Yet there is no purely natural explanation for it. Little wonder Isaiah wrote: “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” The fundamental law of science, we repeat, is the Law of Causality which states that every effect must have an adequate cause. There is no known exception. The universe is admittedly a known effect.
Inside the cell’s three-dimensional cytoplasm there are over 20 different chemical reactions going on at any one time, with each cell containing five major systems: communication; waste disposal; nutrition; repair, and; reproduction. The endoplasmic reticulum of the cell serves as a transport system. The ribosomes produce protein, which is then distributed around the body as needed by the Golgi bodies. The mitochondria (over 1,000 per cell) are the “powerhouses” of the cell, producing the energy needed by the body.
The nucleus, of course, carries the genetic code in its DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Red blood cells (there are approximately 30 trillion of them) live about 120 days; white blood cells (the blood’s defense system) live about 13 days; platelets (which help blood to clot) live about 4 days; nerve cells may live over 100 years. In any given 60-second period, approximately 3 billion cells die and are replaced in the human body through the process we call mitosis, whereby the standard chromosome number (in the human, 46) is faithfully reproduced. A single cell contains a strip of DNA (placed in the nuc leus in a spiral-staircase configuration) which is about one yard long, and which contains `over 6 billion biochemical steps’. Every cell of the body contains such DNA over a billion miles total in one human. How powerful is the DNA? It provides, in coded form, every physical characteristic of every living person’. How many people are there on the face of the earth? There are a few more than 5 billion. It took two cells (a male spermatozoan and a female ovum) to make each one of these people.
If there are roughly 5 billion people on the earth, and it took two cells to make each of them, that’s approximately 10 billion cells (remember: this is the DNA it took to give every living person every physical characteristic he or she has), and that DNA would fit into no more than 1/8th of a cubic inch’! Does that tell you how powerful the DNA is? Are we to then understand that this kind of design came “by accident”? Hardly! The Hebrew writer was correct when he said, “For every house is builded by someone; but he that built all things is God”. Consider the skin of the human. It is a nearly waterproof layer, enclosing the body’s contents, almost 60% of which is water. It prevents the exit or entrance of too much moisture, and acts as a protector for the rest of the body. At the same time it is both a radiator and retainer of heat, helping to regulate the body’s temperature in conjunction with the two hypothalamus glands in the brain.
It is composed of 206 bones, more durable and longer lasting than man’s best steel. Each joint produces its own lubrication and the system as a whole is able to provide not only structure, but great protection (e.g., the 24 ribs guarding the internal viscera). There are 29 skull bones, 26 spinal vertebrae, 24 ribs, 2 girdle bones, and 120 other bones scattered over the body. The bones range in size, from the tiny pisiform bone in the hand, to the great femur (over 20 inches long in the thigh of an average man). Yet in a man weighing 160 pounds, the bones weigh only 29 pounds. [Remember Paul’s comment about “all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, making the increase of the body into the building up of itself..” And consider, of course, the muscles.
There are over 600 of them in the human, with the function of contraction and release. From the smile on the face of the newborn baby to the legs of the marathon runner, the muscles are in charge. They are placed, however, into two systems–the `voluntary system’ over which you have control (reach out and grab a ball), and the involuntary system’ over which you have little or no control (try stopping a kidney). Are we to believe that the skeletal and muscle systems, in all their complexity, “just happened”? No one could ever convince you that, for example, a Cadillac limousine “just happened.” Yet something infinitely greater in design and structure the human body we are asked to believe “just happened.” What kind of incongruous logic is that, to reach such a conclusion? As G.K. Chesterton once said: “When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They believe in `anything!'” How true. One does not get a poem without a poet, or a law without a lawgiver. One does not get a painting without a painter, or a musical score without a composer. And just as surely, `one does not get purposeful design without a designer!’ Consider, for example, the human ear and the human eye. The average piano can distinguish the sounds of 88 keys; the human ear can distinguish over 2,500 different key tones. In fact, the human ear can detect sound frequencies that flutter the ear drums as faintly as one- billionth of a centimeter.
The ear is so sensitive that it could even hear, were the body placed in a completely soundproof room, the blood coursing through the veins. Over 100,000 hearing receptors in the ears are sending impulses to the brain to be decoded and answered. The human eye is the most perfect camera ever known to man. So perfect is it that its very presence caused Charles Darwin to say, “That the eye with all its inimitable contrivances..could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Darwin also commented: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” The eye, as it turns out, is such an organ, and Darwin’s theory, as such, has broken down.
Each human eye is composed of over 107 million cells with 7 million cones (allowing the eye to see in full, living color) and 100 million rods (allowing the eye to see in blacks, whites, and greys). The eyes are connected to the brain by over 300,000 nerves, and can detect light as feeble as 1/100 trillionth of a watt. How is the eye supposed to have “evolved”? What “intermediate state” between no eye and a perfect eye could nature have “selected” to be passed on to successive generations? As Mark Twain once c ommented, “It’s amazing what men will believe, so long as it’s not in the Bible!” There are so many systems in the human body that could be discussed, but since space precludes discussing them all, it is now to the brain that we turn our attention. The brain, of course, regulates the rest of the body. It contains over 10 billion nerve cells, and 100 billion glia cells (which provide the biological “batteries” for brain activity).
These cells float in a jellied mass, sifting through information, storing memories, creating what we call consciousness, etc. Over 120 trillion connections tie these cells together. The brain sends out electrical impulses at a speed of 393 feet per second (270 mph), and receives nerve impulses being produced at a rate of over 2,000/second. The brain receives signals continuously from 130,000 light receptors in the eyes, 100,000 hearing receptors in the ears, 3,000 tastebuds, 30,000 heat spots on the skin, 250,000 cold spots, and 500,000 touch spots. The brain does not move, yet consumes 25% of the blood’s oxygen supply. It is constantly bathed in blood, its vessels receiving 20% of all the blood pumped from the heart. If the blood flow is interrupted for 15-30 seconds, unconsciousness results. If blood is cut off to the brain for longer than 4 minutes, brain damage results. Four major arteries carry blood to the brain as a sort of “fail-safe” system.
And, the brain is protected from damage by not one, but three major systems: the outer skull bone; the `dura mater’ (Latin for “hard mother”–the protective lining around the brain), and; (3) the absorbing fluid, which keeps the brain from hitting the inner skull. With the brain properly functioning, all the other body systems (hormones, circulatory, digestive, reproductive, etc.) can be overseen and controlled. Are we, as Dr. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard stated some years ago, “an accident in a universe that did not have us in mind in the first place”? Or, are we created “in the image of God” Sir Isaac Newton once said, “In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.” How much more, then, should the cells, the brain, the lungs, the heart, the reproductive system, etc., be shouting to us that `there is a God, and He is not silent.’ As the psalmist so well said, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. Or, as Imogene Fey has observed: “The birth of every new baby is God’s vote of confidence in the future of man.” Dr. Lewis Thomas, the renowned medical doctor and author of `The Medusa and the Snail’, commented in that work about the “miracle” of how one sperm cell forms with one egg cell to produce a single cell that will, nine months later, become a new human being.
His conclusion: “The mere existence of that cell should be one of the greatest astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell… If anyone does succeed in explaining it, within my lifetime, I will charter a skywriting airplane, maybe a whole fleet of them, and send them aloft to write one great exclamation point after another around the whole sky, until a ll my money runs out.” Yet we are told that such a “miracle” has “just happened.” Carl W. Miller once stated: “To the reverent scientist..the simplest features of the world about us are in themselves so awe-inspiring that there seems no need to seek new and greater miracles of God’s care.” In order to get a poem, one must have a poet. In order to have a law, one must have a lawgiver. In order to have a mathematical diagram, one must have a mathematician. A deduction commonly made is that order, arrangement, or design in a system suggest intelligence and purpose on the part of the originating cause. In the universe, from the vastness of multiplied solar systems to the tiny world of molecules, marvelous design and purposeful arrangement are evidenced.
In the case of man, from the imposing skeletal system to the impressive genetic code in all of its intricacy, that same design and purposeful arrangement are evidenced. The only conclusion that a reasonable, rational, unbiased mind can reach is that the existing systems of our world, including all life, have been purposefully designed by an Intelligent Cause. We call that Cause “God.” Conclusion Alan Devoe significantly writes, “Some naturalists have become convinced that there is an `unknown force’ at work–a force that guides creatures by influences outside the entire sphere with which science ordinarily works.” We would prayerfully urge those who speak of this `unknown force’ to turn to the “God that made the world and all things therein” (Acts 17:24), and ascribe honor and glory to Him. The revelation He has left of Himself in nature simply could speak no louder of His existence than it already does. Furthermore, this examination of arguments for God’s existence has not even touched upon the “historical” arguments which come to bear on the case. For example, the historical Christ, the resurrection, the Bible, the system of Christianity, and other such arguments are equally as important.
