Friday, December 22, 2023

One Evidence for Divine Creation: A Drop of Water

Numerous Bible verses portray Jehovah (YHWH) as the Creator of "all things" (ta panta) and the maker of heaven and earth (Ecclesiastes 12:1; Revelation 4:11). Just as a house needs a builder, Hebrews 3:4 proclaims that all things (i.e., the cosmos) were made by God. There are various examples that could be given, but one for now is a drop of water:

According to Michael Padilla, there are 2 sextillion atoms of oxygen and twice the number of hydrogen atoms in a drop of water. We can represent 2 sextillion exponentially as 2 x 10^21. That is 2 times 10 to the 21st power. Amazing!

Looked at from another perspective, there are 1.67 sextillion molecules in a drop of water, which on average is 0.05 mL. Did this composition merely happen by chance? 

Revelation 10:6 (KJV): "And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer."

Compare Ecclesiastes 3:11.




7 comments:

Anonymous said...

🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

Roman said...

Not to be difficult ... but why is this evidence for God's creation?

Edgar Foster said...

Roman, there are many ways that we could look at this example, but one way I'm thinking about a drop of water is from the perspective of design. How did it come to have the molecular composition that it has? Was it merely by chance or happenstance?

Going back to Hebrews 3:4, if a house needs a builder, then what about the cosmos? What about the things in the cosmos, like a drop of water? Did they need a maker too? I think the answer is yes.

Additionally, Aquinas argues that a contingent thing (x) cannot be the efficient cause of itself: there must be another thing that efficiently caused x. For example, I cannot cause or did not cause my own existence but my parents did. The point is, how could water be the efficient cause of itself, especially with its amazing molecular structure?

I could have used almost any example of creation, but my overall point is similar to what king David expressed about the body in Psalm 139: how wonderfully out bodies are made and that can be said for water too. The water cycle is also awe-inspiring.

Edgar Foster said...

People look at houses all the time and laid their builders or wonder who made it. I'm doing a similar thing with a drop of water. I don't know many people who think no human built the Biltmore or caused its exquisite design. What about the exquisite design in nature?

Edgar Foster said...

Laid should be laud

Roman said...

Agreed, I was wondering if there was something with the numbers I was missing.

Edgar Foster said...

I cited the numbers to emphasize the order, design, and mathematical of something that appears to be simple. Both Paul Dirac and Johannes Kepler spoke of God being a mathematician: I agree that the precision in the universe most like had to be designed; it did not happen by chance. Think too about the earth's atmosphere and its mix of nitrogen, oxygen and 1% other gases. Change the mixture and you'd have something utterly different and not conducive for human life.