One of my favorite books is, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, written by the late Douglas Adams. While he wrote from an atheist’s perspective, I feel that much of his written material actually makes a stronger case for Christianity.

In one memorable scene, the human, Arthur Dent, asks the alien, Ford Prefect, why there is a fish in his ear.

“It’s translating for you. It’s a Babel fish. Look it up in the book if you like.”

Arthur then turns to the Hitchhikers Guide for an explanation.

The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick the Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language…Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this : ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’

‘But,’ says man, the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’

‘Oh dear,’ says God,  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

While this passage is quite amusing, it incorrectly depicts faith as blind allegiance to a being that cannot be known. Adams reduces Christianity to a flammable straw man and then burns him at the stake for practicing witchcraft. The problem with his argument is that it is actually contrary to what the Bible tells us. God makes Himself known through the natural world, not in spite of it.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1: 19-20)

God spoke the world into being and we hear His voice daily.

The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

We all recognize design in the world, therefore, the question isn’t whether design exists, but rather what is the source of this design?

Atheists appeal to random genetic mistakes tamed by the forces of natural selection.  The atheist limits him or herself to just chemicals and makes every effort to ground any flight of ideas whose final destination is the heavens.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (Richard Lewontin) (1)

Religious people, however, attribute it to a mind of some sort or another and consider science to be nothing more than eavesdropping on a divine stream of thought.

 But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you; Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. (Job 12: 7-10)

While a Babel fish is truly miraculous because of its ability to translate language, we need to remember that science has already unveiled all sorts of remarkable translational activity. In the cell, the nucleotide language of RNA is translated into the amino acid language of proteins. Outside the cell, signals from the environment are translated into biological language. Sound waves are translated into brain waves, man eating lions into hormonal fight-or-flight responses, cold brisk mornings into goosebumps, and pheromones into love. Ironically, as science emerges from the desert of the unknown it finds that it actually becomes lesser while God becomes greater. The scientist who has tried to walk in God’s shoes quickly finds that he is unworthy to untie His sandals.

Atheist scientists pay homage to design by offering up a Blind Watchmaker (2) but then fail to see their hypocrisy as they accuse Christians of clinging to blind faith.

Increasing scientific sophistication doesn’t make God disappear in a puff logic but reveals a God who shows up in pillars of intellectual smoke and fire. Design encourages us to pursue science because it assures us that we will always find an answer. As Christians we don’t throw up our hands and say, “God did it,” but rather continue to dig deeper into His thoughts because we know that science is an ongoing conversation with a God who spoke His mind.

The Great Physician doesn’t perform soul surgery without informed consent so become a shrewd consumer and check out His credentials. His diploma is hung on every scientific pillar. It is framed by the laws of science, mounted on the fine-tuned universe, and written in the information in the cell. Christianity is real medicine based on thousands of years of accumulated data and not a placebo of wishful thinking.

Scientists continue to swim in a sea of ever-increasing specified complexity. The atheist, however, tries to deflect our attention away from this inconvenient truth by convincing us that our faith is floundering when in reality they have just been schooled by a Babel fish.

(1)  American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator.

(2) The Blind Watchmaker is the title of one of Richard Dawkins best-selling books about evolution.

Photo by zhengtao tang on Unsplash