Re: "Design up to Scratch?" (The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Roberts)

From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 17:52:56 EDT

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    Exactly, George has highlighted the problems and inconsistency of ID. That
    is all there is to say. As far as I can see ID shifts the goal posts at
    will. It's not cricket as we say over here.

    Michael
    > Iain -
    > You've omitted part of my post that, I think, makes my point clearer. To
    > repeat:
    >
    > "OTOH, we can certainly say, from the standpont of faith (which is where
    we
    > ought to begin theological arguments, /fides quarens intellectum/) that
    some
    > structures are designed even if we have perfectly good explanations for
    them in terms of
    > natural processes. IDers have been reticent about answering the question
    "is the
    > carbon-12 nucleus intelligently designed"?" The reason is pretty clear:
    They don't
    > want to say "No" because that would suggest that the rather remarkable
    "coincidences"
    > which make the triple alpha process possible are indeed just coincidences
    which God
    > wasn't especially concerned to make happen. But if they say "Yes" then
    they have an
    > example of an intelligently designed structure which can be explained in
    terms of known
    > physical laws of nuclear & EM interactions. This then suggests that other
    such
    > structures which seem to be intelligently designed can be explained in
    terms of
    > secondary causes without the explicit invocation of a designer."
    >
    > This is a response to Behe's statement cited above (rather than a defence
    of
    > Michael's argument). God can "design" things in the world by acting
    through natural
    > processes - which is what the ideas of concurrence and governanec in
    traditional
    > doctrines of providence speak of. If IDers would make clear their
    agreement with this
    > principle to begin with then I would have fewer problems with their
    arguments. But
    > again, I understand why they hesitate to make a point of this. For if
    they agree that
    > C-12 (e.g.) is "intelligently designed," though explicable in terms of
    known natural
    > processes, then when some other structure which is essential for life is
    encountered, it
    > will be natural for a Christian to suggest that God brought it about
    through natural
    > processes also.
    >
    > Shalom,
    > George
    >
    >
    > George L. Murphy
    > gmurphy@raex.com
    > http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
    >
    >
    >

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