In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argued that you cannot be an intelligent scientific thinker and still hold any religious beliefs. This widespread opinion is held by many, especially those in the world of academia, where the rising generation will almost certainly encounter this potential obstacle to their faith. This episode examines from a biblical perspective Dawkins’ argument—that if you are an intelligent thinker, you will jettison your Christian faith.
This is the third episode in our series, Guiding Our Loved Ones Into a Biblical Worldview. Here is an experiment to conduct with your child, grandchild, or other member of the rising generation. While sitting in the living room, point to any object in the room and ask him, “Do you think this was MADE by someone or RANDOMLY CAME INTO EXISTENCE BY CHANCE?” In my living room, it would be, “Do you think this piano just happened because it evolved on its own or that someone designed and built it?” “Do you think this lamp just accidentally came together because a lightbulb and brass pole just happened to get blown together in a junk yard with some electrical wire, or that someone designed and created this lamp?” “Do you think that the painting on the wall is the result of paints accidentally mixing together to look like three girls holding hands and walking round and round, with the name EB Lewis arbitrarily emerging from the paint; or that EB Lewis created this painting?
Men, you know where I am going with this, but the kids don’t. We need to help them see that EVERYTHING ABOUT HUMAN EXPERIENCE tells us that IF WE SEE ORDER anywhere in the world around us, THERE WAS AN ORDERER. If they are walking in the woods and see a treehouse, they know that someone built it. If they pick up your cell phone, they know they are looking at something that was intelligently designed. If they walk into the classroom at school and the warm-up activity for that class is written on the board, they know someone wrote those words on the board. The most logical scientific truth of all is that if we see order in this physical world, it is because there is an orderer. Let me say it more forcefully: NOTHING in life indicates that order results from disorder or random chance. When we see something ordered—like a hut built in the jungle or a sandcastle on the seashore, it is there ONLY because an intelligent designer made it. Paul tells us that this divine, logical understanding—that when you see anything ordered in this world you know it has to have been created—is written on the hearts of all human beings: What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (Rom 1:19-20).
In fact, the very basis upon which all science rests—the existence of scientific laws like gravity—is the result of the consistency of the natural order—its design. If the world came into being randomly, accidentally, or arbitrarily, there could be no scientific field of chemistry, or physics, or anatomy. For example, here is the Oxford dictionary’s definition of chemistry: the branch of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed; the investigation of their properties and the ways in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances. There is a chemical DESIGN to the physical world. Studying the design is called chemistry.
It is not surprising that so many of the great scientists of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries were committed Christians who believed that when a scientist is engaged in the study of the world, he is looking for what laws God set up in nature. Here are just some of these pioneers of science:
- Johannes Kepler. He published the foundational work, Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion.
- Blaise Pascal. He made innovations in mathematics, laid the foundation for the modern theory of probability, and invented the first working thermometer based on his theory of atmospheric pressure.
- Michael Faraday. He discovered electromagnetic induction and invented the generator.
- Isaac Newton. Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, accounting for tides, the trajectories of comets, and the exact timing of the equinoxes. He is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of all time. Newton wrote: “I have a foundational belief in the Bible as the Word of God written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily…When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amount of heat and light. This did not happen by chance (Quoted in What If Jesus Had Never Been Born, by D. James Kennedy).
Not only does science NOT prove that God doesn’t exist. The exact opposite is the case. Science proves the universe is the result of an intelligent designer. The most foundational of all biblical worldviews is in the first verse of the Bible. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” As the earth rotates on its axis once a day, and each year the earth completes its orbit of the sun in 365 days, five hours, fifty-nine minutes, and sixteen seconds, all humans see that this world follows the design of its creator every single day. In the words of the Psalmist, The heavens DECLARE the glory of God, and the sky above PROCLAIMS his handiwork. Day to day pours out SPEECH, and night to night REVEALS knowledge…Their VOICE goes out through all the earth, and their WORDS to the end of the world (Psalm 19:1-4). Six different ways, the Psalmist tells us that creation communicates a message to mankind, pointing to its creator. Notice that these words say exactly what Paul says in Romans 1: What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
In view of this open and shut case for our physical world being made by an intelligent designer, how could so many scientists say that science proves that God doesn’t exist? Why do so many intelligent people fail to see what a four-year-old who sees a sandcastle on the beach understands—that the castle is not a result of billions of years of sand randomly being washed up on the beach; it was created? Only an extremely powerful force could lead intelligent humans to deny the reality that every example of order in this world teaches: order can ONLY come from an orderer. What force could possibly be so potent? Sinful human nature.
All Humans Are Born With a Sinful Nature that Suppresses the Truth About God
A. Romans 1:18-22. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, WHO BY THEIR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS SUPPRESS THE TRUTH. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. FOR ALTHOUGH THEY KNEW GOD, THEY DID NOT HONOR HIM AS GOD OR GIVE THANKS TO HIM, BUT THEY BECAME FUTILE IN THEIR THINKING, AND THEIR FOOLISH HEARTS WERE DARKENED.
Man’s sinful nature causes him to suppress the truth about God’s existence as our creator. The picture behind the word, suppress is that of holding down a spring. Nature unremittingly leaps out to all humans with arrows pointing to its creator, one who is eternal, i.e. outside the created order, and one who is divine, i.e. one who is God. All are given this knowledge of God. But because our autonomous sinful nature refuses to honor God by surrendering to him as the one to whom we owe obedience, and because we refuse to give thanks to God as the one on whom we depend to sustain life every second—our foolish hearts suppress the truth that he is our creator. Paul goes on to cite the worship of idols in his culture as evidence of this darkened understanding. How logical is to bow down in worship not to a being worthy of such awe but to a pole you made with your own hands?
B. Eph 4:17-18. Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do, in the FUTILITY OF THEIR MINDS. They are DARKENED IN THEIR UNDERSTANDING, ALIENATED FROM THE LIFE OF GOD because of the IGNORANCE THAT IS IN THEM, DUE TO THEIR HARDNESS OF HEART. This picture of gentile life is the picture of all fallen humans apart from God’s grace. The futility of their minds means our mind does not work properly to lead us to truth—a horrible consequence of our races’ sin. Darkened in our understanding means we are born into a condition of near blindness with dark, cloudy spiritual cataracts that skew our vision of reality. Paul then summarizes this three-part sequence. 1) Our heart is hardened towards God 2) leading to spiritual ignorance about the design of life, 3) and being alienated from the life of God.
C. 2 Corinth 4:4 communicates this same truth. The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Christians have been delivered from the kingdom of the Father of Lies and spiritual blindness into the kingdom of truth and light. Col 1:13-14: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The cancer of sin puts tumors in our eyes, causing us to walk through life in darkness. Paul explains to the Thessalonians that fallen man refuses to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false (2 Thes 2:10-11).
D. The remnants of our darkened sinful nature also show up among believers causing us to think “logically” to the wrong conclusion. Twice, in the book of Proverbs, we are given the same warning. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death (Prov 14:12. 16:25). This mind-darkening consequence of sin is the reason believers need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
So, the Bible teaches that the order of creation proves to every human that there has to be a creator. It explains further, that if anyone denies that there is a creator he has been deceived by his sinful nature.
How This Suppression of God’s Truth Works Out in Real Life
A. Consider Charles Darwin’s research: In 1831, on a voyage to the Galapagos Islands, Darwin observed that the beak shapes of the finches he was studying varied among finch species. He postulated that the beak of an ancestral species had adapted over time to equip the finches to acquire different food sources when they had migrated to the islands. His discovery does seem to substantiate evolution at the micro level—that these finches did vary from other finches—those with the best shaped beak for the food sources in the Galapagos favored by natural selection. Darwin found strong scientific evidence that finches ADAPTED to their environment; but they are still finches. Darwin found NO scientific evidence to support the idea that finches became crabs—that species morphed into other species. In fact, Darwin admitted that there was no fossil evidence to support one species evolving into another. But God tells us in Romans 1 that fallen human beings want to find ways to deny our accountability to our creator.
With zero evidence, Darwin extrapolated from his legitimate scientific research on ADAPTATION WITHIN a species to the wild guess that species evolved into each other. Since then, science, mathematics and microbiology now completely refute it. (See Season 1 Episode 48 where I go into this evidence.) Yet as a worldview that explains a godless origin of this world, millions of people still cling to this disproven theory. So prevalent is the intense clinging to this view that most secular people, if asked where the universe came from will answer, by chance. That is an utterly non-sensical, completely irrational statement. Chance does not cause anything. It is simply a mathematical measure of probability. Flipping a coin may have a fifty percent chance of landing as heads or tails, but scientists will tell you that what caused it to land that way were factors like, which side started out up, the strength of the thumb snap to flip it, the weight of the coin, air currents, etc. To say that chance CAUSED something is a nonsense statement. Yet millions of educated, otherwise logical people not only still ignore the evidence that disproves Darwinism, they heap scorn on anyone who challenges their irrational thinking. Why? The Bible’s answer is that, though they may not realize it, their sinful nature is causing them to suppress the truth about God as the creator to whom they are accountable. In a non-judgmental but clear way, we must help the rising generation see what Romans 1 teaches about fallen mankind’s instinctive suppression of the truth that there is a creator.
B. A second example of suppressing the truth is easy to see today in the transgender movement. Nothing could be more obvious than the fact that every human is either a male or female. Every cell of a man’s body tells him he is a male. All thirty trillion of his cells have XY chromosomes. All thirty trillion cells of a female’s body are marked as female by XX chromosomes. Although harmful stereotypes may be driving many girls to doubt their femininity, the solution is not thinking they are a boy in a girl’s body. Common sense, and every form of logic known to man tells us that such a girl is suffering from a gender identity disorder. Thousands of girls are being told to mutilate themselves by having their breasts cut off and to start taking testosterone. Is it any wonder that a high percentage of those who are transgender commit suicide? Why would normal everyday people, who use logic to make good decisions everyday abandon the logic that knows that those who are transgender are not mentally well? Because, apart from God’s grace, all of us, as sinful humans, suppress the truth that God created us, shaping us into either a male or female.
But there is a further point that needs to be made concerning the spiritual blindness of those who deny creation.
Teaching the Rising Generation HOW to Respond to the Spiritual Blindness of Those Holding an Unbiblical Worldview Is Critical
Knowing that atheists and those in the LGBTQ life are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness can easily lead to Christians being judgmental towards them—and often does. As certainly as every human has a sinful nature that leads him to deny the compelling logic that the order of creation proves it was created by an intelligent designer, Christians have a sinful nature inside them that makes them hostile towards the lost, because they are corrupting our world with their destructive ideologies. Suppose you had a blind neighbor over to your home. You knew he loved fruit punch flavored Gatorade, so you offered him a bottle, but as he set it on the coffee table, he missed the edge and almost the whole bottle of red dye spilled all over your brand-new white carpet. Suppose the next time over, your friend slipped on the ice on your driveway and fell breaking his hip. You rightly paid his doctor bills through your liability insurance, but your rates tripled. The next time over, as your blind friend was leaving, your 18-month-old toddler followed him to the door, and not seeing him, your blind friend closed the door on your toddler’s fingers? Does anyone think you would have a right to be hostile towards him because he has harmed your property, your bank account and your child? "Of course not," we would all say. "The poor man was blind." Those promoting ungodly destructive worldviews in our culture are spiritually blind—just as we would be apart from God’s grace.
I believe that one of the biggest impediments to Christian’s influencing today’s culture is their perceived and real hostility towards those promoting ungodly worldviews in our culture. I also believe that the rising generation is quick to see this hostility and when they do, it undermines the persuasiveness of our argument for a biblical worldview. Christians must stand for truth in the culture and not be cowards. Yet that process often leads to anger directed at those promoting false views and ascribing evil motives to their behavior, which is the definition of being judgemental rather than discerning. So, let’s close our time together with a biblical glimpse of Jesus and his response to those around him whose sin had blinded them, and even to those whose worldviews were corrupting the countryside, the city, and the country that he loved.
- When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9:36).
- And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! BUT NOW THEY ARE HIDDEN FROM YOUR EYES. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:41-44).
- And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO” (Luke 23:33-34).
The rising generation needs to know that logic and science point towards the Christian God who created earth not away from such belief. The misguided claims that science disproves Christianity are mistaken. They are clung to because human sinful nature suppresses God’s truth and inclines all human hearts to grasp for some way of denying our accountability to God. But becoming like Jesus is not just about embracing the biblical worldview; it is about sincere, heart-driven, tearful compassion for those who don’t. May we lead the way in becoming like Jesus.
