Does God Exist?

For those who prefer to read instead of watch or listen, here is a transcript:

One time I was talking to this guy on an airplane, and I took my watch off and threw it on the ground in the middle of the aisle. I told him to pretend like my watch is in the middle of the woods. If you find a watch in the middle of the woods, there are two different ways it could have gotten there.

First way: Lightning strikes several million times and stirs everything up. Imagine there’s a rubber tree plant that used to be there a long time ago—it melts down and somehow shapes the different straps. Then, you have some iron ore from earthquakes and various metals that combine to form the watch. It might have the aluminum, sulfate, magnesium—whatever’s in there—and even writing on it. The lightning hits it, making the writing, and it has a little smell like Fritos (That was horrible—I apologize, but humor helps! Whenever you’re sharing the Gospel, use humor as often as you can. I love humor because it releases endorphins and makes people more receptive to truth).

I said, “That’s one way it could have gotten there—made by accident by lightning, wind, and everything.” The problem with that theory is, if it was made by accident, then there would be millions upon millions of other objects that look like watches but didn’t quite make the cut, but you only have this one watch in the middle of the woods.

Second way: Someone dropped the watch there. 

The atheist said, “It could have been made by accident.”

I said, “You’re right, but you need to know right now—before we go any further—you have more faith than I do, but your faith is blind.” 

He said, “Whoa, nobody’s ever told me that before.” 

I said, “Yeah, my faith makes sense. Yours is blind.” 

See, I’m not a big fan of blind faith—even though I love faith. Don’t get me wrong; I love faith. I put my faith in the truth, and then I can show it. I can prove it. Do you know what a watch proves? A watch proves that somewhere in the world there is a watchmaker. There’s no way a tornado could go through a watch factory and accidentally make a watch. It had to have been made by somebody. If there is order, it proves there’s a higher order to create that order.

My wife was part of a team at Ferman University that brought in a guy named Dr. Donald Coffee—he’s the Chairman of Research for the urological school at Johns Hopkins University. He’s a top DNA specialist in the world. We paid him several thousand dollars to come and present a paper, and he was going to earn an exorbitant amount of money for that.

I was sitting in the front row, dressed in a coat and tie, surrounded by scientists from all over the East Coast. As he described DNA, I was thinking, This is like candy to me. He was talking about 10,000 revolutions here, 40,000 revolutions there—just describing DNA.

Then he said, “The chances of extracting a single DNA cell from primordial soup…”

And I thought, Oh no.

He said, “The chance of lightning striking this primordial soup and forming one DNA cell is the same as taking an infinite number of monkeys, with an infinite number of typewriters, locked in a room, and one monkey, by accident, typing out perfectly all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.” (For younger people: it’s similar to Wikipedia!)

The crowd of scientists from the East Coast started grumbling under their breath. In one swoop, he destroyed the concept of evolution.

He said, “The DNA didn’t evolve because there’s no way DNA could have evolved.”

Then he showed a large picture of an ape next to a man, each with a double helix of DNA underneath. I was thinking, Oh no,maybe he’ll say it’s kind of microevolution. Instead, he started talking about the similarities—about 95% DNA similarity between ape and human.

Then he pointed out thousands of differences—thousands—and circled one on his laser pointer. He was highlighting this one difference.

He said, “For this difference to mutate in the ape to produce human DNA…the chances would be like taking an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters, and one monkey, by accident, typing out perfectly all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.”

You could hear the scientists from the East Coast grumbling loudly. I was holding onto my seat, thinking, he’s destroying evolution. And I thought, This guy’s amazing—I love him.

Then he showed a giant slide of Genesis 1:1—a Bible opened to that verse. He underlined it with his laser pointer: “Gentlemen, In the beginning, God created…”

He said, “There’s no way we can have all this order without a Creator. There’s no way we could have DNA without a DNA Maker.” He argued that without a higher order, you can’t have order out of disorder, referencing the laws of thermodynamics.

It was incredible. I was going crazy—people walking out, complaining, grumbling. This guy was earning thousands of dollars for publishing this paper. My wife was part of the team that brought him in. They had him in the back room afterwards for tea and crumpets.

I asked her if I could join—and she said, “Sure, no problem.”

I approached Dr. Coffee and said, “Dr. Coffee,”

He said, “Yes, sir.”

I said, “I appreciate you bringing up the metaphysical aspects of creationism.” I used big words to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

He responded, “Yes, I’m very interested in metaphysics.”

I asked, “Can I ask you a question?” I was getting excited, and I still get chills thinking about it. I asked, “Are you a Christian?”

Do you know what he said? “No, I just believe science should be honest about this stuff.”

And that’s the key point. If he was a Christian, I couldn’t use this illustration with a skeptic. But because he’s a scientist—and a top DNA specialist—if he says what he just said, he risks losing his job and reputation. He didn’t care. He believes science should be honest.

There’s no way your DNA is an accident. No way you mutated into a human without a Creator. It’s impossible to have order out of disorder unless there’s a higher order that created the order.