Cochlear implants are surgically implanted neuroprosthesis that provide someone who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with the sense of sound. In many cases, someone who has never heard anything can hear for the first time. There is a remarkable video here of deaf people reacting to hearing, in some cases for the first time in their life. The fact that the brain can so quickly adapt to new sense phenomena is powerful evidence of the creation and design of the brain by an all-powerful super-intellgent being.

Dr. Ming Wang (who restored my sight with life-changing surgery several years ago) was also able to give sight in one eye through difficult surgery for the first time to a 12-year old girl who was born blind. He worried that her brain would not be able to process and adapt to the previously unknown phenomena of sight – but she had no problem quickly adjusting to what was happening.

Two things stand out here as evidence that humans are created in the image of God, the imago-dei (Gen 1:27) and are the pinnacle of all creation:

1. the fact that we are able to gift the sense of hearing to the deaf with such extraordinary technology, and
2. the fact that the brain can so quickly assimilate and adapt to new sensory input

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:14)