Genetics – Nurture or Nature?

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A long-term debate has raged on the question of whether we are ‘born’ a certain way, such as happy, lucky, blessed or successful, or ‘made’ that way by our circumstances. Are we who we are because of the ‘nature’ of our being, such as something built into our DNA, or because of the things we are taught and the ‘nurture’ we receive in our formative years? This is the debate over whether it is Nurture or Nature that forms us.

Expert opinions and diverse theories have spoken to both positions. Life experience also argues both ways. We see people who seem to have innate advantage over others in the same situation. We also see how the right input makes a profound impact on people.

Elizabeth Kotlowski, in her book on Australia’s early history, points out that the convict parents of the colony’s children seemed irreparable in their nature, yet their children were recognized by an early judge as being of the highest integrity. This transformation was not embedded in the genetic ‘nature’ of the children, but came from the ‘nurture’ they received from the colony’s early church schools.

Similar transformation was noted by Charles Darwin on his second visit to Tierra del Fuego. He originally deemed the natives of that area to be so reprobate as to be incapable of nobility. On his second visit there, some years later, he discovered that the simple process of taking the Bible to these people had positively transformed them. Nurture, external impact from a quality source, has undoubted profound effect.

Recent genetics research now indicates a synthesis of the ‘nurture or nature’ ingredients. The science works like this. While we each have a unique DNA specifying our genetic potential and influencing all the many features of our being, we also have a unique set of control switches that activate or de-activate those underlying genetic choices. So there’s a double stream of genetic dice rolling that impacts who and what we are.

While the underlying DNA may prove to be strictly a matter of ‘nature’ – passed to us by our parents and resilient to the conditions under which we are raised – the genetic switches prove to be influenced by the ‘nurture’ we receive.

Recent scientific findings were reported in the Public Library of Science Journal, ‘PLoS ONE’. Moshe Szyf of McGill University in Montreal studied the brains of men who came from abuse or neglect backgrounds and who later committed suicide. These brains were compared with the brains of men who died of natural causes and who did not have an abuse background.

The genetic material of the suicide victims displayed changes in all 18 cases. While the genes were unchanged the related genetic material functioned differently. A cellular process called methylation, involving the RNA within the cell, is engaged in turning the genes ‘on’ or ‘off’. The observed changes in the cell indicate that the genetic function was being switched differently as a consequence of past abuse.

So, nature and nurture work together, not independent of each other.

Now that some discernible physiological change at a genetic level can be associated with nurture it will be interesting to see where science takes us in our further confirmation of what God’s Word says.

Sovereignty – And the Role of High Priests

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It may seem strange to talk of High Priests in today’s western culture, but we are actually inundated with would-be gurus and priests, demanding that we subscribe to their peculiar belief system. We are constantly being asked to give up our wits and our will to the soothsayers who assure us they know what is going on and what is best. So, let me call them “High Priests”.

As you can tell from my opening remarks I am not particularly sympathetic to the new breed of social priests. They seem to loom from every quarter, like an elephant parade at a Hindu Festival. We have prognosticators on climate, ozone, diet, religion, politics, economics, education, origins, history, war, terrorism, and on and on it goes. Everyone “hath an opinion”. But it is not the opinions that both me.

What I am seeing is the assertion, by some, of their superiority over others whom they deem to be lesser mortals. In clever ways people have come on the scene to assert that ordinary people need the presenter’s peculiar wisdom, their prescribed methods, their “To Do” list, their 12 Step program, or whatever. I don’t doubt that there is safety in the multitude of counsellors – a fact attested to by the wisest man who ever lived (see Proverbs 11:14). However, I question the assertion that some have transcendent knowledge, like an illuminated guru, and therefore have the right to live above others. They even ask for the right to suborn the will and sovereignty of others, subjugating it to their own power.

Consider this line of reasoning. “The things presented in the Bible are deep and profound. Only truly enlightened or highly intellectual people have any hope of really understanding it. Many people through history have ended up with a wrong interpretation, leading to tragic consequences. Therefore the wisest thing you can do is to subscribe to the answers and insights given by ……”

Whoever is plying that line of reasoning is arguing for the High Priest status. They wish to be a guru, exercising sovereignty over the beliefs of others. Yet, history reveals that millions of very ordinary people, even those with lesser minds, have found faith, forgiveness and transformation through their simple reading of the Bible. What the theologians or deep thinkers claim to be hard to grapple with proves to be accessible to the meanest of folk, even those who cannot read what it says.

We continue to see the emergence of a new guru-ism. Ordinary people are less secure about their common sense and more ready to swallow the high-sounding opinions of others. The foundations, especially the foundations of the fear of God and knowledge of the Bible, are being eroded. The result is insecurity, leading to an increase in dependence on others.

Allow me to suggest an alternative to handing over your personal sovereignty. Ask God for wisdom. That’s right. Pray. Ask God to give you wisdom. The Bible says that if you lack wisdom you should ask for it. God will give it freely (see James 1:5).

God did not say, “If you lack wisdom – get yourself a guru, or find a High Priest to follow.” God said, “If you lack wisdom, ask for it and God will give it to YOU.” Wow! That means that God, Himself, is on the side of your personal sovereignty. God wants you to rely on Him, not some other man. Even the most intelligent man in the world has nothing over you, in terms of sovereignty. Oh, and don’t forget what the Apostle Paul pointed out. He said that God delights to take those who seem to be useless to confound those who really think they are somebody! (See 1Corinthians 1:27)

God is barracking for your personal sovereignty. He gave it to you and He expects you to live in it, not hand it over to someone who thinks they are better than you. If you don’t know what to think in a situation, get many counsellors, not one guru. And ask God for wisdom. You’ll be surprise what God has equipped YOU to do.

Andrew Fuller

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This is the day that … Andrew Fuller died, in 1815.

The son of an English Baptist farmer, and a “powerful wrestler in his youth”, Fuller was to become the greatest original theologian among 18th century Baptists” (Dictionary of the Christian Church, page 395).

At the age of 14 he came into “rest for my troubled soul”.  He tells us, in his own account of that conversion, how the example of Esther inspired him to approach the Saviour.

“I was not then aware that any poor sinner had a warrant to believe in Christ for the salvation of his soul”.  But just as Esther entered the king’s presence unbidden and under sentence of death, so Fuller tells us:  “like her I seemed … impelled by dire necessity to run all hazards, even though I should perish in the attempt …”

Wonderfully converted, and self-taught, Fuller became a Baptist minister, first at Soham (1775) and later at Kettering (1783).

He found himself involved in controversy with hyper-Calvinists (Fuller can be described as an evangelical Calvinist), Universalists, and with Arminians.

He was a profound influence upon William Carey, indeed it was Fuller’s snuff box that was used for the first offering of the newly formed Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen (the first of the great foreign missionary societies in the United Kingdom).

His book, The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptance (1785), was a milestone in creating an evangelistic and missionary spirit in the non-conformist churches of the UK.

He died at the age of 61, listening to his congregation singing in the meeting-house adjoining his home.  Bedridden, he turned to Sarah, his daughter:  “I wish I had strength,” he said. 

“To do what, father?” Sarah asked.

“To worship”- and with that he joined the ransomed above … and did worship!  (Men Who Were Earnest, page 301).

Introduced Seed – Mutiny on the Bounty

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We know that various plants and animals have invaded new habitats when they have been introduced, either intentionally or accidentally. Plants often come into a new environment as ‘introduced seed’. The newly introduced species can often displace other varieties which cannot compete with the invader. At other times the newly introduced species can be a god-send.

There is a famous incident known as the Mutiny on the Bounty, popularised in books and academy award winning movies – with such famous actors as Errol Flynn (1933), Charles Laughton, Clark Gable (1935), Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris (1962), Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson (1984). The real event took place in the remote South Pacific seas back in 1789, just one year after Australia was colonised. A ship’s crew, led by Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, took over Captain Bligh’s British Royal Navy sailing ship named the Bounty, and sailed to Pitcairn Island where they settled.

When I read Captain Bligh’s ship’s log I discovered that the voyage was all about ‘introduced seed’. Inspired by botanist Sir Joseiph Banks, the British wanted to introduce a Tahitian plant known as breadfruit to a West Indies community which was deficient in food variety. The “bounty” was to be a shipload of seedlings. However the voyage was interrupted by the mutiny.

As an historical note, when the breadfruit was eventually delivered by Captain Bligh on a second voyage in 1792 the slaves in Jamaica refused to eat the fruit. But enough of the history lesson, let me get to my point.

Planet Earth has received an ‘introduced seed’. An extra-terrestrial seed has been brought here, which allows a totally new kind of fruit to be enjoyed by earth’s inhabitants. The ‘seed’ is the Word of God – and it is an indestructible, eternal seed. When planted in human hearts it spawns a new kind of life-form, divine and eternal, springing from the mortal soil. Mortal, human creatures, mired and enslaved by sin, are able to propagate, within their very being, an eternal and divine existence, connecting them to the God of all Eternity as one of His children. This is a most amazing seed and we are most wonderfully privileged to have it introduced to us.

However, not everyone likes the fruit. Just as the Jamaican slaves rejected fruit which nourished Tahitians, humans have been known to spurn the eternal seed which has the power to set them free from their mortality. People have ingested the seed, then spat it out. Some have found it hard to digest. Others have simply despised its relative tastelessness, compared to the commercialised products designed to tempt their senses. This seed is, after all, “angels’ food” (see Psalm 78:25). It does not pander to base human appetites (see Matthew 16:23 and 1Corinthians 2:14). It lies dormant in the soil of the human heart unless it is “mixed with faith” (see Hebrews 4:2).

Those who have no interest in this divine ‘introduced seed’ can live their whole lives without it. Those who have been born again by the germination of this seed cannot live without it. Those who live without it exist without any sense for what it is. Those who have eaten of its fruit have transcended their personal capacities and enjoyed realities that are of eternal consequence.

Praise God for introduced seed. I pray that you pick up the seed packet – the Bible – and determine to plant the seeds, watering them with faith, until your life has become a verdant garden of eternal frutfulness.