Evidence for Design?

[reggieM]

I believe miracles occur constantly in accordance with the fact that we have a loving Father who answers prayers and prevents accidents whenever He chooses.

Great point, Tony. Yes – that is why we truly have hope! If natural laws were supreme and absolute, then we would despair. We would be doomed. Instead, we pray that God will protect us from the “necessity” of what laws produce in storms, accidents, problems which would not only be inevitable, but absolutely predictable and certain.

It is not below His dignity to suspend the laws of nature on the pretext that His original plan was defective!

Exactly. He teaches us to rise above nature – thus the Resurrection, the Life in the Spirit.

The only way we could experience that challenge is to face laws which are both consistent (understandable, reliable) but also contingent and non-absolute.

How could they possibly allow for every contingency out of the countless billions of coincidences which occur at every moment throughout the universe? How could they arrange for no one never to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when falling objects are a constant occurrence?

Wow – that is a superb insight. It’s truly amazing to consider that.
The so-called natural laws that we think we understand are attempts to reduce all of reality to mathematical descriptions of physical processes. But reality is filled with this incredible network of relationships – all entirely dependent on God’s action, all affected by the power of grace, miracles, prayer, the process moral growth. God protects us from horrible things that would happen “by nature”. Billions of people pray daily for God’s help.

The atheist will deny that God even exists. So, God does nothing. It’s all just “natural laws”. But as believers we have to see it a lot differently.

**The greatest miracle would be for the laws of nature to be universal and infallible safeguards against every form of failure, conflict, ****accident, ****disaster and interference throughout the universe! **Unwanted coincidences are a fact of life and have to be taken into account in even the most perfectly designed system. Omnipotence does not entail absurdity…

The kind of universal and infallible “laws” that would supposedly explain reality as you rightly describe it would take longer than the history of the universe to even write down, and twice as long to explain. No, even more than that – they would be the absurdity of trying to explain the infinite scope of God’s plan for eternity.

 

[reggieM]

Why would God not have skipped this current earthly life and simply created bodily heaven on earth,

In order for you and me and everyone – to participate.

We’re not just spectators. Through this perfect plan, we actually have a purpose, a role to carry out, and we can have true responsibility, we can learn things, and we can create.

So, there is the perfection that can only be the result of the paradoxical nature of reality that we described.

The challenge for you might be to describe how we could fully participate without the possibility for error and sin.

or is heaven also not possible, given that you say it would be absurd to ask for more than this conflicted and troubled existence?

What he was saying is this:

1. People object to the idea that God is continually active and present.
2. They object to the idea that God’s design is observable, because that would mean that natural laws aren’t very good.
3. They claim that if God’s power was manifest, as a power beyond what natural laws can do, then this would be “meddling” and a reliance on miracles.

Tony’s point is this …

**The greatest miracle would be for the laws of nature to be universal and infallible safeguards against every form of failure, conflict, accident, disaster and interference throughout the universe! **

It would be a far more astounding miracle to have “laws” which explained all of the paradoxes, anomalies, accidents, coordinated dependencies and interactions in the universe. What kind of “law” could produce such things?

The fact that no such “law” could exist (except by a miracle) is the reason why some appeal to blind chance.

With lucky, random chance - -you don’t need laws. Things “just happen”.

 

[StAnastasia]

Yes but that sort of view always runs aground when faced with the problem of consciousness rising from unconsciousness.

Not necessarily. Check out Philip C., Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness, Oxford University Press, 2004.

 

[grannymh]

In order for you and me and everyone – to participate.

We’re not just spectators. Through this perfect plan, we actually have a purpose, a role to carry out, and we can have true responsibility, we can learn things, and we can create.

So, there is the perfection that can only be the result of the paradoxical nature of reality that we described.

The challenge for you might be to describe how we could fully participate without the possibility for error and sin.

What he was saying is this:

1. People object to the idea that God is continually active and present.
2. They object to the idea that God’s design is observable, because that would mean that natural laws aren’t very good.
3. They claim that if God’s power was manifest, as a power beyond what natural laws can do, then this would be “meddling” and a reliance on miracles.

Tony’s point is this …

**The greatest miracle would be for the laws of nature to be universal and infallible safeguards against every form of failure, conflict, accident, disaster and interference throughout the universe! **

It would be a far more astounding miracle to have “laws” which explained all of the paradoxes, anomalies, accidents, coordinated dependencies and interactions in the universe. What kind of “law” could produce such things?

The fact that no such “law” could exist (except by a miracle) is the reason why some appeal to blind chance.

With lucky, random chance - -you don’t need laws. Things “just happen”.

Pardon me. I thought that the question was –
“Why would God not have skipped this current earthly life and simply created bodily heaven on earth,”

If you don’t mind a simple answer, you can check out post 1168 which refers to Catholic teaching.

 

[grannymh]

Not necessarily. Check out Philip C., Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness, Oxford University Press, 2004.

A five minute solution to the so-called problem of consciousness rising from unconsciousness can be found by checking basic Catholic doctrines regarding human nature per se.

 

[grannymh]

My apology.

There is a big error in post 1165. Good thing that nobody noticed.

What happened is that my simple mind (and there are plenty of posters who will agree that I am simpleminded) was so overwhelmed by all the great scholastic philosophy on this thread that I wrote scholastic philosophy instead of Catholic theology. I also assumed that the protocol of the Catholic Church regarding its doctrines is known. That too may be another error.:sad_yes:

 

[tonyrey]

I must be in a different world. In the world I walk around in, human existence does not depend on the person’s love.

Human existence depends on God’s love…

 

[grannymh]

Human existence depends on God’s love…

Glad you shifted from your post 1162. Thank you.

 

[StAnastasia]

A five minute solution to the so-called problem of consciousness rising from unconsciousness can be found by checking basic Catholic doctrines regarding human nature per se.

Apart from magic, how is that a solution to the problem of consciousness?

 

[reggieM]

Not necessarily. Check out Philip C., Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Fascinating suggestion. Here are some excerpts from a review in Ars Disputandi, The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion.

In the 1st chapter, ‘From Reduction to Emergence’ Clayton pictures
the fall of reductionism in science and the contemporary struggle between ‘physicalism’ (i.e. the ontological claim that everything that exists is physical in nature, coupled with an explanatory claim that everything should be explained with reference to lower-level physical entities)

He therefore opposes Darwinism.

The second chapter, ‘Defining Emergence,’ deals with problems of defining
emergence. This is a rather messy chapter, especially since Clayton is unable
to come up with a clear-cut definition of the concept of emergence. He writes: ‘If
forced to give a one-sentence definition, I would say that emergence is the theory
that cosmic evolution repeatedly includes unpredictable, irreducible, and novel
appearances’ (39; his italics).

The fact that the products of emergence are irreducible is in opposition to evolutionary theory (which claims everything in nature is reducible to the molecular level).

The argument for an emergentist worldview continues in chapter 4, where Clayton describes the connection between ‘Emergence and Mind.’ Clayton
argues that science will not be able to understand the connection between mind
and brain until strong emergence is taken seriously.

Obviously, the conclusion here is that “science does not understand the connection between mind and brain” currently – in spite of the many absurd claims to the contrary from evolutionary science. Perhaps the only way science can understand such things is if everybody reads Mr. Clayton’s book.

In that case, the science studying mind should develop its own concepts and instruments appropriate to describe the structures, laws, and causal mechanisms inherent to mind.

As above, obviously, science simply has the wrong concepts and instruments today. Thus, Darwinian mechanisms do not work. They do not explain what they claim to explain. Evolutionary theory is false – it needs, supposedly, this correction from Mr. Clayton. But at the same time, we have to accept Darwinian theory???

This is the only way to overcome the ‘hard problem of consciousness,’ i.e. the discrepancy between (third-person) descriptions of experiences and the (1st-person) experiences themselves (the so-called ‘qualia problem’ in philosophy of mind).

This remains a “hard problem”. Mr. Clayton proposes “emergence” as a solution.
But at the same time, the idea that consciousness was intelligently designed is not an equally reasonable explanation???

Thus, human consciousness represents a kind of ‘leap’ in evolution, since the neural complexity from which human consciousness emerges is found nowhere else in nature.

Observe nature. Discover that the neural complexity of the mind is found nowhere else. Conclude: Darwinism is false, and … the mind is a “leap”, because nature just does that? It just “leaps” and creates minds out of molecules?

A better solution: design by intelligence explains “leaps”.

The reason for postulating God is the rational structure of the universe (i.e. the fact that nature is such that it can be known by the exercise of human reason). As Clayton (following Thomas Nagel) argues, this rational structure is a necessary postulation, ‘since the activity of reasoning cannot be explained without it’ (176). But whereas Nagel remained agnostic about where this rationality of the universe has come from, Clayton decides to exploit ‘the explanatory advantage of theism’ and argues that ‘the **rationalism **that Nagel has rightly been compelled to accept itself requires an explanation, which only an intentional creation would be able to provide’ (178).

There you have it. Take a look. We observe in nature. We see “the activity of reasoning”. We understand “it cannot be explained” by natural laws (Darwinian or otherwise).
We conclude, obviously, only an intentional creation provides an explanation.

That is beautiful in its clarity. Intelligent design is the only reasonable explanation.

 

[inocente]

There seems no obvious reason why God should not direct the course of development and put the finishing touches to a masterpiece **inspired by love **rather than remain aloof and leave everything to unguided processes. The universe is certainly independent to some extent but not entirely out of control…

I’d say at least two obvious reasons - free will and John 3:16. That is, love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” and so never tinkers.

 

[inocente]

In order to have a natural law, what is necessary? What prompts the law? One does not need a law of nature regarding apples flying from the ground back up to the tree because there is no objective evidence that this happens. However, there is a law of nature regarding gravity because an apple did plop on someone’s head – so the story goes.

I’m still not really sure what you’re getting at but maybe this is where you’re going:-

The most compelling evidence we have is that nature is always orderly, and we knew that long before modern science, since it’s obvious to everyone (outside the delusional and the terminally superstitious). Apples never fall upwards sometimes and downwards other times. So whatever theories we might have for why applies always fall downwards, the brute fact from all the evidence is that nature is always orderly and there’s no evidence that nature is ever capricious.

This much was obvious to Paul, and in Romans 1 he turned it into a simple design argument: the orderliness of nature clearly reflects God’s unchanging divine nature. An atheist would disagree with that conclusion but not with the premise, since the orderliness of nature is one of the few things that absolutely everyone can agree on, and in that sense as you said, everything is “designed”, QED, no need for all the complex arguments of ID or whatever.

So on your other points about how do we know what we know, I think the orderliness of nature is the main and crucial factor, the reason why induction works.

 

[inocente]

Yo te saludo con un vaso de castellano viejo vid Tempranillo - por su actitud alegre y culta.

Y tu, hermano.

 

[buffalo]

In Time for Darwin Day, It’s Our New List of Pro-ID Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers; 50th Paper Published in 2011

http://www.evolutionnews.org/Ann in lab.JPG

Darwin Day and ********* Weekend overlap this year, providing an extra special opportunity to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 203rd birthday on February 12 and promote Darwinian theory in a variety of venues, including colleges and universities, churches and synagogues. We wanted to do something appropriate to add our own note to the hallelujah chorus. What do you give to an exhausted relic of antique 19th-century scientific materialism that has everything but genuine credibility?

How about a revised and updated list of pro-intelligent design peer-reviewed scientific papers, showing among other things that the 50th such paper was published in 2011?

In a series of upcoming articles, we’ve asked Casey Luskin to note some highlights.
While intelligent design research is a new scientific field, recent years have been a period of encouraging growth, producing a strong record of peer-reviewed scientific publications. New publications continue to appear, now listed at our updated page.

The current boom goes back to 2004, when Discovery Institute senior fellow Stephen Meyer published a groundbreaking paper advocating ID in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. There are multiple hubs of ID-related research.
Biologic Institute, led by molecular biologists Doug Axe and Ann Gauger, is “developing and testing the scientific case for intelligent design in biology.” Biologic conducts laboratory and theoretical research on the origin and role of information in biology, the fine-tuning of the universe for life, and methods of detecting design in nature. That’s Dr. Gauger at the Biologic lab pictured above.

more…

 

[StAnastasia]

He therefore opposes Darwinism.

Reggie, can you please explain what you mean by the “Darwinism”? That is not a term I hear from any of the evolutionary biologists with whom I work, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or otherwise. What does the term mean?

StAnastasia

 

[tonyrey]

The greatest miracle would be for the laws of nature to be universal and infallible safeguards against every form of failure, conflict, accident, disaster and interference throughout the universe! Unwanted coincidences are a fact of life and have to be taken into account in even the most perfectly designed system. Omnipotence does not entail absurdity…

To cut out this earthly life would imply that it is completely valueless and unnecessary!
I think it would be very difficult to defend that view. Others believe an afterlife is unnecessary!

It is also difficult to conceive of a perfect earthly life given the limitations of a physical system. There is no such thing as a free life! Everything has its price because every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage - unless you can think of an exception.

Heaven doesn’t have the drawbacks of a physical existence but why should we be entitled to it without having done anything to prove what we’re worth?

 

[StAnastasia]

Heaven doesn’t have the drawbacks of a physical existence but why should we be entitled to it without having done anything to prove what we’re worth?

Tony, I can see two problems with your claim:

(1) Catholics believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. Bodies require physical existence.

(2) Approximately 20% - 50% of humanity will enter the kingdom of heaven without ever having proven what they are worth.

StAnastasia

 

[grannymh]

e’ (178).
There you have it. Take a look. We observe in nature. We see “the activity of reasoning”. We understand “it cannot be explained” by natural laws (Darwinian or otherwise).
We conclude, obviously, only an intentional creation provides an explanation.

That is beautiful in its clarity. Intelligent design is the only reasonable explanation.

If only an “intentional creation provides an explanation” and “intelligent design is the only reasonable explanation”, then there is no Catholic defense of the spiritual soul. This is because the “emergence” theory or the “rise of consciousness” theory of human nature can explain the experience of intention and intelligence because persons are naturally sentient, i.e., sensitive in perception and feeling. In other words, “the activity of reasoning” can be viewed as part of the material functions of the material anatomy without the need for a spiritual soul.

Don’t misunderstand me. The Intelligent Design Program is great for the fundamental creation of non-human living organisms. But here in this decade, the goal posts have indeed moved.

P.S. I am sorry for the complexity of my first paragraph. This being a public message board, I did send posts 1148 and 1156 to a writer off line. There are people off line
who are aware of what is happening with Catholic doctrine and understand the terminology being used to describe modern human nature in a sole material/physical manner.

 

[grannymh]

Heaven doesn’t have the drawbacks of a physical existence but why should we be entitled to it without having done anything to prove what we’re worth?

According to Catholic theology, God, Himself, said we are worth heaven.

 

[Bobber90]

The little known teaching of Catholicism is that God did create a world of harmony and the first human in harmony within himself. The catch is that there is only one Creator. Since the first human was the creature and not the Creator, the only logical way to maintain harmony was for the first human to live in submission to his Creator Who created harmony in the first place.

Why were we given the chance to ruin it if things could have been rosy all along and moral responsibility/free will/voluntary love could remain intact? - as they would in heaven, and as they would in an alternate reality of the sort Tonyrey deems miraculous.