The idea of Intelligent Design is
that the universe, particularly
the life contained therein, is too
complex to have happened by chance
as the theory of evolution would have it.
Therefore its sole basis lies in a negative — the
failure to imagine how natural selection could
arrive at the complexity of life we see all around
us.
We can perhaps sympathise with this notion
since the fossil record has not preserved enough
to demonstrate the continuity of the process and
we must rely on our imagination to fill in the gaps.
Nonetheless, modern biology continues to grow
from strength to strength in fields as disparate as
palaeobiology, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology,
molecular biology and genetics to name
but a few.
It seems that biology is doing very well with
only one underlying theory — Darwin’s theory of
evolution. There is therefore no pressure from science
to incorporate another theory, especially one
for which there is no positive evidence.
But there is pressure from some sections of
the church, who look at the theory of evolution
with dismay because it appears to lack any kind
of teleology — any goal towards which it seeks
to progress. Apparently, not only are human beings
on this earth entirely by chance but also there is
no meaning to their existence. The push to teach
Intelligent Design theory — the idea that there
was a guiding hand involved in evolution — is an
effort to insert God into the teaching of science
and to correct nihilistic conclusions.
Intelligent Design has displaced, at least in
the public sphere, the push to teach creationism.
Creationism is derived from a literal reading of
the first two creation narratives and would have
it that the universe was created in seven days a
few thousands years ago — and that God placed
dinosaur bones in the fossil record to amuse palaeobiologists.
Intelligent Design is a more sophisticated version
that attempts to escape from the absurdities of
creationism. To do that it has jettisoned the biblical
texts that creationism relies on, relying instead on
an unadorned concept — the idea that God created
the heavens and the earth. It is as if the biblical texts
are an embarrassment and have been disregarded
in order to make the theory more palatable to the
modern mind.
You would think that the church would welcome
the teaching of Intelligent Design in school
because it places God in the syllabus. After all, the
stocks of the church are so low in our society we
need all the help we can get. But I will argue that
the church should not support such a notion and
that science should be left to the scientists.
The central objection to Intelligent Design is
that it seeks to posit the activity of God from
nature. The logic runs: if God created the universe
then we should be able to see his fingerprints on
it. We should be able to see his intelligence worked
out in the fine-tuning of the physical constants so
that exactly this universe was created, that would
be able to harbour life. We should be able to see
God’s intelligence in the complexity of molecular
biology and in the organisation of the nervous
system.
There are two objections to this idea. First, it is
wrong to identify the creation stories that we find
at the beginning of the Bible as being about the
creation of the material world. What God creates
is not a thing, a cosmos, but the setting for the
covenant between God and his people. God does
not create a world that subsequently has a history
but a history that is a world.
When the prophet stands in the community and
says, “Thus says the Lord,” the creative speech of
God is present and active to create a new future for
the people. When God raised Jesus from the dead he
did not perform a medical miracle but vindicated
the one in whom his Word dwelt in its fullness and
thus created a new heaven and a new earth.
The creative act of God is not confined to the
beginning but is present throughout history, creat
ing the holy people Israel and the church, and at
the end fulfilling all things at the end of history. A
theology that narrows the creative act of God to
the first two chapters of the Bible mistakes what is
actually created.
Big bang cosmology has given an enormous
boost to the idea that God is involved in the process,
simply because it talks of a definite beginning
which may be identified with the definite act of a
creator God.
But this is a very thin understanding of what the
Bible says about God’s creative acts. It is entirely
fortuitous that Big Bang cosmology fits in nicely
with a particular creative act of God.
The second objection to the attempt to seek
God in nature has been strongly formulated by
Karl Barth. He makes the point that any attempt
by humanity to find God will inevitably result in us
looking in a mirror. Any god that is proven cannot
be God because we make the terms for his discovery
and we stipulate his properties. God becomes
an object at our disposal and therefore cannot be
God. When we read God from nature we are in
a position to say what is important and what is
being said. Does the marvellous complexity of life
speak of the work of the creator? Does the malaria
parasite or the HIV virus speak of God? It is not
clear what nature has to say to us and we must
conclude that if has anything to say, its message to
us is ambivalent.
The generality and ambivalence of nature may
be contrasted to the particularity of the witness of
scripture. In this we do not choose what to hear
as the word of God but are commanded to look
in a specific place that has specific content. We
are therefore not in a position of selecting what
we may hear, we are under discipline and thus
protected from hubris.
When we look for God in nature we end up
with an idol of our own making, and as we know,
idols do not speak.
When we look for God in scripture we are confronted
by a genuine “other” who may be over and
against us as well as for us. Barth makes the point
that only a God who reveals himself on his own
terms can be God, and he uses the doctrine of the
Trinity to explain this. Father Son and Holy Spirit
become revealer, revelation and revealedness.
God is to be understood then as ‘triune’ in the
sense that he is the subject, the act, and the goal
of revelation.” We may of course leave ourselves open to revelation or be closed to it but it is the
movement of God towards us that is central, not
our move towards him. Without his prior move
he would remain hidden. All natural theology is
therefore an absurdity.
When we attempt to instill some religion into
our children by teaching them Intelligent Design
alongside the theory of evolution in biology class,
we inoculate them against any real encounter with
the God whose story is told in the Bible. Natural
theology is a distraction. It tells us that God may be
found in the texts of scripture “and” in nature.
It is this little copulatory “and” that causes all of
the damage. For who would not prefer the marvels
of biological process or the beauty of the universe
as revealed by our telescopes to the troubled history
of Israel and the gruesome image of Jesus bleeding
his life away on the cross? As soon as this little “and”
comes into operation the pressure is off and we can
indulge in all of the awestruck emotions we desire.
This is not to say that the universe is not awesome
(every time I look down the microscope at
the cochlea I am struck with its beauty and complexity).
But we should resist connecting the awe
we feel with a religious feeling for God. We should
resist because this is not where we are to encounter
the God who speaks his creative word to us. Or,
rather the beauty and awe of the creation can only
be the place of our joy rather than our misery, after
God has found us and our “being in the world” has
been ordered aright.
The easy theism that comes from natural theology
is a threat to the hard slog of finding God in
our received scriptural traditions. This is the easy
theism that makes many who believe in God, but
few who tremble at the thought of judgment and
cling to the cross as the centre of what it means to
be in the world. It fills the census with believers
while the church withers. This is an easy theism
because it asks nothing of us, this God, this intelligent
designer, proffers no judgment and offers no
salvation. He is a God of the gaps, a being we posit
to fill a lack in our understanding. When we look
to the current malaise of the church we need look no further than this. For when natural theology has
taken hold, the edge and scandal of the gospel is
dissipated and church becomes just an affi rmation
of the world. Who would get up early on a Sunday
morning to hear that?
I think we should leave science to the scientists.
If we want our children to learn about God let
them be taught from the Bible not from a pseudo
theology.
I for one would be sorry to see the theory of
Intelligent Design taught in schools alongside the
theory of evolution, for it is neither science nor
theology but a move to rectify a perceived lack in
our children’s education. It distracts both from good
science and good theology and does them both
damage. How can we teach the scientifi c method,
the paring down of theory to the absolutely necessary
if we include a theory that is unnecessary and
for which there is no evidence? How can we teach
about God as if God is subject to nature, opening
the way for pantheism and queering the pitch for
science?
The Rev Dr Peter Sellick is Senior Research Officer
at The auditory Lab, Dept of Physiology, University
of Western Australia. www.onlineopinion.com.au