Premise A: What is designed cannot randomly exist.
Premise B: The universe and living organisms bear evidence of design.
Conclusion: Therefore, a designer of the universe and of life exists. This designer is God.
A cathedral, a computer, a painting, a symphony, a light bulb…what do all these things have in common? The answer: design. Cathedrals are designed for religious experience. Computers are designed to make calculations. Paintings are designed to please the eye as symphonies are designed to please the ear. A light bulb is designed to produce artificial light. All this design suggests designers. None of these things self-assemble. A cathedral has an architect and builders. A computer has a technician. Paintings have painters. Symphonies have composers. Light bulbs have inventors.
Consider a watch
As an example of complex design, consider a Rolex. Inside the watch are one hundred and fifteen individual pieces fashioned with meticulous care. To name a few of the parts, there is a crown, a crown stem, a ratchet wheel, a barrel bridge, a mainspring, a minute wheel, an escapement wheel, a balance bridge, a tourbillon, a spacer, a yoke spring, setting levers, setting springs, a clutch, perpetual wheels, barrels and weights. All these delicate parts work perfectly together to make three hands move around a dial divided into 60 parts that count for seconds, minutes, hours and half a day. When I look at such a watch ticking every second in perfect synchronization I know it exists because of a skilled watchmaker.
The Watchmaker Analogy is the classic proof from design to designer. This argument was proposed in 1802 by William Paley in his book Natural Theology. Paley writes:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever […] But suppose that I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place. I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given—that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? […] For this reason, and for no other [that] when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose […] This mechanism being observed […] the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.
By the same logic, when the balance and beauty of the universe is understood, it becomes apparent that it was made by an intelligent designer. Creation tells me there is a Creator. This is the argument from design, or what is referred to as the Teleological Proof. The word “teleological” comes from the Greek word telos that means “end,” “completion,” or “purpose.” The Teleological Proof for God’s existence argues that the universe and all life is full of design and purpose.
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About the Author: Dr. Daniel King is a missionary evangelist who has traveled to over seventy nations in his quest for souls. His goal is to lead 1,000,000 people to Jesus every year through massive Gospel Festivals, distribution of literature, and leadership training. Because of his experience and research on evangelism, he is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in mass evangelism. As an evangelist, he has a deep interest in using apologetics to convince skeptics that God is real.
