Two Reasons Why I Oppose Darwinism and Love the Theory of Intelligent Design

Let me emphasize this at the outset. Intelligent Design isn’t Christianity, it is not religion, it is not religion claiming to be science, it is not religion veiled as science or science in the name of religion, as many of its opponents claim. The obvious fact that it has religious implications, and that these are the primary reasons for my interest in it, does not in the slightest diminish its scientific character, for a theory is not more or less scientific because of its implications or ramifications, but it is scientific by virtue of the methods and sound reasoning used to establish it. The methods supporting the theory of Intelligent design are all up to the highest standards of scientific investigation and the conclusions drawn from them are based on solid rational argument. No, contrary to its critics, there is nothing here but theory based on the highest standards of science. The religious bias is on the part of those committed to a materialistic world view, and who allege that “science” demands an unwavering commitment to materialism, a commitment to a philosophy for which there is no empirical nor rational , no “scientific” justification.

So, one reason why I oppose Darwinism and favor Intelligent Design is because since childhood I have always loved science. As a Christian, I became a believer in the God who created the universe to manifest His glory and wisdom, power and  goodness, and who created man with the capacity, the senses and mind, to learn about that creation, to learn from that creation, so that he would have more and more reason to glorify the God of creation. That is why I believe every Christian should be interested in the sciences, those disciplines of applying the senses and the mind to the observation and understanding of what God has wrought. God has given us two great books, two great means of showing us Himself, and it should be a great delight to us to read them both.  It is part of fulfilling “the Great Commandment” of loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all of your strength. (I also believe the same commandment encourages the pursuit of excellence in various arts, as avenues for making our response to God’s revelation of Himself, but that is another topic.) I can say I love science and oppose Darwinism because I believe Darwinism is not good science, as science goes, an opinion I have had reinforced many times over the past 50 years  in more ways than I can remember.

Reason #2. But why care so much about Darwinism as to expend so much time and energy in opposing it? Because above all the other evils which can be laid at the door of this explanation of the fundamental nature of humanity, the worst is that it bears false witness against the Creation itself. The Creation bears witness to its Creator. This testimony is alluded to in the Bible in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Psalm 19 asserts it directly:

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

² Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.

³ There is no speech, nor are there words,

whose voice is not heard.

⁴ Their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

The entirety of Psalm 104 not only bears the same witness but does so in even greater detail, celebrating not only the Creation, but God’s Providential management of what He has made.

²⁴ O Lord, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom have you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

In Psalm 139, likewise, the Psalmist takes note of his own personal creation and embryonic development as demonstrations of God’s knowledge of him and interest in him.

¹³ For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

In the book of Acts, we read that Paul reminded his hearers of the testimony of God’s creation and providence. In Acts 14, there were certain idolaters at Lystra who began worshipping Paul and Barnabas and Paul rebuked them, reminding them, in effect, that God was not a man like them, but the mighty and beneficent Creator, to which their experience of His providence bore witness and which lent force to the apostles’ call to turn from idols to the Creator Himself, who was now bringing them the gift of salvation in Christ.

 ¹⁵ “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. ¹⁶ In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. ¹⁷ Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

Later, in Acts 17, Paul again appeals to the testimony to God’s being and attributes delivered by creation and providence. Speaking to the philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens, he said,

²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, ²⁵ nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. ²⁶ And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, ²⁷ that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, ²⁸ for

“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

²⁹ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. ³⁰ The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹ because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

            The point is not that the testimony delivered by God’s creation and providence are sufficient for salvation. The setting of these remarks (they wanted and explanation of Paul’s preaching of Jesus and the resurrection) and Paul’s call to repentance toward the God who resurrected Christ, demonstrate that more is needed for salvation than what men can learn from creation and providence. No, the point Paul was building upon as a foundation is that the creation and providence bear witness to the being and attributes of God and that this witness is so clear and strong as to obligate men to seek that Creator until they find Him. (To which the gospel preachers before and ever since Paul have said, “Listen, and I’ll introduce you to Him.”)

Finally, Paul makes the same assertion in the first chapter of Romans:

¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to [people], because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

Here, Paul one again argues that the creation is a witness to the being and attributes of God. The Creation clearly shows that God is, that He is uncreated, infinite, eternal, omnipotent, to whom we owe our own being, and worship, and who must, as our creator, must be spiritual and moral and personal. The full-extent of what He has revealed about Himself “in the things that have been made,” goes beyond our purpose here, but it is to our purpose to note that creation bears witness to its, and hence our Creator, a testimony that puts us under an obligation to worship Him and seek Him until we find Him.

What Joseph Addison, the hymn writer, said of the heavens could be said of the entire creation, including living things: “In reason’s ear they all rejoice, and utter forth a glorious voice; Forever singing, as they shine, “The hand that made us is divine.”

This brings me to my opposition to Darwinism and appreciation of the Theory of Intelligent Design. In the great cosmic courtroom, the entire Creation bears its testimony to the Creator, as we have just heard, rendering us all obligated to seek him. Nobody who ever lived can now justly say, “Where’s the evidence?” for it is everywhere you look. For  those who would prefer not to acknowledge God, however, Darwinian Evolution is appealed to as a witness in their defense. In opposition to the testimony and evidence of the plant and animal creation, Darwinism essentially says, in effect, “No. You do not bear witness to God. There is another explanation for you. You appear to provide evidence of design, and hence, of a Great Designer, and all that that entails, but it is only an appearance. I offer an alternative explanation for you, and your great variety, and splendid beauty, and your appearance of design. I argue against the wisdom, the purpose, the teleology of it all. It is all attributable to a vast succession of accidental and purposeless, chance, collisions of molecules and to the fortuitous mutations of hereditary materials and the dying of many weaker and the survival of the stronger of the progeny of the simplest forms of life. Nothing more. Whatever god you think there may or may not be, there is nothing in the world of living things to argue for one.”[1] 

This “expert witness” has given to many all the reason they think they need in order to resist the intuition to think “design” and to ignore the inner voice, the testimony that is delivered to them every time they peer through a microscope in histology lab, or dissect a fetal pig, or wonder at the blur of a hummingbird’s wings, stand with mouth agape (that’s “jaw-dropped” to Facebook people) at the form and strength and skills of some Olympic athlete, or contemplate the ingenuity required to launch a telescope into the heavens and receive its ultra-sharp images from millions of miles away. No, all these things and innumerable others, marvelous as they are, only give the appearance of being the products of a Creator’s design.  Hence, while it hasn’t “dis-proved God” as so many foolishly say, as if it were a case against the existence of God, it has, for many, un-proved God, in the sense of removing the proof Theists give for him, thus making them free to live without Him.

To me, and, I believe, to most of its proponents, Intelligent Design does not serve to prove the God I believe in. It certainly does not prove the God of the Bible. It does not deliver the message of the Christ. It does not furnish any of the content Christian theologians call “Special,” or “Redemptive Revelation.” No, it does none of that, doesn’t purport to do that, and shouldn’t be accused of that by its materialistic detractors as if it did, nor blamed for not doing that by Christians who wish it would say more.  What it does do, however, and why I love it (in addition to its being good science and just so very interesting!) is that it debunks the argument against the testimony of Creation. We have a clear and powerful testimony for the being and attributes of God, evidence presented since Adam first opened his eyes to the creation around him. The Devil, the Serpent who first tempted Eve calls Darwinism as an expert witness against this first witness. Many, tragically, biased against the God they have sinned against, are disposed and ready to receive this testimony. Now, as I see it, Intelligent Design Theory is not called upon to give testimony to the Trinity, the fall and its results, the person and work of the Redeemer, or the necessity of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Others must testify to those absolutely necessary things. (Indeed, they must be diligent about their calling, and make their testimony true, clear and persuasive.) Nor does it directly address or settle questions about the age of the earth, primitive man, the universal flood or the ice age. These are still things of importance for our understanding of our world’s history. But with sound scientific work it does offer a superior scientific theory of the origin of life itself, which refutes the false witness that has been raised against the testimony of Creation. For that reason, and, like I said, because it is so intellectually satisfying, I love it.   

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[1]I chose to identify the witness here as Darwinism, rather than Darwin, for the simple reason that one may find statements in Darwin that would suggest that God may still be acknowledged as the Creator. For instance, concluding “The Origin of Species” he says, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.” But this is a long way from both the Biblical testimony AND the near universal (theistic evolutionists excepted) materialistic application of his theory by its advocates.