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<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #000099">An opinion piece that is a bit long but makes for an interesting read..</span>.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">Is God a Poor Designer?</span>
Intelligent Design theory is often (as here, for example) countered by complaints that organisms are so poorly designed, and break down so badly, they could not have been built by a God who knew what he was doing. As an objection to ID as science, this misses completely: the scientific program does not attempt to identify the designer, and is only trying to establish the fact of design, beyond what could reasonably have been produced by unguided causes. That's all. The fact that my 15-year old Camry is starting to rattle does not mean it wasn't planned by intelligent engineers, and the fact that life is not perfect does not begin to prove it did not come from an intelligent source.
This charge that God did a poor job calls for a Biblical clarifying response, though, apart from the ID question. What was God intending to do when he created? Did something go wrong? And if so, what was it?
I believe that the God of the Bible was the creator of the universe. That belief, for the record, is not necessarily linked with Intelligent Design, although certainly in my opinion, the Designer for whom the ID program is seeking an empirically identifiable mark in natural history is none other than God. I also believe that God's creative work can be (and is) known, even if his mark in nature is not written in just the way ID is seeking to demonstrate it. Neither of those convictions is essential to ID theory. (I have to make that clear before proceeding, because so many ID opponents have accused ID of being something other than it is.)
Did God design us poorly? Does the fact of illness, injury, infirmity mean that God was not quite up to snuff when he created us? There are two possible theistic answers: one is that God, in fact, didn't do a terribly good job in the first place; the other is that he built it right but something has gone wrong. I'm convinced the latter is true, and that this really helps us understand who God is, and to have better insight into the mess we're in.
There's no denying it's a mess. One of my very good friends was in the hospital yesterday with a very frightening bleeding episode. He's recovering well now, with much thanks for the medical help he received. Others do not come out as well, and in the end, we all die.
And we might as well throw another difficulty into the mix as well. I lost a cousin last week to an act of truly senseless violence. (I think I'll probably write about that when I get ready to, but I'm not there yet.) This illustrates--quite vividly for me, I assure you--the horrifying, rampant evil that exists along with all of our physical weaknesses.
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<span style="font-weight: bold">Is God a Poor Designer?</span>
Intelligent Design theory is often (as here, for example) countered by complaints that organisms are so poorly designed, and break down so badly, they could not have been built by a God who knew what he was doing. As an objection to ID as science, this misses completely: the scientific program does not attempt to identify the designer, and is only trying to establish the fact of design, beyond what could reasonably have been produced by unguided causes. That's all. The fact that my 15-year old Camry is starting to rattle does not mean it wasn't planned by intelligent engineers, and the fact that life is not perfect does not begin to prove it did not come from an intelligent source.
This charge that God did a poor job calls for a Biblical clarifying response, though, apart from the ID question. What was God intending to do when he created? Did something go wrong? And if so, what was it?
I believe that the God of the Bible was the creator of the universe. That belief, for the record, is not necessarily linked with Intelligent Design, although certainly in my opinion, the Designer for whom the ID program is seeking an empirically identifiable mark in natural history is none other than God. I also believe that God's creative work can be (and is) known, even if his mark in nature is not written in just the way ID is seeking to demonstrate it. Neither of those convictions is essential to ID theory. (I have to make that clear before proceeding, because so many ID opponents have accused ID of being something other than it is.)
Did God design us poorly? Does the fact of illness, injury, infirmity mean that God was not quite up to snuff when he created us? There are two possible theistic answers: one is that God, in fact, didn't do a terribly good job in the first place; the other is that he built it right but something has gone wrong. I'm convinced the latter is true, and that this really helps us understand who God is, and to have better insight into the mess we're in.
There's no denying it's a mess. One of my very good friends was in the hospital yesterday with a very frightening bleeding episode. He's recovering well now, with much thanks for the medical help he received. Others do not come out as well, and in the end, we all die.
And we might as well throw another difficulty into the mix as well. I lost a cousin last week to an act of truly senseless violence. (I think I'll probably write about that when I get ready to, but I'm not there yet.) This illustrates--quite vividly for me, I assure you--the horrifying, rampant evil that exists along with all of our physical weaknesses.
Rest of Article
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