It's Wednesday, December 10, 2025.

I'm Albert Moller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

We do know that we're living in a clash of worldviews, and the first thing we would say is that there's a clash between the Christian worldview and a secular worldview and on a host of issues that clash is becoming more and more apparent. But one

issue that should draw our attention is the issue of personal autonomy. Assumptions about personal

autonomy claims about personal autonomy. Now one of the things you see developing in the secular worldviews

around us is the idea that secular visions of personal autonomy are now becoming absolutely

common and absolutely deadly. And when we talk about personal autonomy, let's just say that

everyone, including Christians, to some degree, believes in personal

autonomy. We believe that we have personal moral responsibility and ought to have some range

of operational autonomy. We really aren't committed to a world or a civilization in which, you know,

someone tells you you have to be in carpenter, you have to be a

computer programmer, or whatever. We believe in some appropriate zone of personal autonomy.

We don't want, you know, government officials telling us who we have to marry, how many

children we can have, et cetera. So personal autonomy is not something that either exists or doesn't exist.

It's a continuum.

And at every point along the continuum, there is going to be some affirmation of personal autonomy.

But you know what?

The biblical worldview doesn't give us grounds to put personal autonomy above moral responsibility

or above other other absolutely objective,

categorical goods and divine commands.

So in other words, the Christian worldview says we do not have personal autonomy to declare

ourselves free to reject the law of God, free to deny the existence of God, free to, say, even tamper with

...