The Order and Design of the Universe Prove the
Existence of God
by Rev. Roderick MacEachen
There are but two ways by which things can happen. Things happen either by chance or by design. If I am walking under an apple tree and an apple falls upon my head, I am struck by chance. If a naughty boy aimed the apple at my head and struck me, I am struck by design.
The world is a wondrous mechanism. It is a marvelous combination of material activities. The earth produces all kinds of fruits and plants in season. Great forests spring up on its hills and plains. Oil and gas are brought from its inner rec4esses. Vast oceans beat ceaselessly upon their shores. The globe itself revolves upon its axis, with wondrous precision, every twenty-four hours. Then it travels, with the same accuracy, in its fixed orbit, its yearly curse around the sun.
The vast dome of the heavens is filled with millions of ever-moving bodies. Our sun is thirty-three hundred times greater that the earth. Nay, more: there is a countless number of suns such as this in the skies. All these heavenly bodies are filled with wonders that can never be fully explored by mortal man. Each travels in its orbit millions and billions of miles, always on schedule time, never one minute late in a century.
This universe with all its wonders is the result either of chance or of design. If it came into existence by chance, it was then a mere accident that all these wonders of the heavens and the earth came into being. There is a theory that has been held at diverse times which maintains that the world was formed by the chance collision of molecules. No one has ever attempted to explain how these molecules were first set in motion. Nor have the same materialists been able to account for the force that set the heavenly bodies in motion. Anything that moves must either be able to move itself, or it must be moved by something else. then, anything that is moved must have been set in motion at some time. We are sure that the earth cannot move itself. It is made up of dead matter.
Reason insists that the world was made by design. It was created by an Intelligent Being. This Being is God. The order in the world points to an Omnipotent Creator. The world n its wondrous harmony is ruled by an all-wise God.
Men may deny the existence of God. Yet they cannot deny that the world is a work worthy of an Omnipotent Creator. They can not deny that the world might well be the result of an infinitely Intelligent Cause. Nor can they give a reasonable account of the world's origin without pointing to the Omnipotent God.
Suppose some heroic discoverer should reach the South Pole and come back. It is presumed that no mortal man has ever returned from that point of the earth's surface. Our discoverer tells us that he has found there, at the very pole, a great electric power plant. It is fitted out with the latest model engines and dynamos. Thousands of glowing electric lights are hung in clusters for miles around. Tracks are laid in immense circuits. Trolley cars rush about on all sides with great speed. All the time the engines and dynamos are working smoothly. Yet there is no engineer to regulate and oil the machinery. There are no motormen on the cars. In fact, no human being has ever set foot in that region.
Sad indeed would be the fate of the discoverer who related such a tale. He would be doomed to spend the rest of his days in a madhouse. He protests that the electric pant is no more wonderful than the stars and planets. Ye he is shut up in padded cell because he declared that an electric plant came into existence by chance and was running beautifully without the aid of an intelligent hand.
Alas, perhaps the keeper of that poor madman is one of those who hold that there is no God. It may be that he is one of those who believe that this marvelous universe came into existence by chance. He may be one of those who believe that the world is running smoothly on down the countless centuries without the guidance of an Intelligent Ruler.