<em>Editor’s note: This column is in response to an opinion piece published Monday by Eric Pianka entitled “We have not been ‘designed’ intelligently.”<em/>

We like to complain and think we are entitled to every benefit and every good out there. I guess that’s part of being human. As soon as we find one flaw in nature that we can rationalize to be the poor engineering of God, we use it and write about how we have not been designed intelligently. We find a few more cases, because we think we are always right, and then assert that our creator has failed us once again.

But has it ever occurred to us that perhaps we have failed our intelligent design and not the other way around? Have we asked ourselves how different things could have been if we had lived in accordance to what God intended for us in the beginning? Anyone who would say “yes” to these questions would be the real arrogant and silly individual, rather than those who humbly submit to faith and acknowledge their humanness.

Are we not also curious as to how the created people could so boldly question the intentions of the creator? He is the one who designed us and not the other way around. Contrary to the belief that science erodes the credibility of God and his intelligent design, I would like to suggest that science paints God more beautifully and credibly because of the natural wonders we discover and because of the curious minds he has blessed us with.

Consider yourself the grand designer of a city who has laid streets out a certain way and fashioned districts and houses in a certain order. You have a purpose for these things, yet the people who are in it just don’t see how everything goes together. They start complaining and redesigning what you have built because they think you are inept. The people feel good about their accomplishments for a moment but quickly find out how, because there were several designers involved in the process, their reasoning was not always in sync. Sounds like a familiar scenario, doesn’t it?

There is no doubt that there are things in nature that we question, their logic, processes, designs, purposes, etc. We can all come up with one if we think hard enough about the circumstances in our own lives. But in every complaint, there is something majestic about creation that we cannot deny. Just take a walk by the river or watch the sun rise. The beauty in any design cannot be seen by skeptical and questioning eyes. Only those who are open and willing to marvel at its wonder can experience it.

What is so humbling in this process is that in spite of all the redesigning that we’ve done, accusations we’ve made and arrogance we’ve shown, we have a designer and a creator who is always there to fix us. We are rude intelligent creations, but we are still loved. Just think about that for a second, and maybe we can start to realize that the crux of the matter is that we have failed our intelligent design and not the other way around.

<em>Francia is a Jesuit Volunteer for Catholic Charities of Central Texas.<em/>