Smiley Faces in Grass and Laminin

This is a cross-section of sand dune grass showing internal structures that form a smiley face. It elicited a tremendous response on Dr. Georgia Purdom's Facebook page. Some of the comments concerned her. "They seemed to indicate that God purposely created smiley faces in the grass to give us evidence of His existence and greatness. While I agree that God designed the internal structures of the grass, the fact that they appear to us as smiley faces is most likely a coincidence of the design."

On her blog, she goes on to write, "A few years ago I wrote an article called Laminin and the Cross. I addressed how Christians were using the shape of the laminin protein in the form of a cross as evidence of certain biblical truths." That article makes several salient points:

Laminin is used to prove a biblical truth. However, we should never use our fallible, finite understanding of the world to judge the infallible Word of God. What we observe in the world can certainly be used to confirm God’s Word (and it does), but our finite observations are not in a position to evaluate the infinite things of God. Only if we start with the Bible as our ultimate standard can we have a worldview that is rational and makes sense of the evidence. 

The structure of laminin was not made popular until 2008, yet I have no doubt that many Christians before that time have trusted the truth presented in Colossians 1:17 because it is God’s Word. Would Colossians 1:17 be any less true if laminin were not in the shape of a cross? No. If five years from now we discover that the laminin protein actually has a different shape (in fact, some electron micrographs of the protein do not resemble a cross at all, see here, p. 149), would that change the truth found in Colossians 1:17? No, because our belief in the truthfulness that Christ holds all things together should start and end with God’s Word alone! 

Unfortunately this type of argument—which effectively treats our fallible, finite knowledge of the evidence as superior to God’s Word—is very popular in today’s society, especially among young people.