Reading Redeeming Science by Vern Poythress is a wonderful thing. He’s a great author and a great thinker. Thus, he is able to introduce manners of looking at things that one wouldn’t necessarily think of by oneself.
In chapters 17 and 18, Poythress goes into details about creation and life. One of the things he mentions is the patterns of things–the imaging of one thing to be analogous to another. In the process he speaks a great deal about reproduction.
Poythress’s writing on this topic has spurred my thinking somewhat. It’s got me thinking on a slightly different tangent, one that Poythress himself does not engage, but one that is, I think, extremely relevant to discussions with atheists. And that is the question of reproduction.
Obviously, reproduction has been a problem for atheists for some time. There’s a reason the question “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” has such power. But this is not specifically the area I’m going to look at.
Instead, I’m going to look at the universality of reproduction. By this I don’t just mean the obvious: human, animal, and plant generations. Instead, I want to look deeper, beyond just that.
Humans reproduce not just at the individual level. They reproduce at the sub-individual level. Skin cells reproduce more skin cells. Blood cells reproduce more blood cells. Etc.
But those cells–the skin cells and the blood cells, for instance–are likewise dividing at sub-cellular levels too. The very DNA inside the nucleous is likewise reproducing. Amino acides are duplicated. Internal cellular processes are reproduced.
This is true for every human being. It’s true for every animal and plant too. It’s true for bacteria and even viruses (although viruses cannot reproduce without other already functioning cells to latch onto).
Thus, individuals are formed out of many different systems, all of which are reproducing themselves within the individuals. Yet these individuals are then able to reproduce themselves–including the internal systems–to form new generations.  And they do this in a manner so astoundingly simple….
When Adam begets Bob, Adam does not create the subsystems Bob will need. Adam, instead, creates a single cell (billions of times, of course; but only one type). His spouse (in a moral world) likewise does not create all the subsystems. She creates a single cell herself. These two cells meet, combine, and reproduce Bob, complete with all the subsystems Bob needs.
In short, we have Adam, who contains thousands of intricately working subsystems that are reproducing on their own to ensure his organs, etc, are working; Adam gives one cell that contains all the information necessary so that, when combined with another single cell, all these subsystems can be duplicated in order to duplicate the entire individual.
Such a process must be explained somehow. Unfortunately for the atheist, the end result of the reproduction of indivuals presupposes a goal for all the subsystems. But this is the sort of thing that an unintelligent, unguided universe cannot account for.
I will have more on this later, as time permits, but hopefuly it is at least something to think on for ya…
