“I thank you, High God – You’re breath-taking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made.” (Psalm 139:14; The Message)

On a clearance rack at a bookstore I came across “Foolish Faith” by Judah Etinger. I e-mailed the author and asked him what prompted him to write the book, and promptly received a response. Here’s an excerpt:

Nick, I was born in Israel, but was raised in Toronto, Canada since the age of six. My parents became Christians when I was very young, and so I grew up going to church, but was never taught the apologetics of Christianity. So I had to do the research myself. “Foolish Faith” is largely the result of myself having grown up going to a secular school, often getting into philosophical and religious discussions / debates with my friends and peers. As I entered my early twenties, I began compiling pages of notes on these topics as I researched them. I would give copies of the notes to people as we discussed the issues. Eventually these ‘notes’ became chapters, which ultimately led to the book “Foolish Faith.”

“Apologetics,” means “a reasoned/logical defense”, derived from the Greek term, “apologia, (ἀπολογία)” Peter used in 1 Peter 3:15. Part of Etinger’s argument for the existence of God is found in what is commonly known as “intelligent design” (the intelligent design of the human body.)

Etinger writes,

“In the biological world of living things lie the most complex concepts of engineering known to mankind. The Encyclopedia Britannica concedes, “A living cell is a marvel of detailed and complex architecture…. The information content of a single cell…[is] comparable to about one hundred million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica.” (That’s just the amount of information per single cell. But, how many cells do we have?) The human body comprises a conglomeration of some 100,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 14th power) cells which work together in perfect harmony to maintain human life.”

Etinger continues:

“Renowned Cambridge mathematician, Sir Frederick Hoyle, uses the following analogy to try and convey the immensity of the problem associated with evolution (natural selection). He calculates the odds of an accidental formation of a single, simple living cell (remember the number of cells within the human body, cited above) as equal to the chances of a tornado blowing through a junkyard containing all the parts of a 747 and just accidentally assembling it so as to leave it sitting there all set for take-off….Although not a creationist/believer, Hoyle’s calculations have convinced him that there must have been some ‘intelligence’ behind the emergence of life on earth.”

“For You did form my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb; …..Body and soul, I am marvelously made.”

Soli Deo Gloria, Nick