Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 592
THE ‘BLIND WATCHMAKER' WHO IS ALSO DEAF AND DUMB allude to it a purpose which apparently it does not possess. . One could envisage mountains being built in the middle of the oceans so patiently, bit by bit, over aeons. They do not come to the notice of those living on land until they break to the surface. Then they begin to serve a purpose which we may read into their making when they become coral islands. They serve and support life in so many wonderful ways. This is the case of random bit by bit creation of things in whose creation a preceding purpose is not traceable. It may not have been there at all, yet their usefulness cannot be denied. . The laws of nature run independently if there is no mind to operate them. It is they who operate and govern everything that exists. The living are not exempt from this all-pervasive principle. The absence of a conscious mind to manipulate these laws completely does away with the imaginary line which is said to separate the living from the dead. If the brain of the living cannot design itself and cannot play any conscious role in the making of the body which possesses it, then the living and the dead are governed exactly alike by the same laws of nature. It has to be only these mindless laws which are responsible for the cumulative building of the bricks of life. If they are capable of building the bricks of life, they are far more likely to build a mere Empire State Building through the same cumulative bit by bit process. Yet the naturalists contradict themselves and refuse to believe the bit by bit piling up of the Empire State Building by cumulative random steps, however small tiny and insignificant they may have been. . Here they artificially create a divide between the laws of nature at work on dead matter and the laws of nature at work on the living. In reality no such divide should exist if there is no conscious operator of natural laws on either side. . Naturalists confess that there is no conscious operator in the 554