Not a Chance

Did you ever hear someone say we are here "by chance"? Chance—what the dictionary calls the "impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings"—simply cannot explain reality.

A monkey playing with a computer might type a word or two by chance, but he will not write The Chronicles of Narnia. A tornado blowing through a junkyard might throw some metal into an interesting shape, but it will not create the Golden Gate Bridge.

Scientist John Haldane once told Ronald Knox that in a universe containing millions of planets, it was inevitable that life should appear by chance on one of them. "Sir," Knox replied, "if Scotland Yard found a body in your trunk, would you tell them, 'There are millions of trunks in the world—surely one of them must contain a body'? I think they still would want to know who put it there."

Cicero lived from 106 to 43 B.C. Though he was not a Christian, he believed the orderliness and beauty of nature result from "intelligence and divine providence." Cicero wrote, "When you see a statue or a painting, you recognize the exercise of art; . . . when you look at a sun-dial or a water-clock, you infer that it tells time by art and not by chance. How then can it be consistent to suppose that the world, which includes both these works of art, the craftsmen who made them, and everything else besides, can be devoid of purpose and of reason?"

Naturalist William Paley (1743-1805) used the analogy of a watch. Just as a watch compels us to believe there is a watchmaker, the order and purposefulness of nature compel us to believe in God. "As clay in a man's hand shows the lines of his palm," Paley said, "so the universe is stamped with the intelligence of the Maker."

If the earth is tailor-made for human existence, who was the Tailor? God "has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from Heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy" (Acts 14:17).

The poet M. D. Babcock put it this way:

"Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,

And back of the flour the mill;

And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower

And the sun and the Father's will."

Abraham Lincoln said, "I never behold them the heavens filled with stars that I do not feel that I am looking in the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God."

Faith in God is complicated at times. But whether you look at the world with childlike wonder or with a scientist's careful scrutiny, the case for the Creator looks strong indeed. Consider the mechanics of human finger movement, the social characteristics of bees and ants, and the camouflage of a moth. Ponder the fact that all of the complex DNA necessary to specify every human being on earth today would fit in a container about the size of one aspirin tablet. And what about the superfluous beauty of tiger and zebra stripes, leopard spots, and the markings of a panda?

Could you seriously believe that all of this design happened without a designer—by sheer accident? If so, you believe in a miracle that rivals any described in the Bible. Alexander MacLaren said, "The difficulties of faith are 'gnats' beside the 'camels' which unbelief has to swallow."

Sir Isaac Newton asked, "Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures . . . to make use of it?" Examples like these, Newton insisted, "always have and ever will prevail with mankind to believe that there is a Being who made all things, who has all things in his power."