The argument from design is very intuitive, and most people get its point immediately. Simply put, something appears to be designed when it demonstrates purpose or function and possesses information. We recognize things as simple as a pencil or a dixie cup to be the products of deliberate design, because we can see they were made for the purpose of accomplishing a task. Because they contain organized, complex structure, we say that these objects, as simple as they are, contain information; and the only known source of information is intelligence. As I said, we get this point intuitively, and we especially admire the genius of a truly original and well done work of art or engineering. This, in a nutshell, is the argument made by advocates of Intelligent Design (ID).

Sometimes a Youtube video is worth a thousand words. Here is a clip that runs just a little under four minutes that illustrates the analogy of design beautifully. (It gives new meaning to “This too shall pass.”)  No one would argue that their Rube Goldberg contraption came about by random chance; not without insulting some very bright engineering students.

As complex as the contraption in the video is, it pales in comparison to the simplest living cell.  Michael Denton, in his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, describes the complexity of cells this way:  “To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York.  What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design.  On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out.  If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity…”  (pp. 328-29).  At the center of every living cell is the DNA molecule, which provides the instructions for that cell.   The molecule is wrapped up tightly inside the cell, but if it were stretched out it would be over three feet long.  The amount of information contained within DNA is simply stunning--approximately the equivalent to that of a 30-volume encyclopedia.

As I stated above, the only known source of information is intelligence.  And the most densely compact transmitter of information known to us is DNA.  The impression of design by an intelligent Being is overwhelming, don't you think?

Iris Dement is a folk singer/songwriter who frequently appears on The Prairie Home Companion and similar venues.  I first heard her on the radio singing a duet with David Byrne of The Talking Heads, where they were singing a catchy little tune she had written called “Just Let the Mystery Be.”   The song has since been covered by a number of groups, most notably 10,000 Maniacs.  With “Just Let the Mystery Be,” Dement expresses her religious convictions, or lack thereof.  In her younger years Dement professed to be a Pentecostal Christian, but now she describes herself as an agnostic.

An agnostic is not an atheist.  The agnostic doesn’t deny the existence of God; she or he denies our ability to know whether or not there is a God. 

“Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.” 
 
This is the typical agnostic argument.  Since so many disagree, all must be incorrect.  Therefore, she contends, she is justified in washing her hands of the whole matter.

“Some say once you're gone you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're comin' back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.”

The line about coming back as a vegetable lampoons reincarnation pretty well, don’t you think?

“Some say they're goin' to a place called Glory and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that.
Well, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.
But I choose to let the mystery be.”

Like most arguments for agnosticism, the song trips on its own logic.  It claims to renounce all religious assertions, and then proceeds to make assertions anyway.  “But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that.”  Not very agnostic about that, are we? 

The truth is I’ve never met an agnostic who truly lets the mystery be, because no one can.  Her song is evidence she can’t let it go.  We are all created in the Divine Image; we all have an awareness of the transcendent, the eternal, and the divine.  We are pursued by the One Who created us.  Jesus Christ is the very revelation of God, before us in human flesh.  Iris, like the rest of humanity, can distort and suppress the divine witness, but—again, just like the rest of us—she can’t just let the mystery be. 

Recently a hyper-Calvinist updated his Facebook status with the following: “If you give money to evangelical missions to reach the unregenerate your heart is veiled and the truth is hidden from you. Stop the giving. STOP THE GIVING. STOP THE GIVING! STOP THE GIVING! Cut off their money flow. Don't finance unbelieving regenerate missionary enterprises.”  No, I’m not making it up; that’s really what he wrote.

What is a hyper-Calvinist?  Historically, hyper-Calvinism has contended that the Holy Spirit regenerates the elect apart from the hearing of the Gospel and that one can be regenerate without believing—perhaps without ever believing.  They argue that Gospel preaching does not result in people getting saved—rather it locates those already born again.  Hyper-Calvinists traditionally have been anti-missions, and as the above quote shows, such sentiments still exist.  Note his hostility to missionary efforts—four times he writes “stop the giving.”  Evidently he believes his mission is to stop those who attempt to obey the Great Commission.

Do not confuse Calvinism with hyper-Calvinism.  Every Calvinist with whom I have a friendship firmly rejects the lunacy expressed in the above quote.  Many great missionaries have been Calvinists—William Carey and Lottie Moon spring to mind.  This Molinist is happy to link arms with his Calvinist brethren for the glorious task of reaching the nations.  And when hyper-Calvinists try to discourage missions we should not remain silent.

Let us do the exact opposite of his admonition.  Let’s give more to missions.  Let’s increase our commitment, increase our sacrifice.  Let’s lead our churches to spend ourselves for the Great Commission.   

I just finished an excellent book by James Le Fanu entitled Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves.  Le Fanu, winner of the Los Angeles Times prize for scientific writing in 2000, gives a readable survey of modern evolutionary theory, genetic research, and scientific explorations of the brain.  He demonstrates that Darwinism fails as an explanatory theory and operates more like a religious creed.  He points out that, for all we have learned through the explorations of the genetic code and the human brain, the human being is as much a mystery to us as ever (and in some ways even more so).  The Human Genome Project and brains scans have not explained why humans are, well, human.  Indeed, these endeavors demonstrate that we will never fully be able to understand or explain ourselves.  Le Fanu says that, after all our research, we still are left with five fundamental mysteries, which I’ll list as brief bullet points. 

·         The Mystery of Subjective Awareness. The brain receives a “barrage of colorless photons and soundless pressure waves” that it is able to organize into a coherent “world” that we perceive.  We don’t understand how it is that we can understand.

·         The Mystery of Free Will. How do non-material thoughts activate the synapses of the motor cortex of the brain, causing a person to act and do in a certain way?  There’s much more going on than mere chemistry.

·         The Mystery of the Richness and Accessibility of Memory. How does the brain capture and store experiences, available (more or less) for recall many years later?  Le Fanu quotes neurobiologist Robert Doty: “The seemingly limitless and enduring capacity of human memory is a deep mystery in itself.  It is this facility to sort with such alacrity and choice among the items of a lifetime, pursue in milliseconds obscure, half forgotten episodes and their cascading associations that presently defies credible clarification.”

·         The Mystery of Human Reason and Imagination. How does our brain create “reasoned thoughts, infused by a powerful moral sensibility?”  What exactly is imagination, and how are we able to use it to create mental images that our senses have never perceived?

·         The Mystery of the Self. What exactly is “that non-material being that seems so convincingly to be located just between and above the eyes, that both looks outwards to the external world yet presides over that inner life of subjective impressions and actions”? We change through the years, and in some ways dramatically, yet it is the same “self” that continues through the changes. 

For science, these remain as mysteries.  Le Fanu shows that the materialist worldview cannot be true.  For all the amazing capabilities of the brain, it does not explain the mind.  Each person really is more than the sum of his or her parts.  In short, humanity is the exquisite creation of God, and the reflector of His image (Gen 1:26).

“Mom, why didn’t you help him?”  Writing those words still fills my heart with regret.  We were driving home from convention last summer, just Allison and me, and had stopped for gas.  We were about to leave when I noticed a young man approaching, looking directly at me with an inquiring but hesitant gaze. He started to tell me a story about why he needed help with getting some gas and asked if I would help him. My response was quick and decisive. “No, I can’t – I’m sorry”.  I shut my door and told Allison to drive away quickly.  As we were pulling away Allison said to me, “Mom, why didn’t you help him?  Did you see his car? I think he was telling the truth.”  Immediately regret and shame filled my heart.  When approached for help my first instinct had been to flee; my daughter instead looked at him, evaluated the situation and saw what I had completely missed – a real opportunity to help my neighbor; to be Jesus to someone. I wish I could say that was the only time in memory that I had missed an opportunity; but sadly I often do.  Usually it is because I live life too fast, always in a hurry – too busy to take time for others.

When I was a girl living at home, my dad was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Ellsinore, Missouri. For many years a large banner hung above the baptistry that said “OTHERS”.  Dad would often quote a little poem to the congregation that said:

Others, Lord, yes Others
Let this my motto be
Help me to live for others
That I might live like thee.

That day at the gas station I was only thinking of myself, not about the person in front of me with a need.  I didn’t look much like Jesus that day – but my prayer for this day and for the rest of my days, is that I will grow to be more like Jesus, and to live with a consciousness of the lost around me and a desire to demonstrate the love of Christ to all who may cross my path.   
pjk

This is how Dale Ahlquist describes G. K. Chesterton’s opinion on the differences between men and women in his book Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton.  He goes on to quote Chesterton as saying that these amazing differences are quite necessary for true romantic love:

"The differences between a man and a woman are at best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest. To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the best while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness; for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity."

Well said, don’t you think? The upcoming wedding of my only daughter in a few weeks has me contemplating these facts once again.  Ken and I were very much in love when we married over 30 years ago.  We had many things in common and were on the same page about every subject we had discussed during our dating and courtship. But oh how different we were from each other in EVERY other way!  Ken always sees the big picture – I always look at the details.  He sees the possibilities and I tend to see the hurdles.  He likes to talk aloud about the conflicts in his mind – I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself until they are pried out. Do you see a trend here?  Is it even necessary to say that at times these differences caused enormous conflict between us? 

I thank God that he brought Ken and I together; that He used our love for each other and our commitment to the covenant of marriage to weld together these two stubborn pieces of iron while we were early in our journey of love.  Every conflict – big or small – has been an opportunity for us to choose to allow God to mold us and shape us more like the image of His Son and to allow our love for each other to grow beyond the initial fire, into something deeper and stronger.  

I have been thinking about what advice I would give my children (assuming I were asked) as to what I would do differently if I were starting my married life over again.  Here is my short list:

-          I would be more generous with praise and stingy with criticism.
-          I would give myself and my love more generously and unreservedly.
-          I would prayer more fervently and frequently for my husband and our marriage.

It is my daily prayer that God would work through the obvious, elemental and necessary differences in my children and their spouses to make their marriages a beautiful example of Christ and His church.  A godly marriage and family is spiritual work – but it is the best kind of work that truly counts for eternity.   

pjk

If there were ever any doubts that Darwinism is first and foremost a religion, Eddie Colanter provides the two quotes that lay them to rest.  Colanter has written “Philosophical Implications of Neo-Darwinism and Intelligent Design” for a book edited by Wayne House entitled Intelligent Design 101.  The first quote is by Sir Julian Huxley, the grandson of T. H. Huxley (who was known as “Darwin’s bulldog” for his pugnacious advocacy of Darwinism).  At a centennial celebration in 1959 on the 100th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species, Huxley declared the following:

“[A]ll aspects of reality are subject to evolution, from atoms and stars to fish and flowers, from fish and flowers to human societies and values-indeed, that all reality is a single process of evolution.... In the evolutionary pattern of thought, there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.... Finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will arise to serve the needs of the coming era."

Colanter provides a second, this one by evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin, which is even more remarkable:

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just-so-stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our apriori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

Notice that Lewontin admits two things: 1) The scientific enterprise itself does not require an acceptance of materialism; and 2) his absolute allegiance to materialism causes him to reject the concept of design in nature, no matter how compelling the evidence.  With these words Lewontin reveals that he is not a dispassionate scientist, but a religious fanatic.

Please pray for Mark Rooker and me as we continue to labor together on our book project--40 Questions on Creation and Evolution (Kregel Publications). It is an exciting topic at a crucial time, and we desire the book to be a benefit to those who read it.

 “Total student loan debt, at nearly $830 billion, recently surpassed total national credit card debt.” Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan 14th, B12.

Many students graduating from elite private colleges are carrying debt loads of $200,000.  The collapse of the manufacturing base in America means that, in today’s economy, the only route to the middle class is through college.  Young people believe they have no other choice, and they are right.  College graduates make $22,000 more per year than those with only a high school diploma ($55,700 vs. $33,800), and college graduates enjoy salary increases at a much higher rate (source: http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/213393.html). The disparity in unemployment rates is especially stark.  During this recession, unemployment on average has hovered around 10%.  But unemployment among college graduates is only around 5% while high school graduates have suffered with a brutal rate of 15% (source: http://www.brighthub.com/education/college/articles/79271.aspx). As a result, multitudes of students are opting to assume the debt burden of student loans at an earlier age and at such high levels that would have given previous generations a nervous breakdown.

We at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary take this situation seriously.  We work hard to keep costs down, and we receive generous support from the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention. The average public four-year college charges $7,605 per year in tuition and fees (for in-state students) and the average private college charges $27,293 per year in tuition and fees.  Tuition at the College at Southeastern, on the other hand, is $5,826 per year ($229 per credit hour plus fees, 12 hrs per semester).  The fee structure for Southeastern Seminary is even more affordable: $3,606 per year ($182 per credit hour plus fees, 9 hours per semester).  Of course, there are scholarship and grant options available as well.  Southern Baptists in general and SEBTS in particular, are committed to providing a quality education for future pastors, missionaries, and ministers that will not saddle them with an unbearable student debt.  Just thought you would like to know.

I overheard an interesting discussion recently.  A group of students were talking about music, and as the conversation progressed - no matter what point one of them made - one fellow would wade in to deliver the authoritative opinion.  The most amusing moment occurred when one student dared to disagree with this pontiff.  “Well," he sniffed, "I happen to be the person who has actually studied this subject!” The aggravating thing is that the point he was making was probably correct.

What person, possessing a special quality, ability, or gift, doesn’t show off at one time or another?  It is tough keeping quiet in a discussion when you are the smartest guy about the topic at hand. And the most beautiful girl in the room finds it difficult to not take advantage of that fact.  It’s fun to talk trash on the court, especially if you can back it up.  The human psyche is marinated in pride.

I googled the phrase “if you’ve got it, flaunt it.”  Google returned 386,000 results.  One finds a song with that title.  Advertisers use to the phrase to sell clothes, jewelry, perfume, and automobiles.  Girls on the catwalk and guys on the ball field are all egged on. 

What does Christ teach us about this?  Let us remember that in this matter, Jesus was not just as tempted as we are, he was tempted more than we can ever be.  Consider when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. When Satan challenged Jesus to turn stones into bread, we should remember that Jesus really could do that at any time! What if you or I had the ability to conjure up whatever food we wanted, when we wanted it?  Just having food in the kitchen refrigerator is often more temptation than I can resist.  Have you seen the commercial, Like a good neighbor State Farm is there?  Everyone gets the joke (“And can I get a hot tub?!”).  And when Satan called upon Jesus to jump from the Temple mount, he was in effect saying to the Son of God, “If you’ve got, flaunt it.”

Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated the proper way to exercise one’s gifts.  He did so only according to the will of the Father.  Our Lord yielded the independent use of his divine attributes—his omnipotence, his omniscience, and all his excellencies—to his heavenly Father. In the New Testament we read where Jesus Christ manifested his glories—but always at a time that suited the Father’s will.  Often, our Savior did not take advantage of abilities available to him. “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:52)  The Son of God never flaunted anything.

So there is a proper time when the great athlete should run with the ball, the golden-voiced tenor should sing the solo, and the charismatic pastor should preach the Word to the congregation.  The Bible teaches us the proper disposition to have: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor. 10:31)  Lord, by your grace let me not flaunt it, but glorify you with it.