Essential logical assumption: Existence of an intelligent creator
The whole argumentation contained in this work is based on an essential logical assumption: The existence of an Intelligent Universal Creator, which we may also call "God." Without the existence of a creator, we would not be able to sustain a logical pattern responsible for the harmony of the whole Universe and the Laws that sustain it.
Atheists often use the argument that "If no one has proved God's existence to this day, then He does not exist." But we have already seen earlier that this argument is a fallacy: "Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam" ("Appeal to ignorance") and therefore cannot be considered a valid argument.
On the other hand, we can present an extremely strong and consistent argument to support the existence of an intelligent Creator: "There is no intelligent effect without an intelligent cause!". Thus, if we demonstrate that living beings are an "intelligent effect", it would be illogical to claim that they originated "from nothing" or by mere chance.
Identification of an intelligent effect
How to identify an intelligent effect? We can use as an example the work that many astronomers have done trying to locate intelligent life outside Earth. Through powerful radio telescopes, low-frequency radio signals from the farthest reaches of the universe are captured. The collected signals are then transformed into data that are analyzed by powerful computers in search of characteristics that can demonstrate intelligent communication.
Natural radio signals from the stars generate a completely random sequence of numbers in which there is no logical combination indicative of intelligence, so they have no intelligent cause. However, if one day a sequence containing a mathematical formula or a complex coded language is captured, this will unquestionably demonstrate that it could not have been generated by a natural event, thus indicating, with absolute certainty, that an intelligent cause generated it. Remember: There is no intelligent effect without an intelligent cause.
“It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.” (Albert Einstein)
When we look at a working computer software, we realize that it can perform complex math operations and various routines independently, because it has been programmed for this. But we know that one day that software was developed by a programmer, that is, there was the application of an intelligence to develop it. From then on, such a software can run automatically, without the need for a programmer interference. But it would have been impossible for it to have come "out of nowhere", without an intelligence having created it.
Such softwares are made up of a binary language, composed only of "zeros" (0) and "ones" (1) called "bit". An 8-bit set forms a "byte". Each byte can store a character (letters, numbers, symbols, etc.) and, in this way, the commands of a software are formed to control the whole operation of the computer.
The programmer is the person responsible for arranging the commands, by developing a logic code that will define all the operations the computer will develop. When looking at the programming code, we find a logical ordering of commands with the purpose of getting the computer to perform a certain operation, that is, to achieve a defined objective. Such a code could never "create itself" without the application of intelligence.
Using exactly the same line of reasoning, if we observe the functioning of the genetic code (DNA) inside the cells, we will see that it works in a very similar way to a complex and sophisticated computer software. It consists of 4 chemical compounds: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine, abbreviated by the letters A, G, C and T that form the DNA sequences. For example: "AAAGTCTGAC". These sequences work just like the code of a computer software and, with approximately 3 billion combinations, carries all information containing the genetic characteristics of beings from one generation to another.
Each of these combinations works as a group of specific commands that will be executed for the creation of beings. Similarly to a computer software, we find a logical ordering in the sequence of the commands and also conclude that it could not "create itself" without the application of intelligence.
We can even say that the genetic code is more sophisticated than any computer software ever invented because, from the code contained in a single cell, it can create trillions of other cells, which in turn will create complex organs that will constitute a body, such as kidneys, liver, heart, lung and brain; each with extremely specialized functions. All from a single tiny cell!
In order to get an idea of the enormous complexity of the human genetic code, in 1990 the "Human Genome" project was created, which represented an international effort to map the entire genetic code.
This project involved more than 5,000 scientists from 250 laboratories around the world to sequence the genes that encode human body proteins one by one. Even so it took 13 years to finish the work! Only in 2003 the completion of the project was announced.
Following a strictly logical reasoning, we come to our first conclusion: If a simple computer software could never have been created alone, the complex genetic code, by deduction, could never have been originated "from nothing", without the application of intelligence to create it. Just as the computer software required that a person with intelligence and knowledge (programmer) create it, consequently the genetic code had also the application of intelligence in its creation. We can thus conclude that the genetic code and, consequently, all living beings, can be considered an intelligent effect!
Construction of the logical argument
Premise 1: Every intelligent effect has an intelligent cause.
Premise 2: Like a computer program, the Genetic Code can be considered an intelligent effect because, for its creation, there has been the application of intelligence.
Conclusion: The genetic code had an intelligent cause and was, by deduction, created by an Intelligent Force, just like all living beings.
In order to refute an argument, it is necessary to demonstrate that at least one of the premises is false or that there is no logical inference between the premises that leads to the presented conclusion.
Analyzing the above argument, it is not possible to contest the veracity of the premises. Many atheists try to contest the third premise by saying that the genetic code is a natural process, and therefore cannot be compared to something "artificial" as in the case of the computer software. But we are talking here about logic: The criteria used in both cases are the same, that is: The analysis of something that, due to its sophistication and logical organization, unequivocally evidences the application of creative intelligence.
Therefore, those who argue that the genetic code cannot be singled out as an intelligent effect, in order to maintain the coherence of their reasoning, they would need to demonstrate that a computer software could also arise "spontaneously", without the application of intelligence, otherwise they would be contradictory.
If we cannot admit that the simplest computer software can emerge out of nowhere, it is also impossible to argue that the genetic code, which is incredibly more complex and sophisticated than a simple software, could do it, because the line of reasoning used to justify a computer software is an intelligent effect is exactly the same as used in relation to the genetic code, that is: "The impossibility that such coding complexity may have been originated without the application of intelligence".
In this way, the premises are true and lead to the conclusion: If the genetic code represents an intelligent effect, then it is logically deduced that it had a creator. So the living creatures certainly had an intelligent creator. This is a Valid and consistent argument. In Allan Kardec's book "The Genesis," we find a rather interesting passage about the intelligent cause:
"Works said to be produced by nature are the product of material forces, which are agitated mechanically by following the laws of attraction and repulsion. Particles of inert bodies are aggregated and disintegrated by the power of these laws. Plants are born, sprout, grow, and multiply always in the same manner, each one of its kind, by virtue of these same laws; each subject being like that from which it sprung. The growth, florescence, fructification, and coloring are subordinate to some material cause, such as heat, electricity, light, humidity, etc. It is the same with animals. Even stars are formed by attraction of particles, and move perpetually in their orbits by the effect of gravitation. This mechanical regularity in the employ of natural forces does not imply a free intelligence.
All that is true; but, these forces are effects which must have a cause, and no one has pretended that they constitute the divinity. They are material and mechanical; they are not intelligent of themselves, we all know, but they are set at work, distributed, and appropriated to the needs of everything by an intelligence, which is not that of man. The useful appropriation of these forces is an intelligent effect, which denotes an intelligent cause.
A clock moves with an automatic regularity, and it is this regularity which constitutes its merit. The force which makes it act is material and not intelligent; but what would this clock be if an intelligence had not combined, calculated, and distributed the employment of this force in order to make it move with precision?
Because we cannot see intelligence, and because it is not in the mechanism of the clock, is it rational to conclude that it does not exist? One judges it by its effects.
The existence of the clock attests the existence of the clockmaker; the ingenuity of its mechanism is a proof of the intelligence and knowledge of its maker. When ones sees one of these complicated clocks which mark the hour in order to give you the knowledge of which you have need, has it ever occurred to anyone to say, “There is a very intelligent clock?”
Thus, it is in the mechanism of the universe: God does not show himself, but he makes affirmation of himself in his works. “
So, logic shows us that there is an "intelligent force" responsible for the harmonic functioning of the universe and present in all things: In the forces governing the basic structure of matter: atoms and molecules; In the forces that govern the formation of living beings: plants and animals; In the forces that control the planets, stars and galaxies
Saying that this whole complex system would have arisen "at random" would be as illogical as claiming that a book could be written by itself.