Editor’s Note: With apologies to legendary editorial writer Francis P. Church, of The New York Sun, who wrote the classic “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” response in 1897 to young letter writer Virginia O’Hanlon.
Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no God, because just before Christmas a federal judge banned a Pennsylvania school district from mentioning “Intelligent Design” in our class. But the judge said Darwin’s theory of evolution is OK to teach. Papa says, “If you see it in your newspaper’s column, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a God? — Samantha O’Hara
Dearest Samantha,
Your little friends — and the judge — are wrong. They have been misled by cynicism of a cynical age. They put their trust in theories because they are “scientific.” Still, they are mere theories nonetheless. And yet, amazingly, they turn their backs on faith, because faith comes from God. They think that nothing can be true unless it can be comprehended by their little minds. All minds, Samantha, regardless of whether they are men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe, of which men have managed to explore only one speck, human beings are mere insects, compared with the intelligence that designed the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Samantha, there is a God. He exists as surely as love and generosity and devotion exist. You can prove that existence to yourself: Does the scientific curiosity you experience upon seeing a frog’s body pickled in formaldehyde match the pulsating thrill you feel when you follow the boundless adventures of your heart? Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no God! There would be no genuine, steadfast faith. For all faith based on human vanity is as fleeting as a drop of water on steamy summer day. Likewise, theories, manufactured by small minds, can evaporate, comparatively in God’s time, in the wink of an eye.
The judge said as much himself. “To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect,” he wrote. “However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.” Why, then, is Darwin’s theory to be trusted and God’s faith is not? God’s continual response to all of man’s drivel has been the same through all the ages. It is written in the Bible, figuratively, that man, like a dog, has been chasing his tail around throughout all of his history. May not we consider what wags the judge?
Not believe in God? You might as well not believe in the beauty of the human soul. For without it, there could be no faith. There could be no beauty in a dreary world that gorges itself on scientific theory. It would be a world devoid of childlike wonder and euphoria. It would be as dreary as though there were no Samanthas. There could be no magical warmth of a mother’s love or of a father’s pride. There could be no poetry. There could be no romance. There could be no trust and friendship, for they, too, are based on Godlike faith. All emotion, that which makes us human, would be suppressed, surely making this world more barren and frightening than the impenetrable mind of any mad scientist.
No God? Praise be to Him that he lives and lives forever. A thousands years from now, Samantha, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood—and the truly wisest of men. For without Him and his faith, there would be no world as we know it and trust that it remain—for the sake of all future Samanthas.
Richard Wagner is the editor of Carolina Journal.