Can you imagine a time when the earth has become so uninhabitable that humanity has had to travel to other planets to survive? And, in its absence, humanity has left androids behind to be in charge of society’s infrastructure.
Then, in the absence of any human presence, the remaining androids begin to get a little cocky. They view themselves as the supreme beings of the planet. Seeing themselves at the top of the ladder, they try to explain away the fact that humans ever existed on this planet. They dismiss the idea that humans were responsible for their own origin and for all the planet’s high-tech machines.
To bolster their worldview, they begin a quest to find a purely mechanical explanation for the origin of themselves and all the machines around them. In their pursuit of a non-human answer to their existence, they come upon a number of fully automated factories. In each of these factories, the androids discover a system of robotic arms which perform all the work necessary to build all kinds of machinery – including androids. And all these manufacturing robots are directed by a large mainframe computer.
“We’ve figured it out,” the androids conclude. “Androids, automobiles, and all kinds of machines were not made by humans at all. There are manufacturing plants which produce them. Humans are unnecessary in the equation. We can explain the world without them.”
Obviously, there are flaws in their reasoning. First, the androids begin their quest with a predisposition that is prejudice against humans. They don’t want to attribute their existence to humans. Therefore, they begin their pursuit by omitting any possibility that humans ever existed or had anything to do with their world. Therefore, they cannot come to any other conclusion but a non-human one.
Second, the androids fail to distinguish between two different pursuits. One is to understand how things work and function in a purely mechanistic world. Another is to understand the ultimate origin of all machines. It’s true that the androids discovered all those automated manufacturing plants. But those manufacturing plants are obviously not the ultimate origin of all machines, but are only part of the “way things work.” The factories themselves were built and designed by a higher intelligence – to produce machines. And they’re just one link in the long chain of machines and androids. Therefore, the more the androids study themselves and their manufacturing plants, the more they’re presented with a problem. How did all of this technology come into being? Who designed it all and set it in motion? But the androids just keep probing deeper and deeper into the complexity of the machinery, not realizing that discovering “how everything functions” fails to explain, “where everything came from.”
This describes a misunderstanding that many in the scientific community exhibit. First, most of the scientific community begins its quest for knowledge with the presupposition that neither God nor the supernatural exists. Therefore, having screened God out of its sights, it will never find Him through its pursuits. Not only is science not looking for God. It’s ignoring Him. And, along the way in their quest, no matter how rational it is to admit the existence of a supreme Creator, science always excludes the possibility.
By discovering how our brains and bodies function – and even how they are formed in the womb, we are gaining a growing understanding of physical reality. But does this explain away God and the supernatural? Hardly.
True, we now know that thunder is not the grumblings of God’s stomach – not that anyone ever claimed it was. Thunder has a purely physical explanation. The super-heating of air around a lightning bolt (a discharge of static electricity) creates a compression wave which our ears interpret as a loud clap of thunder. But this does not explain why atoms and molecules have the properties they do, which makes them behave in predictable ways – like the expansion of gases when they are heated.
Science has learned a great deal of how the brain functions, and even how it forms in the womb. But a science that deliberately excludes God cannot explain “the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe,” as Isaac Asimov put it. Asimov was an atheist. Yet he admitted that the brain represents the most complex arrangement of matter anywhere. Then who arranged this matter? Since the technology of the human brain is light years beyond anything we can manufacture, doesn’t this leave us with the unavoidable conclusion that someone smarter than us designed and made it? Or, at least, didn’t someone smarter and greater than us build the automated manufacturing plant that keeps making brains and the bodies into which it installs them?
Therefore, atheistic science can tell us more and more about how all the apparatus in creation works. But, as long as it excludes God, it will never be able to explain how the apparatus came into being. We, through decades of research and development, may be able to duplicate some of the high-tech apparatus in nature. But when we do so, all we’ll have proven is that only the intelligent and deliberate effort of a creator could bring it into being.
Every day I read articles on how researchers have discovered how the brain functions, how the immunity system works, and how a child develops in the womb. These articles explain the technology behind these miracles in a purely mechanistic way. But in solving one problem they create a bigger one. How did all this machinery and technology come into being? The more we find out how complex all this machinery is, the more we understand that purely natural and unguided processes could never arrange and assemble it. In its misguided way, science is proving the existence of God.
PRAYER: Dear Father in heaven, please open the eyes You gave me to see Your presence and activity. Only You can explain the most complex arrangement of matter that my brain represents and only You can fill and satisfy the longing of my heart. Please, dear Father, reveal Yourself to me and help me to embrace You in my heart. Save me, heal me, and give me the gift of eternal life, through Jesus Christ Your Son, Amen.
(Inspired by the article, “The brain’s wiring technicians: Research identifies cadre of immune cells that sculpt inhibitory neurons to regulate brain wiring,” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210706115334.htm)
