Before purging a stack of unread magazines recently, I took up the mid-August issue of World. The Disappointment of the Double Helix by James LeFanu drew my attention. Bear in mind, I’m the last person to speak authoritatively on science and the first to disappear into a black hole when others broach any subject remotely scientific.
Nevertheless, avoiding the usual lab-rat jargon, LeFanu (in a mere ten paragraphs) ably unpacks the conundrum: within the “elegant simplicity” of the cell, scientists inevitably face “inscrutable profundity.” He notes, “… it forcefully brings to our attention what we can never know.”
Fast forward a couple days. I’m sitting with my community group watching part 5b of a video series produced by The Truth Project. (In a series of “tours,” The Truth Project explores various worldviews, weighing the truth claims of each.) On this tour, our subject is Science: What is True?
The moderator cues a separate video, Unlocking the Mystery of Life: Inner Working of the Cell, to portray (via computerized animation) what goes on every day, all day, in each cell in our bodies. I am captivated beyond expectation! There is the purposefulness and industry of an ant colony, the reliable logic of a math equation melded with the elegant harmonies of a symphony … all taking place within this microscopic structure!
The molecular components of the cell are “irreducibly complex,” says Dr. Michael Behe. He stresses the cell is nonetheless an “observable system … what we do know.” (In other words, it is science — which the dictionary defines as “a systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.”)
Dr. Stephen Meyer employs a word-picture, saying the cell is an assembly of “exquisite miniature machines.” Indeed. Aided by LeFanu’s observations and the video presentation, I experience intense beauty: a glimpse into the perfection of Creation … and the Creator.
Without benefit of a microscope, David (author and poet, King of Israel) acknowledged the unique beauty (exquisiteness) of YHWH. In Psalm 139, David wrote: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there … you knit me together in my mother’s womb … I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful … I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”
David also acknowledges God’s handiwork in Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Whether science searches telescopically or microscopically, one Truth evinces: Design. The more we know, the more we know we don’t know.
