Consider the earth and the universe, being like a tiny precious jewel in a large crown. How did the jewel and the crown come to be? Now consider this analogy: Three men are walking across a vast open dessert (the universe) when they come across a magnificent city in the middle of, what appears to be, nowhere in particular. The men marvel in amazement as they wander around and discover that the city is truly astonishing and intricate in its design, right the way down to the tiniest detail; everything is so beautiful and fits so perfectly together. And the three men ponder and debate upon how this magnificent amazing city came to be.
- The first man concluded that the city wasn’t real: it was just a mirage that appeared real, or a dream, an illusion. There is no beginning and no end, and there’s no how or why or reason to it – there just is, and why do we even feel the need to question how it came to be anyway? Who cares… it just is, so let’s just enjoy it.
- The second man thought this answer wholly inadequate. He concluded that somehow cosmic forces of time and nature over, probably, billions of years must have somehow fused together, and somehow produced energy and primitive life forms, all of which then must have then somehow evolved into this magnificent city that we see today! Basically, he concluded that it came about somehow by chance!
- But the third man thought this answer also was wholly inadequate. Instead he surmised that the sheer beauty, and the intricate design and the way that everything works and fits so perfectly together is evidence or proof of a creator; of divine intelligence: God created the city.
R. Ian Seymour
R. Ian Seymour, Empowered Personal Evangelism, Weybridge: New Wine Press (2014), p.31-32