Surprising virtually no one, the University of Indiana completed one of the most dominant seasons in NCAA football history with its victory last night over the University of Miami, winning the College Football Playoff National Championship game. But what you may not know is that faith was at the center of the game for many who competed on the field and on the sidelines.
- Miami’s head coach, Mario Cristobal, and his family are members of their local St. Augustine Parish.
- So is the family of Fernando Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback whose epic twelve-yard run won the game for Indiana.
- His outstanding receiver, Omar Cooper Jr., calls himself a “Follower of Christ” on his Instagram bio; many of his posts include Scripture.
- Miami’s star quarterback, Carson Beck, said recently, “I feel like God has a plan in everything he does.”
- One of his top receivers, Xavier Restrepo, is public about his faith as well.
I could go on, but you get the point. Amid news that more Protestant churches in the US closed than opened in 2024, as supernaturalism declines and secularism advances, it is gratifying to see prominent people who make their faith in Christ prominent.
However, if you’re looking for encouragement to trust Jesus with your life, you don’t need to look to sports celebrities, well-known pastors, or even apologists like me.
The evidence is everywhere—literally.
“Both religion and science are founded on faith”
In his Discourse Against the Pagans, St. Athanasius (died AD 373) reasoned:
It is right that creation should exist as [God] has made it and as we see it happening, because this is his will, which no one would deny. For if the movement of the universe were irrational, and the world rolled on in random fashion, one would be justified in disbelieving what we say. But if the world is founded on reason, wisdom, and science, and is filled with orderly beauty, then it must owe its origin and order to none other than the Word of God.
His argument raised a point I had not considered before. I was familiar with the teleological argument that moves from the design of the world to the existence of a Great Designer. If you found a watch on the ground, you would assume that a watchmaker exists. How much more complex is the world than a watch?
I was also familiar with the anthropic principle that notes how perfectly ordered the universe is to sustain human life as we know it. But I had not thought about the existence of the “reason, wisdom, and science” by which the universe itself is “founded.”
The law of gravity, for example, predated any presumed evolutionary movements by which an atheist might seek to explain the existence of life. This force even explains and predates the formation of planets and their spinning and rotational motions.
Electrons are similarly considered “elementary particles,” meaning that they are not made of smaller parts. Science has no explanation for why they exist, but without them, the universe would not exist.
As the eminent theoretical physicist Paul Davies wrote in the New York Times, “Both religion and science are founded on faith—namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws.”
“Harmonious, joyful, flourishing life”
The order that made possible the universe encompasses your life today as well. It is logically contradictory for a God of reason and love to create an ordered universe but then fill it with disordered, undesigned life.
To the contrary, as Tim Keller wrote in The Reason for God:
Unique among the creation accounts, the Bible depicts a world that is brimming with dynamic, abundant forms of life that are perfectly interwoven, interdependent, and mutually enhancing and enriching. The Creator’s response to this is delight. He keeps repeating that it is good. When he creates human beings, he instructs them to continue to cultivate and draw out the vast resources of creation like a gardener does in a garden (his emphasis).
Keller then noted:
The Hebrew word for this perfect, harmonious interdependence among all parts of creation is called shalom. We translate it as “peace,” but the English word is basically negative, referring to the absence of trouble or hostility. The Hebrew word means much more than that. It means absolute wholeness—full, harmonious, joyful, flourishing life (his italics).
As just one example, take a moment to consider the design of your hand, composed of twenty-nine bones, twenty-nine joints, well more than one hundred ligaments, thirty-five muscles, and a vast array of arteries and nerves. Your fingers have no muscles—they are moved by tendons threaded through them and attached to muscles in your forearm. Approximately a quarter of the part of your brain that controls body movement is devoted to your hand.
The vein patterns and skin creases in your hand are as unique to you as your fingerprints. Your thumb is so remarkably designed that Isaac Newton could say, “In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”
If your Father can design your hand, think how he can design your life.
“I am happy that I didn’t sneeze”
In his last speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told of the time he was autographing books in New York City when a woman stabbed him in his chest. X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of his aorta, the main artery. The New York Times reported the next morning that if he had sneezed, he would have died.
In his address on April 3, 1968, he told his supporters, “I am happy that I didn’t sneeze.” If he had, he would not have delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech, received the Nobel Peace Prize, or seen the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.
Then Dr. King closed his message the day before he was assassinated with these words:
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Have yours?
NOTE: For more on faith, providence, and life purpose, please see my latest website article, “Why the Buffalo Bills were right to fire Sean McDermott.”
Quote for the day:
“Grace makes the promise and providence the payment.” —John Flavel (1620–91)
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