Ooo--kay . . . so this explains how G-d "guides" evolution without actually "guiding" it, right? And that's why "intelligent design" is wrong?
First, we need to distinguish "Intelligent Design" as it is advanced by the movement centered at the Discovery Institute, from the clasical philosophical (and theological) thesis that the whole world is intelligently designed [created by a perfectly rational Being]. I'll distinguish them by capitalizing the 'I' and 'D' for the former, and using small caps 'i' and 'd' for the latter. The Catholic Church has always believed and taught that the world is intelligently designed. So *everything* is divinely guided in this deeper, providential sense. (That can be seen in Aquinas.) That is a *philosophical* truth. But the ID thesis, on the other hand, is that certain features of the world can be scientifically shown to have been intelligently designed (sometimes the thesis is weakened to "is scientifically the best explanation for"). The Catholic Church has taken no position on the ID thesis.
The theistic evolution position held by some Catholics is that God guides evolution as the primary cause, not in the form of divine interventions (i.e. direct unmediated supernatural miracles). The ID methodology, on the other hand, seeks to show that since there is no plausible natural [not naturalistic] explanation, therefore there must be a supernatural explanation (i.e. an 'intervention' of some sort). That's why it is not infrequently charged with having committed the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. It also tends in practice to treat objects that *do* have natural explanations as not in any sense intelligently designed; and that concerns Catholic philosophers. The fundamental difference then between the two positions (ID and id) is that ID is looking at the whole issue from the point of view of experimental science, whereas the classical philosophical form of intelligent design treats it as a matter of philosophy.
I hope that helps.
-A8
First, we need to distinguish "Intelligent Design" as it is advanced by the movement centered at the Discovery Institute, from the clasical philosophical (and theological) thesis that the whole world is intelligently designed [created by a perfectly rational Being]. I'll distinguish them by capitalizing the 'I' and 'D' for the former, and using small caps 'i' and 'd' for the latter. The Catholic Church has always believed and taught that the world is intelligently designed. So *everything* is divinely guided in this deeper, providential sense. (That can be seen in Aquinas.) That is a *philosophical* truth. But the ID thesis, on the other hand, is that certain features of the world can be scientifically shown to have been intelligently designed (sometimes the thesis is weakened to "is scientifically the best explanation for"). The Catholic Church has taken no position on the ID thesis.
The theistic evolution position held by some Catholics is that God guides evolution as the primary cause, not in the form of divine interventions (i.e. direct unmediated supernatural miracles). The ID methodology, on the other hand, seeks to show that since there is no plausible natural [not naturalistic] explanation, therefore there must be a supernatural explanation (i.e. an 'intervention' of some sort). That's why it is not infrequently charged with having committed the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. It also tends in practice to treat objects that *do* have natural explanations as not in any sense intelligently designed; and that concerns Catholic philosophers. The fundamental difference then between the two positions (ID and id) is that ID is looking at the whole issue from the point of view of experimental science, whereas the classical philosophical form of intelligent design treats it as a matter of philosophy.
I hope that helps.
-A8