Intelligent Design
Del Retzch. Science and it's limit: The Natural Sciences in
Christian perspective. Illinois: IVP Academic, 2000.
David Mills, Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to
Christian Fundamentalism. Ulysses Press, 2006.
Ralte, Rodinmawia. The Interface of Science and Religion: An
Introductory Study. New Delhi: Christian World Imprints, 2017.
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Intelligent Design was based on William Paley’s work-Natural
Theology (1802) where he argued that the intricate and delicate structure and
workings of the watch show that it has been designed by a creative and
intelligent watchmaker.
The idea that science can uncover evidence of deliberate design in
the cosmos, and especially the idea that supernatural design can figure in
truly scientific accounts of natural phenomena, subsequently fell on hard
times.
Design: Concept Basics
1. Artifacts.
Activities of human agents typically leave visible traces on the world—traces
we are generally able to recognize as resulting from human activity. we
recognize that humans had a hand in that machine’s coming into existence. That
recognition is based in part upon our knowing some things about nature’s
capabilities and our recognition that nature unaided by agent activity would
not or could not have produced any such phenomenon. Things that unaided nature
could not or would not produce and in whose production finite agents (humans,
aliens, whatever) played some role we classify as artifacts.
2. Design. A design is an intentionally produced (or exemplified) pattern,
where a pattern is an abstract structure that resonates, matches or meshes in
certain ways with mind, with cognition.
3. Agent activity. Since
design involves the deliberate production of pattern, there is always
agent activity somewhere in its history. There would have to be a direct agent
activity somewhere, but in this case, it would be directed toward the
making of the machine itself—or the machine that made the machine (or perhaps
even further back).
4. Gaps. Whenever
humans, aliens, or other finite beings act to produce artifacts (or design),
marks of that activity—counter flow marks— are left on the world somewhere or
other. Gap-based inferences are foundational to our identification of artifacts
as products of agent activity and in the case of human and alien activity are
unproblematically legitimate.
Recognizing Finite Designedness
Our recognition of finite designedness (design by finite agents) typically begins with a recognition of artifactuality, itself in turn-based upon recognition of counterflow marks. Sometimes those marks are visible in the end product.
Of course, there is no guarantee that we can always identify design, always recognize designedness or always recognize artifactuality and counterflow. It is possible that we might confront cases where we were unable to tell whether we were dealing with a genuine artifact or some unusual natural phenomenon.
Supernatural
Design
The general conceptual structure outlined above would apply fairly
well to some instances of design produced by supernatural agents as well. It is
in principle possible for a supernatural being to bring about virtually any
artifact that we humans (or aliens) can.
Intelligent design (ID) movement exhibits a fair amount of
diversity, but the center of gravity of the group is a rejection of
methodological naturalism, at least as any sort of norm.
The Intelligent Design (or ID) movement was reinvigorated and began
aggressively exercising its new political muscle, striving to bulldoze ID
textbooks into public school classrooms. ID teaches that our universe and the
life within it are too complex to have arisen without the guiding force of an
Intelligent Designer. Although Creation science likewise believed that God was
necessary to explain Nature's complexity, ID distinguishes itself from Creation
science in one surprising and controversial way: Creation science taught that
the Bible was literally true—both Old and New Testaments—whereas ID does not
accept the literal truth of the entire Bible. Leaders of the current ID
movement do seem to wholeheartedly embrace the New Testament, believing that
Jesus literally walked on water, literally filled pigs with demons, literally
cast a magic spell on a fig tree, literally rose from the dead, etc. But the
voluminous writings of the preachers of ID leave no doubt that they do not
believe the Old Testament in the same literal sense, if at all. ID openly
accepts contemporary Big Bang cosmology, which, when discussed honestly, bears
no similarity whatever to the six-day Creation Story of Adam and Eve in the
Book of Genesis. By traditional Christian canon, therefore, the ID movement is
a cult, because ID rejects historically accepted Bible teachings and
interpretations. Instead, ID preaches modernistic revisionism, contrary to the
doctrines of conventional, Bible-based Christianity.
Remarks on Intelligent Design
Intelligent Design doesn't attempt to recognize the wellspring of
insight (regardless of whether it be God or UFOs or something different), by
far most Intelligent Design scholars are theists. They see the appearance of
design as the natural world as proof of the presence of God. There are,
notwithstanding, a couple of nonbelievers who can't deny the solid proof for
configuration yet are not able to recognize a Creator God. They will in general
decipher the information as proof that earth was cultivated by a type of expert
race of extraterrestrial animals (outsiders). Obviously, their understanding
doesn't address the beginning of the outsiders, either, so they are back to the
first contention with no dependable answer.
Design Theory isn't in every case precisely equivalent to Biblical
Creationism. There are different translations of what Intelligent Design
alludes to. Scriptural creationists reason that the Genesis record of creation
is dependable and right, thus life on Earth was planned by a clever specialist:
God. They consider the to be of Intelligent Design as proof from the normal
domain that upholds this end. Other Intelligent Design scholars start with the
regular domain and arrive at the resolution that life on Earth was planned by
an astute specialist, without indicating who that specialist may be.
All by itself, Intelligent Design doesn't determine who the
Designer or fashioners really are. Accordingly, Intelligent Design is viable
with scriptural creationism, however, it's anything but an intrinsically strict
position.
From the lens of Christian Apologetics
A major theme in the history of Christian apologetics has been the
“argument from purpose and design,” also known as the “teleological argument.”
When one looks at the unique properties of matter and the earth that allow the
existence of human life, the marvels of animal and human physiology, and the
many examples in the plant and animal world where the existence of one species is
totally dependent upon the interactive existence of another, one is struck by
the amount of evidence that can be interpreted as indicating that all of this
has been designed by a Great Designer. Many of these arguments in recent years
have been stated under the title of “the Anthropic Principle”, which summarizes many
of the nuclear, atomic, and gravitational phenomena that appear to be
“fine-tuned” to allow the development and/or existence of intelligent life
based on carbon.
All such evidence from phenomena in the natural world for the
existence of a Great Designer is powerfully consistent for the person who has
a personal relationship with God the Creator and Sustainer. The Christian
scientist repeatedly marvels at the evidence he sees for the results of God’s design
in the properties and development of the universe.
Some Christian apologists have concluded that a science-based on
methodological naturalism is inextricably linked to a world-view of naturalism,
and that therefore we must rescue ourselves from this situation by introducing
the concept of intelligent design as a mechanism in scientific descriptions.
There is no objection to using the concept of intelligent design as
a guide in helping to suggest how to construct suitable models of physical the reality, provided that these models are capable of being subjected to test and
description in natural categories before they are accepted as scientific.
Intelligent design for the Christian is a general concept underlying all descriptions, scientific and nonscientific, affirming the creative and sustaining activity of God.
But
if the concept of intelligent design is advanced as a substitute for natural
categories of description, limiting the specific instances being considered to
acts of God’s “intervention” in the “gaps” in our understanding, and considering
intelligent design itself as a valid scientific description, critical harm is
done to our concepts of the relationship between scientific descriptions and
God’s continuing activity in creating and sustaining.
There is the frequent temptation to consider that we can
meaningfully decide what God has done and does do, directly on the basis of our
understanding of who God is and what God could do. The history of science and
Christianity supplies many examples, both in the construction of models of the physical
world and in biblical interpretation, where the decision about what God has
done has been made incorrectly on the basis of what our presumed knowledge of
God would lead us to believe that he has the ability to do. If, in the case of
evolution, for example, we wish to answer the question, “How did God achieve
his designs in biological development?” we must turn to investigate what it is that
God has indeed done, and what form his activity has taken in the actual working
out of his creative will. Otherwise we are subject to such classic errors as
arguing that the shape of the planets’ orbits must be circular because the
circle is God’s perfect shape, or to arguing that sin must be an illusion
because God has made us and God is good.
Second, there is the
whole area of interaction between such concepts as “natural law” and “God’s
intervention” in the world. Many writers speak of “natural law” as though
“laws” were self existing elements that God called into existence to rule the
physical world. Within the area of science, “natural laws” are human
descriptions of God’s regular creative and sustaining activity. Laws do not
cause anything to happen; they are descriptive, not prescriptive.
For God to act in a way different from this regular creative and
sustaining activity—as, for example, in the doing of a “miracle”—he does not
have to “break his laws,” “set aside his laws,” or “intervene in his laws” to
accomplish his purpose. Just as we can understand the ordinary “laws” of nature
as our descriptions of God’s regular activity, so we can understand a “miracle”
as our description of God’s special activity.
Third, there is the
concept of “soul” and its implications for reflections on creation and
evolution. There is a growing awareness of the difference between the basic biblical concept of soul as “living self,” a concept increasingly supported by
growing knowledge of the human being, describing a set of properties of the whole human being, and the “immortal soul,” a concept of classical dualistic
models of human nature, which has often been used as an argument against the “natural”
theory of evolution. It appears to be much more appropriate, both
scientifically and theologically, to think of the soul as describing what a
person “is,” rather than what a person “has.”
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