Things that look designed are designed

We take for granted that material things we see everyday have a mind behind them.  If we see a billboard we don't wonder how the ad got there.  We don't assume that it posted itself or it just appeared out of nothing with no purpose.  We know that there was thought behind it and someone designed it for a purpose.

I like to hunt and fish.  A lot of times I can be out in the middle of what seems like nowhere.  I'm not on a trail and it seems remote like maybe I'm the only one to have ever been there and I'll look down and see a pop can or a burnt out campfire.  My first thought is usually, "I wonder who left this here?".  I never even question though that there was someone behind it.  I don't think "I wonder if this pop can just sprang out of the ground or appeared from nothing".  That sounds crazy but that's exactly what some people do when it comes to explaining how nature came to be. 

In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that the universe looks complex and appears to be designed but really isn't.  He goes on to say that the temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to a designer.  When I first read this I had to scratch my head.  What complex system have we ever observed as being designed that wasn't?  We attribute designers to design because designed things don't just appear on their own.  Impersonal forces (i.e. non-designers) can't choose to create (i.e. design).

In fact there is an argument called the Teleological Argument (telos means design in Greek) and it goes like this:

1. Every design has a designer
2. The universe has highly complex design
3. The universe has a designer

If the first two premises are correct then the conclusion follows that the universe has a designer.  It's argument based on the fine tuning of the universe.  I wrote a blog on this fining tuning before and that can be found here.  So why do some very smart people believe that the most complex thing known to us, the universe, does not have a designer behind it?  Mostly because of an a priori commitment to naturalism.  That just means they have a prior commitment that nature is all there is so every explanation for the world around us has to come out of nature including nature itself.  They say that everything has a natural cause (including nature itself) and we'll eventually find the answer through science.  Eventhough we've never observed (science is about observation of effects) something coming from nothing we'll eventually figure it out.  However this will never be proveable because they will never be able to create something from nothing because anything they do create will have a designer behind it, namely the scientist.

The naturalist competing theory is the Multi-Verse.  This says that there are infinite multiple universes and given enough time and chance a universe like ours would be created and we just happen to be in the right one.  There are several problems with this.  One, there is absolutely no proof for this.  For people who claim science and nature is all there it's odd they'd appeal to something that is completely devoid of evidence.  Two, this could never be observed.  They are taking it on faith that there are other universes.  Third, it's actually impossible to have an infinite number of material things.  To illustrate this imagine a runner running an infinite race.  As the runner settles in the starting blocks they get moved back because the starting line is infinite.  Each time he settles into the starting blocks the line is moved back so he'll never actually start the race.  The same thing can be said for an infinite number of days.  If time were infinite the "beginning" point would constantly be moved back so today would never be reached.  Numbers are infinite but numbers aren't material things.  And lastly multi-verses just moves the starting point for a designer back and multiples the need for a designer.  What is the agent pumping out all these universes?  Same goes for Stephen Hawkings theory of energy in a vacuum creating the universe.  Where did the energy come from?  Energy isn't nothing it's something.

The theist doesn't reject science at all in fact the theist embraces it.  Science tells us about the world around us but when our observations point to causes outside of nature we can take that to where it leads and that's to a designer.  The attributes of the designer of our universe fit those that theists for thousands of years have attributed to God.  Theists are justified to believe in the existence of God based on the evidence.  It's a position that can be defended intellectually with sound reason and confidence and in fact is the most reasonable explanation of our universe.  It's not unreasonable to attribute design to a designer.  You can take confidence that theism answers the questions better than any other belief system.  And as the other evidence (Jesus, the Bible, the resurrection) is examined Biblical Christianity is the most reasonable against other worldviews.