ALTHOUGH some 96 percent of Americans claim to believe in God, the percentage is far lower among people in Europe and Asia. Even in countries where the majority profess disbelief in a personal God, however, quite a few accept the idea that some unknown force caused the material universe to come into being. The well-known Japanese educator Yukichi Fukuzawa, whose portrait is seen on the 10,000 yen note, once wrote: “It is said that heaven does not create one man above or below another man.” By using the word “heaven,” Fukuzawa was referring to a principle of nature that he felt produced humans. Many accept the idea of such an abstract “heaven,” as did Nobel laureate Kenichi Fukui. He expressed belief in a great framework in the universe—equivalent to “God” in religious terminology—but called it the “idiosyncrasy of nature.”

² Such intellectuals believed that something or someone eternal put into motion everything in the universe. Why? Well, consider this: The sun is a star  so large that it can hold a million earths inside, but it is only a speck in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way, in turn, is only one of billions of galaxies in the universe. Scientific observations seem to indicate that those galaxies are moving away from one another at great speed. To put the universe into motion, vast dynamic energy must have been involved. Who or what was the source of such energy? “Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things?” asks the Bible. “It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing.” (Isaiah 40:25, 26) This text indicates that there was someone who put the universe into motion—the Source of the “dynamic energy.”

³ Think also of life on earth. Could life have originated on its own, as evolutionists claim? Biochemist Michael Behe states: “Science has made enormous progress in understanding how the chemistry of life works, but the elegance and complexity of biological systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science’s attempt to explain their origins. . . . Many scientists have gamely asserted that explanations are already in hand, or will be sooner or later, but no support for such assertions can be found in the professional science literature. More importantly, there are compelling reasons—based on the structure of the [biomolecular] systems themselves—to think that a Darwinian explanation for the mechanisms of life will forever prove elusive.”

⁴ Are you really comfortable with the theory that human life came into existence without any intellectual drive behind it? Let us take what some have considered “the most complex object in the universe,” the human brain, and see what conclusions we can reach. “The performance of even the most advanced of the neural-network computers,” says Dr. Richard M. Restak, “has about one ten-thousandth the . . . capacity of a housefly.” The brain of a human is far superior to that of a housefly. It comes programmed  to learn languages. It repairs itself, rewrites programs, and improves its capacity. No doubt you would agree that even a powerful supercomputer with only “one ten-thousandth the . . . capacity of a housefly” has an intelligent designer. What about the human brain? a

⁵ Some 3,000 years ago, at a time when humans did not fully understand the wonders of their own physical structure, a Bible writer meditated on the makeup of the human body and said: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware.” Without a knowledge of DNA molecules, he wrote: “Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.” (Psalm 139:14, 16) About whom was he talking? Who brought forth everything in the universe by means of “the abundance of dynamic energy”?

⁶ The very first verse of the Bible says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) He is also the Author of the Bible, the One who inspired its contents. He reveals himself as a person with whom we can have a meaningful relationship.