Does "God made it that way" put an end to the question "why?"

In reading a book on bird song, I came across the statement that believing God created bird song was ultimately unfulfilling because it puts and end to the question "why do birds sing?". The statement bothered me so much that I almost didn't finish reading the book (which would have been a mistake... its quite good). How could this philosopher/scientist/author really believe that was a logical and rational thing to say? Where would he get that idea in the first place?

As I thought about it further, I realized that he probably got that idea from Christians. It is likely a common response when the purpose for something seen in nature is not immediately obvious. "Why is that there?" "I don't know. Because God made it that way!" But is that really the answer to the question?

I think the author is right. That answer is unfulfilling. His line of reasoning was this: "The traditional view is that biological diversity is evidence of a supreme being offering us the gift of a beautiful nature as proof of his existence - reason has never had much to do with faith." If you want to believe in God you should let God exist through evolution because nature is all the more amazing the more we learn how it works. Standing pat with God as the answer puts and end to the question "why."

The inference here is that if you believe God made it, you have no interest in looking deeper into how something works. Beauty equals some kind of proof of God's existence and nothing more. When Christians answer the question "why?" with a completely non-explanatory "God made it that way" we do our own faith, and even our own idea of who God is, a huge disservice. If we really believe that is the final and complete answer we have mistaken what God has actually done in revealing Himself through creation. That answer is correct and accurate, but it is not the end of asking why.

Romans 1:19-20 says that God has revealed His divine nature in creation. If we are to know God at all, He must reveal Himself to us. God's creation is meant to be understood and it is able to teach us about Himself. Again, Romans 1:25 shows that creation is able to teach us truth about God.

Our God is a purposeful God. Jeremiah 10:12 tells us that God's wisdom and understanding went into creation. The world around us was planned and ordered, not haphazard and shallow (and not random!). Psalm 147:4 says that God determines the number of the stars and gives them names. He invests Himself in His creation. Psalm 19:1-2 points out that nature displays knowledge. God has revealed more than simply His presence in creation.

This belief in a purposeful God is the only guarantee that an answer to "why?" even exists. It is only an assumption of some threads of evolution that every trait is selected on for thousands of years. The fact that we find so many deeper and meaningful answers by scientific inquiry is a testament to God. When we look for why something exists in nature we find a logical reason and a purpose.

God cannot be both purposeful and arbitrary; not someone who continually asks us to follow all of His commands and believe all of His promises and trust Him with the eternal significance of our souls. God is unified in His attributes. He is always loving, always just, holy, merciful, wise, faithful, etc. in all of His actions and decisions. 2 Timothy 2:13 says that Jesus, through whom all was made that was made (John 1:1-18), cannot deny Himself at any point. If He is being arbitrary, He is not being purposeful and would be violating one of His own attributes. God is not like a human being that is at one instant wise and at another foolish, or at one instant faithful and at another unfaithful.

When we accept and affirm simplistic, non-explanatory answers to the question of why something exists in creation, we attribute an arbitrary and capricious nature to a purposeful God. God gives us creation as a way to learn more about Him, not as something to dismiss as too mysterious or unknowable. We cannot know everything about God or understand all that God knows and is (Psalm 139:17-18), but we can know something and we can understand something and we can know that to be true (Jeremiah 9:23-24, John 17:3).

True discoveries of science will never conflict with scripture or with the God revealed there. We may disagree with conclusions arrived at by some scientists, but there is never a reason to abandon scientific observation. There will always be something of worth to be learned from studying God's creation, even its smallest details. We should never give the impression that we don't believe there is a reason for what we see around us. We should never try and stop anyone from asking the question "why?".