A long-standing elderly client was operating his ride-on lawn mower and accidentally clipped a concrete garden border which flipped the mower on its side with his foot caught underneath among the fast spinning blades.
They filleted his big toe which had to be amputated. Forever afterwards he limped and experienced considerable pain as his toes automatically clawed to keep his shoe on, and balance became difficult.
The victorious leader of centuries past who conquered the troublesome, dangerous neighbouring warlord knew the vital importance of thumbs and big toes. He knew how to destroy any prospect of the defeated foe ever mounting a counter-attack.
Inhumanity of humanity
A battle was fought between the Israelites and a nearby marauding Canaanite king whom they eventually captured. His reputation having preceded him the victors “cut off his thumbs and big toes”.
The vanquished king blurted out that: Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them. (Judges chapter 1 verses 6/7). No! God does not engage in payback.
The earned reputation of that king’s savagery precipitated his own disastrous outcome, to my knowledge this being the sole instance in the Bible of God’s people descending to this type of cruelty. It was a forerunner of Jesus’ words about 1,000 years later: All who draw the sword will die by the sword. (Matthew chapter 26 verse 52).
Sowing and reaping
We are warned that if we sow to please the sinful nature rather than the Holy Spirit then ‘from’ that fallen nature we will reap destruction. (Galatians chapter 6 verse 8). This defeated king’s bodily destruction presumably brought the mental destruction of paralysing grief about life after mutilation. Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity. (Proverbs chapter 22 verse 8).
To experience both thumbs and big toes being hacked off (not finely removed under anaesthetic by a skilful surgeon’s scalpel but perhaps) with a warrior’s axe and without anaesthesia, no doubt followed by prolonged painful ‘recovery’ minus hospitalisation, medication and repeated replacement of clean dressings, must have been agonising.
To equip us for smooth-functioning life we are blessed with thumbs which enable us to firmly grasp things, manipulate items of different shapes, pick up small objects, play the violin or piano and eat with one hand. The great apes (tail-less, unlike monkeys) also have opposable big toes which assist them to eat food, climb trees and swing from branch to branch.
Try this
At the next mealtime try holding your knife, fork or spoon without using your thumb. Try combing your hair, tying shoelaces, opening doorknobs, grasping a pen, brushing teeth, holding a tennis racquet or golf club, or automatically performing a myriad of other personal tasks.
This quickly demonstrates the importance of our thumbs with their saddle-like joint (compare the hinge joints of fingers) which enable us to bend and stretch them opposite our fingers (opposable) so as to grip with strength and control the opposite side of the object to the fingers.
Because the functionality of the thumb determines the ease with which we live, when assessing damages for an injured plaintiff who has lost a thumb its value is assessed at 50% use of the hand.
No Designer and Maker?
The principal of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has written: Creation is necessary but it’s not sufficient…We’re not saved because God is a good designer; we’re redeemed because God is Creator and redeemer in Christ.
Whilst that is clearly true, it’s a relatively small intellectual step to progress from belief in creation to the dawning of the truth of salvation. Out of love for His world (with man at the pinnacle) God wanted to save us from eternal self-destruction. He gave us that opportunity by giving us Jesus. Tragically, if the starting point in one’s thinking is that there is no God then it easily leads to acceptance of evolution without the slightest thought or investigation.
If there was no master Designer and complex body parts had to somehow unnoticeably evolve minute variation by minute variation over zillions of years, could life have possibly survived?
In his desperately miserable state one lucky caveman apparently unexpectedly, unknowingly and rarely received an extra cell towards a workable thumb whether of flesh, muscle, fingernail, tendon or bone, his brothers missing out. But how did godless darkness ‘realise’ that both thumbs of all cavemen needed fully functioning saddle joints, and how do we know this extra cell was passed on to the next generation?
Such ideological nonsense insults intelligence but the atheist/evolutionist is forced to believe it simply because s/he won’t face the reality of the existence of the invisible Creator God. Thus in The Greatest Show On Earth: the Evidence for Evolution (2009)(none was stated by the way) at p357 Professor Dawkins writes: I can’t help wondering…why whales and dolphins…have not re-evolved functional gills…it should not be too difficult to do so. The misleading power of baseless ideology involves jettisoning commonsense.
To reluctantly borrow the unbeliever’s disrespectful ungrateful language, this intricate design down to the finest detail came from the ‘top down’ (from God) beginning on day one. Nothing proceeded haphazardly and undesigned from the ‘bottom up’ over zillions of blind stumbling painful years.
They show no regard for the works of the LORD and what His hands have done (Psalm 28 verse 5) as they are: without regard for God. (Psalm 54 verse 3).
It’s proof
It’s been said that the structure and function of the human thumb is compelling evidence of the truth of the Creator God, Jesus. There’s no credible evidence-based reason to believe that the hit-and-miss darkness of evolutionary wishful thinking could bring about such unique functionality.
Gavin Lawrie is a retired Barrister and Solicitor from Tweed Heads NSW Australia and author of the book: 'THE EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION: Uncovering The Faulty Science Of Dawkins' Attack On Creationism'. He is married to Jan with two adult children and they are grandparents.
Gavin Lawrie's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/gavin-lawrie.html