BABY THOUGHT

He knows a bit more than we thought !

INFANTILE MORALS

Sigmund Freud believed that each human being comes into this world as an “ amoral animal ” and only learns to make moral choices through the influences of their parents and their environment. This conveniently did away with the concept of ‘conscience’ and the religious view (so despised by Freud) that there is an innate sense of right and wrong implanted into each life from the very onset, placed there by God the Creator. Now new research appears to be backing up the ‘old-fashioned’ religious view as scientists have concluded that infants as young as six months have an innate sense of right and wrong.
In one test babies aged between six months and one year were shown an animated film of simple geometric shapes. In the film a red ball with eyes attempts to climb up a hill. At intervals its progress is helped by a yellow square that pushes it upward and impeded by a green triangle that trys to shove it back. After watching the short film several times the babies were asked to choose between the “good guy” square and the “bad guy” triangle. 80% of the infants choose the helpful one as against the unhelpful one. The researchers registered the tots “choices” by the amount of time each one spent looking at the shape.

Freud and wanting !

Of course no one can get inside an infants head and say definitively what’s going on, but at least this research suggests a level of ‘moral’ activity that modern experts tend to ignore. Paul in his letter to the Romans made this observation about those nations that had never heard the good news about Jesus, “ They demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.” (Romans 2:15) It would seem that certain universal laws of right and wrong are imprinted into our DNA and even if we have never read a word of the Ten Commandments their tenets are part of our very nature.
I love it when science and research reaffirm the ancient truths of the Bible and of course, when science is practised as the pursuit of truth then it can only confirm the words of Scripture. In archaeological research sometimes the ‘finds’ have to play catch up to what has been described in the Bible. Places and people who have previously only been mentioned in the sacred text are being vindicated as authentic when workers in the field unearth the tangible evidence confirming the Bible accounts as true.
The Psalmist , thousands of years ago, wrote these words,
“ You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139)
He would have been pleased that science has caught up and while attaching a greater significance to the speed at which a baby learns in the first six months of life, has now discovered that some knowledge has been present since birth (and before). Truly we have been ‘wonderfully created’ and guided by a Creator who loves us and has a grand design for our lives.

Gerard O'Shea