Re: A dog by any other name
Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@UNCWIL.EDU)
Thu, 15 Jan 1998 09:10:59 -0500 (EST)At 07:39 AM 1/15/98 -0600, Joel Cannon wrote:
>Burgy quoted Phil Johnson:
>
>
>>There is nothing about the intelligent design concept or evidence which
>>necessarily requires the designer to be supernatural. Christians
>>(including myself) will naturally think that the designer is the God of
>>the Bible, but this is for reasons other than that the scientific
>evidence
>>for design inherently requires that conclusion. Behe has a whole
>chapter on
>>this subject in Darwin's Black Box.
>
>>Phil Johnson (quoted with his permission from a private communication)
>
>
>This seems disingenous.
>
>My Webster dictionary's definition of supernatural is, "Being beyond,
>or exceeding, the power or laws of nature," which is also the
>definition of miraculous.
>
>Is Johnson using a different definition?
>
>My understanding of the argument for ID is that there is no
>``natural'' explanation for the diversity of life.
>
>In short, Webster, atheists, and (apparently) most Christians see this
>intelligent designer as God. What other credible possibility is there?
>Surely I don't have to go read a chapter of Behe to find one.
I have read two of the books that Johnson has written and he clearly states
that he is a Christian. There is a sense in which deducing an Intelligent
Designer from observing and studying nature may be viewed as apologetics.
But such an approach is used to clarify the assumptions that some scientists
make which are philosophical/theological in nature. For instance, those
which lead to scientism. Sometimes we must argue with non christians without
referring to the Bible and apologetics seems to me the only way to do that.
It does not mean that we do not accept the Bible as the Word of God, it just
means that the person we are arguing with makes no such assumption.
Moorad