THE FALLACY OF
MECHANICAL INTERPRETATION
A computer is an electronic machine whose work is to obtain data from input devices and, in line with the instructions given, analyze and process this data and express the result as output. It is used for a wide variety of purposes. Observing the fantastic computer functioning, many people believed that science had now arrived at the position where it could manufacture a ‘mechanical mind.’
It might have reflected the hope or expectation that something—like an intelligent mind possessed by man—which so far was being made only in the ‘factory’ of Nature might now begin to be manufactured in factories made by man. It also had a philosophical aspect: If it were possible for man to manufacture a ‘mechanical mind,’ atheists could use this to back their case, arguing that if human beings could produce a creature with a mind like man in a factory, there was no need whatsoever to accept the existence of a Creator—God, to account for the existence of an intelligent creature like man. They could have argued that just as an artificial ‘mechanical mind’ could perform various tasks accurately, the giant ‘factory’ of the universe could also function independently, with no God behind and beyond it.
But scientific research and experience proved this wishful thinking to be utterly baseless. This experience about machine intelligence led to great despair among people, who were hoping that man could be proven to be a sort of evolved mechanical animal so that there would remain no need to accept God’s existence.
The fact is that just as a ‘mechanical mind’ like a computer necessarily demands the existence of the superior mind of a human being to account for its existence and functioning, man’s existence and functioning are possible only because of the existence of a Divine Mind, which is far superior to man’s mind.
A computer with a ‘mechanical mind’ cannot exist without a living human. In the same way, without the Creator God, a living human is simply impossible.
A Case in Point
In 1983, the US Navy engaged in military exercises near San Francisco. This process was conducted through computers. A naval cannon was meant to be used as part of these naval exercises, but when that happened, there was some computer-related problem. As a result, the cannon balls began firing in the opposite direction. The plan was for the cannon balls to fall off far into the sea, but due to a computer problem, the balls began falling in the reverse direction and fell near a cargo ship.
In computers, such mistakes called ‘glitches’ keep on happening. Why is this so? This is because a computer is just a physical machine made of matter. It does not possess intelligence of its own. From this, it can be assumed that had the universe been a mere physical machine with no God controlling it—as many atheists might say—it could never function as perfectly and accurately as it does. It might have made grave blunders, causing massive destruction on Earth and the rest of the universe. But that nothing of the sort happens in the universe is a clear indication that it is created by a Supreme Mind that has designed it to function with perfect accuracy, beyond anything that man-made machines are capable of Consider the following: “There is no God of the universe. A universe is only a machine made of matter.”
If the above sentence appears correct from the grammatical point of view, from the point of view of reality, it is entirely erroneous. The sentence would have been accurate had machines—even the smallest and simplest of them—been able to come into being on their own, without a maker, and if they could operate independently. But all the machines we are familiar with have been made and operated by humans. This being the case, how could it be possible, as many atheists argue, for the amazingly vast universe to come into being on its own and function on its own, continuously, over billions of years, with complete accuracy?
Need for a ‘Grand Engineer’ of the Universe
Making and operating a machine requires a human being. No matter how sophisticated a device is, it cannot come into being and function without human intervention at some level or the other. This negates the mechanical interpretation of the universe—the argument that the universe is a machine that has come into being on its own and is functioning on its own, without a Creator and Master behind it.
If, for any machine, a human being is needed—because it cannot come into being or function on its own—why is it said that the ‘great machine’ of the universe came into being on its own and is running on its own? There is no basis whatsoever for this speculation. If the universe is, as some hypothetical scientist might say, simply a ‘great machine,’ even then, for it to come into being and function, a great Mind is required. Reason and logic compel man to accept God—whether in religious language as Creator, Lord, and Master or in scientific terms as ‘The Grand Engineer’ who is running this ‘world-machine.’
