With respect to the recent flurry of posts on ID, David Livingstone's
distinction between arguments "from design" and "to design" may be useful.
Howard, George Murphy, Thomas Torrance etc. [as I read them] have argued that
starting with Christian theism entails an inference TO design. IDers
following Paley, Vatican I and others have argued that one can go FROM design
(certain empirical conditions) to the existence of a "designer". (I
intentionally avoid the use of the term "God" because ID per se is not
theistic let alone Christian.) There is a long history of both these
approaches to Natural Theology going back at least to Aquinas and William of
Ockham and the dispute is unlikely to be settled soon, although Alasdair
MacIntyre's "embedded narrative" approach and Nick Wolterstorff's "control
beliefs" help to understand the dispute and provide potential approaches to
resolving such questions. IDers may occupy a time-tested position, but it's
hardly the only legitimate Christian position available.
Perhaps (as so often) Pascal said it best:
"Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and
hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our
knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and
not by those who do not. THERE IS ENOUGH LIGHT FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE ONLY TO
SEE, AND ENOUGH DARKNESS FOR THOSE OF A CONTRARY DISPOSITION." [Emphasis mine]
Karl
BTW (re: Bill's positioning of chance and necessity as antithetic to ID),
isn't the successful financial empire fueling the explosive growth of Las
Vegas an example of design based on chance and necessity? :-)
********************
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com