You might have heard of the famous analogy attributed to William Paley. It basically states that if you are walking at the beach and you come across a watch, you will have already made the assumptions that someone owns it and that someone also made it. Why? No one needs that explanation.

And that’s the point of the analogy! You don’t need an explanation to know that something as complicated as a watch has a maker. It’s common sense! So theists ask, what about plants, animals, and us human beings? What about the Earth, the planets, the stars, and the entirety of the universe? What about just one bacteria, virus, or human cell, and the complexities in them? 

No sane person will say that, by chance the watch formed, EVEN if it took a billion years of natural events. So how can one say that life and everything we see around us happened that way?

And the more complicated something is, the more intelligent we say the maker is. So how intelligent must the Creator of the universe be?

Did you notice what’s strange about the concept of traveling to see a natural attraction? We literally go thousands of miles and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars just to look at some natural objects. We spend hours and days worth of traveling just to look at mountains, oceans, lakes, falls, or stars.

Why though? Sure, they are beautiful, but what’s the benefit? Do they do anything for us? Do they talk or interact with us? Yet, when we go and see them, we feel better and are left in awe.

When you think about it, there’s no true reason to appreciate beauty, especially when you take all the sacrifices of travel into account. It is something specific to humans. If this is just a material world, with every creature doing things for some benefit, why are we moved by beauty? Matter and atoms do not create the mechanism to be moved by beauty, so why are we?

As the Argument From Beauty suggests, perhaps a Higher Being gave us this inherent quality to appreciate beauty, and perhaps it is directing us to find the source of all beauties, which is God Himself.

Perhaps God also is the One with the Ultimate beauty. As Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said,

“Verily, Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty.”

[Source: al-Mu’jam al-Awsaṭ 6906. Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Albani]