Design in Nature

Scripture: Proverbs 6:6, Job 38:36, Isaiah 49:15
The existence of God is questioned by many, but a study of nature reveals there must be an Intelligent Designer. Different example in nature are discussed, including the snowflake and the water spider.
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As skepticism increases in the religious world, more and more demand is being made for proof concerning the existence of God. Once upon a time that question was never raised, but even theologians are unsettled today about this basic issue. I contend that open-minded men of sincere hearts will find no lack of evidence to prove that God exists. It is certainly strange that the most obvious evidences are usually overlooked entirely. The naturalist who constantly surveys the miracle design in God's handiwork is seldom unconscious of an intelligent Creator. The overwhelming supply of intricate order and design, altogether beyond the ability of any human to provide, convinces the unprejudiced scientist that God made it all.

Our little world abounds in proof of the existence of God. To illustrate: There are laws which determine the weather, the climate, and the season. Inexorable law reigns in plant and animal life, in chemistry and physics. There are laws governing light, color, and sound. Design, and symmetry are discernible in every flower, leaf and blade of grass. Take, for example, the corn on the cob. Did you know that its longitudinal rows are always even in number, either eight, ten, twelve, or fourteen, etc? You will never find an ear of corn having an odd number of such rows. Inanimate nature cannot count. Who then could have planned such an arrangement if not the mind of the Infinite One?

Consider the tiny snow crystals, with their graceful whorls, the delicately chiseled and beveled edges that decorate them, and their curious dots and loops, all arranged in perfect order about one center. How can one explain the fact that snowflakes are almost always hexagon in shape, either six-sided or six-rayed? Professor Wilson A. Bentley, an authority on snowflakes, and pioneer of snow crystal photography, photographed at least five thousand flakes and never found two that were exactly alike!

Five thousand snowflakes each with a different design! But what are five thousand snowflakes among the countless snow crystals which blanket numberless fields and tops of mountain ranges, and feed the glacial rivers?

Artists and silk designers use these snow crystal photographs for patterns; jewelers use them for gem-cutting and for designing jewelry and filigree work; workers in art-metal, for making the decorative ornamental work, such as tracery in windows; scientists, to study the weather, the clouds, and the snow. Lovers of beauty revel in their symmetrical and fragile loveliness. When he was asked for an explanation of the transcendent beauty of these crystals, Wilson Bentley answered, "Only the Artist who designed and fashioned them knows how it is done." Friends, the very existence of such a law of design proves that there is a super intelligent Artist-Creator behind the miracle of snowflakes. We do not even know any human designer who could produce the myriad fragile art patterns which those flakes reveal. Does anyone have the faith to believe that blind chance could produce something superior to all of man's intelligence?

Now let's think of another example of design and order. The wise man counsels: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." Proverbs 6:6. Who can explain the wonders of animal behavior? No one knows. Who has endowed the ant with the superior wisdom that makes it the world's first mining engineer? Who made it possible for the humble water spider to be the world's first hydraulic engineer? The water-spider builds its nest under water, fastening it to a rock, log, or stick, with the opening to the nest pointing downward. In order to force the water out of this thimble-sized nest, the spider brings tiny air bubbles into it. It repeats this operation until all the water has been forced out of the nest, and it is ready for the laying of its eggs. Who taught the spider that the air will displace the water in its nest? How was the spider able to discern this scientific fact thousands of years before Archimedes discovered it?

The shell-spider is the world's first civil engineer. It lifts a shell, possibly a hundred times its own weight, to a branch about eighteen inches above the ground. How it performs this feat of engineering is indeed a marvel of marvels! It first turns the shell downward, in order to drain out the water that may be in it; it then spins a web from the shell to the branch. The web shrinks as it dries, and it thus lifts the shell a little closer toward the branch. The spider then spins another web, and still another, each strand lifting the shell closer, until the shell is hoisted and fastened to the branch.

Bees are the world's first sanitary engineers. When a mouse enters their hive, they sting it to death; and inasmuch as bees are vegetarians, they do not feed on the carcass. In order to prevent the decaying corpse from contaminating the rest of the beehive, they seal it air-tight with a special wax, and so perfectly is the work done, that not the slightest taint of decay or the faintest odor can seep through it. Who taught these bees and gave them this marvelous wisdom? The same God who bids His children: "Be ye clean."

Man has within himself a fully equipped "World's Fair," far exceeding the wonders of any other World's Fair. If the living human body could be magnified a million times, what mysterious processes we would behold that would stagger the imagination! We are told that the tissues of our bodies are composed of twenty-eight billions of cells, and that each cell and tissue requires food for metabolism. Does man consciously contribute anything to the accomplishment of this stupendous process? Not in the slightest degree. All that man does is to partake of food, and to masticate it. The stomach, the intestines, the liver, the nerves, the heart, the blood and the lymph do the rest. The blood delivers the nourishment to each of these twenty-eight billion cells, and the body does the rest, forming bone, nerve and muscle.

It is fascinating to observe how quickly the body counteracts disease when some kind of a disturbance occurs. An alarm is immediately sent out from the nerve center in the brain, at once setting in motion nerve activities in the body in its effort to overcome the difficulty. Swarms of white cells are quickly manufactured in the marrow of the bones, and these cells go forth to prevent any further intrusion of the invading germ. Restorative forces are at work, and healing has begun. Whence does the human body obtain this power to repair itself? In the words of the Scriptures: "Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?" Job 38:36.

One great Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School, in an address to the Massachusetts Medical Society, enumerated many of the mysterious functions and processes of the body which no scientist understands or can explain. "But what is nature?" he asked. "What are the characteristics of this power? The first is that of its superhuman wisdom. Where does this force come from? Where do we get the healing substance in our tissues? I do not see why we should call it by its natural name. ... It is perfectly obvious that it is God. It is the power of God upon which each one here depends today, for the fact that he is here instead of being underneath the earth. ... The medical profession has learned in studying disease, more about the meaning of this word, God, than the vast majority of the so-called religious people. Why not tell this truth, because it is true?"

The human eye is a marvelous photographic camera constantly sending picture messages to the brain. The ear is a super-sensitized sound apparatus, capable of recognizing a familiar voice among a thousand. And what might not be said of the nervous system, with its millions of tiny nerve endings and shoots reaching every part of the body, carrying messages to the central station, the brain. Who is able to solve the mysteries of the human mind, of man's personality, and destiny? Is it any wonder the inspired psalmist exclaimed: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made"? Psalm 139:14.

Since God bestowed so much thought in the creation of man, is it reasonable to suppose that He will neglect to care for him? Are you at times tempted to think that God doesn't care, that He has forgotten you? Listen to what He has to say concerning this: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Isaiah 49:15.

There was a time when this Scriptural account of the creation of man was sneered and scoffed at by skeptics, and regarded as preposterous, and unscientific. They called the creation story a myth which had come down to us from the ancient peoples of the East. But when chemical analysts tested out the Genesis account in the test tube of the laboratory, they found it to be scientifically sound. Modern scientists agree that the human body is composed of precisely the same elements as the dust of the ground.

Further proof that man was created from dust is demonstrated by the fact that in order to live man must partake of food which comes from the dust of the ground. The inorganic elements of the earth are transformed in the body by the power of God into organic elements which sustain and maintain the life of man. Let man cease to partake of these elements of the earth and he will soon weaken and die. We see, therefore, the same forces at work in man today as were brought into existence in the beginning by the creative power of God. Thus the creation story stands vindicated. n

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