26 Jan Is Science Willfully Blind?
YOU CAN’T BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT YOU DON’T SEE, CAN YOU?
As I have read the intellectual contortions that secularists go through to deny the obvious about the existence of God, I have wondered, “why do they spend so much effort refusing to believe that which is most apparent?”
Why do they insist on trying to cook up implausible explanations for something that seems clearly to be the work of supernatural intelligence? In many cases, it is the result of an anti-supernatural bias. The scientists who discovered the structure of DNA, Francis Crick and James Watson, freely admit that anti-religious motivations drove their scientific work.
Crick said in an interview. “I went into science because of these religious reasons, there’s no doubt about that. I asked myself what were the two things that appear inexplicable and are used to support religious beliefs.” He decided the two things that support religion were “the difference between living and nonliving things, and the phenomenon of consciousness.” He then aimed his own research specifically at demonstrating a naturalistic view of both.1
I am reminded of my nephew, many years ago. I was the youngest of six children, so my older siblings had moved away from home, had children of their own and were coming home to “grandma and grandpa’s” house before I had left home.
One Sunday, my sister and her husband and son were at our house and the son, my nephew… perhaps three years old… had gotten some toys out of a box in a closet, and had played with them while they were there. As they prepared to go home, my sister said, “Son, pick up those toys so we can leave.” The toys that were in the middle of the room.
In complete innocence, my nephew said, “What toys?”
His mother pointed to the toys. “Over there.”
His eyes swung way past the pile of toys to the other side of the room. “What toys?”
His incredulous mother said, a little louder, “Over there.” And pointed back to the middle of the room.
My nephew’s eyes swung clear to the opposite side of the room. “What toys?”
Bug-eyed, his mother said, through teeth gritted in exasperation, “Over there!” Pointing again to the middle of the room.
As though activated by a powerful unseen force, he once again swung his eyes to the opposite side of the room, and again… defying all reason… said, “What toys?”
Tension filled the room. No one made eye contact. I wondered, “How long will he try to keep this up?”
Calmly, his mother got up, walked over to him, gently cradled his head in her hands, and guided his line of sight to the pile of toys that were practically at his feet, and said. “There.”
My nephew finally caved. He could no longer deny seeing the toys, and began picking them up.
You see… as long as he could not see the toys, the poor boy could not be held responsible for picking them up. And really, really not wanting to pick them up induced a sort of temporary blindness that defied comprehension.
How often I have wondered if this was the motivation for secularists trying to explain the universe without God. The existence of the universe points to God, but they swing their eyes in the opposite direction and say, “What God?”
The design of the universe says “over here,” and they swing there eyes too far in the opposite direction and say, “What God?”
The uniqueness of humanity calls out, “over here,” And they swing their eyes way past and say, “What God?”
Is it that as long as they cannot see God, they consider that they are not accountable to Him? Is their desire not to find God the motive behind their readiness to contort the apparent, and find no God where it would be easier to find Him?
The arguments for the existence of God can be compelling and comforting as they match logic with observation. For those who don’t want to see God (just as in Peter’s day: 2 Peter 3:5 – ESV), they must often times “deliberately overlook” the obvious.
However, if Christians master the information, carrying it around in our memory, it will help us capitalize on opportunities to share the information with those who have not yet heard or accepted it.
1(Pearcey, Nancy, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (p. 171). Crossway. Kindle Edition.)
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