The Science of Intrinsic Design
“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
The personal nature of the Logos has profound implications for how we understand human nature. Because everything was made through Him, the only way to understand ourselves is to look at our designer and see our lives from the perspective of our Creator. This is what Aristotle called teleology—understanding a thing by looking at its fundamental purpose and how it successfully functions.
If we use a delicate silver knife to hack away at a block of marble, we might eventually chip the stone, but we will ruin the knife. Why? Because we are violating its design. Its proper function is determined by its creator’s intent.
Unlike inanimate artifacts, we are living beings with deep, complex, intrinsic properties. We have the freedom to use our minds, bodies, and wills for a million different things—yet when we use them contrary to our design, we experience a deep, existential friction.
Modern existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre tell us that “existence precedes essence”—that we are born first as blank slates, and must invent our own purpose. But John 1 reverses this: our essence, conceived in the Mind of the Creator, precedes our existence. We cannot construct a stable identity or find true peace until we align our lives with the telos—the purpose—for which we were designed.
This design is evident across all scales of creation. A body is always the sum of its parts; everything in nature suggests this hierarchical order. Combinations of subatomic particles form atoms, which combine to form molecules, which build the organelles that comprise cells, eventually forming tissues, organs, and the complete human being. The precise laws of physics and chemistry that keep atoms in order are absolutely necessary for a human being to exist at all.
These laws of order span from the individual soul to the structure of human society. Philosophers throughout history have argued over what makes a community, but this notion of community is deeply akin to organs forming a biological body. Every organ has a vastly different function, yet all must work in harmony to sustain the life of the whole.
St. Augustine famously wrote that without justice, a state is nothing more than a “grand robbery”—a hostage situation where the strong dominate the weak. Imagine a body where a few organs decide they are far more important than the rest, consuming all resources and refusing to cooperate. In biological terms, we call this pathology, cancer, and disease.
In the same way, the lawlessness of our sin has introduced a spiritual pathology—a cancer that has penetrated the very structure of our souls and human society, breaking the cooperative laws of our design.
Reflections
- If sin is “using a delicate knife to cut marble,” in what ways have you felt the “existential friction” of living outside your original design?
- How does God’s law act as a guide for healthy human functioning?