thehensonhome.org/AstronomyAndGod.htm Creator or Chance? In spite of all this evidence for design, some non-theists claim that our existence is simply testimony to the fact that the extremely unlikely did, in fact, take place by chance only. In other words, we would not be here to report the event unless that highly unlikely event did indeed occur. A reply to this argument has been developed by philosophers William Lane Craig and Richard Swinburne: Support a hundred sharpshooters are sent to execute a prisoner by firing squad and the prisoner survives. The prisoner should not be surprised that he does not observe that he is dead. After all, if he were dead, he could not observe his death. Nonetheless, he should be surprised that he observes that he is alive.141 Thus, the prison could conclude, since he is alive, that all the sharpshooters missed by some extremely unlikely chance. He may wish to attribute his survival to an incredible bit of good luck, but he would be far more rational to conclude that the guns were loaded with blanks or that the sharpshooters all deliberately missed. That is, someone must have purposed that he should live. Likewise, the rational conclusion to draw from the incredible fine-tunedness of the universe and the solar system is that someone purposed that we should live. Another consideration is the total lack of analogy in the world of observed natural processes. We do not, for instance, see spontaneous generations of anything highly organized and complex, derive from nothing! If the God of the Bible may be seen - and seen as essential - in the existence and operation of galaxies and stars and our solar system, the simple systems in the cosmos, how much more clearly should we see Him in systems that are orders of magnitude more complex, information-loaded, and living? Nothing produced by the ingenuity of man can remotely compare with the complexity and efficiency of even the simplest of organisms - such as a single bacteria. Organisms, in face, are so complex that with all mans study of them we as yet know relatively little of how to build and operate them. Through time, as we unlock more and more of the secrets of the vast cosmos and of the inner workings of organisms, we will continue to be awed. But where will that awe be aimed - at the created thing or at the Creator? That is each individuals choice.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 11:59:39 +0000
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