Recently, I got to spend some time discussing the topic of LIFE at our meetup discussion group here in Naperville. At one point we thought about the origins of life on our planet.
I sought to argue that it seems to me that we have one of two positions:
1. We, as humans, are the result of a personal God who created and designed us.
2. We, as humans, are the accident of an unguided, impersonal process.
It was fascinated to see what a reaction such a simple proposition elicited in my non-Christian friends. There was a rejection of such a claim, and it seemed to be a revulsion to the idea that we could be either the creation of a supernatural being or that we could simply be a cosmic accident, akin to someone spilling a glass of milk.
It seems to me that the reaction to my rather simple statement of two options for our origins is rather REVEALING. First, the Bible explains why people refuse to acknowledge the existence of God: it is due to hardness of their hearts toward Him, their sin (Rom 1:19-23).
Second, it is revealing because there is an unwillingness to follow the logical conclusion of where atheism leads. If atheism is true, there is no Creator. We are the result of unguided evolutionary forces: time, chance, and space. We merely a cosmic accident, here for no purpose—a whoopsie daisy!
Perhaps the refusal to concede that we are merely a cosmic accident shows that intuitively we know such a thing cannot be true. Such a reality—which is the logical position if one takes atheism seriously—is too bleak and hopeless. It is too nihilistic for our tastes, so we posture and dodge the most logical implication of an atheistic universe: if life is not the result of a personal God who created and designed it, then we are the result of impersonal forces, time, and chance—we are an accident.
Perhaps our revulsion to the idea that life could be a cosmic accident is a revealing of a metaphysical truth we know intuitively, a truth that is revealed and confirmed by Christianity: we are not a cosmic accident. Nobody reveres accidents, we revere that which is good and beautiful. We don’t—and shouldn’t—revere accidents, we revere that which is intentionally made and has worth. We don’t walk around and share with everyone works filled with random numbers, but stories and pictures and poems.
The wonderful truth is this: we are NOT an accident. We are the glorious creation of a glorious God.
