Kindergarten Apologetics

Let's start here, with a photo of the Eiffel Tower:

What if I stood in front of the Eiffel Tower and explained my theory that this structure had, in fact, risen spontaneously from pieces of scrap metal in the streets of Paris?

"It's simple," I tell them. "Every single one of the required pieces was strewn about in exactly the right position. A tornado ripped through the city, snapping all of the pieces into place. And now we have the Eiffel Tower."

Of course.

After I'm ejected from the streets of Paris, I take my argument elsewhere using new, less ridiculous objects.

I start with this Faberge egg. It's quite a bit smaller and less complex than the Eiffel Tower, and it is not one of the seven wonders of the wold. I assume my argument will be better received.

"I found this near a gold mine in Colorado," I explain. "It grew up out of the ground, just like flowers do after you plant seeds. I'm going to start growing them myself. I hear they're quite valuable!"

I discover no one believes my story about the egg and someone threatens to have me committed, so I try something simpler: a wooden table like the one below.

"It's just like what happened with the Eiffel Tower," I say. "I was walking through an enchanted forest and I found this table near a tree that had fallen. I recently cut down several more trees to see if more tables would spontaneously appear, and sure enough, they did. You should definitely give this a whirl if you need some new furniture."

To my dismay, my table argument is also a flop.

A small child walks by and says, "You don't just get a table. You gotta build a table, silly!"

In a last ditch effort, I make my argument with a drawing in the sand. I decide I will certainly have a foolproof argument. This drawing, after all, only requires moving the sand that's sitting there. Surely I can convince someone this is a spontaneous accident:

But even here, I fail. I am accused of drawing this cross with my fingers. Common sense prevails, and I quit.

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I can say with brutal honesty that I've never seen God clearer than in the pages of my organic chemistry, physics and biology textbooks. I could argue until I ran out of breath about how God and science not only can but must coexist. As a student of science and a Christian, I have been saddened by the unwillingness of both sides to understand the important relationship that exists between them.

I've encountered many Christians who cannot believe that I do, in fact, accept the basic principles of evolution. I've also encountered biologists who cannot understand why I not only believe in God but accept the gospel of Christ.

I'm an enthusiastic reader of apologetic writing and I particularly enjoy Francis Collins and Lee Strobel. Collins, who was the head of the Human Genome Project, was an atheist. After his work, he wrote The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

But as much as I enjoy reading and discussing the intricacies of faith and science, the argument above is my favorite to use when discussing it with people who want the simplest, most basic logic for the existence of God. I dwell on it myself when I realize that I've spent too much time splitting hairs about fine details of both sides of the argument when what I truly need is this. I need the simplest and most powerful evidence for God's existence: the creation in front of me.

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