September 4, 2005

Cawson St. Church of Christ

Hopewell, Virginia

Mural Worthey

 

Evidence of Intelligent Design?

 

   Introduction: Recently on NPR from Richmond, a news analyst made a remark concerning the recent debate on “Intelligent Design.”  A body of leading scientists and thinkers are now presenting the evidence that they see in our world of intelligent design.  They are not necessarily saying that this points to the Christian’s God, but that the world shows that it did not come about by accident or just a desire to survive (survival of the fittest).  The elderly news analyst, Daniel Shore, said concerning hurricane Katrina, “If this is evidence of intelligent design, then the designer has something to answer for.”

 

   In a recent roundtable discussion of this subject on Larry King Live, an unbelieving woman said, “There is not one iota of evidence in our world of intelligent design.”  She repeated it for emphasis.  It seems that every time we have a storm of some magnitude, someone is ready to cry, See, there is no God!

 

   What should our response be to such disasters in our world?  Where is God when there is such widespread destruction, pain and death?  Christians should be ready to answer such questions.  Some of them are asked genuinely; others are not.  Some are statements of protest because their world has been rocked.  Some express unbelievable arrogance and impudence, as a clay pot protesting against the Potter.  Why have you made me so?  We as humans can give voice to our pain, but worms and trees cannot.  Perhaps, the lowly worm would cry out, Why did you make me a worm?

 

Two Incomplete Descriptions

 

   Generally, when two sides in a dispute are trying to gain the upper ground, both will overstate their cases and make descriptions of our world that are inaccurate.

 

   It is a false view of our world to say as the woman did on Larry King, There is not one iota of evidence of intelligent design in our world.  The house she lives in shows obvious evidence that someone designed it.  Her hand and eyes show remarkable evidences of design.  Her brain, while denounces the One who created it, is evidence of design.  Though she is not using it very well.

 

   The Hebrew writer said, “Every house is built by some man, and he that built all things is God.”  (Heb. 3:4.)  That is a simple, indisputable truth.

 

   I looked up the word, design, in Webster’s.  Here are some of the words used to define it.  Design means a plan, purpose, aim and intention.  Intelligent means that it was done with some logical goal or purpose in mind.  Maybe a good way to define intelligent design is by illustrating what it is not.  Suppose someone designed a house a different way that what we are accustomed to seeing.  Suppose they designed the garage on the second floor with no way to get the car up there to park!  Suppose they put the roof on the side of the house with the doors and windows on the roof, so that no one could get into the house!  What if they put the kitchen in the bedroom and the bathroom in the attic!  You get the point.  This is evidence of stupidity, not intelligence.  

 

   It is also a false view of our world to describe the world as a paradise, or a Garden of Eden.  We do not live in a rose garden with beautiful colors everywhere and wonderful fragrance.  Some, in their zeal, to defend God have overstated the case about our world.  There are obviously some terrible things in our world.  It is not sensible to say that God made a beautiful, perfect world and there is nothing wrong with it today.

 

   What is the truth about our world?  It has both elements of good and evil.  Our world shows evidence of the glory of God and his handiwork.  But there is something that is overwhelmingly wrong with our world.  A good response to those asking about Hurricane Katrina would be: That is nothing compared to the unseen hurricane, category 6 (there is no such category), of sin and evil.  If you want to seriously deal with the subject of what is wrong with our world, then deal with the really big problem.  Then you will find the answer to the questions about natural disaster.  Physical death and destruction doesn’t begin to deal with the real heartache of our world.  There is natural evil and there is moral evil.  (Rom. 8:22.)

 

Design Without Claims of Perfection

 

   There can be abundant evidence of design without any claim made that there is perfection involved.  Using our example of a house again: there is no perfect house; and no claim is made that such exists.  The fact that problems exists do not argue against intelligent design, at least on a human level.  One of the reasons that we are so excited when NASA makes a successful lift off and returns to earth is that we are aware of all the things that can go wrong.  In deed, tragedies have been a part of space exploration from the very beginning.  Rockets and space capsules have blown up on lift-off and on re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere.  But do these tragedies say that the remarkable space program shows no evidence of design, no not one iota.  To say such is to express a lack of intelligence.

 

   But the real argument is against God’s design, not man’s.  We understand that man makes mistakes.  There is nothing or no one who is perfect on earth.  We have accepted that axiom and have learned to live with it.  But God is perfect, having omniscience and omnipotence.  Why do things go wrong with Him and his design of our world?  Why do we not have a perfect world?  That is really what men are asking.  It is a good question, showing evidence of intelligence.

 

   The answer is that God did make everything good in the beginning.  (Gen. 1 & 2.)  The world that we now live in is not the same one that we find in the Garden of Eden.  We have three important chapters in the Bible bearing on this subject—Genesis 1, 2 and 3.  Chapter 3 is when things went wrong.

 

   “Lo, this only have I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.”  (Eccl. 7:29.)  God cursed the Serpent, the man, the woman, and the earth.  (Gen. 3:14-19.)  The curse brought upon mankind was death.  “In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.”  (Gen. 2:17.)

 

   The whole creation groans under pain of this curse.  (Rom. 8:18-25.)  But the Bible reveals that God has given a scheme of redemption for the whole creation—man, beasts, and the earth.  There will be a better world called heaven, where death and destruction do not exist.  Would it not be sad if mankind missed this perfect world to come because he is bitter about living by the sweat of his brow in this world!  We go from one curse to another!

 

Scope of Disaster

 

   I also noted that such discussions about intelligent design and the existence of God usually come out when something catastrophic occurs.  I do not hear such bold statements during the “normal” days of our lives.  Yet during every day, there is death and destruction.  There are wars and injustices around the globe.  The silence sentence of God’s curse continues even when the sun is shining.  Man will labor with the sweat of his brow until he returns to the dust from which he was created.  But why do we hear such cries of unfairness about what God does or denials of his existence only during the most tragic episodes.

 

   Let me remind you of some other tragic events—both natural and moral evil events.  A curse was pronounced upon mankind due to his disobedience that will result in the death of every man, woman and child that is born into this world.  A natural event only?  No, a moral one.  A flood was sent in the days of Noah that destroyed an entire generation, except eight souls.  The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire as a judgment from God.  An evil Roman ruler led persecution against Christians, and yet God did not intervene.  In the twentieth century, Hitler murdered nine million people in his effort to exterminate the Jews.  A Tsunami last year killed over 300,000 in Southeast Asia.  (Note: With present day disasters we do not know when they are a direct judgment from God.  Without inspiration or prophets present, we will never know on this earth.)

 

   I think there is a reason that we hear cries of protest when the scope is really great.  The reason is that it shocks sinful people out of their comfort zone.  We grow accustomed to deaths one by one among us.  We attribute it to old age, disease, and accidents.  We deny the moral element—the most significant part. (Rom. 6:23.)

 

   Imagine the cries from the sinful world when the Lord returns and the whole world is brought into judgment.  Our unbelieving world denies even God the right to execute judgment upon sinners.  We protest the very notion that God would do such a thing.  Imagine the cries when unbelievers are told to depart from the presence of the Lord forever!

 

   When the apostle Peter named the acts of an unsparing God, he said, “Making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly. . . .”

(2 Peter 2:6.)

Man Questioning God

 

   We have already alluded to the inappropriateness of puny man questioning God.  Man does not have the ability to take care of himself without God, much less to know how to run a universe.

 

   “Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God?  Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?”  (Rom. 9:20.)

 

   Man does not have enough intelligence and information at his disposal to make judgments about divine intent and design.  One might look at the vastness of the universe and wonder why all the wasted space.  Why 93 million miles to the sun?  A smaller sun could be closer to the earth.  Could you advise God on this little design problem??  Much of the earth is four-fifths water and only one-fifth land.  An atheist would argue: What builder would construct a house with five rooms, but only one room is inhabitable?  Such argues for poor design.  The designer must explain himself.

 

   But consider the following: 1) The oceans provide a huge reservoir of moisture which is constantly evaporating and condensing, thus falling upon the land as refreshing rain.  2) It is a well-known fact that water heats and cools at a much slower rate than does the solid land mass.  This explains why desert regions can be so blistering hot in the daytime and freezing cold at night.  Water holds its temperature longer, however, and provides a sort of heating and cooling system for the land areas.  Our temperature extremes would be much more erratic than they are, were it not for this factor.  3) Humans and animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.  On the other hand, plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.  We depend upon the world of botany for some of our oxygen supply.  What many fail to realize, however, is that approximately 90% of our oxygen comes from microscopic plants in the seas.  If our oceans were appreciably smaller, we would soon be out of breath!  There is design in the land/water ration.

 

   There are some things that scientists have been able to discern and find out the reason for the present design.  There are many other things that we do not know.  This in itself tells us that intelligence is behind our world.  There are discernable laws and reasons.  To call that natural, instead of supernatural, is to attribute intelligence to matter.  What an unscientific thing for an intelligent man to do.