Sunday, July 3, 2011

Why is Faith so Puzzling?


I found this uncredited quote as an answer to a cryptogram in my puzzle book. I could not find a reference for it online, so I don't know where it originated if not by the puzzle makers themselves, but it is just one example of why I believe atheists have more faith than Christians.

It reads: "Nature is wonderful. Millions of years ago she didn't know we would be wearing glasses, yet look where she put our ears."

Psalm 139:13-16 in the NIV Bible reads: "13 For you [God] created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

I find it much easier to have faith in a God who loves me enough to pre-plan my existence than I do in random chance. I also find it easier to believe that nature itself is a creation of God than to believe that nature is able to create things.

Like a cryptogram, God has hidden himself in nature, not so we can't find him, but so we can!  He's left clues of himself everywhere.  "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1:20)

Perhaps it's a matter of mistaking the value of the creation over the value of the creator, but I think it takes greater faith to believe anything other than "God created."  That's just not a mistake I'm willing to take a chance on.