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Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson

Secretary Patti Hall

PASTOR'S PENS 2003

Grace Church of Burlington August 17, 2003 I just don’t have enough faith...             Recently, the body of Dawn Brossard who had been missing for nearly six years was found at the bottom of Lake Geneva with a weight and chain holding her body on the lake’s bottom. Obviously, the case is being investigated as a homicide. But how do detectives determine whether a death occurred by natural causes or by deliberate intent?             If you like mysteries as I do, you know that they look for clues and a pattern. And of course, just as in the Brossard case, they first rule out natural causes. Obviously, Dawn did not die a natural death nor did she commit suicide. A good investigation will always follow certain general principles.             The same is true in science with a puzzle. An honest investigation requires that you first rule out natural causes. Looking at the universe, the scientist does the same thing they do in a detective story. We first have to see if life is a result of natural causes, if it somehow evolved naturally, or is it the result of the actions of an intelligent being.             Suppose you go shopping. When you return to your car, you find that the driver's window is broken and that the CD player is missing. But the maps, the coffee mug, and other bits and scraps, are still there. What do you conclude? In common-sense reasoning, we submit events like this through a three-step filter of possible causes.             First, could this be the result of natural causes? Events caused by natural forces, according to a natural law, tend to have a high probability. For example, if you drop a stone, it has a very high probability of falling, because it is subject to the law of gravity. But there is no natural law explaining the damage to your car. Any natural force, like a tornado, would break other windows as well, and it would take your maps and coffee cup, not just your CD player.             The event then passes to the second step in the filter, namely, did it happen by chance? Odd things do happen by chance. A truck, for instance, might accidentally have bounced a rock through your car window. But while that would explain the broken window, a bouncing rock would not remove valuable items from your car.             The third possibility is that the damage is the work of an intelligent being.  a) The event is highly improbable, no natural law or chance process explains it. b) The event is also specified. We know that thieves do take valuable things like CD players, and that knowledge precisely matches, or specifies, the improbable pattern in the car.             While this doesn't sound controversial at all, but it is...because, creation, the universe displays the same kind of features. As you are enjoying our outdoor service today, look around you at the trees, the river, etc. If we apply the same logic to nature and the living things around us that we do everywhere else, we must conclude that they cannot be the product of either nature or chance. Like a good detective, we rule out natural causes and conclude that living things must be the work of a designer.             Scientists frequently say that Biblical creation requires too much faith, “it’s just not logical.” The truth is that a thinking person without prejudices and preconceptions could only conclude that the design of creation demands an intelligent Creator. It takes more faith to believe in naturalism and that creation is a product of chance. Personally, I just don’t have that much faith.             At Grace we believe without apology in a literal creation as it is described in Genesis 1 and 2. To believe that this world just happened or that man is the result of some cosmic accident just takes too much faith. Tragically, it is the belief of those who have been blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:3-4). Those who do not want to give account to God as the Final Judge must first find a way to discard Him as the Creator. Naturalism/Evolution is not science; it’s philosophy.             The next time someone tries to tell you that this world just evolved, play detective with them. The facts just don’t support it.