We humans are endlessly creative when it comes to trying to disprove God. Of course, none of our specially designed experiments can do so. I often wonder if these things won’t, in the end, further prove God instead.

Where we fall short is answering the “so what” question.

So what?

Curiosity is looking for life on Mars right now. Let’s say it finds something. So what? Does that disprove God created us? Certainly not. He’s perfectly capable of creating life beyond our planet if He is so inclined.

Another, and more specific, example is of  a researcher in 2011 who claimed visions in the Bible were the result of nothing more than “lucid dreams.” Some people in a study reported seeing angels in their dreams, so clearly the characters in the Bible were delusional.

The problem with re-creation

In this example is something very specific I want to chase. It is this: simply because something has been recreated by man does not mean it disproves God from a prior example.

Let’s look at the Bible for a clear display of this in action. In the book of Exodus, the familiar story of Moses, Pharaoh, and the plagues is recorded. God spoke to Moses and Aaron (who functioned as Moses’ speaker of sorts) and told them to perform miraculous signs in front of Pharaoh to show him the power of God.

In this part of the story, Moses and Aaron are about to show their first sign to Pharaoh:

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did what the Lord had commanded them. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a serpent!  Then Pharaoh called in his own wise men and sorcerers, and these Egyptian magicians did the same thing with their magic. They threw down their staffs, which also became serpents! But then Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Pharaoh’s heart, however, remained hard. He still refused to listen, just as the Lord had predicted. (Ex. 7: 10-13 NLT)

Pharaoh made the mistake of thinking Aaron’s staff becoming a serpent, or snake, was not a miracle if it could be reproduced by his magicians. Aaron’s staff was clearly transfigured by God just as he had been instructed it would in verse 8. We are given no indication that God instructed the magician’s to do the same.

So if the magicians can do the same thing as Aaron and Moses, does it disprove God or His power? Absolutely not! As we eventually see in the story, the miracles kept being performed, but the magicians ran out of tricks and couldn’t reproduce the signs.

Limiting God in our lives

Look, I don’t know why we are able to recreate some things in this world. God designed us to be highly intelligent creatures. He also created a world with infinitely interesting and complicated designs. Perhaps he did both of these so we could come to know more about his magnificence as a creator, who knows?

What I do know is this: we limit God when we fall into the trap of accepting re-creation as explanation. Or, in Joel J. Miller’s words,

“this is an impoverished worldview, far from the vision of the world that God provides in his Word and the church — and one that frankly doesn’t add up.”

We often make the mistake of thinking we live in only a material world, one void of the spiritual realm. But over and over again in the Bible, Jesus and others claim we are living in a dual world — the spiritual and the material. Not either or. And.

Are you trying to disprove God in an area of your life? Where are you replacing the spiritual with the material?