In response to Preston G's post, Bryan Cross wrote:
>I don't know much about the HIV virus, so I cannot say whether it shows
>signs of intelligent design. The ID thesis has no problem with natural
>evil, because the ID thesis makes no claims about the moral character of
>the designer(s). The problem of natural evil falls upon those who identify
>the designer as a good, omniscient, omnipotent God who continually
>sustains and governs His creation, i.e. the problem falls upon theists. If
>the HIV virus contains SCI or IC systems, then those theists who maintain
>that these cannot arise by [providence-governed] chance alone might claim
>either that the HIV virus (1) was created de novo or (2) was formed by
>mutations caused by direct divine action or (3) resulted from a
>devolution, or loss of original proper function by loss of information or
>removal from the environment in which it was designed to function. Those
>theists who claim that the formation of natural evils such as HIV virus were
>either codified into the initial settings of the universe or effected by
>providence-governed mutations are no more immune to this problem than are
>the theists who maintain that SCI and IC cannot arise by
>[providence-governed] chance.
In general, I would have to agree with Bryan that such cases of "natural
evil" (a term that I use lightly, since I am not exactly sure how it is
used in such discussions and have little sense of whether or not it is a
sound theological notion) are fundamentally no more of a problem for
Christian IDologists than for any other Christian. The problem of pain
(I'll back away here on whether it is evil) is a basic theological problem
for all of us who are theists.
There are problems, however, with Bryan's three explanatory options for the
Christian IDologist with regard to HIV. The first option is simply false;
HIV is phylogenetically related to other natural viruses (I could get some
references if necessary). The second option does not support ID unless
those mutations (from a pre-existing ancestral viral "species") could not
have occurred by known forms of genetic mutation; ID would have to show not
simply that HIV was amazingly designed as a whole but that the mutational
steps between related viruses and HIV could not have taken place naturally
while maintaining a viable virus. I find the possibility of being able to
prove such a thing to be very nearly zero. Finally, the third explanatory
option is invalid for the IDologist since it argues that the feature which
makes HIV pathogenic is the result of a natural mutational loss of
"intended" function. This is nonsense. The key innovation or "design"
feature which makes HIV what it is is its pathogenicity. This is the
feature which must be explained if one is going to conclude that HIV was
intelligently designed. If indeed some ancestral virus lost or rearranged
some genetic material that caused it to become HIV, this is evidence for
UNintelligent design (by mutation).
I know that Bryan was (probably off the top of his head) voicing what a
theist IDologist might say. Nevertheless, let me clarify that in natural
science, there is no such thing as "devolution" or "proper"
function. There is only evolution (change) and function. Function is by
definition whatever something DOES, not what it OUGHT to do.
Doug
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