As I was driving down the road one day, I saw a message of plastic cups in a fence which read, “Live, Love, Laugh.” I concluded that someone had arranged this for passing motorists. However, my conclusion struck me as odd, because how did I know someone had intentionally arranged this message? I mean, I didn’t actually see the individual place the cups there, so I wondered if I was being reasonable. I began to formulate certain hypotheses. Perhaps this message was a result of pure chance? Perhaps a gust of wind blew some cups into the fence and by sheer coincidence it spelled “Live, Love, Laugh.” Perhaps there is another accidental explanation for the message that I had yet to consider. But, that seemed highly unlikely. Why? Because the fence contained information, and information only comes from intelligence. Therefore, it seemed more reasonable for me to infer that the message was the product of an intelligent designer. Similarly, I will argue that intelligence better explains the design that we see in the universe than Darwinian evolution especially when it comes to the universe’s fine tuning and the information contained in DNA.

What is Darwinian Evolution?

            As understood in academic circles, Darwinian evolution is the unguided process that brings about all of life on the planet as we know it with all of its diversity. This process is blind, random and does not appeal to any designer. [1] The catalyst by which this is accomplished is “natural selection.” Darwin believed that nature weeds out the weakest so that only the strongest survive. Random mutations also play apart in this unguided process in order to get new species. The organisms that adapt favorably through random mutations survive and produce offspring.[2]

What is Intelligent Design?

According to Donald E. Johnson, “The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”[3]J.P. Moreland and Tim Muelhoff say that design may be inferred “when something shows evidence of forethought, planning and intention.”[4] Some examples of this might be a computer, a painting, or something as large as Mount Rushmore. William Paley (1743-1805) made the famous common sense conclusion that if a person came across a watch lying in the woods or on the beach, they could infer a designer because of the many intricate working parts. If one substitutes the universe for the watch, in Paley’s analogy, you come to the same conclusion. Even atheist Richard Dawkins admits that the universe at least looks designed. He says, “Biology is the study of complex things that appear to have been designed for a purpose.”[5] But Dawkins concludes that the design we see in the universe is just an illusion. Are there any good reasons to think that the design we see in the universe is just an illusion as Dawkins suggests? Or is it more rational to think that since the universe displays evidence of forethought, planning and intention that an intelligent mind is behind it?

Argument for an Intelligent Designer

The argument for design can be simplified as follows:

                        1. All design implies a designer.

                        2. There is intelligent design in the universe.

                        3. Therefore, there must be an intelligent designer of the universe.[6]

In logic, the above argument is known as a “deductive argument.” This type of argument argues from the general to the specific. A deductive argument can be written in the form of a syllogism. A syllogism always has two premises and then a conclusion. If the premises are more plausibly true than false, then the conclusion logically follows. Philosopher William Lane Craig, states, “Now the determined skeptic can deny any conclusion simply by denying one of the premises. You can’t force someone to accept the conclusion if he’s willing to pay the price of rejecting one of the premises. But what you can do is raise the price of rejecting the conclusion by giving good evidence for the truth of the premises.”[7]

Fine Tuning of the Universe

            Do you remember the story of Goldilocks and the three bears?  Goldilocks sits at the table and tastes Papa Bears’ porridge. She then comments that it is “too hot.” After she tastes Mama Bears’ porridge she retorts, “This is ‘too cold.’” But when she tastes Baby Bear’s porridge her reply is that it is “just right.” The universe is “just right” for life. This is known as “fine tuning.” The fine tuning of the universe is evidence for design.”

Let’s suppose that NASA had orchestrated a mission to Mars whereby three astronauts were able to explore the red planet. When they land, they discover an amazing biosphere where life is abundant. In the middle of the planet, they discover a machine that has numerous dials on it. The dial for oxygen to nitrogen ratio is perfectly set, the humidity is set at 50% and the temperature is 70 degrees. There is also a dial that helps replenish the air and remove waste. The machines’ dials have a wide range of possibilities but each one is uniquely tuned to the right spot. Change any dial and you upset the biosphere.[8] What do you think would be the reaction of the astronauts? Would they conclude that the biosphere just happened or that it was designed by Martians?[9]

Now let’s suppose that Martians visit planet earth to observe our environment. What conclusions do you think they would reach when they looked at the facts about earth? Consider these facts:

• Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has breathable air. If an astronaut took his helmet off on Venus or Jupiter, he would suffocate.
• Earth is just the right distance from the sun. If it was any closer, the sun would vaporize the oceans. If it was further away, the oceans would freeze.
• Earth has water which is necessary for life.
• The ozone level is just right. If it was thicker there would be a runaway greenhouse effect not allowing plant life. If it was thinner there would be too little greenhouse effect also killing plant life and not allowing any life to be possible.[10]

What conclusions do you think our Martian visitors would have? Would they say our environment was a product of chance or that it was carefully designed the same as their biosphere?

Objection – Who designed the designer?

            Inevitably, skeptics will attempt to refute the design argument by posing the question, who designed the designer? Atheist George H. Smith reports as follows:

Let us grant the premises of [the design] argument and see where it leads…It is now up to the theist to answer the question: Who designed God? Surely, nothing as complex and intricate as a supernatural intelligence can be the result of mere chance. Therefore, there must be a super- designer who designed God. But a super-designer would require a super-super-designer, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, by the premises of the [design] argument, we are led to an infinite series of transcendental designers.[11]

At first glance, this seems to be a problem for the theist because an infinite regress of transcendental designers is impossible. How should the theist respond? First, Smith commits a category fallacy by asking this question. Let me explain, in order to ask the question, “What made x? x must be a makeable thing. But God, if he exists at all, is a necessary being and does not rely on anything else for His existence.  A necessary being is by nature a being which cannot not exist.  Therefore, what Smith is really asking is, “What made the unmakeable thing? This is a nonsensical question. It is like asking, “How many inches long is the smell of a rose?”[12] Second, in order for an explanation to be the best, you don’t need an explanation of the explanation. If astronauts discovered a pile of machinery on the back side of the moon, they could conclude that intelligence was responsible for placing it there, even if they did not know the identity of the intelligence.[13]

Information in DNA

            Recall from my introduction, that I concluded that the message “Live, Love, Laugh,” spelled out by arranging cups in the fence was the result of an intelligent mind because information only comes from intelligence. McDowell and Morrow agree:

With the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, scientists learned that information is basic to life. The information for organizing proteins is stored in four nucleotide bases: guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T), and cytosine (C). These four bases function as letters of the alphabet, creating meaningful letter arrangement, which is why biologists regularly referred to DNA and RNA as carriers of “information.” The amount of information in the human body is outright staggering.[14]

The information in the DNA is evidence for design. The human body has an average of 100 trillion cells. If the information contained in the DNA was decoded and put into print, it would contain more information than all the books in the Library of Congress.[15] Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft writes, “Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve created.”[16]In the movie Contact, Jodie Foster plays a SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) researcher who discovers a signal from outer space. The signal represented the prime numbers from 2 to 101. Because math, according to Foster’s character, is the universal language, she rightly concludes that an intelligent mind was behind the message.[17] Had Foster’s character applied the same principle of inferring intelligence behind the prime numbers to the information contained in DNA, she would conclude that an intelligent mind was behind that as well.

            What do you think are the chances that blind random forces could produce the information we find in DNA? According to Stephen Meyer, “the odds of getting a functional protein of 150 amino acids by chance are approximately 1 in 10¹⁶⁴. Now consider that there are  10⁸⁰ particles in the entire universe. Thus, the probability of finding a functional protein through chance alone is a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion times smaller than the odds of finding a specific particle in a random search throughout the entire universe!”[18]

            If something as simple as the cups in the fence and the prime numbers from 2 to 101 require an intelligent mind. Then obviously the information contained in the DNA requires an intelligent mind as well.

Objection – Intelligent Design commits the “God-of-the-gaps” Fallacy

            The God-of-the-gaps fallacy has been used in the past to plug in “god” when certain knowledge was missing. For example, God was said to be the cause of  solar eclipses and earthquakes until our scientific knowledge was able to explain the phenomena. Therefore as our knowledge expanded, our need for God diminished.  

            But, intelligent design is not a default position based on what we do not know but rather positive evidence based on what we do know.[19] Our constant experience verifies this notion. Computer programmers write computer programs, authors write books, young people text their friends and lovers send love poems to their significant others. For every instance in which we are able to trace the information back to its original source, we always find an intelligent mind.[20]

Conclusion

            When someone views the universe as a whole, it is rational to think it exhibits planning, forethought and intention. If the universe displays evidence of fine tuning, does it not make sense to infer a fine tuner? If our everyday experiences validate the notion that information only comes from intelligence, does it not make sense to infer an intelligent mind behind the information in the DNA?  The two pieces of evidence that I have presented lead us to say that a reasonable person should conclude that there must be an intelligent designer of the universe.

            In December of 2004, the most famous atheist of the 20^th century made a startling conversion from atheism to deism. At the age of 81, Antony Flew announced he changed his view  to deism, not because he was getting old but because he was simply following the evidence. In an interview with Benjamin Wiker, Flew said “ there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and “my own insight [is] that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”[21]

Defending your Faith with Reason and Precision

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SBCAN meets the third Monday of the month at 6:30 at Brookwood Baptist. Hope to see you there!

Wanted:  Christian Mentalists

Who Do You Say I Am?

Why I Am Old-Earth Creationist:  A Personal Journey

Earnestly Contending:  Jude

The Resurrection:  Fact Or Fiction

I am currently available to give these presentations at any church or small group.  Please contact me at markriser1@comcast.net.

What was even more interesting were the to and fro comments to his comments that followed. Followers of Christ were told they were “living a fantasy” and “following a mythical figure”. I could not stay silent on this issue. Even Bart Ehrmann, the Christian who has lost his faith and who now writes books deconstructing the Gospels admits that Jesus was a real figure in history. So, I thought I would share some facts with our readers regarding the extra-Bibilical historical support for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth:

Tacitus, Roman Historian
Nero fastened the guilt . . . on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . .
Pliny, the Younger
They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food–but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.
Josephus
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he . . . wrought surprising feats. . . . He was the Christ. When Pilate . . .condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared . . . restored to life. . . . And the tribe of Christians . . . has . . . not disappeared.
The Babylonian Talmud
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald . . . cried, “He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.”
Lucian of Samosata
The Christians . . . worship a man to this day–the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.
In Summary
First, both Josephus and Lucian indicate that Jesus was regarded as wise.
Second, Pliny, the Talmud, and Lucian imply He was a powerful and revered teacher.
Third, both Josephus and the Talmud indicate He performed miraculous feats.
Fourth, Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and Lucian all mention that He was crucified. Tacitus and Josephus say this occurred under Pontius Pilate. And the Talmud declares it happened on the eve of Passover.
Fifth, there are possible references to the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection in both Tacitus and Josephus.
Sixth, Josephus records that Jesus’ followers believed He was the Christ, or Messiah. And finally, both Pliny and Lucian indicate that Christians worshipped Jesus as God!

So, you see, Jesus was NOT a myth. Jesus is NOT a fantasy. Jesus was a real human being living in first century Palestine an He IS a real person today! He IS the way, the truth, and the life.

Each of these arguments have 2 premises and a conclusion. By the rules of logic, if the premises are true then the conclusion logically follows. This is known as “deductive reasoning.” If someone wants to tear down your argument, they must show that your premises are false.

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

It is that simple. This argument is easy to remember and easy to memorize. The basic strategy for this argument is to use “the principle of causality” to show that the universe did not just “pop” into existence uncaused out of nothing. Einstein’s theory of relativity showed that all space matter and time came into existence. Whatever caused space and time could not itself be part of space and time. Therefore, this cause must be timeless, spaceless and immaterial being of supernatural power. This cause must be a personal agent because it chose to create. This cause fits the description of God.

MORAL ARGUMENT
1. If God does not exist, then objective morals do not exist.
2. But objective morals do exist.
3. Therefore God exists.

This argument hits right at the heart of where people are. We all know that certain actions are REALLY right and certain actions are REALLY wrong. That is what I mean by “objective.” An action is objectively right or wrong irregardless of someones opinion. For example, “Torturing babies for fun” is an example of an “objective” moral. It is always wrong to do this, no matter what a persons culture or background. Yet, if there is no God, who is to say who is right or wrong? Moral or immoral? Morality then becomes whatever helps us survive or thrive as a community. Yet, this just doesn’t seem to be the case and we all know it.

Teleological argument
1. All design implies a designer.
2. There is intelligent design in the universe.
3. Therefore, there must be an intelligent designer of the universe.

This argument comes for the Latin word “teleo” which means “design.” The illustration that I love to use for this arguments is the cups in the fence illustration.
Have you ever driven past a fence that had cups arranged in the fence to spell out a message? Though most people have never seen the person who arranged the cups, it would be reasonable to infer that there was a “mind” behind the message because information can only come from intelligence. Well, embedded in the DNA double helix is a code so complex that if it was put into print, it would fill volumes upon volumes of books. There must be an intelligent mind behind this information.
When you put all these arguments together, supernatural cause for the universe, moral being who is good and an intelligent designer, you get a picture of God that looks a lot like the God of the Bible, yet we have discovered him without the Bible.
We have just scratched the surface on these arguments. There have been numerous books written on each of them. But if you remember CMT, you can make a reasonable case for the existence of God.

For further reading:

I don’t have enough Faith to be an Atheist by Frank Turek, Norm Geisler.
On Guard by William Lane Craig

The profound question of the ages. What is truth? Is there absolute truth?

Check out this post on Relevant Magazine’s web site. It is very insightful and, pardon the pun, truthful.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/24994-and-open-letter-part-2

http://reasons.edgeboss.net/download/reasons/newsflash/SNF20110307HRFR.mp3

The main hospital where I work is a maze of old and new buildings. Portions of the older hospital date back to the 1930s. With the advent of modern medicine and the growth of the hospital, parts and pieces were tacked on to the “heart” of the old building. Just off the main cafeteria is a tiny alcove. If you step into the alcove, you will see a sign for the hospital chapel. The letters are art deco, so the sign is old. Stepping into the small, cozy chapel is like stepping back in time. Back then, people still believed in the creator God of the Bible. Back then, people still paused to pray for the sick and the dying.

I recalled a time years earlier when my best friend’s sister was dying of hepatitis and the chapel with only about twenty small pews was filled with friends and relatives petitioning on the young woman’s behalf. She died anyway, leaving behind two small children to be raised by her mother. Maybe that is why people fell away from the praying. They always expected the answer to be “yes”.

On this particular day, I stood in the foyer of the chapel trying to find some respite from the chaos of my practice. My partners had found a new pastime, that of questioning me unendingly about my belief in God. Their questions were delivered rapid fire, back to back, with no pause and no chance to answer. They did not want answers. They only wanted to break me; to make me question my faith; to make me wonder why I believed what I believed. They did. I retreated to this tiny corner of faith in a world filled with cold, blind science.

Hanging inside the foyer was a painting. It was a montage of images of a doctor. He stood in the center of the painting in his white coat with short, blondish hair and a very reassuring face. Around his head, barely visible in the background, were other poses of his face. Some of them showed him being humorous or stern or sad or perplexed. They showed the range of emotions every doctor goes through with the challenge of taking care of total strangers who have placed their lives in his hands.

Dr. Howell was the physician after whom the chapel had been named. But, try as I might in the weeks that followed, I could not find anyone who remembered the man. If a chapel was built and named after him then he must have been special. The space in the corner of the hospital was too vital to the growth of modern medicine to be spared the renovator’s hands.

Months later after I had overcome the ceaseless questioning and started my journey into apologetics (the defense of the Christian faith) and found an increasingly strong foundation for my beliefs, I ran across an elderly retired physician. Dr. Sam Gill showed up on a Sunday afternoon. I was on call and was reading through the day’s pile of Xrays when he popped into my reading room. Dr. Gill was a legend at my hospital and I discovered his wife was in the hospital with pneumonia. Something tickled at the back of my mind as we discussed her improving condition. Did he possibly know who this Dr. Howell was?

When I asked him, his face whitened and he slid back into a chair. His eyes focused far away and he finally smiled.

“He was my partner.” He said. And then, he told me Dr. Howell’s story.

Dr. Howell was a devout Christian, a doting father, and a loving husband. But, his primary and unrelenting devotion was to his patients. In the early 1960s, Dr. Gill told me there was a new idea crossing the country. Hospitals were adding what they called “Intensive Care Units” and Dr. Howell was determined that this hospital would have one. But, as is often the case, hospitals are more concerned about the funding than the advantages to patients. So, Dr. Howell took two abandoned hospital rooms in the building and made an intensive care unit. Problem was, there were no nurses with that kind of training. But, that didn’t stop Dr. Howell. He became the nurse and the doctor.

Dr. Gill recalled one patient with terrible lung disease admitted to Dr. Howell’s “ICU”. Dr. Howell had read about this thing called a mechanical ventilator with a nebulizer in one of his articles. But, the hospital couldn’t afford such an experimental device. So, Dr. Howell went home and confiscated his wife’s favorite percolator and converted it into the nebulizer. Then, he stayed by the patient’s bedside pumping a bag to keep the patient breathing the nebulized air throughout the long night. He stayed by the patient’s bedside for two entire days, never leaving, totally devoted to his patient.

When the hospital saw his determination and care, they purchased the equipment and started one of the first dedicated ICU’s in Louisiana. All because Dr. Howell focused his total attention on the most important person in the universe — his patient. That was the kind of man he was. Sadly, Dr. Gill shared with me that before Dr. Howell reached the age of forty, he started having difficulty with his balance and discovered he had an inoperable brain tumor. This was long before the days of CAT scans and MRIs and computerized surgical planning.

Dr. Gill sat quietly in the shadows of that reading room, tears running down his cheeks as he told me the rest of the story. Dr. Howell refused all treatment. He was now the patient and he knew there was no cure for his brain tumor. He had spent his life taking care of patients and now he would die as one. So, he walked away from the hospital and spent his last months with his family in his house by the lake.

Dr. Gill shared this moving story with me. He said there had never been a doctor as dedicated and loving as Dr. Howell and there would never be such a man again. Within a year of that visit, Dr. Gill would pass away and with him a way of life that we shall never know again.

For, today, the world of medicine is changing. The relationship between the doctor and the patient is no longer sacred. Rules, regulations, insurance requirements, and government meddling have insinuated themselves between the doctor and the patient. When I reflect on the statement made by a Harvard trained attorney on the floor of the Louisiana legislature, I tremble in fear.

“The doctor’s number one priority is to society, not to the patient.” He said. My friends, we shall never see the likes of Dr. Howell again. We will never see a chapel built in the honor of a physician. Instead, we will see the cold, stony altar of expediency and social justice place the needs of society above the needs of the individual. In the eyes of God, we are special because He has made us in His image. In the eyes of society, we are but the sum of our parts and those parts can be taken away to serve the good of society.

Let us be very careful. There was once a physician who believed in this way. He saw the good of the social order as being far more important than the good of the individual. He followed his leader, Adolf Hitler, in experimenting on, dissecting, and killing the lame, the deformed, the handicapped of his day until those lines became so blurred, the deformity of the body morphed into the deformity of the worldview and six million Jews died in the furnaces of Nazi Germany. His name was Dr. Mengele.

Ravi Zacharias once said, “the only thing worse than nostalgia is amnesia”. We can sometimes get caught up in reflecting on the men of the past like Dr. Howell. Is this dangerous? I do not think so. Rather, we should not suffer from amnesia. We should recall the best of what we have been and the best of what we have done and try to recapture that compassion and dedication again. If not, then one day, we may find ourselves on the dissecting table of the new social order!

Do not forget the sanctity and value of one single human life. Each person is made in the image of a loving, creative, self aware God who dwells on beauty and music and commissioned two men to build the incredibly complex and lovely tabernacle in the wilderness. The hands and the minds that made those images reflect the Hands and the Mind that created the universe. We are special. We are not just a bag of meat waiting for the scalpel to harvest the necessary organs to keep another alive. We are unique and we are so unique that God became a “bag of meat” in order to know what it is to be human; to know what it is to suffer and feel pain and laugh and love and draw in the dirt and marvel at the stars and ultimately to feel the nails through hands and feet and die as only humans can die. It is in Jesus’ death on the cross and his conquest of death that gives us hope and make us aware we are destined for far more than idle scientific curiosity. We are destined for eternity. I shall NEVER look at a patient as anything less than the most unique creation of God and as a physician, I will always swim against the tide of social order and will ALWAYS place the value of my patient above the value of society.

Thank you Dr. Howell. You are a true inspiration.

Do you think he’s mad at God? I do. I would be, if I had ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and was in the shape he was in.

The evidence for the Singularity (Big Bang) from whence the universe sprang is some of the most rock-solid data in the history of science. It points directly and unequivocally at a Creator, as Kalam’s cosmological argument so eloquently states.

To deny this, one must espouse all sorts of strange and marvelous ideas, which typically either require new and different laws of physics, or change the focus of the causation.

I know Hawking is wrong. I think he’s wrong because he’s mad at God. Unfortunate, and we should pray for him to see the truth.

Edit1:  Of course RTB has already addressed this: Here’s a link to their Science Newsflash addressing Hawking. This is an MP3 audio file.

And of course there are many articles on Reasons to Believe’s main website at reasons.org that look at the Big Bang…

(republished with permission from www.logicaltruth.org – original posted on 09-04-2010).