Miracle of the Eye

“The feeblest of designers,” writes [evolutionist] Steve Jones, “could improve it (the structure of the human eye).” This and other examples, says Jones, show that complex organs are “not the work of some great composer but of an insensible drudge: an instrument, like others, built by a tinkerer [the evolutionary process] rather than by a trained engineer.” (Quoted from Cornelius Hunter, Darwin’s God, p.83.)

Jones discounts the possibility of an intelligent Designer. However, he correctly concludes that we should be able to make certain predictions about the physical world. If the world is the product of blind evolution, then, according to Jones, it should reflect the imperfect work of “the feeblest of designers.” However, if the Designer of the world is the perfect, omnipotent and omniscient God, then His workmanship should reflect this.

Let’s just take the human eye, whose design Jones so glibly disparages. If perfection is judged by what the eye can do—how it functions, repairs itself, and integrates harmoniously with the rest of the body’s systems—there only remains awe. How the eye converts light waves into millions of chemical-electrical impulses, sends them off to the brain in organized, instantaneous, sequential patterns which are then reconstructed by the mind, drawing upon memory and other centers of learning, before converting the data into the substance of decisions, goes far beyond what we can understand and anything human technology can create. It is these visual impulses that enable us to make fine distinctions among a myriad of similar faces and to make thousands of precise decisions whenever we ride a bicycle.

When do our eyes mislead us? When do they give us incorrect data? Who has invented something superior to the eye so that he would pluck it out and implant his own invention? Rather, let us compare our eye with what unintelligent natural forces are able TO fabricate. Have natural forces ever collaborated together to produce anything of complexity and functionality? Has gravity ever written poetry? Has a hurricane ever recited Shakespeare or has it ever called out your name? Has electricity ever painted your portrait or told you, “I love you?” Have the tides ever written your name on the sand? Instead, it can be persuasively argued that unintelligent forces have never produced an object with the appearance of intelligent design. It’s like throwing paint on a canvas and expecting to eventually come up with the Mona Lisa.

Does nature reflect the workmanship of the “feeblest of designers”—evolution? According to Cornelius Hunter, “bats map out objects as small as mosquitoes by sensing the echoes of their own squeaks,” hardly the workmanship of a “tinkerer!”

“[Fish] use underwater electric fields either passively or actively to sense objects around them including other fish. The details of such systems would fill books. Anyone familiar with today’s sonar or radar systems knows the immense complexity inherent in such systems: the problems of sensing the echo in the presence of the transmitted signal…Yet the bat’s detection abilities are superior to those of the best electronic sonar equipment.” (Hunter, pg. 72)

Then consider “the rattlesnake with heat-sensitive (infrared) sensors to image its prey at night.” Or consider the owl “with ears tuned to different frequencies, to better track its prey” (Hunter). Somehow, these systems are perfect enough to keep their owners from going hungry. In fact, the evidence in favor of an intelligent Designer is so striking that,

“Amherst College astronomy professor George Greenstein (a pantheist or something similar), [writes], ‘As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency, or rather Agency, must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially created the cosmos for our benefit?’” (Quoted by Henry F. Schaefer, Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence, p.62.)

Indeed, many have “stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being,” but this isn’t because the evidence is so scarce, but rather because we have set aside our spectacles.

Daniel Mann

Blind Leading the Blind

In a letter to the Science Times, a professor of psychology took issue with the prevailing “wisdom” that psychotherapists should themselves undergo psychotherapy:

“Despite years of research, there is virtually no evidence to support the belief that personal therapy produces a more empathetic or a more effective therapist. Rather than lament the passing of required personal therapy for psychiatry residents, why not reserve it for those with an actual mental health problem.”

Judging from the suicide rate among psychiatrists, they have more need for counseling than most any other profession. Nevertheless, it is revealing that psychotherapy fails to produce positive results for its residents-in-training. Why is this the case? Perhaps because very different products go under the name “psychotherapy!” For instance, two psychotherapists (or counselors) can offer advice or interventions that are diametrically opposed to each other.

Let’s take an example. One friend related that he didn’t want to return to a certain supermarket because he felt uncomfortable about an altercation he had had with a clerk, even though she had started it. One psychotherapist might take a subjective view of the discomfort and try to reason that there is no rationale for the discomfort and therefore apply “systematic desensitization.” However, another therapist (generally one coming from a Judeo-Christian perspective) might take the opposite point of view—that the discomfort is signaling a real and objective problem that requires a specific solution, namely, to apologize for his part in the altercation, however small. Although the clerk might fail to reciprocate, at least my friend would do what he knew to be correct.

Feelings of guilt trouble me when I speak unlovingly to my wife and prompt me to confess. Sometimes guilt can be irrational, but I never want to dismiss these feelings until they have been given a chance to speak.

By automatically dismissing our feelings of guilt and shame as pathological, secularism has rejected the accumulated wisdom of all the major world religions in favor of permissiveness. Freud famously called religion the “enemy,” and he and his cohorts sought to weaken its hold. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that Freud would merely substitute one religion, an inferior one, for another. Dr. Al Parides, Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, observed the impact of this new religion:

“If you look at the personal lives of all of Freud’s followers—his initial disciples—these people certainly have an unbelievable amount of particular problems in the sexual area…The amount of deviancy as far as their sexual behavior and so forth is enormous. If you are saying that psychiatry promotes a certain form of morality that is a deviant morality in regard to many areas including sexual behavior—yes, I would agree.” (Quoted from Bruce Wiseman, Psychiatry—The Ultimate Betrayal, 12)

Why doesn’t psychiatry and psychotherapy work for those being trained as its practitioners? Perhaps it’s a matter of the blind leading the blind.

Daniel Mann

Evangelism

Our conception of evangelism is too narrow. Usually, we think of it in terms of friendship or lifestyle evangelism to the exclusion of all other forms, especially in regards to people of other faiths. In this regards, we’re told, “Nothing should offend. Never point out contradictions, inconsistencies, or historical inaccuracies in another person’s religious beliefs.” However, in the June 2008 issue of Christianity Today, Dean Alford writes that debate can be a powerful tool:

“Partly due to this debate [between the missionary Karl Pfander and a Muslim theologian], Protestant missions gained greater credibility among Muslims and Hindus inside colonial India, and two high-profile Indians from a Muslim background were baptized less than 10 years later.”

There are definite weaknesses in lifestyle evangelism. It often communicates the wrong message—that Christianity is more about smiles and pleasantries than truth and rationality. Jay Smith, an evangelist to the Muslims, feels that this approach might be disingenuous and too vacuous to reach those who are looking for more substance:

“It is better to be straightforward (and loving) about what we believe than to be overly careful. I think more people ache for authenticity than what we want to imagine.” (Alford)

Last year, I attended an interfaith dialogue at a local church. The hosting pastor carefully followed the unspoken rules of lifestyle evangelism throughout. I was intrigued to see a 15 year- old male and approached him before the event began. “Why are you interested in this dialogue?” I asked.

The youth responded that he was very interested in what the Imam had to say. Further intrigued, I asked why? He responded that although he had grown up in church, Muslims seemed to be more zealous and outspoken about their faith and this is appealed to him.

There’s more to evangelism than being a good friend. There’s a mandate for a vigorous defense of the Gospel (Jude 3). Paul had no problem with this confrontational approach:

“As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded” (Acts 17:2-4).

Our box should be filled with a variety of tools. Sometimes a soft cloth is called for, and sometimes the hammer. Smith concludes:

“The only way to deal with this radical form of Islam is with an equally radical form of Christianity.” (Alford)

Daniel Mann

Rich in Christ

If you don’t know that you are a billionaire, you might foolishly take out a loan from the local loan-shark to cover a $10,000 debt. This is the plight of the church. We fail to realize that we’re billionaires (1 Cor. 3:21-22; Eph. 2:6; 1 Peter 2:9), and so we seek out loan-sharks. Failing to see that we already have everything we need in Him (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Col. 2:9-10), we compromise our inheritance by seeking unbiblical therapies and philosophies.

Even something as seemingly innocuous as behavioral therapy (BT) represents a betrayal of our inheritance. In a controlled and supportive setting, BT gradually and repeatedly confronts the fearful client with the object of his/her fears in an attempt to “systematically desensitize” the client to these fears. If the client fears mice, then a mouse will gradually be introduced in a relaxed environment, until the client realizes that the mouse doesn’t present a real threat.

In a new and controversial variation of behaviorism, David H. Barlow subjects his clients to the full extent of their phobias at the outset without any systematic desensitization. For example, a client who feared reading his poetry before others was required to stand up before a hostile crowd of fellow patients staging all forms of threatening behavior.

Barlow is convinced that all of the preliminaries such as relaxation techniques are unnecessary, and he has the statistics to prove it. He reckons his success rate to be “as high as 85%.” In a 12/2/03 New York Times Magazine article, Lauren Slater states that, through Barlow’s methods, one client “trained his own brain to believe (italics mine) in its strength.”

Behaviorism is, in its very essence, belief training. Nothing is accomplished apart from acquiring the belief that the client is stronger than the fear. Slater writes perceptively that

Once people disarm their terror, once they realize they (italics mine) can survive it, then you have detoxified the problem and in some senses provided a cure (pgs 34-37).

Once they realize that they can survive the terror, they can confidently resume their life without the lurking threat that the phobia will reemerge and again take control. What’s the matter with that? From a Biblical perspective—everything! BT teaches two things: that the threat isn’t that great, and, whatever it might be, you can handle it. Sometimes the threat isn’t that great. Mice aren’t particularly threatening. However, when it comes to other things, we all have our limits. We can only endure so much depravation and frustration. We can only endure the loss of air, water, or food for a limited time. Likewise, we also have our limits when it comes to rejections and failures. BT teaches an unwarranted self-confidence.

Instead, God sends us trials, afflictions, and weaknesses to show us that we have to trust in Him, not in ourselves:

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:3).

We experience brokenness, not to show us that we can handle it, but rather, that God can (2 Cor. 1:8-9)! Knowing whom we serve is the route to freedom (John 8:31-32). Instead, we resort to loan-sharks and submit to an alien theology that places upon our shoulders the unbearable weight of self-trust.

Daniel Mann