Re: Who's Burden of Proof?

Steve, Walt, Howard, et al.

The problem with comparing the divine designer to a human designer is
that no human designer upholds, sustains, and controls the tools and
materials of the system the way God does. This makes the whole
comparison extremely tricky. Human designeers are kind of stuck with
the so-called "laws of nature" and the ways we are currently able to
manipulate matter and energy. No such problem with God...He made,
sustains, and providentially governs things so that they do--past,
present, and future--just as he wants them to do. Tell me about some
human designer who does that! I don't want to be disrespectful to my
engineering brothers and sisters out there, but I think that when we
turn God into just another human engineer we miss much of the
grandeur of His creative power. (Do you honestly believe that God has
to test His designs?) This is partly why I don't view evolutionary
thinking (at the cosmological, geological, or biological level) as
being a big problem. If these scientific theories are even close to
being correct, the fact that God made, sustains, and governs a
universe that does what it does according to these theories is an
amazing testimony to His wisdom, power, and glory.

As Howard has pointed out, we all believe in design. I have asserted
over and over again that EVERTHING is designed (that's a theological
proposition coming from a Calvinist theological position). I don't
believe there is such a thing as chance from God's perspective
(although it may look like chance from our perspective). If we throw
in some of what George Murphy and others have said, that one of God
purposes in designing the universe the way he did was to remain
somewhat "hidden"--that sort of complicates the analogy a bit as well.

Finally, you will notice that I argue from designer to design (not
from design to designer). There's a whole Biblical/theological debate
here as to what Romans 1 means--we've been there before. The
fundamental issue is not "burden of proof" but rather blindness due
to sin. Design is all around us but the mind blinded by sin isn't
going to see it. This is a key flaw I see in the intelligent design
agenda. There is a belief that if we can quantify design that we can
give scientific proof to the existence of God (or whatever ID
theorists chose to call him). The Bible doesn't seem to work that way
(or even encourage us to go that direction). Rather, faith produced
by the preaching of the gospel results in new life and open eyes to
see what one couldn't see before--a designer God.

Of course, the atheist who uses scientific explanations to disprove
God is guilty of not seeing the Designer who is there all along. But,
honestly, don't you expect this of an atheist. They're just trying to
be consistent with their fundamental beliefs.

TG

>Howard wrote:
>> I know of no person on this list who argues against the existence of a
>> designer. So, the invitation quoted above is unlikely to generate
>meaningful
>> debate.
>
>Okay, point taken. So, if an inference from a human designer to a divine
>designer is a reasonable one, the next question concerns the design process.
>Having been a design engineer for over 30 years, I can attest that good
>designers have a great deal in common in their design processes. For one
>thing, the overarching consideration for good designers is that the design
>serves its purpose and works in the real world. This means that design
>processes must be adopted that promote this. Accordingly here are a few of
>the common strategies of good designers:
>
>1) They fully flesh out the purpose and goals of the design.
>
>2) They fully examine the constraints within which they must work.
>
>3) They winnow out unnecessary elements that do not serve the overarching
>goal and develop strategies to work around the unnecessary and/or
>deleterious baggage of prior designs.
>
>4) Since simplicity breeds reliability, they follow Einstein's maxim that
>"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
>
>5) They utilized any existing, tested technology wherever they can.
>
>6) They take existing technology that doesn't quite fit their needs, modify
>it minimally and test it before incorporating it into their designs.
>
>7) Since any unique design has design features that have a higher level of
>risk(not working), they always design in open spaces for change that have
>minimal impact on the rest of the design.
>
>8) For modifications to existing complex systems, good designers keep
>changes small and infrequent so that effects of the change can be evaluated
>and modified before they become catastrophic.
>
>9) They recognize the tentativeness of their analysis and extensively test,
>in real world conditions, things that may have impact on what they value
>most.
>
>10) They continue to tweak the design as needed after production units hit
>the streets.
>
>11) They design to facilitate movement to future versions.
>
>
>The main point in all this is that good designers take extremely seriously
>the goal and purpose of their designs, leave as little to chance as
>possible, and take an *active* role throughout the design process, into
>production, and after distribution. I know of no good designers who would
>allow chance to be a dominant force affecting or driving their designs.
>
>Since God is the designer of the universe and these are the strategies of
>good human designers, should we expect any less an active role from God.
>
>BTW, the design process I described above could be, imo, very similar to a
>description of the natural evolutionary process with what I would call a
>kenotic active designer at work.
>
>Steve Petermann

-- 
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado  80523
grayt@lamar.colostate.edu  http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801