In 1802, the English theologian, William Paley, wrote a stunning sentence in defense of the belief that God designed the universe: “If you find a pocketwatch in a field, the logical conclusion is that someone dropped it.”
That simple sentence is a miraculous summing-up of Creationism.
At the time, unbelievers were powerful. They’d successfully revolted against Church and King in France and were gaining strength in England and Germany.
To gain wider support, the other side had to be able to counteract Paley’s simple sentence by finding a way to convince people that the pocketwatch could have appeared by natural causes.
The other side had no answer to Paley’s statement. Unable to come up with any actual proof of Godless creation, they generated a typical smokescreen. To counteract Paley’s simple logic, Darwin produced the Origin of Species, just as Marx turned out tons of turgid prose to counteract the simple notion that we should love both God and our neighbor.
Darwin was trying to prove that the pocketwatch could have appeared by a series of natural coincidences. Those who are led to believe in a universe without God gravitate to Darwin.
Those of us who believe there’s a Creator behind Creation still repeat Paley’s proverb: “If you find a pocketwatch in a field, the logical conclusion is that someone dropped it.”
While William Paley was not a Catholic, our prayers for the repose of his soul would not be amiss.
