Re: Call me a fideist

> >
>>As some have said, I see design because I believe in a designer. I
>>don't believe in a designer because I see design.
>>
>>TG
>
>Terry
>I would agree very closely with your post in which you expressed my
>doubts about evidentialism, though i neither buy into
>presuppositionalism.
>
>Are you saying that you beleive in the argument TO design, rather in
>the argument FROM design. ID and Paley are clearly the latter.
>
>Michael

Michael,

The Shorter Catechism asks "How does God executeth His decrees?" and
answers with "God executeth His decrees in the works of creation and
providence."

The world around us is the result of a purposive will. That's design.
All things are an expression of that design--even what appears to us
to be random. I know this because God has revealed this about His
person and His work, not because I have some objective
design-detector. In this way I can say that the poofy clouds in the
beautiful Colorado blue sky today are just as designed as the
bacterial flagellum. And surely such design is "intelligent design",
since God, among other things is an intelligent being.

If that's what you mean by "the argument TO design", then my answer is "yes".

I fully realize that this is not what ID folks have in mind when they
talk about design. They want to propose evidence that certain things
can be objectively attributed to design much in the way we can
attribute to design certain audio signals or splotches of ink on a
piece of paper or artifacts of human civilization or signals from
extraterrestrial civilizations.

I'm not going to dismiss the possibility of such out of hand.
However, first of all, I don't think that God works that way, and,
second, all their claims to success heretofore are not convincing,
despite the fawning of the evangelical press.

TG

-- 
_________________
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