Darwinism doesn’t fully account for this. It cannot account for the fact that every day we act against it’s teachings in preserving those that nature has selected as less biologically viable to the existence of mankind. Those with Downs Syndrome, Alzheimers, the disabled, the deaf, the dumb and such like. Their lot in life is to be biologically unsound to live in their environment. Surely mutations have been subject to natural selection has chosen these people as unfit for their environment? Of course what I am saying is repellent but consistent with the dank, unforgiving world of evolutionary struggle. If that’s the case why do we fight against it? Even evolution’s greatest living evangelist, Richard Dawkins feels the same way
Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.
The Selfish Gene (1989)
So we study evolution, we believe in evolution, we embrace evolution with the intention of not behaving the way that nature intended us to? That would be wrong because it doesn’t make for a world of peace and mutual happiness. There is nothing at the end but blind indifference yet we somehow yearn for more, for more than a banal arbitrary explanation as to why we are here, why we live and die in a moment and why we act against all of our natural instincts in certain situations. Could we have more than a genetic disposition? Is there a moral code written in us which guides us to act a certain way when we have not enabled the working of the mechanism which naturally shuts it down because of our penchant to please ourselves? Or is it all an illusion?
TRF
Hi
I have just picked up your blog of July 13, 2008, and appreciate your thoughts re. the programme marking the 3rd anniversary of the 7/7 bombings.
I feel moved to reply, as I was one of the Edgware Road victims who was saved that day and was featured in the programme.
I would just like to make a few points.
First, a pedantic one. You say you “will never forget their names” but you spell Susanna Pell with a “z” and Jason Rennie with two “m”s.
Also, you misunderstand my “declaration” near the end of the programme. If that was “It was not hatred I saw that day, but love”, my faith had not been restored but rather affirmed. What I saw that day – and since – was the love that outweighed any hate. From fellow passengers such as Jason Rennie and Peter Zimonjic, from my paramedic Jane Pitkin, from police family liaison officers, from many medical teams at St. Mary’s, from friends, colleagues, family and many more strangers.
As a Christian, an Anglican, I got wonderful support from my church, and do believe that the “answer” is probably to be found in various Romans passages which have been our New Testament readings in the last few weeks coincidentally.
I too – obviously – found the programmes very moving, and was only a bit disappointed that they showed our boy Matthew dropping too catches!
Love and thanks
David G
Hi David,
Thanks for your reply. I think the last thing I expected was one of the participants in the programme to pick up my blog.
I hope you didn’t misunderstand me, I know I can appear to be cynical but I was very very moved by the stories and the help you received. I was particularly moved that these strangers felt compelled to help you in your trouble and distress even though they didn’t know you.
If memory serves, the comment wasn’t by you at the end of the programme, it was actually by the narrator. It got my head spinning because it seemed so…inadequate. It seemed like it wasn’t enough because the human nature that helped you in your trouble was the same human nature that set the bomb off in the first place. Please don’t think I’m downplaying what these people did, I was driven to tears by their bravery but it left me asking so many deep questions about the nature of mankind and how, in my opinion, science has no answer for what Jason Rennie did for you that day. Call it altruism, call it instinct, to me, there’s so much more to it than that.
You saw the human heart at both it’s extremes that day, it’s black hearted ugly sinfulness and it’s conscience driven Godliness. The programme affirmed in me what Romans says of the man’s nature and how science has nothing to say about the greater motivations within us which, in my opinion, supersede any naturalistic explanation.
Thanks for your comment. I feel humbled to speak to someone who actually went through it. It’s one thing blogging after watching a programme about it, sitting comfortably in your recliner passing judgement on everyone and everything. It’s entirely another to speak to someone who actually experienced it for themselves. So, in short, please tell me if you think I’m being a no good, no nothing know all.
PS I’m also an actor too. Drama teacher actually but my first love is treading the boards.