Veni Quid Veniat

     Faster than a speeding bullet, able to soar higher than any plane... no, not a superhero: light. Light’s unique and intriguing properties have long tantalized scientists. Indeed, if the glimpses of potential it presents were ever fully utilized, the possibilities would be nearly endless. Significant advances have been made in harnessing light - the development of fiber optic cables and photovoltaic cells come to mind - but these are merely ripples on the surface of what could be. The development which could change all that, though, is an increase in the understanding and utilization of photonic crystals. In a general sense, the operation of photonic crystals is extremely simple: they act as optical equivalents of semiconductors. In semiconductors, variations in the arrangement of ions control the movement of charge carriers. In photonic crystals, the periodic arrangement of areas of high and low indices of refraction (a measure of how much light is bent when entering or exiting the material) control the movement of photons. In both cases energy bands of allowed energy levels - in the case of light, wavelengths - are created, which control the motion of either electrons or photons, depending on the substance in question.
   
In practice, although the theory behind photonic crystals is reasonably complex, the actual application of photonic crystals is even simpler. Photonic crystals are used to exert control over the movement of photons, a task which they can accomplish much more effectively than other methods of controlling the path of light because of their unique abilities. Much more could be said on the behavior and characteristics of photonic crystals, but that is all we need to know at the moment.

     That ability to change the path of light presented by three-dimensional photonic crystals has incredible potential. Recent research (Guldin et al. 2010) suggests that photonic crystals could be utilized in building more efficient solar cells. Currently, silicon is used in most photovoltaic cells to absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity. The silicon absorbs highly energetic photons and uses the energy from those photons to create free charge carriers, which can then be extracted to an external circuit. This process generally works well, however, it can be improved. The silicon does not absorb all the photons that impact it - some pass through. Although it is backed with aluminum to reflect some of the photons which pass through, these are reflected at a high angle and have a reasonable chance of passing through the silicon again. On the other hand, a three-dimensional photonic crystal, with its ability to control the paths of photons, could reflect more light than aluminum and diffract the light as it did so, causing it to re-enter the silicon at a much lower angle than it would otherwise and increasing the chance of reabsorption. By attaching photonic crystals, rather than aluminum, to the back of the silicon, the efficiency of the cell could be improved significantly.



Figure 1: A photovoltaic cell with a backing of three-dimensional photonic crystals. From Guildin et al. 2010.

     The increased efficiency inherent in the system is not its only advantage. Notably, unlike aluminum, photonic crystals do not have to be opaque. Technically, nothing prevents the entire solar cell from being completely transparent if photonic crystals are used instead of aluminum. This could provide the potential for using solar cells in windows, to produce windows that generate electricity. Given that solar sources cannot provide baseload power, it is as a supplementary power source that solar power is most attractive. Incorporating solar power generation into something as common as windows would provide a heretofore unheard of capability for solar energy to be used as a supplementary power source, and would remove many of the difficulties (for example, transportation and storage) which plague solar energy.

     Appealing as the concept of applying photonic crystals to increase the efficiency and utility of photovoltaic cells may be, it is not without its challenges. As previously mentioned, three-dimensional photonic crystals are difficult to fabricate, whatever purpose they are intended for. A further difficulty arises from the fact that the particular form of photovoltaic cell used - a diblock-copolymer based dye-sensitized solar cell - is limited in its effectiveness by its tendency to crack and delaminate, making it of dubious usefulness at present. Efforts to remedy both of these deficiencies are, however, ongoing. Efforts to improve diblock-copolymer based dye-sensitized solar cells show promise, and it seems more than likely that three-dimensional photonic cells will be fabricated much more readily in the not-too-distant future, making the possibility that solar cells could be far more efficient and widespread through the use of photonic crystals more likely than not.

      If there is to be an insurmountable challenge to the use of photonic crystals in solar cells, it will likely come from the invention of other methods of generating energy which make solar power unnecessary. Here photonic crystals are seen again. Researchers at MIT (Yi Xiang Yeng et al. 2011) have been quite successful in fabricating photonic crystals using tungsten and titanium which can withstand temperatures of up to 1200 degrees Celsius. In theory, these can absorb infrared radiation which will subsequently be converted to electricity. The actual process is essentially the same as that used in solar cells, the only difference is that the potential applications are much broader. Indeed, the possible applications for such technology are nearly endless: any heat source can be used, even heat sources already used in the process of generating energy whose heat is not completely consumed. This would include nuclear, geothermal - here photonic crystals could play a particularly significant role, since the chief challenge to geothermal energy at the moment is collection - coal, oil, and other hydrocarbons, and even as means of regaining heat lost through processes not intended to generate energy. Even the heat of a summer day could be converted to electricity, given the right conditions. Perhaps the most appealing option, however, is as a sort of “nuclear battery.” The concept originates from existing ideas. Many of NASA’s deep space missions make use of the concept - the Curiosity rover, for example, uses radioisotope thermal generators to generate electricity. Heat is generated by the decay of a radioactive element such as plutonium, but in present-day radioisotope thermal generators, this heat is converted to electricity using a thermocouple, which achieves less than 10% efficiency. That is, less than 10% of the thermal energy produced by radioactive decay in the apparatus is converted to electrical energy by the thermocouple. The process is still useful, but it could be far more efficient with the use of photonic crystals. It is unclear exactly how much photonic crystals could improve efficiency, but the improvement would be significant.

      Nor are those squeamish about using nuclear energy shut out of the market for batteries that utilize photonic crystals. Burning butane to produce heat has also been proposed, and batteries combining the combustion of butane to produce heat with photonic cells to collect heat could potentially last ten times as long as conventional batteries while providing a cleaner energy source (butane is produced as a byproduct of refining natural gas and is a far cleaner energy source than, say, coal or oil). An improvement in battery technology of this magnitude would have a tremendous impact on every field that uses batteries, but most notably on electric cars. It is not unthinkable that in the next several decades cars with the improved efficiency and emissions of electric cars but the range of petroleum-fueled cars could come on the market. Further, it takes little imagination to envision an incredible range of applications for longer-lasting batteries - the implications are positively staggering.

      Perhaps most thrilling, there are no clear obstacles to the development of batteries using photonic crystals. The team of researchers at MIT established a simple way of generating durable three-dimensional photonic crystals for the high-temperature environments required. That achievement is the bulk of the theoretical work in designing batteries using photonic crystals. What remains, although important and difficult, is comparatively simple. In fact, the MIT team estimated that such devices would be viable within the next two years. That estimate is perhaps optimistic - the MIT study was the last major development in the field, and that came in 2011 - but the fact remains that the most daunting hurdle has already been cleared.

     In the closely related fields of photovoltaic and thermovoltaic cells there are few developments more exciting than photonic crystals. Use of these materials in collecting energy could, if all went as expected, provide a significantly cheaper and cleaner energy source, particularly for small scale, localized energy production. While putting the theory into practice will require effort and may take a few years, the concept itself represents a tantalizing glimpse into what might be.




Yi Xiang Yeng, Michael Ghebrebrhan, Peter Bermel, Walker R. Chan, John D. Joannopoulos, Marin 
             Soljačić, and Ivan Celanovic. 2011. “Enabling high-temperature nanophotonics for energy 
             applications.” PNAS 2011 109 (7), 2280-2285

     In the past few days the Supreme Court heard two potentially groundbreaking cases with direct implications for the future of marriage in the United States. In one, liberal activists are opposing California Proposition 8, which defines marriage in California as being between a male and a female. In the other, another group of liberal activists are challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which allows each state to define marriage for itself without regard to the actions of other states. While a great deal of emotionally gripping rhetoric has been expended on the side of redefining marriage, very little time has been spent explaining why marriage should not be redefined. When an attempt is made, it usually centers on the argument that the Bible requires that marriage be between one man and one woman alone. While this argument is perfectly correct, ought to made, and should be more than sufficient, it is also worthwhile to consider what the nature of the relationship between marriage and the state says about how the state in particular ought to recognize marriage.

     The first point to note is that the government shouldn't recognize marriage at all. Many Christians today correctly point out that the state is never given the authority to marry anyone and seek to pass that authority to the church. The Puritans correctly noted that the Bible never gives authority to perform marriage to the church and declared marriage a duty of the civil government alone. In actuality, wherever the Bible does mention marriage it is always connected with the family, not the state or the church, implying that, of the three authorities which God established - the state, the church, and the family - it is the family which is given authority over marriage. How exactly that authority would be enacted is a topic for another (very long) discussion, but what matters at the moment is that marriage is, in an ideal world, not the domain of government. If we were perfectly free to rewrite laws as we desired, none of them would address marriage. That said, our world is not an ideal world. At the same time that we work toward the ideal scenario, laws must be made with reality, not a hypothetical perfect scenario, in mind. Government is involved in marriage, and will be for the foreseeable future.

     It has become quite common to equate state-recognized marriage with love. One of the more common arguments for same sex marriage is that the love of a homosexual couple is equal to that of a heterosexual couple. Regardless of whether a case can be made that a relationship which God describes as an abomination can be considered equal to one He described as undefiled, the point here is that love is considered the final arbiter of who should be married. Government, in recognizing marriage, would be acting solely to gratify the desires and reward the love of the couple, and any other results would be purely incidental.

     In reality, government has neither the impetus nor the authority to place its stamp of approval on the love a particular couple has for each other. In one sense, that love is entirely below the purview of government, in another, it transcends any government. Government simply is not and never can be designed to reward or punish love. Government institutes rules which, ideally, act to guide behavior into orderly and constructive channels while maintaining the freedom of each individual - that is, government's role is to manage behavior. Love, an emotion with an attached dedication to a particular purpose, is not in itself a behavior which can be guided by laws. It exists outside the realm in which government has power. Therefore, it would be quite absurd to argue that the basis for legal recognition of marriage is the love the would-be-weds have for each other.

     On the other hand, an excellent case can be made that the reason the state recognizes marriage is to ensure the future of society through codifying an orderly system for procreation and for bringing up children in a constructive manner. That that system was a preexisting system resulting from the direct command of God and which had been placed outside the domain of government was, perhaps, unfortunate, but necessary - it is the only such system in existence. The Supreme Court even recognized the inextricable relationship between marriage and procreation - and even further, with the raising of children - on several occasions. In Meyer v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court decided that the right "to marry, establish a home and bring up children." Again, in Skinner v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court decided that marriage is "one of the basic civil rights of man" because it is "fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race." Now, arguably the Supreme Court is consistently wrong on most high profile issues, and one could argue that its action in extending the Due Process Clause to marriage was suspect at best, but its opinion on the nature of the government's role in marriage is notable. Ultimately, in the West at least, government began to recognize marriage while still linked to the church, but the impetus to continue to recognize marriage results from the role marriage plays in the creation and bringing up of children.

     With this in mind, rather than the absurd argument that the state recognizes marriage purely out of respect for love, we are left with the proposition that the state recognizes marriage in order to achieve the benefits that marriage provides. This explanation is consistent with the idea that government should - and generally does, or at least tries to - act only to directly further society by punishing those who do evil and rewarding those who do good. Further, it provides a compelling reason why state recognition of marriage should be limited only to those couples which are, in principle, capable of producing offspring. That definition will be in accord with God's definition of marriage because God, as designer, created a universe which acts according to His law, but, to the state, that accord is somewhat incidental. If God had not spoken on the subject the state-recognized definition of marriage would remain the same, as that definition alone fulfills the need to further society in an orderly manner.

     Once the proposition that marriage is recognized by the state primarily for the sake of the children has been promulgated, the most obvious objection falls naturally into place. If, as is posited here, marriage is legally recognized for the purpose of procreation, why doesn't the state take steps to ensure that marriage will produce children? Indeed, many who support the traditional definition of marriage will object strenuously to any attempt to limit marriage based on fertility. Is this not a serious inconsistency? The answer lies in the nature of the role of government. Government is tasked with maintaining order and furthering society while respecting the freedom of the individual. On the one hand, it would seem that society would be furthered by ensuring that every marriage produces children in exactly the numbers necessary and raises those children in exactly the way which will most effectively meet the needs of society. On the other, not only is that ideal impossible - government can't even figure out the best way to administer a driver's license test, let alone raise children - it tramples roughshod over government's second duty: to respect the freedom of the individual. The trick to good government is to balance the two functions of government, providing structure and freedom together. As concerns marriage, that balance is struck when government limits marriage to those unions which can in principle produce children. Inquiry into the intentions or ability of the couple to procreate would be an egregious invasion of their freedom - what matters is the ability, in principle, to procreate. Whether a particular relationship is efficacious in procreation is incidental; it is the role of government to guide behavior into constructive patterns, not to dictate it.
   
     Thus, it would appear that if the state is to recognize marriage it must do so with the purpose of that recognition in mind. Such recognition must therefore be limited to those unions which are, in principle, capable of producing children. Unions between those of the same sex, or between those of the same immediate family, are in principle incapable of producing any offspring, in the first case, or usually incapable of producing healthy offspring, in the second. It is not by accident, then, that it is those unions which are not recognized by the state as marriage.

     At the same time, a Christian will find himself at the same conclusion merely by reading and applying the Word of God. Where government acts on issues addressed by God, it must act in accord with the Word of God. Christians will find themselves in support of traditional marriage, but one should not mistakenly conclude that only Christians should favor traditional marriage, or that Christianity is the only argument for traditional marriage. All that is necessary is to believe that government's role is to further society, maintain order, and protect freedom: state support for traditional marriage alone follows naturally if one accepts that definition of the role of government.

     In summary, although government ideally would refrain from acting when it comes to marriage and other issues placed outside of its authority (for a reason), if it is to act - and at present it must - it must act in accord with its own purpose. The purpose of government is to guide behavior into orderly and constructive channels while protecting freedom, not to serve as a behemothic bureaucratic cupid. A government acting within its purpose can only recognize one definition of marriage: one man and one woman.

     Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protected the right of mothers to kill their unborn children. Since that time, 55 million preborn babies have been killed. The court that decided the case, each Congress that failed to act to remedy the effects of the decision, and every president who appointed judges who would uphold the decision have the blood of 55 million innocents on their hands. More than that, though, every person, whether a politician or private individual, who yields support to the decision, whether directly or through their silence, partakes in the premeditated murder of thousands every day.

     The facts in the case are clear. The arguments against abortion are so numerous that it is difficult to list them all completely. One could argue, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did, that even the potential for life is worthy of respect, not violence. One could argue that, absent a clear definition of the beginning of life, one should err on the side of caution and avoid the murder of innocents at all costs. One could argue that every human life is precious, and that since the preborn child is both a genetically new human and is quite obviously alive, it is a human life and, absent forfeiture of its right to life through its actions, deserves to live. One could argue that convenience is not worth the termination of even the potential for life. Regardless of the particular argument one chooses to use, the duty of moral individuals is clear: to endeavor with all their strength to clean their hands of the blood of unborn children and halt the legalized genocide that is occurring in America today.

     That the duty to protect life is a corporate, not an individual, duty should be clear to anyone with an understanding of the basic concepts of law and justice. Indeed, the first purpose of government is to protect life against those who might try to take it. This fact is reflected not only in the US Constitution's well-known protection of "life, liberty, and property," with life listed first, but also in the legal code of every civilized nation. We cannot simply stand by and argue that it is not our choice, or that the issue is too difficult for us. If we wish to have a government it must protect all life, else no life is truly protected. If we wish to protect life, life it or not, we must define it, and no logically defensible definition of human life can begin anywhere but at the point when a new instance of the human species comes into existence.

     While all of society partakes of this duty - a duty which US society has failed to fulfill - it falls particular heavily on Christians. The argument for a non-Christian to protect the unborn, while compelling, is essentially pragmatic: if we do not value all life, what is to say that we will value yours? The argument for a Christian, however, is much stronger. Christians are flatly commanded to "Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die." It would be difficult to imagine a situation that more perfectly fits the command issued in this verse than that of an unborn child. The duty of the Christian is clear.

     It would seem, then, that ringing condemnations of abortion as precisely what it is - the violent murder of helpless innocents - would ring out from every Christian, whether pastor or layman, in the country. Instead, although some voices speak out, we are left with a troubling silence from the bulk of Christianity (and even support for abortion from some of the more liberal factions). Why is this? Even those who have gone on record as opposing abortion do not seem to have the urgency in their actions that might be expected. Every day thousands of babies are murdered, yet many cannot be troubled to denounce this genocide regularly. Why? Perhaps it is because speaking out emphasizes the horror of what is happening. As long as we remain silent it is possible to deliberately fail to realize the fact that murder is legal and to ignore the duty to act that would accompany such a realization, thus avoiding the consequences which would accompany taking action.

     Stories are told of churches in Germany who, in order to drown out the cries of Jews who were being transported to their deaths on railroad tracks behind the church, began singing hymns. Christians in America are just as complicit as those German Christians. Christians are caught up in activities and projects, ignoring the silent cries of the unborn. Christians have ignored the issue completely or, worse still, advocated allowing some children to be killed. We, as a group, have refused to consistently support political candidates who will take an uncompromising stand on abortion, despite the fact that we have an unparalleled opportunity - one that those in Germany did not have - to influence our country's policy. Many even argued that economic factors, not abortion, should play the primary role in deciding on a candidate. Every day that we ignore abortion is another day that thousands die, yet Christians seem to lack a sense of urgency. Even in politics, where we have the biggest influence (and responsibility), Christians treat abortion as a box to be checked - the candidate need only make a profession of being pro-life, however obviously insincere, and Christians will flock to the polls in droves to support him, all while loudly proclaiming their determined opposition to abortion. The actions of Christians in America, with a few admirable exceptions, are marked by a singular apathy toward abortion. This apathy cannot continue. As long as abortion continues in our country, we have blood on our hands.

     Sing louder, church. Forty years have gone by, and you still have not drowned out the cries.

     In the aftermath of several prominent mass public shootings, a heated debate over gun control has arisen, and several restrictive policies have been proposed to limit gun ownership. The debate inevitably eventually lands on the nature of the Second Amendment's provision that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Some voices, particularly political liberals, contend that the presence of the phrase "a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state" is a limitation on those people who possess the "right of keep and bear arms" mentioned immediately after. Surprisingly, this argument is quite common, and is generally the first objection raised when the right to keep and bear arms is mentioned. It does not, however, stand up to scrutiny.

     First, one should consider the context of the sentence itself. Here the bane of English students everywhere - diagramming - becomes a useful tool. By diagramming the sentence it is possible to determine what relationship the two parts of the amendment have to each other. The diagram below does so.

The first part of the amendment is what is called a "nominative absolute." It consists of a noun or pronoun and a participle, and, notably, has no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence. In other words, the rest of sentence would have the same meaning without the presence of the nominative absolute. Therefore, the amendment retains the same meaning as if it read as "The right of the people to keep an bear arms shall not be infringed." The nominative absolute exists to explain the remainder of the sentence, not to change the meaning of the rest of the sentence.

     With this in mind, the amendment can be interpreted more clearly. To paraphrase, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because - remember that the nominative absolute exists to explain the rest of the sentence - a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. When arranged in this manner it couldn't be more clear that the amendment refers to an individual right for all the people to bear arms (it should also be noted that "infringed" includes any form of limiting, so anything that limits the right to keep and bear arms in any way violates the Second Amendment).

     The reader may remain unconvinced. If so, there is a way to test this interpretation. If this interpretation is correct, then the "militia" in question would refer to "the people" as a whole, and we would expect this fact to be reflected in what the authors of the Constitution had to say on the matter. As it happens, they had a great deal to say on the topic. First, think about what Patrick Henry - who, I'm sure, needs no introduction here - had to say:

“The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”

Consider also this quote from Richard Henry Lee, a member of the Continental Congress and signatory of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms."

 Lee apparently believed that the militia consisted of the entirety of the populace. If a clearer statement is desired, George Mason, the "Father of the Bill of Rights" was happy to oblige.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." 

Tench Coxe, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress gave his own description of what the militia was.

“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?"

Finally, James Madison, who drafted most of the Constitution, was also very clear about the correct nature of the militia.

"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..."

It seems abundantly obvious from the above quotes that the above interpretation of the Second Amendment - that is, that the reference to a militia is an explanation of why the people have the right to bear arms, not a limitation on the right to bear arms - is the correct one. The fact that a well-regulated (well-trained and equipped - note the similarity to the term "regular army," which referred to a professional, well-equipped army) militia is necessary is the reason that the people's right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.

Therefore, the objection that the right to keep and bear arms is offered only to a select few militiamen is flatly contradicted by both historical and grammatical context. Further, the Second Amendment denies the government the ability to take any action to infringe on - in other words, to limit - the right to keep and bear arms. For this reason, unless the Constitution is discarded or amended, any action to limit the availability of firearms - gun control, as it is known today - is entirely unconstitutional. Few people sum the matter up better than Tench Coxe:

“Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American… [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

Finally, Patrick Henry, an early skeptic of the Constitution because he believed it did not provide enough protection for state and individual rights, covers the right to bear arms as a whole in his usual fiery style.

“Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?

     The right to keep and bear arms is the right of the people. They have yielded it, in part (and unwisely), to both federal and state governments in order to create a standing army, however, the fact that the federal and state governments have such a right is no reason to infringe on the peoples' right to do the same. Any attempt to do so is both dangerous and unconstitutional, and should not be tolerated.

     "Speculations, man, I have none. I have certainties. I thank God that I don't rest my dying head upon speculations for "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day."       

     It has been said, so many times, in fact, that it has become almost cliché, that ideas have consequences or, to put it another way, that wrong thought leads to wrong action. In many cases an incorrect line of reasoning immediately leads to obviously incorrect action, however, in some instances an error can go relatively unnoticed, either because the one holding to the idea puts it into practice only erratically or because the belief, although incorrect, produces a correct result in most cases. These errors are, in fact, the most dangerous, since they are rarely seen yet can still lead to incorrect actions.

     One particular such error lies in the common thought the Christians ought to do the right thing because doing so creates good results. It would seem to be apparently logical to base one's judgment of what the right action is on whether or not the results it produces are desirable. Some may already recognize the insidious error found in this line of reasoning, but it is certainly not readily apparent to most people. The fact is, the statement that a Christian should base his judgment of an action on the results the action produces is the farthest thing from the truth. One could hardly conceive of a more dangerous error for a Christian to hold to. It usually causes the one holding it to arrive at the correct course of action – God's ways are indeed good ways, so in most cases the right action will produce a desirable outcome – but it is most emphatically not a sound basis for any Christian to take action.

     In fact, this “results-based” morality is the product of a secular humanist philosophy, not Christianity. Given no other standard to judge behavior humanist philosophers have devised a number of devices for judging the ethics of an action, all of them based on the results an action achieves. For example, one of the more well-known examples of a non-Christian code of ethics, utilitarianism, argues that the individual should seek to do the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of people. In other words, the individual should seek the best possible result, where the goodness or badness of the result is defined based on the net “good” (which can only be defined as pleasure without some other standard to define good) the action produces. Other codes of ethics may define what result is desirable differently, but the basic principle is the same: we take action in order to achieve a desirable result and for no other reason.

     The discussion in the above paragraph should begin to give the reader an idea of at least one of the salient flaws of results-based morality. By basing its judgment of the rightness or wrongness of an action on the results achieved, it ignores the fact that the full results of an action cannot be entirely known even after the action has been taken. Christianity, which assumes absolute right and wrong, at the very least strongly suggests that it is possible to know whether an action is right or wrong before the action is taken, and certainly, failing that, afterward. However, if we base our determination of right and wrong on the results of the action we must inevitably conclude that it is impossible to know whether an action is right or wrong before the action is made, and only possible to guess afterward. This fact alone should strongly suggest that Christianity and results-based morality are incompatible.

     If this was not enough, results-based morality also misplaces the burden of responsibility for effecting change in the world. Any Christian should recognize that not only does predicting and effecting positive change in the future exceed our ability, it exceeds our responsibility as well. God is more than capable of achieving any results he desires, whatever our action, while our inability to predict future results inevitably requires an inability to consistently achieve our desired results. We are like children, assigned a task by our elder, not because he requires our assistance for the task but out of kindness towards us. Our “goodness” is therefore not judged by the success of our bumbling, amateurish actions – had that been the point the adult could have done it himself far better – but by the fact that we tried to follow the directions given to us. Similarly, we take action not to align world events with God's will – he is more than capable of doing that without our aid – but to align ourselves with God's will. What happens is incidental to the single most important point of any action: how closely it conforms with God's standard of holiness.

     With this in mind Christians must emphatically reject attempts to judge the morality of an action based on subjective determinations of whether the result achieved was “good” or “bad.” Such a determination assumes more responsibility and more ability than humans have or were ever intended to have. Instead, we must embrace the belief that the morality of every action is decided solely by how closely that action conforms with God's standard. In many cases actions that conform to God's standard will produce what we view as “good” results, but that is never why an action is right, merely a sign that it may be. Accepting a correct view of morality requires not only that Christians understand such a correct view of morality, but also that they apply it. We must check ourselves when we find ourselves explaining that we are taking an action because it results in certain desirable things and instead teach ourselves to link each action to specific Biblical principles that support it. By doing otherwise we risk allowing an apparently trivial yet still dangerous error to compromise our modes of thinking and acting, potentially causing us to take wrong action, something that should be anathema to the careful Christian.

     Nuclear power today is defined by the antiquated needs of, of all things, submarines. During the development of the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, it became apparent that a solid uranium-fueled reactor would not only provide certain benefits when used in a submarine, it could also produce weaponizable byproducts, and, perhaps most important, could be ready sooner than its many competitors. Admiral Hyman Rickover decided in favor of a water cooled solid reactor fueled by uranium oxide enriched in U-235., and in doing so decided the future of nuclear power.

     To modern eyes Rickover's choice seems inexplicable. Up until his decision thorium appeared to be the future of nuclear power, however, once the water cooled solid uranium reactor was supported by the deep pockets of Uncle Sam, the contest was essentially over. Thorium, although promising, required development and could not compete with uranium. Although the reasons behind Rickover's choice are no longer relevant, uranium has maintained its ascendancy due to the massive costs associated with building and operating a nuclear reactor.

Shiga, David. 2011. "Rescuing Nuclear Power." New Scientist 209, no. 2805: 8-10.