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I had a conversation once with an atheist woman who proclaimed that everything in the universe is random and any patterning we think we see is actually a trick of the mind that determines disorder must be placed in some understandable pattern.
That in itself sounds very ordered to me. I mean, do all humans do this?
I bring up order because one of the things creation teaches us about God is that He is an ordered, and ordering, God. He does not subscribe to chaos.
Take, for example just one procedure that occurs within our cells: Protein Synthesis. Here’s the short explanation of what this is:
Protein synthesis is one of the most fundamental biological processes by which individual cells build their specific proteins. Within the process are involved both DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and different in their function ribonucleic acids (RNA). The process is initiated in the cell’s nucleus, where specific enzymes unwind the needed section of DNA, which makes the DNA in this region accessible and a RNA copy can be made. This RNA molecule then moves from the nucleus to the cell cytoplasm, where the actual the process of protein synthesis take place. (“What Is Protein Synthesis?”; emphasis mine)
Here’s one short animation of what this process looks like (only a 2:15 video in length).
I’m not a scientist, but one thing strikes me as I read about protein synthesis: this process occurs within the cells, every one of the cells, in the human body. And not just in some human bodies. In every human body.
To explain the process, scientists use words like code and sequence and engineered and rules and translated. None of those elements sounds anything like “random” or “by chance” to me. There is order and purpose and achievement, even at the microscopic level of the cell.
Which makes me aware of something else that creation teaches about God: He cares for the details. God didn’t throw spaghetti on the wall to see if something stuck. He cared and cares for the particulars, down to the microscopic and beyond. Because one story I saw said that we aren’t finished with the discovery of what makes up a cell. As our microscopes become more sophisticated and capable, we most likely will see even smaller “machines” that simply, with all practicality, couldn’t randomly come into being.
Something else that I learn about God from creation: He loves beauty. Places that no one has gone to for thousands of years, are nevertheless beautiful. We might be talking about the remotest part of the sea or out in deep space. The beauty which we uncover has existed since creation, even though no human until recent times had any idea of the existence of such rich colors and shapes and textures and interplay between light and shadow.
Another thing I see in creation, and therefore in God, is purpose. Atheists are fond of saying that creation is very inefficient, that there are extra organs or unnecessary appendages, for this species or that. And yet, humans are just beginning to understand the ecosystem and the delicate interplay of one element with another. I suspect the same is true within a particular species—each is simply a confined ecosystem with each member functioning for the benefit of the whole, even though we humans don’t yet know what all those functions are.
Take for example, the human appendix. For years people have believed it to be a do-nothing organ, something that can be removed or left in at the will of the individual. But not so fast. Some medical professionals now believe the appendix might do something important:
The function of the appendix is unknown. One theory is that the appendix acts as a storehouse for good bacteria, “rebooting” the digestive system after diarrheal illnesses.
Essentially, the jury’s still out, but tonsils, also once thought to be superfluous, have proved to have a significant job:
As part of the immune system, the tonsils fight infection; they are first line of defense in the throat (“What do tonsils do and why would we take them out“)
The point is simple: though we can live without these organs, they still have a purpose. After all, we can live without a leg or without our eyes or without a finger, but that fact does not prove that a leg, eyes, or finger has no purpose.
Another thing I learn about God by looking at creation is His might. I’ve seen the might of nature when I was hiking in the mountains in the winter. Well, hiking isn’t quite right. We were on cross country skies or on snowshoes. But the point is, navigating the snowy hillsides was hard work. We got tired and wet, and then the afternoon gloom started to set in. Suddenly I realized how frail we were, how vulnerable, how easy it would be for the simple elements of snow and cold to conquer us.
I learned the same thing when I, who don’t swim well, went body surfing at a place that had giant sets of waves. They weren’t breaking close to shore though, and I was quickly out further than I was comfortable with. And then the big waves came. They would break right on top of me, and crush me if I didn’t dive down and let the water absorb the power. So I did. I’d done it at other times. But this time I could feel the wave shake me as it rumbled over top. When it was over, I resurfaced, only to see another wave coming. Down I went. This took place countless times, and the last time, I thought, I’m out of energy. I can’t fight this water any more. I realized how frail, how fragile I am as a human up against . . . water. Just water. The power of the waves that God has created.
I could go on about God’s grandeur clearly visible in the mountains or His kindness to make a world where we humans have all we need to live in comfort. And even in the places where the climate is one extreme or the other, there are still polar bears or camels, fish or oases. By God’s grace and kindness we still have what we need to live.
And what about the infinity of God we see in space? Or His unsearchable nature? It’s hard for me to stop, but I wonder what others see of God by looking at creation. After all, Romans tells us His imprint is there.