"5 Reasons: Why I Still Believe in God" - DAY 15

Day 15 – the classic argument

The mathematical precision of the universe reveals the mathematical mind of God.  –ALBERT EINSTEIN

Imagine that you and I are walking at sunset along a deserted beach when you discover a watch half-buried in the sand. With curiosity you pick up the watch and examine it, noting it to be quite intricate. You discover that it is composed of various metals—silver, gold, and alloys—and of glass and crystal, all precisely molded or cut to a perfect fit. Glaring through the transparent face, you observe the fine movements of its small hands, each circling the numbered dial at its own monotonous pace. Not content to stop there, you open the watch to expose its innermost parts and therein discover an even more complex arrangement of springs, spokes, and wheels, aligned so as to propel the hands along their designated routes. You marvel at the watch’s beauty and complexity and begin to praise aloud the talents of the person who fashioned it. 

Just then, I angrily snatch the watch from you. I tell you that it had no maker, that out of the earth's core spontaneously came forth metal and glass, that these materials somehow fashioned themselves into specific shapes and began to move precisely enough to reveal the time of day. I say this to you, and you call me a fool. You say that I have lost all touch with my reason and common sense, for the existence of such a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker.

Now suppose that I put the watch aside, point toward the just-darkened horizon, and show you an even greater mechanism—a universe whose parts are arranged with such precision that by their movements tides are made to rise and fall, seasons to come and go, and day and night to alternate in predictable fashion. I show you this intricate mechanism and then hear you reply that there is no God, and I call you a fool. I say to you that your position is illogical, that it violates my sense of reason, that the existence of such a universe implies the existence of a Creator.¹

Daily Quotation

Quoted in Steve Kumar, Christianity for Skeptics, 10.

 

¹Credit is usually given to William Paley, the nineteenth century philosopher, for the watch-watchmaker analogy used today to explain the Argument from Design. My rendition here is based on a paraphrase of Paley in Bruce Barton’s What Can a Man Believe?