Science tells us that all matter, all energy, is made of two particles and three forces. There are electrons, which in the atom are bound to the nucleus by electromagnetism; and quarks (the nucleus), which are bound together by the strong nuclear force. And, lurking behind it all, is good old gravity.
Now, as far as anyone knows, none of these particles and forces can think as can you. And when they combine to form the atoms of which we are made of, none of those atoms can think, either. When the atoms merge into complex molecules, these molecules have nothing close to the consciousness that we, composed of these molecules, experience. Even when these molecules become the chemicals swirling and sloshing about in our brain cells, these chemicals cannot think or feel or create. And, when those chemicals emerge into living neurons, what neuron by itself can experience love, hate, the color green, or the meaning of these words that you are reading now.
In an atheist model of the universe, we have to believe, contrary to, if nothing else, common sense, that human consciousness needs no more ingredients than electrons and quarks obeying the laws of physics because our consciousness is nothing but electrons and quarks obeying the law of physics. That somehow, these non-conscious entities and forces have blindly, by random mutation and natural selection emerged into us, conscious, thinking, feeling rational and emotional beings?
In contrast, the wonder of the biblical world-view is that, while certainly incorporating the physical world, even celebrating it (“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good”), is not limited by it. It, instead, posits a dimension to reality far richer, broader, and deeper than what the study of quarks and the force that binds them alone can reveal.
Sure, we are made of quarks, leptons, and the forces that bind them together. But, in the end, only God in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), could turn them into life, rational, loving, feeling life—the life that we have been given a as a gift.
