Shoehorning God

[1]

Janne T. Sivula

Thinkingman.fi

2023

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 4 

2. Incoherence  25 

3. Theology  71

4. Scientific usefulness 113 

5. Gaps in Design 181

6. The Evils of Darwinism 235

7. Conclusion 260

1 Introduction

This treatise addresses Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design (ID) is a movement that advocates the idea that the universe is designed and not the product of purely material and naturalistic processes. Much of Intelligent Design argumentation has to do with attempting to demonstrate biological structures that ostensibly could not have been created through natural processes. The promoters of Intelligent Design seek to discover life forms and features that go beyond the limits of evolutionary explanations.

The theory of Intelligent Design holds that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.¹

What are some of those structures? A very famous example is the bacterial flagellum, which is a tail-like protrusion that, by its motion, propels the bacterial cell. In other words, it has an outboard motor that allows it to swim. This flagellum is said to be so complex that it could not have formed naturally. It cannot be reverse-engineered, so it must have been designed. One proponent of Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, has used the analogy of the mousetrap, which consists of several interlocking parts. Supposedly, all these parts must be present for the device to work. If one or more parts are removed, the function will no longer be present. This mousetrap is compared to a living being or a biochemical structure. If it had evolved piece by piece, what would it have been good for until it could perform its function? It is argued that many chemical structures must have been created simultaneously because the individual parts are interdependent. If even one molecular

part were to be removed, the structure could no longer function properly.  The founder of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, himself believed that irreducibly complex structures would disprove his theory:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,   my theory would absolutely break down. (The Origin of Species).

Another representative of ID, William A. Dembski has invented the sister concept of complex specified information. Science uses naturalistic explanations, or, in the words of biologist Jacques Monod, chance and necessity. With his filter, Dembski wants to eliminate these two. Consequently, the remaining option must be design. 

Proponents of ID also usually make a distinction between small-scale evolution, or microevolution, and large-scale phenotypic change, or macroevolution. In simpler terms, micro-evolution encompasses the small changes that can occur within animal species over short periods of time and are often directly observable. Microevolution is thought to result in some degree of adaptation through random mutation and natural selection. Macroevolution refers to the broader idea that animal species can become whole new types of species, or kinds over long periods of time. Macroevolution is considered extremely unlikely, if not downright impossible, by most proponents of the Intelligent Design movement. According to the ideology of Intelligent Design, microscopic changes do not accumulate into macroscopic changes under any circumstances. It is assumed that new genetic information never arises through evolution: there are no mechanisms or processes that could add new information, increase the molecular makeup and behavior of DNA, to a genome. Many arguments aim to show that basic body plans, or kinds, cannot possibly rise through natural processes. Thus, it takes God or an Intelligent Designer to create large-scale changes in life forms.

Abiogenesis refers to the original evolution of living organisms from inorganic, nonliving, or inanimate substances. Most researchers consider that the origin of life is due to a natural process, but the exact process is still unknown.  Opposition to abiogenesis is as common among the proponents of Intelligent Design and creationists as is their opposition to evolution. The common argument goes: Life only arises from pre-existing life; DNA is a code, and codes have makers. They cannot believe that there is a materialistic explanation for the information in the cell. The assumption is that these structures have the life-giving organization that one might expect from intentional craftsmanship.

Intelligent design arguments do not attempt to deny the general basis of evolution on a large scale. They accept deep time as the framework for considering the span of human history within the larger age of the universe and planet Earth. They accept that there were first simple cells, prokaryotes, and later eukaryotes. They do not try to deny that life evolved for billions of years in the oceans before becoming multicellular. They only deny that this process was due to naturalistic and materialistic reasons alone. Intelligent design assumes that God directs the process of life. Another way to describe Intelligent Design would be to call it

An antievolutionary proposal that some complex features of living things,   particularly molecular machines and biochemical pathways, are impossible   to construct following existing models of evolutionary change and thus provide evidence for the intervention into the history of life by an intelligent   agent.[2]

The Intelligent Design movement opposes the notion of an undesigned world, seen as the evolutionary result of blind natural forces. Evolution, understood as an undirected, natural process involving genes, probability, and populations, is explained as insufficient to produce any novelty in the development of organisms. Evolutionary processes are often described as unguided. Therefore, they cannot have produced the complexity and purposefulness of life. Evolution is often described as blind, naturalistic, random, chance-like, materialistic, mechanistic, undirected, mindless, and accidental. It is random, uncaused, and unpredictable. In contrast, design is seen as a purposeful activity of the mind, intentional, and the origin of purpose.

Intelligent design theory challenges the findings of biology and biochemistry. They doubt the ability of natural mechanisms, such as mutations and natural selection, to explain biological life forms. They do not believe that life can emerge without the influence of a supernatural agent, which they clearly believe to be God.

The approach of ID to design might be called interventionism, mysterianism, and contrarianism. They have an adversarial relationship with evolutionary science, which they view as materialistic and atheistic. Their approach opposes a materialist paradigm in science or philosophical naturalism. It is a view of the world that excludes the supernatural or spiritual (Oxford Dictionary). Mainstream science is considered resistant to anything but materialistic explanations. Its critique of evolution is not aimed at finding unknown natural causes. It is aimed at finding reasons to believe in immaterial causes, or, in other words, supernatural intervention. They believe that an external source, such as a supernatural Designer, is necessary to create certain kinds of changes in organisms. ID proponents argue that there are no natural causes to be found for the problems of abiogenesis and the creation of new genetic information. It is, then, inferred that an Intelligent Designer is the missing cause and explanation. 

The term mysterianism is known from discussions regarding free will and consciousness.  Mysterianism is a philosophical position that holds that certain aspects of the mind and consciousness are inherently mysterious. They cannot be fully understood by humans. The term applies to Intelligent Design thought in a different sense, describing its excessive focus on mysteries. They obsess over the remaining unsolved problems within evolutionary science. They highlight problems within scientific explanations for the origin of humanity. They seek out obstacles and impediments to the origin of life itself. The goal seems to be to portray evolution and abiogenesis as incurably problematic. To solve the problems, they wish to make an inference to the most likely explanation, which, according to them, is the direct actions of an immaterial mind. The bacterial flagellum and the Cambrian explosion invoke design, which in turn invokes God. Indeed, if an artificial design has taken place, we may never gain these answers as to what happened. In all likelihood, the origin of structures that were constructed by a supernatural entity must remain a mystery to us forever. I reiterate this point in chapter 4.

Intelligent design can be characterized as a contrarian movement. The term "c

ontrarian refers to attitudes that oppose or reject popular opinion and go against current practice.  While the ID proponents do have scientific credentials, their views represent a small minority within the scientific community. The term is known for climate change issues, for example. There is a scientific consensus that the global warming of Earth is human-caused. The term refers to individuals frequently denying the documented realities of climate change and its consequences. Similarly, ID proponents take an opposing stance to the documented realities of evolution and abiogenesis. They stand against scientific consensus. They seek to underline the present gaps in our scientific knowledge concerning the incremental naturalistic processes by which biological structures and life forms came into being. Problems with evolutionary theory, or Darwinism" are presented because they seem to lend credibility to design.

Evolution and God

In general, the proponents of ID reject evolution, which they usually refer to as Darwinism. There is nothing inherently atheistic about evolution. There are billions of theists in the world who accept it. The Christian organization BioLogos advocates evolutionary creationism, also known as theistic evolution. They attribute the diversity of life on Earth to the God-ordained process of evolution. Evolutionary creationism is a form, or an interpretation, of evolution as God’s activity. It is a process theological view: God works through natural processes. According to this view, God uses evolution to create the universe according to His plan. From a scientific perspective, evolutionary creationism is almost indistinguishable from theistic evolution. Deism postulates a God who works through natural laws. Deists believe that the world was created through them. These views of creation are not real alternatives to biological evolution. They interpret evolution as the way God acted. A person who adheres to deism or evolutionary creationism would not try to overturn evolutionary science or any other science that deals with the origin of humankind.

In a sense, anyone who believes in God must be a creationist. They must believe that the processes that led to the creation of man were the work of God. The problem is that the word creationism loses its meaning when it stands for any kind of belief in the creation of the universe. In most cases, evolutionary creationism represents an oxymoron – evolution and creationism are contradictory descriptions of the origin of mankind. They are opposite sides of an average debate.

The word create is a neutral term. In principle, the word create can mean creation through natural processes. In creationist usage, however, creating means intentional activity, not natural processes. Most often, creationism refers to a special creation. This is the idea that the world was created in its present form by a single sequence of deliberate actions. Creationists believe that God’s creative activity is incompatible with  natural explanations for the origin of the universe, life, and human beings. For most creationists, creation must involve conscious activity; a deity acting directly in creating the world.

Some religions and philosophies believe that the process of creation is more akin to something flowing or radiating from God. This is sometimes referred to as emanation. The physical world flows from a spiritual source through gradations. These gradations become more and more concrete, with the material world emerging last. Most creationists do not accept this view of creation. To them, biological evolution invalidates the idea of God; God needs to be directly involved. For this reason, creationists usually hold very strong anti-scientific and especially anti-evolutionary views. 

According to the biblical account of creation, God made two great lights to govern the day and a lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. In Genesis, God sees, calls, says, makes, blesses, and gives, indicating thought and conscious activity. God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Later, He creates Eve from Adam’s rib. It is clear that this God is not just an impersonal force from which the universe radiates. He is an active, personal being interacting with the world. Biological evolution explains the diversification of life through natural causes such as natural selection and mutation. It does not involve a deity that interacts with the world.

In contrast, in some sections of Genesis, God lets the land produce vegetation, the water teem with living creatures, and the land produce living creatures. So, God endows the natural elements with the ability to create. In other words, the land and water independently bring forth life, while God is passive.  Proponents of ID are not Genesis literalists. However, the book usually cited to refute evolution does offer a naturalistic origin for the formation of life. Life forms automatically arise from the water and Earth that God first created.

Creationists argue that biological evolution is not an adequate explanation for the diversity of species on Earth. They seek to discredit the scientific account of humanity’s origin through biological evolution and other naturalistic processes. Therefore, creationists seek to minimize the evidence for evolution. They expend a great deal of energy questioning scientific discoveries and mocking what they perceive as failed science. They deny much of evolutionary science and seek to portray discoveries as compatible with religious narratives while ignoring whatever is not. They want to justify the rationality and superiority of God by seeking to expose the flaws of evolutionary theory.  They seem to believe that the more they succeed at falsifying evolution, the more it appears that God was personally involved in creating life. This type of anti-evolutionary effort unites creationists and the ID movement. 

However, they offer almost no empirical evidence for God or for the idea that the world, life, and humanity were specially created by God. Therefore, this thought only works under strong assumptions about the existence of God: special creation is automatically true if the evidence for evolution proves insufficient.

So, what does ID bring to the discussion against other views? For proponents of ID, providing evidence for design is primarily about refuting biological evolution and abiogenesis. They seek to disprove the adequacy of natural processes for the emergence of human life. If there is a big tent for Intelligent Design, the only approach that does not fit within its boundaries is theistic evolution. God must be directly involved in the biological processes leading to the origin of man. On the other hand, they do not attempt to prove a literal interpretation of Genesis 1. Instead, they accept the Logos theology of John: God creates through his Word. This creates a strong dichotomy: God must be personally involved in biological evolution, but elsewhere He operates through the laws of nature.

Besides ID, the content of this book addresses the more lenient forms of creationist thought. Progressive creationists accept the modern scientific view of the Big Bang. They agree that Earth is billions of years old but reject the theory of evolution. In their view, God created different kinds of plants and animals within which limited (micro) evolution occurred. God has created many different forms of life from time to time. The Old Earth Creationist position accepts an Old Earth and limited evolution within species over time. Gap creationists believe that a long period of time elapsed between the Genesis cosmological creation story and the fall of man. Day-age creationists accept the Genesis creation days as metaphorical and thus the possibility of a very old Earth.   Creationists’ arguments may vary in emphasis. However, the general tenor remains the same. For most creationists, it is not enough that God was behind the Big Bang. Such a view is considered too yielding, atheistic, and materialistic. In general. The various types of creationism have much in common with Intelligent Design. They all reject the theory of evolution, but accept the larger framework of deep time, the Big Bang, and the formation of the cosmos through natural processes. They want to emphasize the idea that humanity is a special and distinct creation of God.

Young Earth creationism rejects the truth of other scientific discoveries from many different scientific disciplines, such as cosmology. They deny the reality of human evolution and the age estimates of the universe. Radiometric dating is seen as fundamentally flawed. They emphasize created kinds and reject the taxonomic system. This means that they believe that life forms were created separately by God in their present form, as opposed to a natural creation through evolutionary processes. Frequently, they also reject uniformitarianism, which is the working assumption that natural laws and processes have operated in the past in the same way we see them operating now, rendering scientific research impossible. According to young Earth creationists, the Designer, the Christian God, must have intentionally made or built the universe, as described in Genesis 1. In YEC, there is a much higher level of evolution and science denialism that won’t be addressed in this book.

What is Design?

At the heart of this debate are theism and deism. Does design need to involve God's interaction with the universe? Does God act exclusively via the laws of nature or supernaturally, deliberately overriding and intervening in the laws of nature?

According to the proponents of ID, the universe is inherently designed: the laws of nature are fine-tuned for life. God differentiated the infinitely dense matter at the Big Bang. He added to the universe the physical laws that were necessary for the emergence of life. There is also an artificial design. This type of design is inserted directly into the world. More specifically, artificial design was, in their view, added to lifeforms and their internal structures and systems billions of years after the Big Bang.

When we think of a design, we think of a person who deliberately draws plans and implements them in real life. The dictionary definition of design is a plan or drawing produced to show the appearance and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is made." A design can be a plan, scheme, template, or blueprint – a set of instructions for the final product to build and sustain itself. It could also mean an initial specification for how a machine will operate. A machine is first designed by an engineer. When it is finished and carrying out its function, it is acting on its innate design. A design might manifest itself in an assembly line robot that assembles a part of a car, for instance. The design is something that is innate to the machine without anyone consciously controlling it. 

Another way to describe this design would be to compare it to a seed. A seed contains, in the form of its DNA, the information that the tree needs to grow to its full size and develop branches and leaves. In a sense, one could say that a seed contains a blueprint for the tree. It determines the characteristics of the mature tree, such as its species, size, and shape. The blueprint is a kind of pre-programming of the universe. 

This first kind of design could be called natural design. It is in contrast to the artificial design. Artificial means things that are made or manufactured as opposed to occurring naturally. It usually refers to a man-made or manufactured object, typically one of cultural or historical interest. Adherents of ID compare chemical structures allegedly created by the Intelligent Designer to man-made objects. The famous analogy in discussions of design is, of course, the watchmaker analogy. In this analogy, the universe (or various objects in it) is like a watch that has a maker (God), and is thus artificial. The father of this analogy is the Christian philosopher William Paley (1743 – 1805). He gave one of the most famous explanations of it in his book, Natural Theology: 

Anyone finding a pocket watch in a field will recognize that it was  designed intelligently; living beings are similarly complex and must be the   work of an intelligent designer.

He continues by saying:

The watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some t  ime, and at some place or order an artificer or artificers who formed it.

In Paley’s famous example, a man walking through the countryside comes across a watch that no one would believe came into being on its own. According to Paley, if we found a watch in a field, we would assume it was constructed, since it is impossible for it to have been created by natural processes. A watch is a highly complex device that is clearly designed and intentionally built by an intelligent creator with a specific purpose in mind. A watch cannot simply appear from pieces of metal and glass alone. To make a watch, a watchmaker must work with the materials. As another example, he cites the intricacies of the eye and hand. In his view, they could never have evolved on their own in response to the blind forces of nature.

Unlike natural objects like mountains and rocks, man-made objects are clear evidence of the contrivance of parts. They are artifacts. The term artifact could be defined as a thing that owes its physical characteristics or place in time and space to human activity. However, the term can also be applied to other beings as well, such as an immaterial Intelligent Designer. This being is supposedly rational and conscious, like humans. Supposedly, artificial objects could be the result of the actions of other conscious beings, such as aliens, angels, spirits, or gods. 

ID proponents believe that there is artificial design. This is something that is implanted in the universe, or more precisely, in life, through conscious and intentional activity. Artificial design presupposes that natural design already exists. Artificial design means taking certain materials, changing them, or guiding them toward a specific purpose. For example, Bible-believing Christians believe that man was artificially made from the dust of the earth, and woman, from the man’s rib. Most creationists accept microevolution as part of the natural design of the universe. However, macroevolution on a larger scale is not. It must be artificially implanted in life forms. This means that the Intelligent Designer must change the processes of life. He must intervene to bring about macroevolution. This agent manually creates complex chemical structures and new species and accelerates evolution at times. 

Also, much of the formation of components, or building blocks of life, such as amino acids, phospholipids, and RNA must have occurred naturally. Many of these building blocks are found in space today, and they probably arrived on our planet on comets or asteroids. However, most ID proponents and creationists reject the idea that life itself could arise naturally. Artificial design must have occurred using pre-existing building blocks that formed naturally to begin with. 

Artificial design could mean something like what a gardener does to a tree. He guides its growth by trimming and pruning it to make it look good, fit in with its surroundings, and stay in good health. He manip ulates by hand the natural structure of the tree. He has a separate design in mind that he wants to impose on the plant.

One could make another important distinction by using the terms automatic and manual, as well. The universe creates its structures automatically and spontaneously. Creationists and defenders of ID often argue that there is an innate, natural design in the universe. The universe has natural laws, which are said to be fine-tuned, that automatically shape and maintain it. It organizes itself, for example, by creating new stars and planets that condense from molecular clouds. However, some proponents of ID claim that the structures of life have required the manual and deliberate efforts of a designing agent.

The first type of design is a must. There must be a natural design for there to be an artificial design. Assuming there is a god, He must have caused the Big Bang, which represents the appearance of matter, energy, space, and time. The Big Bang is the absolute minimum of God's activity. Whatever activity one ascribes to God, for instance, guiding evolution or directing abiogenesis, has to entail that God installed the processes in the first place. There must first be a natural universe if there is to be an artificial or supernatural intervention in the universe.

The arguments point to the existence of an intelligent agent that intentionally creates certain aspects of the universe and is responsible for the complexity of living organisms. ID theorists believe that an intelligent being brought the universe, life, and humans into existence and, conversely, that no unguided natural process could have produced their complexity. In cases where naturalistic processes are deemed inadequate, an Intelligent Designer is known to be able to provide the necessary organization and information to bring about complex biological structures. In discussing Intelligent Design, the Intelligent Designer is usually referred to as a supernatural being rather than a natural being, such as humans. A definition of the supernatural is in order here.

First, the supernatural presupposes transcendence. The supernatural refers to (hypothetical) beings who are super - above or beyond the physical world; they are not subject to the laws of