Day 23 – a review of Days 1-22
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. –the PSALMIST
I said at the start (Day 1) that the first phase of our religious journey is the question of God's existence. I think now would be a good time to pause and review just how far we've come. We have presented theism and atheism as the only two possible destinations, describing the latter as "anti-religion," a system of beliefs with no spiritual core (Day 2). We have considered the advantages of believing in God, the principal two being the hope of life after death and ultimate justice (Days 3-5). We have declared such hope futile, however, if it turns out the atheist is right and the theist wrong (Day 6). We have discussed the limitations of arguments for and against God, admitting that neither the atheist nor the theist can disprove or prove God's existence beyond a shadow of a doubt (Days 7-8). In so doing, we have raised the possibility that agnosticism could be the only honest recourse and have come to the conclusion that it is intellectually acceptable but pragmatically impossible to forever waffle about God's existence, that agnosticism should serve only as a step toward theism or atheism (Day 9). We have informed agnostics that the only practical thing to do is to declare a position and begin to live as if that position were true, always possessing the option to defect to the other camp if it is necessary to do so to make their final choice (Days 10-11). A permanent choice, we have said, is one that can only be made while
"working in the fields," not while straddling the fence, and it is a choice that everyone expects them to make in due time.
In an effort to help you choose between theism and atheism, we have dispelled the myth that belief in God is purely subjective and have relied instead on rational arguments, scientific evidence, and commonsense axioms (Day 12). We have taken three excursions together, two into nature and another into town, and have come to the conclusion that the presence of design in an object demands the presence of a designer (Days 13-14) and that an Intelligent Designer—God the Creator—must be behind our universe (Day 15-16). We have seen that this Argument from Design poses a significant problem to the atheist, who must assert, in spite of scientific evidence to the contrary, that the universe is eternal and in need of no Creator to bring it into existence (Days17-18, 21); or must admit that it is indeed finite and become a theist, as several atheists have done (Day 20); or must come up with the self-refuting notion that the universe needs no Creator because it is nonexistent, a mere illusion (Day 22).
That is how far we have come on our journey, but we have just started this first leg of our religious quest. We must cover much more ground in the next few days. In addition to the Argument from Design, we will look at four other arguments for God's existence and examine the atheist's response to them. Before we do so, however, we need to address the most common retort given by atheists when confronted with the Argument from Design.
Daily Quotation
Psalm 19:1,2 NIV
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