Posted on 08/04/2005 6:47:03 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
President Bush sent reporters into a tizzy this week by saying that he thought schools ought to teach both evolution and intelligent design. Students ought to hear both theories, he said, so they “can understand what the debate is about.”
Well, the usual critics jumped all over the president, but he’s absolutely right. Considering all competing theories was once the very definition of academic freedom. But today, the illiberal forces of secularism want to stifle any challenges to Darwin—even though Darwin is proving to be eminently challengeable.
Take biochemist Michael Behe’s argument. He says that the cell is irreducibly complex. All the parts have to work at once, so it could not have evolved. No one has been able to successfully challenge Behe’s argument.
In fact, the scientific case for intelligent design is so strong that, as BreakPoint listeners have heard me say, even Antony Flew, once the world’s leading philosopher of atheism, has renounced his life-long beliefs and has become, as he puts it, a deist. He now believes an intelligent designer designed the universe, though he says he cannot know God yet.
I was in Oxford last week, speaking at the C. S. Lewis Summer Institute, and had a chance to visit with Flew. He told a crowd that, as a professional philosopher, he had used all the tools of his trade to arrive at what he believed were intellectually defensible suppositions supporting atheism. But the intelligent design movement shook those presuppositions. He said, however, on philosophical grounds that he could not prove the existence of the God of the Bible.
In the question period, I walked to the microphone and told him as nicely as I could that he had put himself in an impossible box. He could prove theism was the only philosophically sustainable position, but he could not prove who God was. I said, “If you could prove who God was, you could not love God—which is the principle object of life.”
I admitted that I had once gotten myself into the same position. I had studied biblical worldview for years and believed that I could prove beyond a doubt that the biblical worldview is the only one that is rational, the only one that conforms to the truth of the way the world is made. But that led to a spiritual crisis of sorts, when one morning in my quiet time I realized that while I could prove all of this, I could not prove who God was. I began to worry: When this life was over, would I really meet Him?
Some weeks later, as I describe in my new book The Good Life, it hit me that if I could prove God, I could not know Him. The reason is that, just as He tells us, He wants us to come like little children with faith. If you could resolve all intellectual doubts, there would be no need for faith. You would then know God the same way that you know the tree in the garden outside your home. You would look at it, know it is there, and that’s it, as Thomas Aquinas once said.
Faith is necessary because without it you cannot love God. So as I said to Dr. Flew, if you could prove God, you couldn’t love Him, which is His whole purpose in creating you. He later told me that I have raised a very provocative point that he would have to give some thought to.
So, I hope you will pray for Antony Flew—a gentle and courageous man who appears to be seeking God. And we should remember that if this brilliant man can be persuaded out of his atheism by intelligent design, anyone can see it. Those of us contending for the intelligent design point of view, which now includes among our ranks the president of the United States, I’m happy to say, are on increasingly solid ground.
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BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!
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The human race has been out of direct contact with the spirit world for a long time, and yet all evidence points to the reality of the spirit world and to our biosphere having been created and not just having happened somehow or other.
I look for contact to be re-established before too much longer.
Charles Colson needs to do more research in this subject.
Therein lies the problem with Intelligent Design. Nobody can challenge it because the theory draws no conclusions that are falsifiable, the hallmark of any good scientific theory. Absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence.
Intelligent Design - interesting philosophy; bad science.
/....'Star Children'.....
(Chuck Colson for 'Pope' of ECT 'Reformed' NAE Ecumenical Philosophy Schools?)
Re: Richard Nixon's famous line,...."Chuck It!"
/sarcasm
I agree. There's no reason to keep American students ignorant any longer. They should be allowed to debate both ideas. In my opinion, they'll choose intelligent design over Darwinism. It's more logical, and I think that's why the legions fear it.
The biblical texts attest to a Creator Whose power is made perfect in weakness. Hence, when Jesus says, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," it becomes clear just how intimately involved the Creator is with His creation, particularly the crowning glory of His creation: mankind.
Science can do just fine without the philosophy of evolution and the theology of the cross, but we do ourselves and our children a disservice in constructing a false dichotomy between science and theology, as if they must be rigidly pigeon-holed for education properly to take place.
Nonetheless he obviously can prove that macroevolution is impossible (it's BEEN proven), thus eliminating the worst choice from the picture. That's progress.
Aboslutely. But please apply this point all around. An absence of evidence for God is not evidence of an absence of God or some sort of Intelligent Design, either. And if evolution advocates would be more flexible in their teaching to allow for the possibility of the hand of God in the creation and development of life on Earth rather than using evolution as proof of a Godless universe and treating religion with contempt, this issue might not be the polarized "all or nothing" debate that it's become. Science and religion don't have to be enemies but the reason why so many religious folks have seemed to become anti-science is that they see science as being anti-God.
How so?
Sorry Mr. Colson, this is very short-sighted on your part and I disagree with your central thesis and description.
This should read "rational forces of Enlightenment that have made this the most successful Country in the history of the World".
BTW, I also disagree vehemently with the President's Pro-Illegal Immigration Policy and think he's dead-wrong on it.
Neither do I.
I have no problem with the idea of intelligent design as an idea, but to call it a scientific conclusion? If a cell, for example, appears irreducibly complex, it either means
A) God (aka. the Designer) is directly responsible or
B) It evolved through naturalistic means (natural selection, genetic drift, etc.) but we don't know how yet.
How can the choice between these conclusions be falsified? We know of several cases of very complex systems (e.g. blood clotting mechanisms, antifreeze in Arctic fish blood), once thought to be irreducibly complex, where solid testable theories of their naturalistic evolution have been found. Does intelligent design say some systems evolved naturally but others require the intervention of the Designer? How does it empirically distinguish between which are which?
I believe science is important; I believe religion is important, but both have limits - muddying the waters between the two does a disservice to both, in my opinion.
ID is not so narrow as to be totally exclusive of that idea, it is one of the competing ideas. What has been dead(for the last 35 years) is evolution by random chance (Darwinism.) What took its place was chemical evolution. This is where the action is where serious study is concerned. But... the leading proponent of CE, actually the guy that literally wrote the book on it is now ID. I do not now the specifics of his view on ID, if he follows the deism track like you or is a creationist.
When properly applied, yes.
How so?
The theory of evolution makes falsifiable predictions (some examples), which can be tested by evidence.
To refer to the current state of evolutionary research as Darwinism is inaccurate; the theory as advanced by leaps since Darwin's time; Darwin's basic idea still holds, but has changed considerably since Darwin's time.
There are still gap's in evolutionary theory, admittedly, just as there are gaps in any scientific theory (even the theory of gravitation). More and more of these gaps are continuously filled in as research continues.
I couldn't agree more on this point.
Many, many scientists who acknowledge evolution have strong faith in God. Evolution really has nothing to say about God, one way or the other; and I do agree, some scientists are guilty of treating religion with contempt (a small minority, in my experience); you will find people in just about every career who are guilty of this. I agree that the politicization of anti-God viewpoints among scientists has hurt both science and religion.
God is not empirically detectable (at least He hasn't revealed himself to be so far) - that's why the theory excludes Him; science is (and should be) silent on this issue, either pro or con, and good science acknowledges it limits.
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