Christianity for the Next 1000 Years: Design of Intelligent Design

In the beginning, God created skies and earth.

Greetings!  Thanks for your visit. 

I am attempting to pose answers to many problems today that make it difficult for people to be persons of faith with integrity, that is, without being embarrassed when our other brothers and sisters make faith sound so lame and unbelievable.

Intelligent design is one of those concepts that makes our faith appear to be unscientific.  We should rethink it and be honest about what it means.

Intelligent design comes to us from the late 18^th Century philosopher, William Paley, who wrote a book entitle Natural Theology wherein he proposed an argument for the existence of god that has been dubbed the teleological argument.

The argument goes as follows.  You are walking in a desert and find a watch.  The design and intricacy of the watch indicates a watchmaker.  

When we look at nature we see a great intricacy and complexity that is greater than a watch’s; hence, being has been designed and made by a nature-maker whom we call God.

There are many things wrong with all the arguments for the existence of God, but this one in particular has some special inconsistencies.  One of them being that it uses analogy to make its case.  

Analogies, like similes and metaphors, make interesting comparisons, but they prove nothing.  We live in an age that requires evidence and data.

Arguments for the existence of God prove nothing since they already assume God exists.  

They turn out to be interesting puzzles rather than real solutions, but the teleological argument is truly special.

Paley’s so-called teleological argument is also flawed because it suggests that looking at the watch reveals the nature of the watchmaker.

That could be anti-gospel for us as we look at nature’s grinding dispassionate death roll over every living thing.

Teleology is a combination of the Greek world telos which means “end” and logos which means “study, doctrine, word, etc.”   It is the study of purpose in nature.

Scientists balk at the idea that nature has an eternal or divine purpose.  A grand scheme of things or a final aim of life is certainly not evident in parasites and viruses. 

In fact, extrapolating purpose out of a natural process is interpretation in action.  It serves the hermeneutical principle of “I’m going to find God in everything by God or die trying.” 

That all for now.  Blessings…