How Tears Point to a Designer

Visual: Woodcut of William Paley (1743-1805)

Psalm 6:6

​Many men today believe that the shedding of tears is a sign of weakness. They seem to have forgotten that Jesus wept when told that Lazarus had died. Jeremiah is known as the "weeping prophet" who shed tears over a backslidden nation. Even David, the slayer of tens of thousands, wrote that he often drenched his bed with tears.

Our Designer not only gave us glands to produce tears, He also gave us an ingenious way to dispose of excess tears. Here is how William Paley described this design feature in his nineteenth-century classic Natural Theology:

"To keep the eye moist and clean … a wash is constantly supplied by a secretion for the purpose; and the superfluous brine is conveyed to the nose through a perforation in the bone as large as a goose quill. When the fluid has entered the nose, it spreads itself upon the inside of the nostril and is evaporated by the current of warm air which in the course of respiration is continually passing over it."

Listen closely to Paley's next words: "It's easily perceived that the eye must want moisture; but could the 'want' of the eye generate the gland which produces the tear, or bore the hole by which it's discharged – a hole through bone?"

The answer, of course, is no, not in a billion years! As any rational person can plainly see, these features were designed by our Creator.

Notes: William Paley, Natural Theology, p. 33. (The Works of William Paley, D.D., Ward Lock & Co., London.).
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