Good points from WLC. I would add that one reservation that Christians need to have regarding the ID movement is that the intelligence that is being presupposed by ID actually is an intelligence that we, as human beings, can already meet. In other words, ID is not proof of God.
By way of demonstrating that, assuming all that the ID movement assumes, it is possible for human beings *right now* to take single-celled organisms, travel to another planet (like Mars), and set up a lab in such a way that we can design those life forms to populate and cover Mars. We could arbitrarily control the way that those future organisms evolve, by artificial selection (something breeders do with regularity already). We could then depart after a few thousand years with new life forms on Mars that would have evidence they were intelligently put there, but which were not put there by God but by us, as humans. The only thing keeping us from doing so is A) the lack of a desire to do so, and B) the funding necessary to do so.
But suppose that 10,000 years ago (or 4 billion, or whatever), an alien race that just loved to tinker with organisms did just that to us now. We would have ID...but not God.
I think that Christians need to be wary of this. ID is a much better answer than undirected Darwinism, and Christian theism is consistent with ID in a way that it is not with Darwinism, but the unbeliever who is compelled by logic to accept ID will still refuse to accept Christ without a heart change.
Good points from WLC. I would add that one reservation that Christians need to have regarding the ID movement is that the intelligence that is being presupposed by ID actually is an intelligence that we, as human beings, can already meet. In other words, ID is not proof of God.
ReplyDeleteBy way of demonstrating that, assuming all that the ID movement assumes, it is possible for human beings *right now* to take single-celled organisms, travel to another planet (like Mars), and set up a lab in such a way that we can design those life forms to populate and cover Mars. We could arbitrarily control the way that those future organisms evolve, by artificial selection (something breeders do with regularity already). We could then depart after a few thousand years with new life forms on Mars that would have evidence they were intelligently put there, but which were not put there by God but by us, as humans. The only thing keeping us from doing so is A) the lack of a desire to do so, and B) the funding necessary to do so.
But suppose that 10,000 years ago (or 4 billion, or whatever), an alien race that just loved to tinker with organisms did just that to us now. We would have ID...but not God.
I think that Christians need to be wary of this. ID is a much better answer than undirected Darwinism, and Christian theism is consistent with ID in a way that it is not with Darwinism, but the unbeliever who is compelled by logic to accept ID will still refuse to accept Christ without a heart change.
Good point. Thanks, Peter. :-)
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