[allmendream]

“What is the difference between the concept of God creating the universe and the concept of Intelligent Design?”

“Intelligent Design” is a very specific formulation that goes something like this.... the universe is very old, and living species are descended via common descent, but evolution is not sufficient to explain the changes necessary, so God has to directly intervene at times.

It is analogous to saying that - Yes, gravity is responsible for the shape of the universe, but it is not sufficient to explain it, so God has to directly intervene at times to hold everything together and keep everything in orbit.

It posits a not very intelligent designer, whose tool to change living species, natural selection of genetic variation, is not sufficient to the task assigned it - necessitating direct intervention.

[Heartlander]

Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism…
-Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), p. 5

[HerrBlucher]

Point taken, but it doesn’t solve the paradox, that is, the Pope is apparently denying God’s purposeful creation of the Universe and Man, in favor of what? Christianity cannot hold up unless there is a supernatural Personal God, separate from Creation, that purposely created the Universe and then Man in His image.

I am just trying to figure out exactly what the Pope believes. We know he is not an Atheist, and apparently we know he does not believe in Intelligent Design, and from what I understand, he certainly does not believe in Biblical literalist Creationism. What else is left?

[John Locke]

I rather think of this issue in terms of Paley's Watchmaker. My watches are man-made, and sometimes need new batteries, resetting, repair, and so on. But a watch made by God would run perfectly forever, not needing any intervention.

There is also chance in the Universe. My children are what they are as a result of random shuffling of chromosomes - but I still love them all. And maybe we are featherless bipeds through variation and natural selection - but God still loves us. And I have no difficulty in believing that he foresaw that his Creation would evolve beings in his own image - that is to say, rational beings capable of moral choice.