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It was the theologian William Paley (1743-1805), born a generation before Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who coined the analogy of God as a watchmaker. Unlike a stone, for example, he said a pocket watch is made from many complex parts, and the universe, by dint of its complexity, must likewise be designed for a purpose.
Darwin was on a voyage around the world aboard the Beagle when he came upon the Galapagos Islands. On each island, there were finches that looked different from those found on the other islands. Would God, Darwin reasoned, really have gone to the trouble of making 14 different kinds of finch to scatter about on a group of rocky islands in the Pacific Ocean? From that observation, he developed the theory of evolution in the early 1840s, arguing that species evolve to adapt to their environments and thus survive.
It was not until 1859 that his book "On the Origin of Species" was published. One reason for the delay, which lasted over 15 years, was his own deep religious faith. Arguing that the world was really an accumulation of accidents was in some ways to deny the existence of God and unbearable for him.
The theory of creationism argues against evolution, which states that the world is as it is due to the accumulation of minute changes that occurred at random. According to creationists, the world is too complicated, beautiful and miraculous to have been created that way. Sir Fred Hoyle, an English astronomer, said the accidental creation of life is less probable than a whirlwind hitting a junkyard, lifting thousands of parts into the sky, and then dropping them in the form of an assembled Boeing 747 jumbo jet. His conclusion: there must be an almighty God.
In his controversial book "The God Delusion," published in 2006, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins argues that God is a manipulated and fabricated illusion. God is not needed, and the supernatural is only called into play if there are phenomena that we cannot grasp fully. The argument that this world was created according to God’s intelligent design contains a contradiction, says Dawkins: It is unable to explain the origin of the designer himself.
The year 2009 marks Darwin's bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species." Debate over his revolutionary theory will be more heated than ever.
The column was contributed by Chosun Ilbo in-house columnist Han Sam-hee.
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