Elevator Apologetics part 4: A Royal Flush

I’d like to share a concrete image for the design argument.

You’ll remember that the argument from design says that the most plausible explanation for the appearance of order in the universe is God.

This conclusion seems patently obvious to me, but . . . not to everyone. Certainly not to atheists and other skeptics, who offer a variety of objections to intelligent design.

Here is the image: a royal flush.* 

Let’s say someone shuffles a deck of cards and deals you a royal flush. The odds were against it, but so what? Once in a blue moon it happens.

The deck is shuffled a second time, the cards are dealt, and . . .

Whoa, two in a row.

Then it happens again. And again. And again — that makes five consecutive RFs.

It happens a hundred times in a row. The odds are nearly incalculable.

Heck, after only the third RF you were starting to get suspicious. A Minnesota Vikings Superbowl victory is more probable.

Someone is manipulating the cards.

97 more RFs (in a row) screams with each successive occurrence that “chance” is not the best explanation here.

In the same way, the complexity and fine-tuning of the universe is just too good to be true. Some-one — not some-thing — has a hand in shaping all this order.

We call this someone God.

* * *

Remember what this series is about: Images in apologetics that you can put into play quickly. The images are not comprehensive arguments, just helpful illustrations.

* I learned the royal flush image from Prof. David Clark at Bethel University.