Last month, I was invited to deliver the keynote address to a gathering of local Republican leaders at one of those pricey fundraising dinners. I knew that for thirty minutes, I would have the uninterrupted attention of an impressive gathering of involved conservatives and elected officials, including two United States Congressmen seated right up front.
I did not want to spend that rare circumstance on temporal matters like encouraging a “Yes” vote to approve the Keystone Pipeline. Plus, I felt an obligation to deliver a speech that would seem worthy of $150 per plate. So after investing much thought, I chose to speak about life; the topic of life itself.
I began my oration by asserting the thesis that the laws of physics, those naturally deteriorating forces that encumber the Universe, undermine the spontaneous emergence of life. For single celled creatures to materialize, reproduce, and survive defies statistical randomness even in the inviting habitat of planet Earth. And the likelihood that the elements would self-generate into intelligent life lies outside of the probability distribution.
This foundation for my hopefully worthy point of the speech is detailed in last week’s article, Refuting The Laws of Physics Part 1 of 2. After laying out the hostile conditions of Big Bang debris, I showed slides of the lifeless conditions everywhere, with the exception of our home planet. Not surprisingly, there is no self-actualizing taking place on Mars, nor anywhere else as far as can be credibly conjectured.
And intelligent life does not merely exist here on the blue marble. We are symmetrical. We have senses, we communicate. Some of us master musical instruments to play in concert with others in a symphony for less talented humans like me to consume and appreciate. Our thoughts go so far as to contemplate the meaning of our lives, to form perspectives, debate, and interact like you and I are doing at this very moment with your understanding my thoughts through vocabulary conveyed at the speed of electricity through the Townhall portal.
Evidence of an intelligent design for us human folk and our rare environment has been recognized and explored by thought leaders throughout human history. The Roman architect Vitruvius established the principles of architecture in his book De Architectura, seen in 2000 year old basilicas and the stately marble structures of Washington, D.C.
Vitruvius’s book, originally written when Jesus walked the Earth and translated in 1914 as The Ten Books On Architecture, recognizes and appreciates the design of the human form. The famous Vitruvian Man was Leonardo da Vinci’s expression of human proportion as a model for sound, useful and beautiful structures. Vitruvius writes, “Thus in the human body there is a kind of symmetrical harmony between forearm, foot, palm, finger, and other small parts; and so it is with perfect buildings.”
In turn, biologists recognize the pattern by using the structure of sound building architecture to describe the functions of human biology. In The Human Body Book, author Steve Parker introduces anatomy with, “This book takes the ‘living machine’ approach, borrowed from sciences such as engineering. … The anatomical drawing of a large factory or office would show the arrangement of rooms, location of machinery and furniture, and cables and pipes for electricity and water. It is a static snapshot of structure and layout.”
This pursuit of understanding optimal conditions for structures and human biology implies an ambient existence of intelligent design. This line of thought can be extended into sociology, as in, “How do we govern ourselves optimally?” This is the question that I believe has been best answered by the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. What makes America exceptional is that this document brought us closer than any other civilization to living according to design.
Thomas Jefferson and the boys gave us two documents that convey the notion that (1) humans were created to be themselves creative, and (2) that governments are instituted to ensure their rights toward that pursuit of happiness. Through the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, America’s founders established a Judeo-Christian nation with a secular government.
The Declaration describes an eternal and unchanging God of Nature who endowed his creation in this otherwise lifeless universe with unalienable rights of life and liberty and pursuit of happiness. The God of the Bible exclusively fits that description.
The founders then gave us an amendable constitution as the execution plan to the perpetual mission statement. The United States Constitution does not recognize nature’s God beyond limiting government’s role in religion. But the Declaration does include instructions for altering or even abolishing any form of government that becomes destructive of the citizens’ rights.
So if my premise is correct, that nature’s God created the lifeless Universe and created the life within the Universe; and that America’s founding fathers gave us a Judeo-Christian nation and a secular government — Well, to paraphrase Francis Schaeffer, “How shall we then live as we move through the Universe?”
My conclusion for the audience, and particularly for the two Congressmen, was that we ought to follow the Bible’s instructions to (1) “do justly, love mercy, walk humbly,” (2) “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and (3) to “Fear God and keep His commandments.” And second, to follow the founders’ instructions of ensuring Americans’ designed rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness with the principle of efficient, minimal government.
Yea, it was cool.