Intelligent Design: An Evangelical Critique

Recently, I have been very critical of Intelligent Design. Why would an Evangelical Christian, even a scientific one, do that? Am I like Phillip Johnson contends, worse than an atheist? I do this because in addition to believing that Intelligent Design is scientifically unsound, I believe that it is unbiblical. For those of you who don't care about whether Intelligent Design is biblical then this is not for you. Go to Panda's Thumb. There's plenty of fodder there. I'm speaking to those who do care.

There are numerous passages of Scripture that deals with God as designer. One of them is Psalm 139.

139:14 I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing.²²You knew me thoroughly;²³

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,when²⁴ I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth.²⁵

Before I get to my main point, I would like to address an issue with interpretation of Genesis in light of YEC. Note that I am using the Net Bible translation. I'm using this one because it has a good technical commentary and also has good conservative credentials (being endorsed by Chuck Swindoll and Wayne Grudem). I would like to point out note 25.

²⁵ sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth's surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother's womb with the earth.

When the science is truly uncontroverted (embryos do not grow in the ground) the possibility of metaphor and pre-scientific accommodation is allowed, even in Evangelical exegesis.  Note that kind of phraseology is used in both Genesis 1:24 where animals were produced by the earth and Genesis 2:19 where Adam is formed out of the ground. Thus, the YEC interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is not a necessary one. In order to show a non-literal interpretation to be the correct one (or more to the point which non-literal interpretation is correct) requires more support. My limited point here is that such an interpretation is possible.

Back to my main point. Regardless of the use of metaphor or pre-scientific accommodation, Psalm 139 is clear that the development of the embryo is designed by God. Neo-Darwinism makes the argument that embryonic development and evolution are driven by the same underlying genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Jonathan Wells got his PhD in developmental biology. He told his colleagues at Berkeley:

Introduction to Jonathan Wells
To: Participants in the Evolutionary Biology Virtual Discussion Group
From: Jonathan Wells

Thank you for inviting me to participate in your discussions. Let me begin by introducing myself.

I first became interested in evolution as an undergraduate at Princeton, where I studied geology. Years later, I also became interested in religion and studied theology at Yale, where I wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on the 19th-century Darwinian controversies. [1] At that time, I learned that the historical conflict between Christian theology and Darwinian evolution had almost nothing to do with biblical chronology, but turned primarily on the issue of design. Pursuing my interest in evolution, I came to Berkeley in 1989 to study embryology, since understanding how organisms develop is obviously relevant to understanding how they evolve. I am now finishing a second Ph.D. dissertation on mechanisms of early development in frog embryos. [emphasis mine]

Back then Jonathan Wells saw a connection. Now he participates in seminars that says there is a discontinuity of development and evolution. Not only does he seek to go against evolution but also against development. Note this quote:

To be sure, genes (DNA sequences) affect development, but many lines of research suggest that body plans and other morphological features are laid down prior to and largely independently of gene expression.

Excuse me? How come identical twins are identical? Identical genes by and large produce identical morphology. In his nonsensical mess, he does give a decent definition (if you take out the allegedly and note that natural selection is not the only mechanism for genetic change):

In neo-Darwinism, evolution is explained by the natural selection of small mutational changes in the "genetic programs" that allegedly control embryonic development.

Why am I making such a big deal about the connection between development and evolution?  Biblically speaking, development is designed. If something else uses the same or similar mechanism as something already shown to be designed then you have an effective argument that the evolutionary process is designed also.

There is one very big practical problem with my argument, though. It is not a scientific argument, but it's a Biblical one. The apologetic value is slight because it argues for evolution to Evangelicals but doesn't argue the Gospel to evolutionists. This should not be sneezed at however because there are many young Evangelical scientists who might not now lose their faith because they are persuaded that the evolutionary mechanism is true.

There is a reason why science cannot answer this question. ID needs to understand a theological concept known as concursus. Concursus is the doctrine that God in his Providence acts through and with second causes.  (Second causes are those things in which God acts indirectly.)  God's design while not hidden from His children is thus hidden from science. Trying to prove design from science is a fool's errand. Or put differently, if you want to know if something is designed, talk to the designer.

Comments

[Curious]

I am afraid I do not find your logic quite follows - "God's design while not hidden from His children is **thus** hidden from science." The argument from ID is that not ALL designs are hidden from science. In other words, you have to show that God's design MUST be hidden from science. The question is How do you know? The strength of the ID argument is really a scientific one and not a biblical one, granting that the biblical account may be unclear.

[IDiot]

The strength of the ID argument is that it is not testable and it predicts nothing.

[Rich]

Design is hidden from science because God is ordered. Science sees the order and goes: A ha! Natural law. Faith sees past the natural law to the law giver. Thus both faith and science can look at the same facts and come to different conclusions. ID makes it an argument over the facts and looks silly in the process.

[StrawDog]

Greetings;

You mention Philip Johnson thinking you're worse than an aethist. I'm assuming you're talking about comments in his PyroManiac blog? I think a link would be appropriate to substantiate this comment. I respect the BlinneBlog and I also respect PyroManiac, and would be interested to see what you two have to say about eachother.

[Rich]

Johnson was asked about the so-called big tent by Hank Hanegraaf on his Bible Answer Man radio program. February 21,2003:

Now, if you want, Hank, I can even get to the most explosive question of all: what do I do about the division between the young-earth creationist and the old-earth creationists? I’ve been building a big tent movement. I’ve wanted to unite the divided people - that’s the Christians, and divide the united people - that’s the evolutionary naturalists. So I’ve had to develop good relations between the people in the old earth way of thinking and also the young earth creationists, and I’ve had a great deal of success in doing it. I’ve been well treated on both sides.

Hank Hanagraaph: And if your asking the right questions, then this becomes a intramural debate, a collegial debate, that we can have, once we’ve established the right premise: in the beginning ....

Johnson: That’s correct. We don’t have to agree, particularly right at the start. We just have to have a civilized way of talking about it, about what we disagree on, that enables us to make some progress towards agreeing.

Then Johnson was asked of Ken Miller, a Roman Catholic evolutionist, by Hank Hanegraaf:

I can say this. You often find the greatest enemies of Christ in the church, even in high positions. There is a kind of person who may be sincere in a way, but is doubleminded - who goes into the church in order to save it from itself, by bringing it into concert with evolutionary naturalism, for example. These are dangerous people - they are more dangerous than an outside atheist like Richard Dawkins, who at least flies his own flag.

So I am not impressed that somebody says that he is a Christian of a traditional sort and believes that evolution is our creator. This is, at the very least, a person whose mind is going in two directions. Such people often do a great deal of damage within the church.

Now it is untrue that we say that evolution is our creator but I get no indication that Johnson would distinguish that from evolutionary creationists like myself.

I believe that Johnson's fundamental error is that he tends to conflate positions together (e.g. philosophical and methodological naturalism). Having been in the PCUSA once (Johnson is a member of a conservative PCUSA church) I understand the suspicion. That was one of the reasons I posted this to help allay such a suspicion.

[Rich]

Is science the way we find out the God is the Creator? Not according to the author of Hebrews.

Hebrews 11:1-3

1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for.
3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Anselm's motto reflects this truth: "Credo ut intelligam". I believe that I may understand. ID stands this Biblical truth on its head.

[Rich]

The Pyromaniac blog is not the same Phillip Johnson I was quoting. That is Philip Johnson (one l), the Reformed Baptist and promoter of all things Spurgeon. I sure hope I don't show up on his really bad theology list!

[StrawDog]

Thanks Rich...I understand now. And thanks for providing all that extra information, even though it didn't turn out to be the Philip Johnson I thought it was. It is all useful to me just the same.

[Curious]

I still do not see how you can show that God's design ***NEED NOT*** be hidden from science, when believing through faith that "God's design while not hidden from His children". Also I do not see Johnson's position is of any relevance to the discussion here.

[Curious]

Let see your logic here: God is ordered, therefore natural law **AND** God's design is hidden!
What I have difficulty with your logic is the second part - How did you come up with:

God is ordered, therefore God's design is hidden?

[Curious]

Also, why should God ALWAYS be ordered? God can will what He wants, ordered or not.

[Rich]

I still do not see how you can show that God's design ***NEED NOT*** be hidden from science, when believing through faith that "God's design while not hidden from His children". Also I do not see Johnson's position is of any relevance to the discussion here.

God's design is hidden from science due to the nature of science itself. Not all evidence is scientific evidence. Science is a particular way of obtaining knowledge and is not interchangeable with Natural Theology.

As the author of Hebrews noted faith is a means of obtaining knowledge. The Apostle Paul is much stronger in 1. Cor. 1:14:

14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Thus, there is a class of knowledge that is beyond science because it is spiritually discerned. The author of Hebrews seems to suggest that the Creation itself is part of that hidden knowledge. Here I am not referring to describing how creation works which science does quite well, but that creation is creation and not some self-existent entity. Is it a necessary inference? No, but given the poor quality of the arguments presented so far by Intelligent Design I have no reason to believe that it is not a true one. Thus, what Intelligent Design is proposing cannot be done. I will address the point that it ought not be done in a later comment.

I raised Phillip Johnson because he believes that so-called theistic evolution is unbiblical. I am raising the counter-argument that I believe that so-called intelligent design is unbiblical.

[Rich]

Also, why should God ALWAYS be ordered? God can will what He wants, ordered or not.

I'll refer you to a comment I made on Panda's Thumb:

William of Occam provided the philosophical basis of the Reformation. For him the world was not the world of forms establish by Thomas Acquinas and the Scholastics. Occam believed these forms were in name only and thus was a nominalist. There was two kinds of God’s power. The first, potentia absoluta, where God can do anything and be utterly arbitrary. He could lie, he could make sin virtue and vice versa. Or there is potentia ordinata where God has decided to covenant with creation and operate in that manner. It is in this context we find his famous razor. The entities referenced above are Thomistic forms.

Occam held to the Bible being the only infallible source of authority, the fallibility of the pope, and the subordination of the church to the state. Occam shattered the scholastic synthesis and for that, Luther called him his “beloved master”.

So, why are the sons of Occam and Luther going back on him by re-affirming potentia absoluta, a.k.a. the god of the gaps? The naturalism inherent in Occam’s Razor is not crypto-atheism but rather the warp and woof of Protestant and thus Evangelical theology.

One other thing should be noted when the Jews demanded miracles Jesus rebuffed them. When he did do miracles it was tied to his message. In 1 Cor. 1 Paul calls the insistence of miracles as a stumbling block to the Gospel. In 1 Cor. 14 Paul rebukes the Corinthian congregation because they were disorderly and God was a God of order.

The way that Intelligent Design describes their unknown and arbitrary god is a god that does not conform to God's self-revelation in Scripture. Thus, Intelligent Design ought not be promoted by Christians who believe the Bible.