Imagine showing up to a banquet hall expecting to eat a dinner, and as you sat down at your seat, you observe that there was no food at all on the table. Besides being disappointed, there might also be confusion. “Why isn’t there any food on the table? We are here to eat. We are in banquet hall. We are hungry, yet there is no food. Why is it this way?” The obvious answer to the question, “Why isn’t there any food on the table?” would be that there is, of course, no chef (or no cook, whichever term your prefer) to prepare the food. Conceivably, anything could be wrong: the oven doesn’t work, the ingredients are on back order, etc. For the moment, however, let us assume that the non-existence of food presumes the non-existence of a chef. Alternatively, let us assume that the existence of food presumes the existence of a chef. Any item of food one eats is typically prepared by someone, i.e, a chef. The chef, knowing that people will show up to the banquet hungry, will have food ready for his guests to eat. The food the chef aims to serve will be not merely edible, but it will be delicious; not just good, but also nutritious! The chef won’t serve rocks or dirt, for none of that is edible (not to say, I assume, also greatly lacking in taste!). The chef, desiring to both feed and please his guests, won’t put poison in their food either! Any chef worth his salt will have these goals in mind for the food he serves: Edible, Delicious, and Nutritious!
Now, imagine entering the banquet hall a second time and instead of being empty of food it is Full of food! Food of every type! Hot and ready food! Fresh and delicious! Ham, roast, fish, steamed vegetables, ripe fruit, even sweet apple pie and a grand host of other types of food. How many guests would sit down before this luscious feast of edible, delicious, and nutritious food and say, “No chef prepared this! In fact, chefs do not exist! I don’t believe in chefs! This food simply appeared on the table!“
Naturally, can’t we see that this is an absurd way of thinking? One might say to the “achefiest” (the claim that “no chefs exist”) in order to reason with him, “Don’t you SEE all this food on the table? The food is edible, it’s delicious, it’s nutritious, and it’s all ready to eat! How could someone Not believe in a chef given not just the fact of food on the table, but also to the great variety of food on the table?”
In the same way, look at all the great variety of edible, nutritious, and delicious food on planet earth. While there are a great variety of animals to eat, there are a great number of kinds of fruits and vegetables that are “ready-made” from the ground and the trees on this world. Apples, pears, pomegranates, grapes, peppers, tomatoes, corn, beans, pineapple, coconut, etc. It is possible that we were on a planet with an “empty table of food, i.e., on a planet with no food. We could have been on the planet Mars or Venus where no food of the type on planet earth could exist. Or we could have found ourselves on a planet where food existed but it was inedible to us or it could not be digested, or it did not give us the strength we needed, etc. Any number of issues could have arisen regarding a “mismatch” with our digestive systems and the food, or the lack thereof, on this planet.
Yet here we are with a “table,” a planet, full of food that is edible, nutritious, and delicious. It seems obvious that some “Chef” has prepared this food for us on this planet. This planet was created to bear a wide variety of food. It’s possible that we could have arrived on a planet with food that is edible, but it is neither delicious nor nutritious. Or, the food could have been delicious to our taste-buds, but ultimately was not edible or nutritious. Or food could have been nutritious, but neither edible nor delicious. What are the odds that we would be on a planet with food that is edible, delicious, and nutritious for us? Arguably, without any 3 of those elements, we could have died. At some point one has to wonder about the great abundance of food on this planet and ponder how food can show up without a Chef? The “Chef” we are speaking of here is not just any Chef. We are speaking of a Chef who knows our digestive systems, knows our taste buds, knows our capabilities for reproducing that food, and every other factor involved with our finding and eating the food on this planet.
If one were to walk out into the woods and find a literal table with a great variety of fresh food on it, prepared perfectly and ready for us to eat, would one propose that the table and food “just popped into existence” or wasn’t designed or pre-planned for us to eat it? Maybe! But everyone knows it would be a preposterous claim! In the same way, this planet is like one great “table” with food all over it. How could there not have been a Great Chef, namely, a God, Who prepared all this for His creatures? Every time we look outside at food growing out of the ground or out of trees we need to think of it as God, the Great Chef, saying, “Dinner is Served!”
Note: “Argument” may be too strong of a world. I think that I prefer to place this line of thinking into a category of “pointer” or “sign” for God’s existence. Nonetheless, I’ll keep the word “argument,” even though it is stronger than intended, just for the sake of simplicity and clarity since many are more familiar with an “argument” rather than a “pointer” or “sign.”