In his parable, Paley pictures a man walking along an uncultivated land and he stubs his toe on a rock. He looks at the rock for a moment, but the stone doesn't tell him much, it's just there. (But the fact that it's there is telling him something or at least causing him to ask, "How did it get here?")
Then, as he looks at the rock, he sees something lying beside it, a watch, running and keeping time. Now, he's got something more to consider: "How did something with such an intricate design come about?" The watch is different than the rock. The rock doesn't show any design, but this watch does, this shows an intricate design, precision movement, like, say, a fine Swiss watch.
He thinks more deeply about the watch and concludes that it's of such fine design and precision that it's telling him more than the time of day; it's telling him that there is a watchmaker.
You can easily see where the parable is going; no surprise ending with the story. Paley told the parable to illustrate the fact that when we look at the universe, we see a "watch," a precisely arranged "watch" with intricate parts, all moving in a glorious harmony in what must, therefore be, a Designer Universe. It's like the psalmist wrote: "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork." To line the psalm up with the parable, we'd say, "A watch declares the glory of a Watchmaker and shows His handiwork."
Any normal person, finding the watch in the heather would think, "This watch has a maker," but that's not true when we come to fallen man and his ideas about the universe. When fallen man "finds" the universe, there are two words that he won't say to explain it: "designer," and "cause." He won't allow himself to think "designer/cause," to say "designer/cause," or to declare a "designer/ cause" for the universe.
If he thinks or says, "Cause," that means that the watch (or the stone, for that matter) hasn't always been there. If he thinks or says, "Cause," that opens the door for another forbidden word, "God." And that word leads to all sorts of ramifications he doesn't want to face, such as "accountability," among a host of others.
Therefore, he must suppress this "designer/cause," fight it tooth and nail, hammer and tong. He must look for something, anything, to suppress the truth the watch is telling him. He'll leave no stone unturned to find something, anything to get around "designer/cause." And, after searching, Darwin found it: natural selection.
"At last," fallen man said,"Natural selection accounts for the precision of the watch; Paley's parable is dead!" By natural selection, he means, "The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring."
But now he still has problems: his watchmaker is blind; his watchmaker is impersonal; his watchmaker is chance. Therefore, he is placing his faith in the impersonal + chance to have produced everything (including himself). On no other level does he trust the impersonal and chance. He doesn't trust chance when he picks and eats mushrooms or he'll be in the ER in no time, nor does he trust chance when he drives in either light or heavy traffic. Try trusting blind chance in the 80 mile Atlanta rush hour traffic and find out just what kind of fool you are. Change lanes in that kind of traffic by chance and watch someone call 911 as you lie broken and bleeding in the street. Pull any medication by chance from your medicine cabinet and take as many pills as you decide by chance and wind up unconscious on the floor.
Other problems accrue: how can we talk about "Newton's Laws of Motion?" where did such laws come from? Why is it that particles behave in the same way? Particles don't have minds by which they think, yet, wherever we find them, they act in the same way so that we can formulate "laws" to describe them. Why do far away galaxies all act in accord with the laws of mathematics? Why do shattered plates never reform themselves? Why does a pan of boiling water never produce ice? Did a blind watch maker come up with all those laws of motion?
If the universe doesn't have a cause, it must be eternal and if it's eternal, that means that "The universe is all that is, was, or ever will be." But how does that square with the Second Law of Thermodynamics? "This law is about inefficiency, degeneration and decay. It tells us all we do is inherently wasteful and that there are irreversible processes in the universe. It gives us an arrow for time and tells us that our universe has a inescapably bleak, desolate fate."
In short, this law says that everything is running down, going from order to disorder. That law came in with the Fall of man and we've been dealing with it ever since. Since everything is winding down, going from order to disorder, how can it be eternal? It had to have a beginning if it's all falling apart.
In spite of the fact that we can observe the Second Law of Thermodynamics, fallen man says, "The universe is all there is, was, or ever will be." Since the Second Law is true, the universe must have had a beginning and if it had a beginning, it had a cause. Nothing begins without a cause.
What shall we say to all this? "Professing himself to be wise, fallen man became a fool, worshiping the watch rather than the Watchmaker."
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Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak, available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99"There is
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99"There is
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
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