>I'm rather repulsed by
>the image of God which comes (to my mind anyway) from the
>argument from design. God the Engineer, God the Machinist.
>Yech ;-).
As an engineer who has been involved in the design of some rather large,
complex systems, and who has followed the efforts of other engineers
designing larger, more complex systems, I'm insulted. This reminds me of a
remark by a writer in "The New Yorker" or some similar pub a number of
years ago: "at this point we have reduced the problem to a problem in
engineering" Yech! I would liked to have invited the author to come solve
this "trivial" problem -- whatever it was.
I know what you're saying, Brian: comparing God to, say, the very
practically-oriented engineer who worries about which bolts to use to
install a motor creates an image of a God who made a very inelegant nature
-- so inelegant that he must constantly tinker with it. And I'm not
claiming that the most sophisticated design ever produced by an engineer is
in any way worthy of comparison to God design activity. But by dabbling in
design, I believe we develop an appreciation for the creativity and
intelligence that's required to do sophisticated design, and perhaps we get
a small glimpse of the creativity God must exercise to design a nature that
He can command with His words.
Finally: Don't take the above too seriously, my friend. :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Hamilton, Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems, GM R&D Center
Warren, MI
hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com / whamilto@mich.com (home)