Short answer
God (﷾) made you. No one thinks a phone made itself. It has a designer and a maker, and it comes with a manual. Yet you are far more complex than any phone. Your DNA code is about 3 billion letters long, and almost every cell in your body carries it. Your eyes, brain and heart work together without your telling them to. If a phone points to a maker, so do you. The Qur'an asks: "Were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators?" A maker of something so precise would not leave it without instructions. God (﷾) sent His guidance through His prophets. The last of it is the Qur'an, "guidance sure, without doubt". It is the manual for how to live, from the One who made us.
Full explanation
No one thinks a phone made itself
Suppose you found a phone on a beach. You would never think the waves had made it. Its parts fit together for a purpose, so someone designed it. In 1802 William Paley made the same point with a watch found on a heath. He said "the watch must have had a maker". The same reasoning is used every day. Order that serves a purpose points to a mind behind it.
“the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker”
You are far more complex than a phone
A phone runs on code written by engineers. Your body runs on a code too: DNA, about 3 billion letters long, carried in almost every cell. The cell reads it three letters at a time and builds what the letters spell. It even checks its own copying for mistakes. You did not design any of it. If a phone needs a maker, a body like yours needs one far more.
The human genome, the full set of DNA instructions in a human cell, is made up of about 3 billion DNA base pairs.
The standard textbook account of the genetic code: DNA's four-letter sequence is read three letters at a time; enzymes pair each codon's adaptor molecule with the right amino acid, acting as the translation table; copying is proofread; and dedicated systems repair damaged DNA.
The Qur'an asks the same question
The Qur'an asks: "Were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators?" Nothing comes from nothing, and you did not make yourself. So someone made you. The Qur'an points to the signs "in your own selves: Will ye not then see?" It says God (﷾) "created thee. Fashioned thee in due proportion". And: "We have indeed created man in the best of moulds".
“Were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Nay, they have no firm belief.”
“On the earth are signs for those of assured Faith, As also in your own selves: Will ye not then see?”
“O man! What has seduced thee from thy Lord Most Beneficent?- Him Who created thee. Fashioned thee in due proportion, and gave thee a just bias; In whatever Form He wills, does He put thee together.”
“We have indeed created man in the best of moulds,”
A maker sends instructions
A phone comes with a manual, because only its maker knows how it is meant to work. People need guidance even more, because we can choose right or wrong. So God (﷾) sent prophets, each with His message. The last is the Qur'an. It calls itself "guidance sure, without doubt". It says it guides "to that which is most right". And it calls itself "the Book explaining all things, a Guide, a Mercy".
“This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those who fear Allah;”
“Verily this Qur'an doth guide to that which is most right (or stable), and giveth the Glad Tidings to the Believers who work deeds of righteousness, that they shall have a magnificent reward;”
“One day We shall raise from all Peoples a witness against them, from amongst themselves: and We shall bring thee as a witness against these (thy people): and We have sent down to thee the Book explaining all things, a Guide, a Mercy, and Glad Tidings to Muslims.”
| Feature | A phone | You |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on a code | Software written by engineers | DNA, about 3 billion letters long |
| Parts that fit a purpose | Screen, battery and chips | Eyes, brain and heart, working together |
| Has a maker | Its designer and maker | God (﷾), who created you and fashioned you |
| Comes with instructions | A manual | The prophets, and last the Qur'an |
What about evolution?
Some say living things only look designed, because natural selection shaped them over time. But natural selection works only on life that can already copy itself, using a code. It cannot explain where the first code came from. Nor can it explain the laws of nature that make it all possible. A factory can make phones, but the factory has a maker too. A process explains how something happens. It does not explain why there is anything to happen at all.
Argues that natural selection explains the appearance of design in living things without a designer, and that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
The standard textbook account of the genetic code: DNA's four-letter sequence is read three letters at a time; enzymes pair each codon's adaptor molecule with the right amino acid, acting as the translation table; copying is proofread; and dedicated systems repair damaged DNA.
Perspectives
Evolution explains the design
Many atheists say that natural selection explains the appearance of design in living things, so no designer is needed.
Natural selection explains why living things look designed, without a designer.
Rebuttal
Natural selection needs life that already copies itself by a code. It cannot explain the first code, or the laws that make chemistry and life possible. A process is not a maker.
If everything needs a maker, then who made God?
Rebuttal
The argument is that made things need a maker, not that everything does. A maker who was himself made would need a maker too, without end. There must be a first, unmade Maker. The Qur'an says: "He begetteth not, nor is He begotten".
The Islamic perspective
The order and complexity of the human body point to a Maker, God (﷾). He also sent guidance to show how to live, and its final form is the Qur'an.
The Qur'an asks whether people were created from nothing, or created themselves.
The human DNA code is about 3 billion letters long.
The Qur'an calls itself guidance that leads to what is most right.