Who is the Designer?

The world we see around us

Even a glance at the realm of living things reveals a vast range of highly goal-directed concepts—incredible design. The sperm whale, a mammal, is equipped to dive up to 3000 metres, without any risk of dying of the “bends” from its ascent. And the woodpecker pounds its head against a tree again and again without getting brain damage.

Life usually requires a creature’s organs (e. g. heart, liver, kidneys) to be fully functional. Organs which are still developing or are partially developed are for the most part worthless. As most supporters of Darwin’s ideas would be aware, the idea of an organ developing in a given direction in order to meet some future goal or function is completely foreign to evolutionary thinking.

Many migratory birds have an autopilot that guides them to their goal, regardless of the weather or whether it is day or night. The golden plover, for example, flies from Alaska to Hawaii for the winter. The 70 grams of fat required for the 4500 km (2800 miles) trip are very precisely calculated, with a reserve of 6.8 grams providing for a possible headwind.

The nautilus lives at the outer edge of a spiral shell which is divided into small chambers. These chambers are filled with different amounts of gas depending on how deep the shellfish is diving, thus ensuring that it is always in balance. Our modern submarines seem awkward and clumsy in comparison. Normally, these animals live at a depth of about 400 metres but at night they come up to about 100 metres.

Some microscopic bacteria have built-in proton drive motors which allow them to move forwards and backwards. At a size of, believe it or not, just six millionth of a cubic millimetre, the Escherichia coli bacterium has more than six motors, a built-in power station to furnish energy, a computer-like system and a substantial number of chemical plants.

A living cell is much, much more complicated and ingenious than any manmade machine. Inside cells, a vast range of program-directed chemical processes are all taking place at the same time, and all co-ordinated with one another.

The DNA molecules inside living cells contain the greatest density of information known to man. Do you know how many paperback books it would take to contain the information stored in just a pinhead of DNA? 15 million million! If you stacked these books on top of one another you would have a pile 500 times higher than the distance from the earth to the moon, a total of 192,000,000 kilometres (119,000,000 miles).

Our universe has some 10²⁵ stars (=1 followed by 25 zeroes!). Even the longest human life would not be long enough to count them all. If we used a really fast computer, capable of carrying out 10 thousand million counts per second, it would still take 30 million years to count the stars!

Any thoughtful person confronted with this handful of examples will want to consider the origin of all these ingenious design concepts. The theory of evolution, accepted by so many people, provides no reasonable answers because it attributes everything ultimately to matter—including the soul, consciousness, and the huge amount of information within cells. Scientifically, we know that information is not matter, and the laws of nature concerning information show that it always requires an intelligent source—that is, an originator of this information, with a will. The intelligence and wisdom expressed in the works of creation are absolutely astonishing. A consideration of them compels us to conclude that there must be an original creator, a designer responsible for design. But who?

Where can we find
a reliable answer?

Science can only investigate the reality of time and space, in which we live, by using various methods for measuring and weighing. Science can only consider the ”what?” but not the ”from where?” question of creation. The answer to the second question is beyond all human capacity, and can only be given by the Designer himself. God’s word, the Bible, gives us the answer in the very first verse: “In the beginning God created.” That fits with the requirement we’ve noted previously that all design information must have had an intelligent source.

Who is the Designer/Creator?

God was there before anything else. Before space, time and matter, He was active. If we confine our examinations to this one verse, we might get the impression that God the Father is the only one doing the creating. A decisive indication that He is not alone in creation can be found further on in the account of creation: “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). The Holy Spirit is also involved as we can see from the second verse of the creation account: “... and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Bible doesn’t give all the information at once; it often tells us a bit at a time. In the New Testament the question of “who?” is dealt with in more detail. According to I Corinthians 8:6, Jesus Christ was involved in creation: “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”

The Hebrew word “Elohim” in Genesis 1:1 is a plural form for the Creator. An everyday example may help us to understand the concept behind this idea: a family takes the car to visit some friends. When it’s time to set off home, the father says, “OK, let’s drive home now”. Even though the father uses the plural form, it still means that only one person will be sitting at the steering wheel doing the actual driving. The rest of the family will also be sitting in the car and “driving”, although only one person will be actively using the steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals.

This somewhat limited illustration can help us to understand the picture the Bible portrays of the Creator/Designer, the ultimate source of all the information we see in the world. God created the biological world—through Jesus Christ. That is exactly what we read in Hebrews 1:2. John’s gospel also states quite clearly at its outset that everything that exists has its origin in Jesus: “Through him [= through the Word/Jesus] all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3).

Jesus Christ is the Creator

We read more about Jesus’ active part in creation in Colossians 1:16-17: “For by him [= Jesus Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” In the visible, physical world there is nothing which was not created by Jesus—the huge cosmos with its millions upon millions of galaxies just as much as the tiniest details of the processes of a living cell or the structure of an atom. Jesus is not just the originator of the whole micro- and macro- cosmos; He has authority over it all.

In addition, Jesus also made the world which is invisible to us, populating it with the innumerable creatures which the Bible calls angels. And just as everything in God’s creation is diverse and highly structured at the same time, the same may be said of the unseen world, as we can see by the use of the terms thrones, rulers and authorities.

Jesus is not only the Creator, but also the One who maintains this world. He holds everything together. The world wasn’t left to itself once creation was complete; He holds and maintains it by His mighty Word. So we don’t need to worry about a cosmic catastrophe caused by stars colliding, or the sun burning out or cooling down. Jesus will maintain the world until He returns.

Humanity didn’t come about from some cosmic lottery, as the Nobel prize winner Jaques Monod thought. Instead, we were created with a purpose and a goal in mind—Jesus! Without this goal we miss the whole meaning of life.

Jesus’ creative activity
in the Old Testament

In Proverbs 8:22-24+30 it says: “The Lord brought me forth as the first of His works, before His deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth ... Then I was the craftsman at his side.” The word “craftsman” used here also indicates Jesus’ active part in creation. Verse 26 of Psalm 102 is quoted in the New Testament in Hebrews 1:10 and is used of Jesus: “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.”

How did the Creator do His work?

The Bible gives us the answer to the question of how God created:

• By the Word of God: Psalm 33:6; John 1:1-4
• From nothing: Hebrews 11:3
• By the power of God: Jeremiah 10:12
• By the wisdom of God: Psalm 104:24; Colossians 2:3
• According to the will of God: Genesis 1:26; Revelation 4:11
• Through the Son of God: John 1:1-4; John 1:10; Colossians 1:15-17
• According to the characteristics of Jesus: Matthew 11:29; John 10:11.

These factors took effect in the six days of creation. They are outside the normal lawful processes of nature and can thus only be fully grasped by faith. The laws of nature regulate the processes of our world; however, they are not the cause but rather the result of creation.

What about the
“bad things” in nature?

We know that the world we see now is not the same in all respects as the once “very good” world God initially made. Something happened to this world, as a result of the first couple’s rebellion against their Maker (Genesis 3).

What has been given
to us in Jesus Christ?

He is the foundation on which we can build our lives. Christ forms the foundation for everything: creation, the Bible, faith, salvation, peace, hope, the way to the Father, our life’s goal.

Christ is the immovable rock (I Corinthians 10:4) upon which all humanly devised systems will be broken. God says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise” (I Corinthians 1:19); ideologies such as various forms of atheism and evolutionism will be shattered on the rock of Jesus. The proponents of all these thought systems will also one day have to bow the knee before the Lord (Philippians 2:10), even though they now vigorously reject the Planner, Designer, Creator and Saviour.

Why is the theory of
evolution so dangerous?

It doesn’t just give us a false view of the world. It leads us into a hopelessness like that so appropriately described by the German writer Jean Paul: “There is no God … Stark, silent nothingness! Cold eternal necessity! Mad coincidence … How lonely each of us is in this vast universe, this vault of corpses!”

The theory of evolution maintains that the world can be explained without a creator. Consequently, it seduces people into atheism, and according to what Jesus says, atheistic beliefs will lead us to hell: “Whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Some people try to explain evolution as a way of God working. But if God did create through evolution then

• There would have been no first human couple

• There would be no sin because “aggression is the flywheel which drives evolution onwards” (Joachim Illies)

• God would have used death as a means of creation

• Salvation through Jesus, who is called the “last Adam” in contrast to the sinful Adam (I Corinthians 15:45), would be without foundation.

These considerations show that so-called “Theistic Evolution” would destroy the very foundations of the Bible’s message, corrupting it completely. For this reason, this false idea should be completely rejected.

An awesome thought

We have come to see that Jesus is the Creator of all things. He is the One who has been there from all eternity, the King of the heavenly realm. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). Can we ever truly grasp the following awesome reality? The Man on the cross of Golgotha, and the Creator of the universe and all living things is one and the same Person! In His unfathomable love for us, He allowed Himself to be crucified and did not resist, so that the door of heaven would be open for us. Whoever rejects that, loses everything: “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3). Whoever accepts Him, wins everything: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life...; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). Ask the Lord Jesus to forgive your sins, so that you will be able to stand in the judgment of God. Accept Him as your personal Saviour and follow Him.

Dr. Werner Gitt Director and Professor information scientist

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Title of the original edition: Wer ist der Schöpfer? | Author’s homepage: www.wernergitt.com | Translation and editing: Sarah J. Curtius, Dr Carl Wieland, Dr Bob Compton

Publisher: Bruderhand-Medien, Am Hofe 2, 29342 Wienhausen, Germany, Telefon: +49 (0)5149 9891-0, Fax: -19, Homepage: www.bruderhand.de

E-Book-Date: 01.08.2018. Best.-Nr. 123-3 | Englisch/English | 9th edition 2017