Intelligence versus Foolishness

Whenever design happens, intelligence precedes it. Design – whether it be in the form of fashion, architecture, planning, strategizing, or scheming – always involves intelligence. Not only is design intricately connected with intelligence but it also signifies purpose.

Design, by its own definition, always involves the act of creating, which uses a higher form of intelligence to accomplish an objective or goal. The design always originates from an outside intelligence because it cannot create itself. To believe that design is mindless, haphazard, without intent, and done with materials from within is just foolishness.

Intelligence in the Cosmos

It is evident that the remarkable plan behind the cosmos with its array of laws and mathematical constants give an innate order, affecting all objects in it, even those so huge that they dwarf our understanding of what is big and move at speeds that belie our imagination. This is easily exemplified by our sun which is a medium-sized star with the volume of 1.3 million earths. It is part of a body of stars numbering 200 billion in our Milky Way Galaxy moving at speeds close to one million miles per hour. This kind of colossal systematic movement where these massive bodies are bonded to an order in our galaxy makes one come to a logical conclusion that there is evidence of a designer with intelligence much larger than ours. We are forced to think of outside intelligence that approaches infinity. It was King David who humbly proclaimed, “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17)

Our attention is not drawn inward but outward behind our physical domain of reality that points to a Creator – God. It was Galileo (1564-1642), famous for defending the Copernican Theory (sun-centered solar system), who developed a telescope to make new discoveries in the heavens that give us a new perspective. He used a method of experimentation never used before which earned him the title “Father of Modern Science.” It is affirmed over and over again that the cosmos is made with profound order that vividly demonstrates the exquisite work of a mathematical masterpiece by a sovereign God. Galileo recognized this fact as he stated, “Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.”

Contempory to Galileo, the famous astronomer Joannes Kepler (1597 -1630) gave us the laws of planetary motion and also produced a scientific revolution in the way we do science today with the use of inductive reasoning in the early 1600’s. He stated,

“Those laws [of nature] are within the grasp of the human mind; God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts.”

It is apparent that those who practice modern science have their roots in a belief in a God who was the infinite intelligence behind the design of the Cosmos. Also in Kepler’s words, we were created in God’s image to experience Him and witness His shining glory.

Another genius of all time, Sir Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), came to the same conclusion one hundred years later. He, perhaps like no man before him, would be committed to search for relationships in these universal laws which gave order to the universe as well as the earth in the area of motion. There is a common thread through the universe that is mathematically consistent and could be relied on as Galileo and Kepler stressed; in its discovery there are even more hidden secrets waiting to be revealed.

When he produced The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Design (1687) that is accepted as one of the most influential scientific works in history, he included the statement, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” He believed like Kepler that those universal constants and laws were not produced haphazardly but with purpose to accomplish the overall design.

It has been documented that Newton on more than one occasion when he wrote his signature he would follow it with the phrase, “God Created the universe by number, weight, and measure.” He rationally concluded that this was made by an infinite designer and describes Him this way:

“And from true lordship it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; from the other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity”

— Sir Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), 3rd edition (1726)

The Foolishness of Man According to the genius of these iconic figures (Kepler, Galileo, and Newton) who demonstrated clearly that a grand design of a finely-tuned universe with all its defined laws was created together. It was not step-by-step progression, but a system of forces and bodies all interacting in time and space together.

Since evolution is bound to materialism which is confined to naturalism-imposed boundaries, it denies giving credit to an outside intelligence. Over the years, atheistic evolutionists have developed a well-scripted story of how the observable, highly-ordered universe originated without outside intelligence or designer with all of these progressive steps that happened in an instant. It’s a feeble attempt to describe all of these steps in a story line popularly known as the Big Bang. This is how Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the popular TV astronomer, wrote and narrated it in “The Genesis of the Universe” video clip. Below is the narration of the beginning of the clip.

In the beginning, about 13.7 billion years ago, all the space, all the matter and all energy known in the universe was contained in a volume less than one trillionth the size of a point of a pin. Conditions were so hot that basic forces that collectively described the universe were unified. For reasons unknown, from this sub-conformed point, the cosmos began to expand.

There are many that refer to DeGrasse Tyson as their hero today as many did decades ago with Carl Sagan. These two popular charismatic figures have attracted many because of their wild speculations and their boundless imagination as one couldn’t help but witness in the above statement. Statements like “For reasons unknown” and in the same clip not quoted above but soon following, Tyson states, “Under these extreme conditions, what is admitted speculative physics…” is an example of ignorance, exaggeration, and arrogance that has no place in science as we know it. This is a real insult to iconic figures such as Galileo, Kepler, and Newton who not only discovered a magnificent, orderly cosmic masterpiece but also recognized a benevolent Creator. Newton befittingly said, “He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.” Those who fail to see the most obvious are blinded by their own foolishness. The bible defines a fool in Psalm14:1, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”

Intelligence in Living Things

Today with the discovery and development of the electron microscope in the late 1930’s, a new microscopic universe has been revealed. Just like the universe with its trillions and trillions of stars, a new world of biomolecules of living things was discovered and made to work together with such systematic precision. This micro universe has given a new meaning to life with all of its exhaustive complexity. It is up close here on earth, not so distant as those heavenly bodies traveling light years away. We presently find an explosion of knowledge growing exponentially that exposes designed patterns and systems more complicated than ever imagined. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology are fields that are attracting much attention as we search the living world to find new drugs to save mankind from diseases like cancer and so much more.

In the microbiology world, we see evidence of molecular machines which are basically protein molecules gathered together to carry out a function of a living system. There are about 20,000 of these protein molecular machines that have been discovered in humans and there could be over 100,000 kinds in other living organisms. These protein molecules are not simple but actually bind and twist in many different three-dimensional shapes. These protein molecules that act like machines are commonly made of thousands of functional units called amino acids. There only about twenty kinds of amino acids that are found in proteins that give every living organism a physical structure so they can exist. The arrangement of these amino acids is a key because it predetermines the shape they are going to take. There is a specific order in which these 20 amino acids are to be arranged which is done by the DNA. It has information imprinted in its code for every living organism. The chances to make a protein with the specific order and dimensional requirements without the help of the DNA is one chance out of 1 with 70 zeroes after it. The statistical odds approaches zero chance of this ever happening as there are more atoms in the Milky Way Galaxy. This dramatically addresses the need for an outside superior intelligent agency to design such a complex system.

Molecular proteins are true machines

There are thousands of examples of these molecular machines, like ones that control muscle contraction, open and close DNA, and also help it wrap itself up into a chromosome, and the list goes on. These protein machines also work together like the bacteria flagellum that have captured much attention of biologists. There are about thirty protein machines working together as parts that act like a propeller on a motor mount. It is considered one of “the most efficient systems in the universe” states Howard Berg, Harvard biologist.

Automotive engines can reach 3,000 rpm while a jet turbine at the lower range will reach 100,000 rpm with an enormous fuel consumption while the bacterium flagellum needs hardily anything measurable to move its tail at those extraordinary speeds. That’s evidence of divine intelligence and there could be no other conclusion.

When a secular evolutionist is asked to explain the details, their worldview collapses. The old idiom that “God is in the details” means that when you look around carefully and experience the entire creation – big and small – you can’t help but see evidence that God left His fingerprints everywhere.

As human beings, we are designed to experience God in His creation and actually witness the true meaning of intelligence. We are designed to recognize His workmanship like no other creature because we are created in God’s image. The more we look with open eyes, the more we will witness His glory. He created the galaxies, the stars, the microbes, and everything with such detail so we can ponder His beauty and purpose.