Some Key Questions Regarding Intelligent Design:
Intelligent Design (ID) is a term in the scientific and philosophy communities that refers to earth and human origins. The theory, which has been around for centuries under various labels, looks at various natural phenomena across many scientific fields (biology, geophysics, astrophysics, etc.). The theory proposes that among those fields of study there is evidence that time and chance alone cannot account for the origins of the earth itself and the existence of life. The theory suggests that our existence is due to an outside force acting for our benefit. Our existence is the product of an Intelligent Designer.
No. ID is not the same thing as Creation Science. The movement known as Creation Science has the Bible as its starting point. It begins with theological assumptions, and then moves to prove those assumptions. Creation Science is deductive.
ID is inductive. It begins with no philosophical or theological assumptions. It begins with the facts of nature, and infers that our universe bears the marks of a designer. ID attempts to say nothing about the nature of the Designer. It does not offer suggestions as to who that God might be, what he or she might be like, or how to please such a God. Those are not questions ID is seeking to answer.
Yes. There is much debate in the scientific community (that has spilled into the popular media) over ID, asking whether it is genuine science or not. ID is credible science. The main proponents of the theory are accomplished scientists and philosophers with PhDs from major, accredited universities. Those who deny that ID is science do so because it does not meet their philosophical definition of science – it undermines the ideology of naturalism. ID, by its very nature proposes that there might be more to life than simply what we see. If one’s definition of science precludes anything but the natural world (no possibility of anything supernatural), ID cannot be considered as science.
To be clear, the current debate about ID has little to do with science. It is about philosophy, and the philosophical assumptions of the scientific community.
Yes. ID is biblical in many respects, though it may challenge some of our assumptions about what we think we know about the Bible.
1. Many believe that subscribing to a theory like the Big Bang undermines God’s role in the event of creation. This needn’t be the case though. In fact, it supports the idea of a force behind our existence. First it obviously says that the universe had a beginning point (Gen. 1:1 In the beginning…). Second, it begs the question of ‘who lit the fuse?’ It alludes to something outside of the explosion that had to set it off (Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created…).
2. Many Christians assume that they must hold to a ‘young earth’ view to affirm a literal understanding of the Bible. The Bible actually gives no indication as to how old the earth is. Trying to extrapolate the earth’s age from Scripture is extremely problematic. While the Bible is true history, as evangelicals we affirm that it is true regarding everything that it seeks to address. The biblical authors weren’t necessarily trying to answer question about the age of the earth. Forcing the biblical text to answer questions it wasn’t intended to answer can lead us to wrong answers – essentially, putting words in God’s mouth.
3. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until the debates between Fundamentalists and Evolutionists in the late 19th century that the established Christian position on the age of the earth was relatively young (six to fourteen thousand years). Up until those debates, most orthodox Christians believed the earth to be much older.
4. It is possible to hold to an ‘old earth’ position, and still hold to a literal understanding of Scripture. For more on this idea, see John Sailhamer’s book, Genesis Unbound, or his commentary on Genesis in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary.
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