It is written:
“Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, 2 and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith.” (2 Thessalonians 3:1-2)
Isn’t it interesting that the Apostle Paul places “faith” in contrast to those who are “unreasonable?” The implication is that having faith in God is reasonable, while rejecting true faith is unreasonable.
In my studies with some atheists, I have unfortunately seen this played out time and time again. For example, when we study about how the law of causality (along with the first law of thermodynamics), shows us that there must be an eternal Being; and that at least three evidences from science (the laws of thermodynamics, the expansion of the universe, and the life story of the stars) shows that the universe cannot be eternal (but must have had a beginning), I often hear: “Yes, that’s true, but maybe….” and then the speculation reigns supreme. We quickly move from science to science fiction.
They had become “unreasonable.”
Or consider how I was blessed to study with a jail cell of self-professed atheists a few years ago. When I said that we would start with the evidences for the existence of God and move on from there, one young man spoke up and claimed, “I have a college degree from such and such university, and I will immediately shoot down any so-called evidence you present for the existence of God.” I nodded, and told him he would have his turn. I went over the cosmological argument (one of the “ungetoverable” arguments for the existence of God), handed the young man my marker and said, “Your turn.” He said, “Man, I can’t touch anything you just said; but I believe that God is an alien from another planet.”
I asked a simple question: even granting that E.T. Exists (which I don’t believe based especially upon scientific evidence), where did he come from? As I pointed out, you must get back to the Eternal Being (God) at some point.
Again, what had happened?
The desire to move from that which is rational (i.e., the existence of God) to that which is “unreasonable.”
Perhaps one of the strongest and most powerful arguments to point to the Great Designer of our universe is found in the code of life: DNA. Please consider these insights from Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project (whose duties were to map the genome of the DNA code of human beings).
He writes:
“The human genome consists of all the DNA of our species, the hereditary code of life. This newly revealed text was 3 billion letters long, and written in a strange and cryptographic four-letter code. Such is the amazing complexity of the information carried within each cell of the human body, that a live reading of that code at a rate of one letter per second would take thirty-one years, even if reading continued day and night. Printing these letters out in regular font size on normal bond paper and binding them all together would result in a tower the height of the Washington Monument. For the first time on that summer morning this amazing script, carrying within it all of the instructions for building a human being, was available to the world. As the leader of the international Human Genome Project, which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House, along with Craig Venter, the leader of a competing private sector enterprise. Prime Minister Tony Blair was connected to the event by satellite, and celebrations were occurring simultaneously in many parts of the world. Clinton’s speech began by comparing this human sequence map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hundred years earlier. Clinton said, “Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind.” But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. “Today,” he said, “we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.” Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked closely with the president’s speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph. When it came time for me to add a few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: “It’s a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.”” (Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, 1-3 (Kindle Edition); New York, NY; Free Press)
Later, Collins writes:
“Quite the contrary, for me the experience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship.” (Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief,3 (Kindle Edition); New York, NY; Free Press)
When we consider the scientific odds of the DNA code evolving over vast eons of time (as atheistic evolution often maintains must have happened), we can readily see why so many people are rejecting atheism and turning to the one true God.
“Take 1070 combinations: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 minus 100,000,000, 000,000,000 seconds that a single DNA molecule could be formed by mere chance, and the remaining “odds” are 1 in 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999, 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,900,000,000,000,000,000. This means that the odds of a single functional DNA molecule coming together at random are about the same odds that you could fill a billion universes with golf balls and put a small red dot on the bottom of one ball and somehow a blindfolded baby could find that ball while rummaging through the hundred billion galaxies on the very first try.” (Joe White with Nicholas Comninellis, Darwin’s Demise: Why Evolution Can’t Take The Heat, 301-348 (Kindle Edition); Green Forest, AR; Master Books)
DNA is another of the powerful evidences which shows us that there is a God. This is as “reasonable” as you can get.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
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