I have read most of the postings critical of my stance on ID, including
those by a person who claims to know my intentions even better than I do
myself! Quite amazing.
I am not inclined to take time now to engage in a point by point rebuttal.
I'm quite content to let observers consider both sides and to evaluate them
on their own merits.
However, for the purpose of clarifying what my position is, following is a
working draft of a portion of a manuscript intended for eventual
publication. This excerpt comes toward the end of the chapter, after some
comentary on the shortcomings of the creation/evolution debate [between
episodic creationism and evolutionary naturalism] and on some Christian
responses to it.
Persons interested in more on this topic are encouraged to read my essay,
"The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped?" in the
October, 1998, issue of _Theology Today_, pp. 344-364.
Cordially,
Howard J. Van Till
Begin text of excerpt:
There is no substantial reason for continuing to hold to a portrait of the
Creation's formational history [episodic creationism] that is in serious
trouble, and rightly so, on purely scientific grounds. The energy of the
Christian community should be spent, not on attempting to defeat the
scientific concept of biotic evolution, but on exposing the transparently
hollow claims commonly made by the preachers of Naturalism. The Robust
Formational Economy Principle is *not* the property of Naturalism and the
scientific concept of biotic evolution does *not* in any way make a Creator
unnecessary. Quite the contrary on both counts--Who but a Creator having
unfathomable creativity and unlimited generosity could both thoughtfully
conceptualize and give being to a universe having so robust a formational
economy that its astounding diversity of structures and life forms could be
actualized in time by the employment of those capabilities? Is a
fully-gifted universe less in need of a Creator than a universe with gaps
in its formational economy? If one's response to the Naturalistic taunt is
founded, not on the presumptions of Naturalism, but on the historic
Christian doctrine of creation, then the clear answer is, "Surely not; in
fact it is even more in need of a Creator's thoughtful conceptualization
and generous gifting."
[Note: The 'Naturalistic taunt' is: "If there are no gaps in the
formational economy of the universe, then what need is there for a
Creator?"]
The scoring system of the contemporary creation/evolution debate is as
upside down as one could imagine. As it now stands, each scientific
discovery of a creaturely capability that makes the formational economy of
the universe look more robust is credited to the account of evolutionary
Naturalism. Meanwhile, the truth of the Christian doctrine of creation, by
its having been coupled with the episodic creationist picture, is made to
appear as if it were dependent upon the presence of gaps in that
formational economy, gaps formed by the absence of selected creaturely
capabilities. Some Christians even encourage the development of a
science-like enterprise that searches for empirical evidence for the
presence of such gaps. Instead of joy at the discovery of creaturely gifts
given by the Creator to the Creation, will there be joy over evidence of
gifts withheld? What an irony it would be if the preachers of Naturalism
had a higher view of the Creation's giftedness than did the preachers of
Christ.
Intelligent Design to the Rescue? Not Likely
During the past few years there have appeared a number of books and
articles promoting the thesis that there is empirical evidence favoring the
conclusion that the universe has been 'intelligently designed.' If my
understanding is correct, other contributors to this volume will represent
this particular viewpoint.
As some readers may know, I have often been cited as a critic of the ID
(Intelligent Design) movement now under way. Why would I be critical of
such a movement? Have I not already made it abundantly clear that, as one
who holds to the historic Christian doctrine of creation, I do heartily
believe that the universe was designed by an intelligent Creator? I
certainly hope that I have. Then, to use a line employed earlier, Where's
the beef? Wouldn't a Creation gifted with a robust formational economy
exhibit, in a manner accessible to the empirical natural sciences, the
marks of having been 'intelligently designed'? Evidently not, according to
the literature of the Intelligent Design movement .
The relationship of 'robust formational economy' and the concept of
'Intelligent Design' depends, of course, on the current working definition
of ID, which may differ considerably from one's first impression of the
term's meaning. Given my involvement in the evaluation of the ID movement,
I recently conducted an experiment on the students enrolled in my physical
science course, a course designed for students not majoring in any of the
natural sciences. About a month or two into the course, and without having
yet made any reference to the term 'intelligent design,' I placed the
following question on the blackboard at the beginning of class: "Do you
think there is any empirical evidence that would support the conclusion
that the universe was intelligently designed?"
The students, all Christians to the best of my knowledge, began to respond
very positively to this question, citing as evidence such features of the
universe as its orderliness, its beauty, the intricately patterned
character of its behavior as described by the laws of physics, its
coherence-all taken to be evidence that the Designer of the universe was
not stupid, but rather intelligent. After allowing this listing of
evidences to go on for a while, I interrupted the process and asked,
"Before listing evidence that the universe possesses character trait X,
shouldn't we make certain that we know exactly what trait X is?"
The students had little choice but to agree, so I wrote a second question
on the board: "What does it mean to be 'intelligently designed'?" I also
explained to them that this term 'intelligent design' was being used as a
label for the defining concept of a movement in the arena of Christian
thought regarding the relevance of natural science to matters of religious
significance and that I was curious to know what this term would convey to
them if its specific meaning in this context were not spelled out ahead of
time. We spent a good share of the remaining class time collecting answers
to my second question. Certain themes began to characterize their
unprompted responses. (I did my best not to steer them in any particular
direction.) To be intelligently designed, they offered, was to have been
"carefully planned," to have been "thoroughly thought out," to have been
"intended," etc. Furthermore, the intelligent designing of something would
require having some specific "purposes or goals" in mind.
Looking at the full list of their contributions, and finding them clustered
around a limited number of themes, I proposed the following as a statement
that incorporated all of them: "To be 'intelligently designed' is to be
thoughtfully conceptualized for the accomplishment of some comprehensive
purpose." They agreed that this brief statement did capture well the
essence of what they perceived to be what it meant to be 'intelligently
designed.'
I found this response of my students very informative and fascinating,
especially so because it affirmed something that I had earlier concluded.
To a person in the late twentieth century, saying that something has been
'intelligently designed' would ordinarily be taken to mean that something
has been purposefully intended and thoughtfully conceptualized. In other
words, 'intelligent design' is presumed to be the action of Mind.
The designing action of the mind is to be distinguished from the various
actions performed by hands. An artisan or a skilled craftsman works with
his/her hands to assemble some structure from its component parts or to
mold materials into some new form, shape or configuration. It is an action
in which form is imposed on raw materials, or one in which parts are
assembled by an agent into some new structure. This forming or structuring
action of the artisan's hands is necessary because neither the raw
materials nor the component parts have been equipped with the capabilities
to actualize that form or structure.
As I expected, my students took the meaning of 'intelligent design' from
the current usage of the word 'design.' But this meaning is different from
earlier meanings of the term. In traditional natural theology, the action
of 'design' was generally thought to require both mind and hands. The
traditional Design Argument, perhaps most often associated with the name of
eighteenth century clergyman William Paley, is based on the artisan
metaphor. One person, the artisan, did both the designing (planning, or
thoughtful conceptualization for the accomplishment of some chosen purpose)
and the assembling of what had first been conceptualized. The mind of
Paley's watchmaker did the conceptualization of the watch's mechanism, and
his hands did the forming of the parts and the assembling of them into a
complete and functioning timepiece. When Paley and others who advocated a
form of natural theology to argue from the recognition of 'design' in the
natural world to the existence of a Designer, the work of the Designer
required the action of both Mind and the divine equivalent of "Hands."
As I understand their literature, today's proponents of Intelligent Design
argue that there is empirical evidence that clearly indicates that certain
specific organisms or biotic subsystems possess the property of
'irreducible complexity.' An 'irreducibly complex' system is made up of
several interacting parts, all of which must be present for the system to
function in its characteristic manner. The standard mousetrap is taken as
the exemplar of irreducible complexity; take away any one of its
functioning parts and it ceases to be a mousetrap. It is further argued
that there is no conceivable way in which the several parts of the
organisms or biotic subsystems cited could have been assembled by known
natural processes (with special emphasis on biochemical processes),
especially if natural processes are restricted to gradual, or small
stepwise, modification. Presuming that case to have been made, it is
concluded that systems displaying irreducible complexity must therefore be
the product of 'intelligent design.' That is to say, these systems could
have been actualized for the first time only as the outcome of an act of
extra-natural assembly. By 'extra-natural assembly' I here mean the action
of some unidentified agent that manipulates or coerces certain extant
substructures into a new configuration-specifically a new configuration
that would not have been actualized by the use of the inadequate
capabilities of its component parts or materials.
The bottom line is that what is being called a theory of 'intelligent
design' is in actuality a theory claiming to have demonstrated the
necessity of 'extra-natural assembly.' Why would extra-natural assembly be
required? Because the formational economy of the universe is missing the
particular creaturely capabilities that would be needed for self-assembly.
In other words, Intelligent Design theory, like its cousin episodic
creationism, claims to have produced empirical evidence for the presence of
gaps in the formational economy of the Creation, gaps that would require
supplementary divine action in the course of time to bridge. How would the
Creation's formational economy come to have those gaps? By divine intention
to withhold certain capabilities, I presume.
Where does ID theory take us? Some enthusiastic supporters are hailing it
as a giant leap forward in the war against Naturalism, an historic
revolution in the making. Is that really the case? Or, does ID theory take
us back to the same inverted scoring system as in the creation/evolution
debate, and back to the search for gifts withheld from the Creation? Why
not instead promote the 'Fully-Gifted Creation Perspective' in which the
search for gifts withheld is replaced with the celebration of each new
creaturely capability discovered by the sciences as further evidence of
God's creativity and generosity?
End of excerpt.