Christianity for the Next 1000 Years: ID Reconsidered

In the beginning, God created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  I want to continue writing about intelligent design.

SCIENCE

I heard a professor once say that scientists who keep splitting atomic particles eventually will discover that everything is based on nothing.

Look at quarks.  When I was a kid atoms were the building blocks of matter.  Now, we hear of quarks, and they are not described as having mass as we think of mass.  Instead, they are described as flavors. 

Now, we have the Higgs particle, the so-called God particle, a designation that physicists despise, and we shall be hearing more and more about it in future physics textbooks.  Does it explain the cause and the mechanism of Being?

What is the basis for reality?  Will we ever know? 

GOD

Now, I'm not going to leap from what we do not know to God.  There are few things more pathetic than hearing a preacher talk about science, and how God can be found in those places where science does not have complete information.  

I heard Billy Graham say that he learned long ago to stop telling scientists what they can do.  I think that is wise because every time scientists make a discovery, and God has to retreat, it gives atheists cause to celebrate.

That kind of thinking is lousy theology and leads to superstition.

Indeed, it is cheating.  God is the word we use to personify the power of Being.  The word "god" is a worship word, a theological metaphor, not a precise scientific quantifier.

In prayer, meditation, and contemplation God is where we fix our attention.  That is the devotional experience of God.  

We need to realize that God is not a being like we are.  God is not a Supreme Being.  That would make God a being among other beings.  No, God is the power of Being.  There is no place where the universe can be that God does not transcend.

By the way, for a more thorough explanation of what I am writing here, go to Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology, volume one, and read the section about God.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN RECONSIDERED

Being is what-is.  I am not trying to trick anyone here. The word "Being" points to the totality of everything without a personification.  Being resists nonbeing.  The power of Being resists nonbeing.  

We can imagine that there could just as well be nothing instead of something.  There could just as well be nonbeing instead of being.

God is the word we use to personify that power of Being.  Theology attempts to explain God. 

Intelligent design is a personification of nature.  It ascribes intent and conscious purpose to processes that just do what they do.

Intelligent design is a personification of being. We look at what-is and see the hand of God.  As poetry, intelligent design works, but as science it does not work at all.

Thanks for visiting.  Please feel free to respond.  Blessings…