Everytime I see a jet stream up in the sky I think of my daughter. She loves airplanes, and she is so excited to point one out everytime she sees one. Actually, she doesn't even have to see it. As long as she sees a jet stream, she knows a plane was there. If you told her it was just a cloud, she wouldn't beleive you, she's smart enough to know a jet stream is no accident. Well...even though we cannot actually see God, we see clear evidence of him and his design in everything that he's created. From the teleological argument to irreducible complexity, when we follow the evidence, we can only arrive at one conclusion: God created it all.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
Everytime I see a jet stream up in the sky I think of my daughter. She loves airplanes, and she is so excited to point one out everytime she sees one. Actually, she doesn't even have to see it. As long as she sees a jet stream, she knows a plane was there. If you told her it was just a cloud, she wouldn't beleive you, she's smart enough to know a jet stream is no accident. Well...even though we cannot actually see God, we see clear evidence of him and his design in everything that he's created. From the teleological argument to irreducible complexity, when we follow the evidence, we can only arrive at one conclusion: God created it all.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
Welcome back to all of our listeners! I’m BJ Sipe, and you’re listening to the Set Your Mind Above podcast – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today, I am excited to share my life and my faith with you, and I sure hope that you’ll do the same with me along the way.
It is a beautiful day here in Danville, Kentucky. The sky is blue, the breeze is light, and the temperature is in the low 50s on this crisp Autumn day. I left home after a late lunch, and as I opened our newly stained front door to walk back out to the car, I couldn’t help but take a big deep breath of the fresh air and say a quick prayer thanking God for how beautiful today is. Pulling out of the neighborhood, my attention quickly shifted from the changing color of the trees to the beautiful big blue sky above me. As soon as I looked up, saw a fresh new jet stream that was left behind from some fast moving plane shuttling passengers across the states. Every time I see a plane in the sky or even the jet stream that is left behind, I immediately think about my daughter Ava. Ava loves planes, I suppose given the fact that she has already flown close to 20 times in her life since she was born three years ago may have something to do with that. But every time she sees a plane, it’s a big deal. She makes a loud declaration to all within earshot, “Look! There’s a plane,” to which we then respond, “Where do you think it’s going to?” “It’s probably going to ‘Tucky,” she’ll assert confidently, which is her extraordinarily cute way of saying “Kentucky” to this day. This dialogue played out in my head as I drove along and admired the long jet stream as far as my eye would take me, but I actually didn’t see the plane. That’s when the realization hit me and brings us todays podcast. You see, often times my daughter will look up and see a long jet stream, and while she doesn’t see the actual plane because it’s already vanished from sight, she still knows it was there. If I tried telling her, “No, that’s just a cloud,” she would laugh at me and say, “You’re silly daddy, that’s an airplane.” My daughter, a three year old, is able to look at the evidence and deduce that what she is looking at is not there by accident, nor can she be duped into thinking that it is just an unusually long and thin cloud. She doesn’t have to actually lay eyes on the airplane to know that’s what put it there. She just follows the evidence, and to her it’s “plain” to see (sorry, I couldn’t resist sneaking a bad dad joke in there).
You see, you and I can look at something like a jet stream and know that obviously that is the work of a plane, it’s not an accident. And yet, how often do people look at the things of this world and refuse to believe that they were created and designed by the hand of God? When I look into this world, the way it has been fine tuned and the depths of design demonstrate to me that it must have a designer, that it is not here by accident. The formal description for this argument is the called the teleological argument, but let’s look at the same argument made by Paul in Romans 1. He writes starting in vv. 18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Paul states that while we cannot see God with our own eyes, to then deduce that means you cannot know God exists is simply ludicrous. What can be known about God is plain to us, clear as day, because his work can be seen everywhere we look in the things that have been created. While we don’t have time to look in depth at different arguments from design, let me just share a few wow factors with you. Paul Davies, a physicist & astrobiologist, has been quoted saying, “It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the universe…the impression of design is overwhelming.” For example, Gravity has a universal constant of 6.672 x 10-11. If it were even fractionally stronger then stars (like our sun) would be too large and would burn too rapidly for life to be possible. However, if it were fractionally weaker then stars would not be hot enough for nuclear fusion, making it impossible for elements such as iron to exist upon which life is hinged. Gravity has been fine-tuned precisely for life to be possible. Or consider the electromagnetic force, which is 1036 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity. That being said, it’s strength should rip the entire universe apart – if it were not for the fact that the universe just happens to be electrically neutral. The number of protons and electrons are exactly equal to one another. Such a balance is another demonstration of design, not remotely even resembling chance. Even looking deeper at the things that have been created such as biology confirms it was made by design and not by chance. The argument of irreducible complexity demonstrates entire biological systems that could not have evolved in stages to become what they are, but that the only way they function is when all of it’s parts are simultaneously present. It would be like saying a plane could fly without it’s engines or it’s wings, but it would fly better with all of them – of course that’s ridiculous. You need all of it together simultaneously for flight, it’s irreducibly complex. The digestive system, the metabolic system, and the circulatory system are all examples of things that could never have evolved – the only explanation for their function is that they were designed and created to do so by an intelligent designer, that is God. Did you know that the plant hopper insect has actual gears within it’s leg joints? Or that the bacterial flagellum has a working motor at the molecular level, complete with a rotor, brushings, and shaft? We could go on forever. The point is this: just because you cannot point physically to God and see him with your own eyes does not mean that we cannot deduce through the evidence all around us of his existence. You cannot convince me that all of this design is by accident any more than you could convince my daughter that a jet stream is just a random cloud. Even vehement atheist Richard Dawkins admits that this world overwhelmingly impresses us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, though he chalks it up to an illusion. Well, that’s a whole lot of “illusion” everywhere you look. As the expression goes, “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” well, you know the rest. I say let’s follow the evidence, and to me, the evidence overwhelming points to an all-powerful, all knowing and compassionate designer that we know as God.
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Tune in, Tuesday-Fridays, as a new podcast episode will be uploaded each day. Also, be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for future announcements and video sessions. As you have the opportunity, share these thoughts with your friends and family, and share with me what important lessons you are learning from every day, ordinary events. Until next time know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.