I enjoy reading other people's blogs. One of my favorites is by a man named Dinesh D'souza. He is a believer in both God and evolution. He is a Christian apologeticist and one of the best in the world. Below is a link to his thoughts on the problem with Intelligent Design and the fight creationists are engaging in for equal representation in the classroom.
F.Y.I. - while I am certain I am an "Intelligent Design" guy - a view that says God created the heavens and the earth - I do not know if I am a "Creationist" - a belief that says God did it in 6/24hr days. I am certainly open to it as I have clearly stated in an earlier post, however, as I am examining what Scripture's actual claim is and how Gen. 1 & 2 can be legitimately interpreted, I am becoming more open to the idea of an old earth.
I will comment more on this in another post. In the meantime, enjoy some of Dinesh's thoughts!
1 comment:
The way I put it, I believe the Word of God is true and infallible, but our interpretations of it are not. I would have to reject a theory of origin that does not jibe with the Word, but I will not cling blindly to any single interpretation of the creation story.
But I think science is by nature atheistic. If you think about it, when we study e.g. the way two chemicals mix, we want to know how they consistently react with each other. We aren't interested in a single case, and we don't expect that they're going to do something different every time. We're looking for a principle that exists independent of the will or intelligence of any being. It is atheistic in the sense that we don't care what God is doing in a particular case, we only care about "natural law".
That's ok applied to theoretical sciences like physics or chemistry, where clearly God has set consistent laws in place. But talking about an event such as the origins of the world or humanity, we're talking about a single event that happened, not a theoretical principle. In other words, we don't care how species become in general, we care about how the specific species on our planet came to be as they are. We don't care how planets form, we care how Earth formed. It's like the difference between studying the sociological aspects of murder and actually solving a murder mystery.
To me, the essence of ID is that when we see something that has the hallmarks of intelligence, we call a spade a spade. We don't try to come up with some crazy theory to accommodate a purely natural-law solution -- in other words, an atheistic solution. We're willing to see God's direct will and intervention as an answer to the "hows". Whatever the deficiencies of the current ID movement may be, that seems like sound philosophy to me.
Consider this analogy: Mars rover is rolling along Mars and suddenly bumps into an object. On further examination, it turns out to be a solid cube of pure carbon, exact in its proportions and smooth as glass. In the exact center of each side are carved three concentric shapes: a perfect circle, a perfect square, and a perfect triangle.
Would not such an object be received instantly as proof of intelligent life on Mars? Would anyone attempt to explain this away as a product of erosion or chance? Would anyone take such an explanation seriously? Even with a complete lack of any other evidence of alien intelligence, I think everyone would agree this object could not exist by accident.
It seems to me that the same principle ought to be applied to biochemistry and origins studies. To me, that's what ID is all about.
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