ID threat to Christianity

[Mallon]

We often like the debate the merits of Intelligent Design and the theory of evolution based on scientific grounds, but in the few months that I've been studying the debate, I've already found myself growing tired of refuting the same old creationist rhetoric. Lately, I find myself more interested in refuting ID/creationism on theological grounds, if nothing more than for the simple reason that it has more sway with the lay-Christian. So I open this thread in the interest of discussing the theological dangers of subscribing to something like Intelligent Design...

One danger that immediately springs to my mind is the 'God of the Gaps' argument. I've seen this issue discussed elsewhere ad nauseum, so I will not add much to it here except to clarify for those not familiar with the concept: in its simplest form, the God of the Gaps argument says "If the answer to a puzzle is not immediately available -- God did it." It shouldn't take much to see why this might be a problem for Christians. Given that we now know that the human immune system is reducibly complex (contra the IDist insistance that it is not), can we therefore conclude that God does not exist?

Michael Behe conveniently brought another danger to light as he testified recently in Dover. Namely, that opening the science classroom door to creationism by expanding the definition of science allows for a whole slew of other non-Christian concepts to enter as well. Behe named astrology, specifically, but any other pseudoscience might fit the bill as well: eugenics, palmistry, scientology, etc. Without the yardstick of methodological naturalism in place, we have no way of objectively ruling out any one of these topics and would have to be subject to them all (if for no other reason than in the 'interest of fairness' that the creationists are so fond of exploiting).

Any other takers? I'm interested in summarizing our ideas here into an article for my church newsletter, so any help I can get in fleshing out these arguments will be much appreciated.

 

[gluadys]

I think you may find the last two essays in this series of essays helpful.


http://www3.lehigh.edu/News/news_story.asp?iNewsID=1626

Most deal with the question "is id science?" But the last two approach the question of the theology of id and its inadequacy as Christian theology.

 

[Willtor]

I'd like to expound on the relation between ID and god-of-the-gaps. As always, I have to say that it poses a fundamental challenge to Thomist theology in which God is imminent throughout nature. It seems to me that if we put Him at a particular point, we've already pushed Him back to that point. If Behe is right, then God brought life as far as ID, but nature took over from there. Not that everything must be Providence (and nothing miraculous), but ID seems to overstep some bound between methodological naturalism and ontological naturalism. Behe would never argue that there is no God, but it would seem that his theological understanding of the relationship deals with points in space and time in which God interacts with nature as opposed to other points. The notion of drawing a line and identifying it as the fundamental division between God and nature is questionable at best.

Pushing this god back as human understanding increases is simply adding insult to injury.

I hope I'm not overstating my case, here. I don't really want to speak for Behe on his theology. Even if he doesn't think these things, however, I am confident that these are the conclusions many have drawn from his work. This is especially evident from discussions on these forums, but also from personal experience.

 

[shernren]

Personally my big gripe with IDism is that it is effectively unfalsifiable. Even if a system can be shown to have a plausible evolutionary history, and therefore not being "irreducibly complex" in the sense of being un-evolvable, there is always the "trickster hypothesis" (term stolen from philosophy of biology book) that "The Intelligent Designer designed something which looks evolvable."

But in terms of theology my main problem with creationism in general and IDism in particular is that they divorce the actions of God from the motives of God and the character of God. The clearly revealed miracles of Scripture are not just violent reversals of natural law: they reflect God's attributes and God's character. Who God is to His people is known by what He has done with and for His people. And any miracle which does not reveal who God is should be superfluous to Scripture. For example, John's Gospel is very explicit about the purpose of miracles in cementing Jesus' Messiahship: the miracles are considered (and explicitly called) "signs", not just show-off displays of power but events which actively point to who Jesus is and what He came to do. Part of the reason that Jesus sometimes wanted to keep His miracles quiet could have been because He did not want the stories of His miracles to be communicated without the accompanying Christological essence.

Having said that, my unanswered question to creationism is: what does a recent 6-day creation tell us about God? Is God any holier for creating in only 144 hours and creating only 6,000 years ago?

The problem is very explicit in IDism, whose logical consistency is evidence for what I am saying. Yes, it would be logically consistent (if it were provable) to say that the most likely hypothesis for this or that design is that it was designed by an Intelligent Designer. But what does that tell us about the Intelligent Designer? Absolutely nothing besides that (s/)he is (or was) intelligent. We do not know that an Intelligent Designer must love his or her creation, that an Intelligent Designer would die for his or her creation, that an Intelligent Designer is love or justice or anything else Christians call God. The fact that IDism works without any of this is a testament to how little creationism is able to tell us about who God is through the things He has done. Furthermore, the existence and validity of trickster hypotheses goes to show that IDism can't even pin down the Designer's motivations.

IDism is compatible with creationism, with Raelianism, with panspermia, with Singulatarianism, with deism, and probably with any other host of philosophies one can imagine.

 

[chaoschristian]

Neo-creationism is (knowingly or unwittingly) creating a new orthodoxy wherein faith is formed on fact rather than divine grace.

I believe we've all witnessed this in this forum, and shernren certainly has expounded upon most intelligently and eloquently, as have others.

The notion is that rather than seeing scripture as truthful and containing facts, neo-creationsts see scripture as truthful because it contains facts.

What is so very dangerous about this is that if and when said facts are falsified, the foundation for faith collapses.

How many times have we seen something along the lines of "If 6 day creation isn't true, the entire Bible isn't true." and similar?

I hold that as a Christian that I must acknowledge that there is in fact very little evidence to support most of what is testified to in scripture, and what evidence there is is not strong enough to assert with a high degree of scientific certainty. Even with regards to Christ (dons helmet to ward off rocks) we have no evidence outside of personal testimony and hearsay, and if you exclude scriptural references (which one ought to in order to avoid tautology and conflict of interest) then what is left is quite insubstantial.

Think of what the neo-creationist position does to personal revelation and faith. If the truth of scripture is founded upon certifiable fact, then ought not personal faith also be founded upon certifiable fact?

If one cannot emperically demostrate the basis for one's faith, then is that faith unfounded?

As I testified to before, I was a militant atheist before submitting my life to Christ. The basis of my conversion is a completely subjective one. I can tell you the day, the time, the moment I felt God's Grace upon me and how in that instant my world view completely changed. I can tell you how I felt. I can tell you how my thinking changed.

But what I cannot provide is any sort of external, verifiable and falsifiable evidence for this event. By my own pre-conversion way of thinking, I ought to still be an atheist, because none of this makes sense.

Yet in the light of faith, it all makes very good sense. I just can't substantiate it in an emperical manner.

So, under the rule of neo-creationism is my faith unfounded and false? And if so, by what means can anyone hope to have faith, since Grace too is not subject to scientific verification?

 

[Assyrian]

Yes, my biggest fear with ID is that it is lining thousands of young believers up in rows to be knocked flat when science comes up with the intermediate forms of their favourite irreducibly complex system, a system they will have been taught in Sunday School to set their faith on.

On a more theological note, ID seems to be saying that God could not create a natural system, like evolution, that was sophisticated enough to produce complex systems naturally.

Call it: Intelligent but not quite that Intelligent Design, IbnqtID.

Assyrian

 

[shernren]

Neo-creationism is (knowingly or unwittingly) creating a new orthodoxy wherein faith is formed on fact rather than divine grace.

I don't know about the "rather than divine grace" part, but I would think that neo-creationism is very much knowingly trying to assert the ultimate importance of scientific and historical fact in the orthodoxy - I would think that is its express goal, and nothing less.

It's really an interesting way to take on how the world thinks - if you can't beat them, join them; if the world comes up with kaboodles of evidence proving the Bible wrong, well then let's come up with kaboodles of evidence proving the Bible right! And thus creationists join a fight atheists have been fighting for centuries: they build on foundations of scientism, buy weapons of debate and proof from the naturalists, and then think that they have won because they are able to collect a large number of followers.

The funny thing is that among all this talk of objectivity and approaching the Bible "as is", somehow evolutionist facts are always destructible while creationist facts are not. It only takes one counterexample ... and when naturalistic philosophy ever breaches the creationist counterarguments' perimeter defense, it finds that the inner topology of the creationist's philosophy is all too familiar.

Far better to build on a different foundation right from the start than attempt to play the atheists' game.

 

[mark kennedy]

Now any mention of God or the suggestion that life was intelligentlly designed is not only psuedo science but bad theology. Horsefeather! Intelligent design is about irreducibly complex systems like mitochondria and virtually every vital component of living cells. It could not and did not happen chance, random gradual evolutionary mechanisms.

By the way, had evolutionists been honest about these problems Behe would never have been in the Intelligent Design movement. It's evolutionists that are creating the division and contention in the church and the courts, not creationists.

 

[shernren]

By the way, had evolutionists been honest about these problems Behe would never have been in the Intelligent Design movement.

As honest as the YECs were towards GR Morton and Kenneth Miller? Let's not go there. Both sides have horror stories of their own.

 

[jereth]

Jereth's prophetic prediction:

ID will die out gradually as a result of its own internal inconsistencies, its dishonesty, its bad theology, its bad science, and the combined assaults of YECism and TEism.

In 50 years time all that's left will be the standard YECists and TEists again.

 

[Assyrian]

I hate to say it, but you are seriously underestimating the ability of creationists to keep recycling arguments that collapsed 50 years before. If there are creationists do that now, in 50 years time there are sure to be creationids faithfully quoting 'irreducibly complex systems' long reduced to simpler forms.

Assyrian