The appearance of the kidult is troubling from several non-economic perspectives. It speaks of the state of a decadent culture that embraces childish and immature things. Childhood is a transitory state through which all pass. It can be a time of innocence and happiness where everything is full of wonder and freshness. However, it is not meant to be eternal. Children are shielded from many dangers, so they might have the occasion to build character, establish good habits, and grow in the love of God that comes naturally to them.

It is easy to dismiss adult toy-buying as a craze of little significance. But the appearance of the “kidult” is troubling from several perspectives, for it speaks of the state of a decadent culture that embraces childish and immature things. The kidult idea also participates in the postmodern desire to be what one is not. It is a revolt against the Creator and the desire to be the fantasy designer of one’s own identity.
Some years ago, people criticized the tendency of young people to defer adulthood and live as eternal adolescents. Youth were encouraged to engage in “adulting” by assuming at least some of the duties and responsibilities expected of fully developed individuals. Now a new word is circulating describing another postmodern absurdity: the “kidult.”
This curious mixture of kid and adult is the contrary of the “adulting” adolescent. It consists of grown-up adults who assume some of the attributes of children. A new niche market has opened up to cater to these now “grown-downs.”
A hot new trend for this demographic is the adult purchase of toys—for the adults’ own entertainment.
Kidult-Toys “R” Us?
It’s not just adult coloring books anymore, but all sorts of stocking stuffers. Toy companies are expanding special lines of products that appeal to kidults. Legos now has more than one hundred kits explicitly designed for grown-downs. Stuffed animals, dolls, and action figures are all the rage among those 18 and up. McDonald’s recently jumped on the bandwagon by offering Happy Meals for kidults, complete with a free toy inside.
Many claim the new trend is an effect of the pandemic. The stress and insecurity of withdrawal from society caused many Americans to want to reconnect with their past. They longed for the distant past of a childhood when things are often simpler. But unlike past adult toy sales based on nostalgia, the new toy buyers are actually playing with them.
The surge in sales is also connected to a feeling of entitlement. Adults gift themselves toys to make up for what they never had as children. They sometimes indulge in purchases as a means of satisfying the fantasies of their inner child. Doll owners like to appear on social media in matching outfits. Toys are finding their way into celebrations like birthdays, showers, and corporate events. Toy companies are right behind the kidults, meeting the demand with new teddy bears and Captain Marvel figures.
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The Tao tells us how we ought to live; we then discover that we don’t live up to it. We fail, and fail miserably. It tells us that we ought to value things according to their value, and then we discover that we have not done so. We have not valued what is supremely valuable. That is, we have not valued God, treasured God, loved God with all that we are. What are we to do? 

Culture War and The Abolition of Man

I’d like to begin by apologizing to those who saw the title of this talk and came hoping to hear reflections on China’s influence on American real estate. The confusion is understandable, but as the fellow said, “That topic is above my paygrade.” Instead, I hope to shed some light on what we often call “the culture war.”
So let me simply get right to my major claim: The culture war in the present generation is fundamentally about what C. S. Lewis called the Tao.
Lewis introduced the term in his little book on education called The Abolition of Man. In that book, Lewis sets forth two fundamentally different visions of reality, and the two approaches to education that flow from them.
Defining the Tao
The Tao is C. S. Lewis’s term for the objective rational and moral order embedded in the cosmos and in human nature. Other names for it include Natural Law or Traditional Morality. Lewis borrows the term from Eastern religions for the sake of brevity and in order to stress its universality. Lewis claims that a belief in the objective rational and moral order of the universe is present not only in Christianity, but in Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition, even ancient paganism. Whatever differences exist among them (and there are substantial and important differences), the common thread is the belief in the doctrine of objective value.
Lewis claimed that until modern times, almost everyone believed that our thoughts and our emotions should be conformed to objective reality. Objects in the world could merit our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt. Certain attitudes and emotions are really true to reality. Others are really false to reality.
When we call children “delightful,” we’re not simply recording a psychological fact about ourselves. We’re recognizing a quality in them that demands a certain response from us, whether we give it or not. And to fail to give it, to feel it is to be wrong. Lewis himself did not enjoy the company of small children, and he regarded that as a defect in himself, like being tone deaf or color blind.
For those within the Tao, when our thoughts correspond to reality, we speak of truth. When our emotions and wills correspond to reality, we speak of goodness. These are objective categories, the source of all value judgments, and universally binding; “Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike.” The Tao binds and restrains all men, from commoners to kings, from citizens to rulers.
The Poison of Subjectivism
In opposition to the Tao stands the modern ideology which Lewis calls the poison of Subjectivism, an existential threat to Western Civilization and humanity that enables tyranny and totalitarianism.
The poison of subjectivism upends the ancient and humane way of viewing the world. Reason itself is debunked (today, we would say deconstructed). Instead of thoughts corresponding to objective reality, human reason is simply a brain secretion, an epiphenomenon that accompanies certain chemical and electrical events in the cortex, which is itself the product of blind evolutionary processes. It has no more significance than a burp. Which makes Logic subjective, and we thus have no reason to believe that it yields truth.
Likewise, moral value judgments are simply projections of irrational emotions onto an indifferent cosmos. Truth and goodness are merely words we apply to our own subjective psychological states, states that we have been socially conditioned to have. Because rational thought is merely a brain secretion, and value judgments are merely irrational projections, the imposition of reason and morality in society is always a dressed-up power play. And the subjectivists want the power.
Thus, for subjectivists, “Traditional values are to be ‘debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape” at the arbitrary will of Conditioners who view people as raw material for experimentation. In other words, nature, including human nature, is just play-dough to be kneaded and reshaped according to the wishes of the Conditioners. Because Lewis knew that “Man’s power over nature” is really the power of some men over other men with nature as the instrument.
The Tao in America
What does all of this have to do with the culture war in America? Put simply, American culture is an expression of the Tao. From our founding documents to our customs and practices, and from sea to shining sea, American culture, for most of our history, has been firmly grounded in an express belief in the objective moral and rational order of the universe.
This doesn’t mean that we’ve lived up to the Tao. At various times in our history, America has grossly failed to abide by basic principles of the Tao (such as the Golden Rule). Think of Jim Crow. But the Civil Rights Movement was built as an appeal to the Tao. MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” appeals to the Scriptures, to the Western theological and philosophical tradition, and America’s own heritage, because he knows that America professes to live within the Tao. So living within the Tao is not the same as living up to the Tao. But both King and Lewis knew that the very possibility of moral progress hinges on a permanent objective standard by which we measure such progress. Imperfect and flawed as it has been, the civilizational embrace of the Tao has historically been a crucial feature of American society.
And, as The National Conservatism Statement of Principles notes, America’s embrace of the Tao has come through the Bible:
For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred.
The Scriptures bear witness to the objective moral order, and thus the Tao, through the Bible, is part of our patrimony, our inheritance. In terms of rational and moral order, the Scriptures and the Tao speak with one voice.
From “It Is Good” to “I Want”
Nevertheless, rebellion against this order is possible, and can be temporarily effective. (But only temporarily: falling feels like flying until you hit the ground). Richard Hooker, the English theologian, wrote that “Perverted and wicked customs—perhaps beginning with a few and spreading to the multitude, and then continuing for a long time—may be so strong that they smother the light of our natural understanding.” (Divine Law and Human Nature, 43).
Lewis notes that “When all that says ‘it is good’ has been debunked, what says ‘I want’ remains” (Abolition, 65). And our society is debunking “it is good” and reordering itself around “I want.” Science and technology are now employed in service of “I want.” Indeed, the major institutions of society—Big Business, Big Education, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Entertainment, Big Pharma and Big Government—are all in service of subjectivism, in service of the Almighty “I want.” Not only that, they are in the business of shaping and conditioning “I want” and then enforcing “I want” on those still clinging to “it is good.”
Thus, we feel the cultural, social, and legal pressure to speak nonsense, to participate in the lie, to conform to the wicked custom. We must affirm that Rachel Levine is a woman, that pronouns are private property, that the mutilation of healthy organs is “gender-affirming care,” and that dismembering a child in utero is about a woman’s reproductive health.
This is the fundamental cultural conflict in our times. The Tao or Chaos. The Tao or Absurdity. “It is good” vs. “I want.”
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Craig’s book is essential reading and stakes out a moderate position in the historical Adam debate. In the present intellectual climate, this work deserves two cheers. Nevertheless, his thesis stands in a long line of proposals that suffer from the same predicament: under pressure from science and other plausibility structures, they find it impossible to believe the clear witness of Scripture; therefore, they must reinterpret the Bible.

William Lane Craig is a professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University and the author of multiple books covering apologetics, philosophy, theology, and related fields. He is widely respected as one of the leading Christian philosophers writing today. In his most recent book, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration, Craig has decided to take on the many-tentacled debate surrounding the historical Adam.
There’s much to like in his argument. For one thing, Craig’s writing is clean as a whistle. His arguments are easy to follow and almost always illuminating. Writing this kind of monograph takes courage—most scholars prefer to hunker down in their silos, but Craig is a man on a mission, straddling multiple disciplines and armed with an astonishing arsenal of research. This book is a striking advertisement for interdisciplinary writing.
Parts of this volume are also highly entertaining. For example, his critiques of Old Testament scholarship were page turners. Those sections gave me fond memories of reading essays like Alvin Plantinga’s “Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship.” I’m not saying all of Craig’s criticisms of biblical scholars were convincing, but I found most of them insightful and conceptually clarifying. (In fact, some of his critiques were so pointed and so obviously right that they should put the fear of God in any potential critic of the book. Be very afraid, Madueme.)

William Lane Craig

Was Adam a real historical person? And if so, who was he and when did he live? William Lane Craig sets out to answer these questions through a biblical and scientific investigation. He begins with an inquiry into the genre of Genesis 1–11, determining that it can most plausibly be classified as mytho-history—a narrative with both literary and historical value. He then moves into the New Testament, where he examines references to Adam in the words of Jesus and the writings of Paul, ultimately concluding that the entire Bible considers Adam the historical progenitor of the human race—a position that must therefore be accepted as a premise for Christians who take seriously the inspired truth of Scripture.

EERDMANS. 439 PP.

In what follows, I lay out my two main reservations: the first concerns how Craig interprets the early chapters of Genesis, and the second how he interprets the apostolic testimony. I’ll ignore the last section of the book on science because the plausibility of his moves depends on what one thinks of his earlier arguments (and besides, I do have a word count here).
On Early Genesis
Craig’s thesis is that Genesis 1–11 is mytho-history. In step with most Old Testament scholarship, Craig sees key differences in the literary styles of Genesis 1–11 and Genesis 12–50, and he thinks the first 11 chapters share the same conceptual world as ancient Near East (ANE) mythology. In his view, primeval myths were authoritative for ancient Israelites, but they didn’t necessarily believe them to be historical in the way that we, today, think about events as “historical.” We should not understand the primeval events literally: “Their primary purpose is to ground realities present to the pentateuchal author and important for Israelite society in the primordial past” (157).
I felt some whiplash reading his justification for the claim that early Genesis is largely mythical. On the one hand, Craig’s criticisms of the comparative method are some of the most penetrating that I’ve ever read, including his critique of parallelomania and claims of direct dependence between Genesis and this or that ANE myth. He rightly exposes the many layers of difficulty in the comparative approach. On the other hand, Craig’s thesis that large parts of Genesis 1–11 are mythical in the authoritative-but-not-literal sense itself depends on the comparative method: by analyzing Genesis 1–11 in light of family resemblances among ANE myths, he prioritizes extrabiblical ANE literature over the theological claims of Scripture itself.
But this approach reflects the wrong ordering and emphasis. The theological claims of Scripture should have priority over ANE literature, which is why I’m far less sanguine about the comparative method than Craig is. The explanatory categories of the comparative method tend to be naturalistic: they usually appeal to human, non-spiritual, this-worldly horizons—as if the compositional history of Genesis 1–11 is obviously more similar than different from other ANE texts. I doubt Craig endorses this kind of naturalism, but I still worry about naturalism creep (given that he accepts the basic outline of the comparative method).
Furthermore, religious and cultural similarities between Scripture and the ANE world are difficult to unravel and usually lack a single explanation. The mythical understanding of primeval history is an extrabiblical theory that obscures the analogy of faith. Christians should give priority to interpreting Scripture in light of Scripture rather than relatively speculative theories about ANE culture and its putative relationship to the biblical authors. 
Let me explain what I mean. Craig highlights 10 family resemblances among myths and then argues that Genesis 1–11 displays almost all those features. He concludes that much of the primeval narrative is mythical, which means that it’s authoritative but not meant literally. I think this position is wide of the mark. What I found most telling was Craig’s long discussion of the 10th feature of myths that he thinks Genesis 1–11 exemplifies. He tells us that Genesis has “fantastic elements” that are “palpably false” if taken to be literally true (101, 105), including the ideas that God created the world in six days, the first humans were vegetarian, there was a snake that could talk, there were rivers in Eden, there were actual cherubim with a flaming sword, the antediluvian patriarchs lived long ages, Noah’s flood was global, linguistic diversity can be traced back to the Tower of Babel, and the earth is only thousands of years old. But why would Craig categorize these elements of the narrative as “fantastic”? Why does he think they are palpably false if taken literally?
Perhaps because Craig has an anti-supernatural bias? But he rejects that charge explicitly: “The fantastic elements in the narratives that we have identified have nothing to do with miracles, which we accept. Rather, they concern non-miraculous features of the story that, if taken literally, are palpably false” (131)
Fair enough, the core issue seems to be epistemological authority rather than supernaturalism. Craig doesn’t explicitly reject the Bible’s epistemic authority, but he does so implicitly when he repeatedly rejects the literal interpretation. He justifies that move by appealing to ANE texts and how he thinks they were likely understood.
My problem is that such extra-textual moves are often speculative and should be resisted if and when they’re in tension with Scripture’s interpretation of itself. Those parts of the primeval narrative may seem implausible in a modern view of the world, but if we have solid exegetical and theological reasons to interpret these narratives literally and thus historically, then so much the worse for our modern expectations.
Almost everything Craig classifies as “fantastic” is, in my view, literal and straightforwardly historical. He gives no compelling intra-textual reasons for interpreting those elements mythically. The only reason he gives seems to be that he finds it all implausible—but that says more about Craig than about Scripture.
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