studying the world as it is.
And that would be the problem. The world is a corrupted template. Even if you evade the discussion of sin being the corrupting influence, scientific observations will still lead you to believe that the universe is moving in the direction of entropy…from order to disorder. Things rust, rot, break down and fall apart. They do not spontaneously organize into advanced multi-part systems regardless of how long you wait.
Suppose you take a fish tank and fill it with clear water with a divider in the middle. Then on one side you drop in a few drops of red dye and on the other you place a few drops of blue dye. The two sides will be organized with blue on one side of the divider and red on the opposite side. HOWEVER, if you remove the divider the two colors will mix and no amount of waiting will be sufficient for them ever to re-organize with the molecules of red dye on one side and the blue ones on the other. You can wait for eternity and it will never happen, because at a minimum, the water will evaporate before the two colors self-organize. It takes an outside intelligence to force organization upon them.
