Not Enough Faith

I've heard it said, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." What's that about? Well, Scripture says, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" (Rom 1:20). That is, if you take the time to look around, you can't miss it. Everywhere you look, God's character is on display. And I can't ignore it.

I see a flower, its delicate beauty coupled to its functional nature. It keeps the plants going, propagating. Isn't that amazing? A complex, interconnected system that adds to itself. Take cellular regeneration. Living organisms are constructed of cells. Cells live and die. But the organism doesn't die when the cells do. The cells duplicate themselves. They continue for a long time. We can make machines -- even very complex machines -- but they can't regenerate. They can't reproduce. Or consider the bird. Birds have so many unique aspects. Hollow bones for flight. Feathers for flight surfaces. Interlaced feathers for smooth surfaces. Some birds wear goggles, nictating membranes that cover their eyes but don't block their vision. Engineers copied the cones in a falcon's nostrils to solve the problem of airflow in jet planes. Who made the originals? How about the systems in the human body? The circulatory system alone boggles the mind. I read that there are some 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. These vessels transport life-giving blood to all the parts. The heart pumps blood through the lungs to collect oxygen to distribute to the body parts then back through to the lungs. Remove one part, and you have no system ... no life. And we've barely scratched the surface.

There is, in fact, so much we don't know. How does the body work? How does the brain work? How does nature work? Why are there so interconnected systems in the world? How did we end up in such a fine-tuned existence? Scripture says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). Scripture says, "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (John 1:3). Scripture says, "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Col 1:17). That seems reasonable. Skeptics would like you to believe it "just happened." Chance. Random. They can keep their explanation. I just don't have enough faith to believe something so outrageous, so irrational.