Many people don’t accept the witness of Nature as proof there is a creator, in spite of Bible statements to that effect (Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:20). Most of these people do as Romans 1:21 and 22 describe, they become vain in their reasoning, professing themselves to be wise. We understand people who claim to be wise as braggarts in the worst case and highly educated at best. But what does it mean to be vain in reasoning?
The word, vain, used in this context, describes a person with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. We would say he has false or undeserved pride. And reasoning, in any context, is coherent, logical thinking. When put together, these words imply incoherent or illogical thinking, motivated by confidence in oneself as an accurate surveyor of a dilemma.
There are several illustrations of vain reasoning, some revealed in debates with clear thinkers but most in written philosophies or arguments by people with educational or employment credentials. These people, whether by self-proclamation or peer awards, see themselves as authorities on a subject, experts, if you’ll allow them this title.
And while the history of expert conclusions is muddled by occasional errors in judgment, these people are still thought to be the ones most likely to be correct. (A predicator of the weather might be a good example.) They amass a following of individuals who invest no time in acquiring necessary specialized knowledge to draw their own conclusions, choosing instead to put their confidence in the experts of their familiarity.
But what happens when the experts disagree? Then it becomes a question of how many experts favor one side of a dilemma versus another, or even a third. This judgment by the masses has been notoriously inaccurate by historical standards. A blatant example is the geocentric model of our solar system proposed by Ptolemy around ~ 160 A.D. We know now that the planets revolve around the sun, not the earth, but this error by a majority of experts persisted in written documents for a thousand years before being corrected by a minority opinion.
So, what can a person who wants the correct answer do? Should they rely on the majority of experts or follow a conclusion less taken? I suppose it would depend on how important the question is, whether they should invest the time to do their own investigation, then draw their own conclusion.
Consider again, the question of Nature as a witness of a creator versus Nature as the product of an undirected process. Is it really important which position is true? Would one stance or the other change the course of one’s life? Superficially, it seems unimportant and inconsequential, but a closer examination creates a profound dilemma— if a creator exists, what does He expect from me? Some experts claim that 80% of the world’s people believe there is a creator god, while the majority of scientists say there isn’t. But these claims are really examples of both sides using judgment by the masses, and historically, it’s a weak and error-prone tactic.
In the interest of time invested, it would be better to evaluate only one argument of both sides, their best one, and then draw a personal conclusion. I choose irreducible complexity of living creatures as the best argument for a creator, reasoning that an undirected process could never, not in billions of years, organize their metabolic chemistry while keeping the creature alive. In contrast, the best argument for an undirected process is not the age of the earth derived from radioactive decay rates, because a creator would determine those rates at creation, whenever that was.
Instead, I choose imperfect design as evidence of an undirected process, reasoning that a creator would have the knowledge and power to produce something perfect. Ignoring the fact that the Bible say God pronounced His creation good, not perfect, perfection isn’t what we see in Nature, according to the majority of experts. Now, immediately, a red flag should arise in one’s thinking. Is the majority opinion of experts really good evidence? History says no, demonstrated by how expert opinion changes over time. Consider the recent example of butterfly wings. Until 2021, entomological experts declared that floppy butterfly wings were terribly inefficient, an imperfect design which decries a creator. But after studying them that year in a wind tunnel with highspeed photography, we now know that their wings trap air on the upstroke which increases their propulsion efficiency by 25% compared to fixed-wing insects. So, the real problem with the imperfect design argument is determining if man’s claim of a better design than the one in nature has merit.
It appears that man’s hubris determines this, the product of education, experience, and presumption— a mixture that the Bible describes as vain reasoning. Being themselves imperfect creatures, experts must contend with incomplete knowledge and power, regardless of how confident they are about understanding the world around them. The volume of natural discoveries is increasing exponentially every day. Yet the declarations from the Bible about Nature continue to stand the test of time, being validated by the very people who seek to disprove them. And if the Bible is correct about Nature, is it also correct about our need for a savior? If it is, then the question of Nature’s origin, a creator versus an undirected process, becomes very important indeed. You could say, your future depends on it.
