f, for argument sake, McCloskey did in fact want examples of indisputable design and purpose and would be willing to accept them as such, one could just look at the order of life. Animals act intuitively in feeding and reproduction; the human anatomy contains a heart that pumps blood throughout the body to sustain life. Or, better yet, what about DNA or RNA? DNA and RNA are absolutely vital to the life of a human, and existence without DNA is impossible. However, atheists and those who deny the existence of design and purpose, cannot explain where DNA/RNA came from. The transcription of DNA to RNA is something that scientists admit cannot be numerically computed because of its complexity.[8] Would the existence, functioning, and transcription of DNA to RNA provide a basis for genuine indisputable design and purpose for McCloskey? If not, then what does? This is the problem with stating the need for genuine indisputable examples of design and purpose because who is the judge or standard of what is indisputable?

McCloskey may look at the complexities of DNA to RNA and the order of life as natural progression of evolution. In fact, McCloskey implies that evolution displaces the need for a designer. I, however, disagree. One thing that evolution does is offers an explanation contrary to intelligent design regarding the scientific observations of the natural order of life. While evolution provides the scientific explanation of natural order, it does not explain the creation or ultimate beginning of such natural order. Could not a theist come back in reply to McCloskey and state that a necessary being or God put this scientific process of natural order in place? C. Stephen Evans gives a great analogy when he likens this to a man’s desire to produce shoes. The man creates a machine to achieve the production of shoes, therefore allowing an individual to explain mechanically the structure and visuals of the shoe. However, the machine is not ultimately responsible for the creation of the shoes. Instead, the machine “operates as it doesbecause it is a means for achieving the result; it was designed to do so.”[9] In sum, if evolution were absolutely true, it does not displace the need for a designer. Instead, one can plausibly declare that a designer designed the process of evolution as a means for achieving certain results.

The Problem of Evil

Though McCloskey provides refutations to the Cosmological and Teleological arguments, it is almost seems as if he glossed over them quickly in order to get to the true matter of his contesting. McCloskey, even in the content of his objections to the two previously mentioned arguments, routinely mentions the problem of evil as adequate proof for the nonexistence of God. The problem of evil, without doubt, is McCloskey’s primary refutation to theism. Throughout the entirety of the article, he consistently makes statements that resonate like this one where McCloskey says, “No being who was prfect could have created a world in which there was avoidable suffering or in which his creations would (and who could have been created so as not to) engage in morally evil acts, acts which very often result in injury to innocent persons.”[10] This, essentially, is the heart of the argument from McCloskey and the majority of atheists.