How can we reconcile the argument of intelligent design with supposed design flaws?

[Charlemagne_III]

In the sceptic’s scheme of things where nothing is designed we alone decide what is good or evil, right or wrong, unjust or unjust…

The skeptic cannot escape design, since he is designing his skepticism all the time.

 

[inocente]

It is not a question of liking but fact. Do you advocate promoting disease, deformity, deceit, misery, ugliness, slavery, injustice, exploitation, corruption, hate, cruelty, war and genocide?

God is ontologically present in everything but not personally, a vital distinction.

Chance is not an all-embracing explanation like Design. Anomalies and accidents occur within the framework of the laws of nature. Chaos doesn’t have the last word nor does absurdity. The universe is fundamentally rational and intelligible…

NB God is not a mechanism but the Creator/Designer. Chance is a byproduct of the immense complexity of a physical universe in which dysteleological coincidences are inevitable. A perfect world is a fantasy…

You’re not making any objective claim: if you like something then “**Positive **aspects of reality like the beauty of a butterfly and the harmony in nature are designed”, if you don’t like something then “**Negative **aspects like disease and disasters are caused by unfortunate coincidences like exposure to radiation or being in an earthquake zone”.

You’re saying it’s designed unless it’s not designed and it’s not designed unless it’s designed, which tells us nothing. It’s no competition at all for 157 years of rigorous science which has allowed progress in curing diseases and protecting the planet.

There is no need for God to design but miracles are evidence that He intervenes because the laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency. Life has almost become extinct on several occasions but it has survived against all the odds for over three billion years in a notoriously violent universe.

Again you’re not making any claim - you say things happen according to the laws of nature unless they don’t happen according to the laws of nature, God may design but doesn’t need to, and even then you say just about every living thing God designed became extinct because God designed a “notoriously violent universe”.

All things to all men doesn’t tell us anything at all Tony, unlike 157 years of rigorous science.

 

[inocente]

I am not a young earth creationist. You don’t have to read “days” literally.

We knew that as long ago as St. Augustine.

The Zika virus is part of the overall design of creation. Nothing can exist without God’s permission. Do you think the Zika virus therefore demonstrates that God is malevolent? Or do you think that floods or earthquakes demonstrate that God is malevolent? If that is your take, I think it is a curious kind of Christianity that proposes a malevolent God.

It’s good to see you admit “everything is created by that God.” God created the universe, and you don’t just read the bible to that effect as pure allegory. You actually believe that God is a Creator, and that calling him a Creator does not belittle him. Now the answer to the next question I have to ask is very important but you will probably refuse to give it based on your past practice of ignoring questions you don’t like.

How do you create a universe without first designing your creation?

How do you create a universe and just leave everything to chance as to how it will turn out, when there is every possibility that chance alone will never produce anything more than stars and their planets. What would be the point in creating such a universe?

And since God exists outside time and can see the whole fate of the universe in his eternal now, how could he not know that he had programmed (designed) his universe to produce a good deal more than mere stars and their planets?

You say God exists outside time but asked me how He could create a universe without first designing it, implying you think God designed it in a time before time began, which doesn’t seem overly logical.

You say you don’t read Genesis 1 literally, and since it doesn’t use the word design you’re just interpreting the allegory, but I doubt many theologians and bible scholars would agree with your interpretation that God “programmed” the universe.

The impression you give is you think of God merely as a human or alien with special powers, a long way from a Being greater than can be conceived.

Re the Zika virus, I already said I go with the science, while you still appear to be sitting on the fence, talking only of “permission” and “overall design”. It’s still unclear whether you and Tony even agree on what is and isn’t intelligently designed. Just doesn’t seem to be thought through. There’s a book by a certain Mr Darwin, possibly the most boring book ever written, but it is extremely well thought through, no intelligent design argument on this thread comes even remotely close to being as well thought through.

 

[inocente]

Three days ago I asked design fans to each “please say exactly what you think is and isn’t designed, including whether you think design includes some or all species, and some or all organs, and whether the features you think are designed appeared all at once or developed gradually over time”.

To put it a little differently:

1. What exactly do you claim the intelligent designer designed? Does that include some or all species, and some or all organs?
2. What exactly do you claim the intelligent designer did not design? Does that include some or all species, and some or all organs?
3. Did the features you claim are designed appear all at once or develop gradually over time?

Can anyone give clear answers, or is it simply that there is no agreed argument for intelligent design?

(For me, 1 = nothing, 2 = everything, 3 = not applicable)

 

[Peter_Plato]

Three days ago I asked design fans to each “please say exactly what you think is and isn’t designed, including whether you think design includes some or all species, and some or all organs, and whether the features you think are designed appeared all at once or developed gradually over time”.

To put it a little differently:

1. What exactly do you claim the intelligent designer designed? Does that include some or all species, and some or all organs?
2. What exactly do you claim the intelligent designer did not design? Does that include some or all species, and some or all organs?
3. Did the features you claim are designed appear all at once or develop gradually over time?

Can anyone give clear answers, or is it simply that there is no agreed argument for intelligent design?

(For me, 1 = nothing, 2 = everything, 3 = not applicable)

From reading these questions it would appear pretty clear who it is who thinks the only possible intelligent designer is an alien or superhuman living somewhere in the cosmos.

Answers to questions…

1. The Designer designed EVERYTHING that exists contingently. This includes conceiving of the underlying laws of physics and chemistry which order material cause and effect. This includes the properties which would result from a nucleus being of such and such mass with such and such numbers of electrons since constants such as the strong nuclear force or pull of gravity would effect all interactions which result. In fact, the Designer determined which resulting effects would come about as a result of the nature of matter and the determining laws. In fact, the most basic laws of physics, such as gravity as a pull rather than a push or something else was determined by the Designer.

As regards the genetic code and evolution, it seems very clear that the sequence of nucleotides in the DNA molecule is not and was not determined by any laws of physics or chemistry but rather by some other means. The sequencing is complex and specified to result in some particular outcome - some particular physical or behavioural trait that could not have been known or planned beforehand unless by the Designer who knew which traits would result from which particular and unique folding of which protein sequence.

In fact, the natural selection processes themselves depend entirely upon the same laws of physics and chemistry that determine the nature of the elements and compounds, which means the design of the selection processes was also pre-ordained to work with the information contained in the genomes of living things to tease out the traits which would best fit the environment within which these obtain.

1. Precisely nothing.
2. Probably both, but as determined by the overriding plan of the Designer.

I have said this before in several other threads: I very much doubt that the universe is akin to an 18th or 19th century mechanical device that the “designer” and builder engineered all at once at some past point in time and has allowed to unfold entirely according to its own devices in a “hands off” show of technical expertise. That is far too much a human perspective on what is going on and depending on that model to explain everything is fraught with the potential to spawn misunderstandings.

In particular, it inordinately constrains God to abiding to the laws and natures of things he himself created as if, once having created them, he loses complete control over them never to regain it because nature becomes ascendant over God. Perhaps, we like to think so, but that is very likely because we want to control God through our achieving control over nature - very much a pagan or “magic” view of things.

If a “model” is to be insisted upon, it is much more likely that the universe is better compared to a classical piece of music being performed - along with the time signature itself - at every moment by the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Ground of Being with the physical world being like the musical tracks and living beings (including humans) being “voiced” into existence in a kind of impromptu or improvised performance. We know it takes musicians and vocalists of great skill and creative talent to pull off the kind of “unrehearsed” great performance we would never have expected, absent sheet music and lyrics. Yet we refuse to accept that kind of artistry in creative performance from God in his going about creating the universe and living beings. Why not?

Perhaps, because we want to hold him accountable to our small-minded ways and means that we insist MUST be the case because we make ourselves out to be the measure of all things?

I am guessing our views on the matter of how God does things count very little as far as God is concerned. He is not constrained by what we think, no matter how much we insist he must be.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You say God exists outside time but asked me how He could create a universe without first designing it, implying you think God designed it in a time before time began, which doesn’t seem overly logical.

As usual, you still avoid answering the question.

I’ll ask it again.

How does God create a universe without designing (planning) what to create so that his creation serves a purpose?

Or do you think the creation of the universe was without purpose?

God was just throwing dice without knowing what numbers would come up?

But if God exists outside time and is omniscient, why wouldn’t he know how it would all turn out?

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:27-31).

 

[Peter_Plato]

As usual, you still avoid answering the question.

I’ll ask it again.

How does God create a universe without designing (planning) what to create so that his creation serves a purpose?

Or do you think the creation of the universe was without purpose?

God was just throwing dice without knowing what numbers would come up?

But if God exists outside time and is omniscient, why wouldn’t he know how it would all turn out?

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:27-31).

My suspicion is that those who argue against God as the Designer are arguing against a strawman pagan “god” who takes existing matter with all of its properties which exist as they are and merely “forms” matter into unique created beings. So, they argue against this kind of “god” because they assume having to sit down at a table to plan or “design” what will be formed is unbecoming of any “God” worth the name.

The point being that their own limited conception creates the problem of “designer god” for them in the very presumptions they bring to their conception of what it means to design and create. They are attempting to design the designer god in their imaginations and rightly dismiss it because they haven’t thought through the implications of those very presumptions.

The assumption of those who argue against God as Designer is that anyone who proposes a Designer must mean by that word, the very “designer god” they assume can only point to the kind of pagan deity that Christians should not accept.

The problem, as you point out, is that a chasm between the designer god and God as Designer must still be bridged because Christianity insists upon order and purpose in creation.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The problem, as you point out, is that a chasm between the designer god and God as Designer must still be bridged because Christianity insists upon order and purpose in creation.

Einstein rejected the designer god of the pagans when he rejected altogether the idea of a personal god. Yet he could not get around the fact that the universe has a vastly “written” (designed) order. How do you get a written order without a writer who designs what is written?

“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” And again, on a later occasion, Einstein said “… everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a Spirit vastly superior to that of man.” Albert Einstein

 

[inocente]

From reading these questions it would appear pretty clear who it is who thinks the only possible intelligent designer is an alien or superhuman living somewhere in the cosmos.

Answers to questions…

Thanks for your answers. I joined this thread only recently and my questions were intended to get a clear statement of the design hypothesis, but it’s still unclear whether there’s a single hypothesis or each design fan has his own. I’m thinking probably the latter.

*1) The Designer designed EVERYTHING that exists contingently. This includes conceiving of the underlying laws of physics and chemistry which order material cause and effect. This includes the properties which would result from a nucleus being of such and such mass with such and such numbers of electrons since constants such as the strong nuclear force or pull of gravity would effect all interactions which result. In fact, the Designer determined which resulting effects would come about as a result of the nature of matter and the determining laws. In fact, the most basic laws of physics, such as gravity as a pull rather than a push or something else was determined by the Designer.

As regards the genetic code and evolution, it seems very clear that the sequence of nucleotides in the DNA molecule is not and was not determined by any laws of physics or chemistry but rather by some other means. The sequencing is complex and specified to result in some particular outcome - some particular physical or behavioural trait that could not have been known or planned beforehand unless by the Designer who knew which traits would result from which particular and unique folding of which protein sequence.

In fact, the natural selection processes themselves depend entirely upon the same laws of physics and chemistry that determine the nature of the elements and compounds, which means the design of the selection processes was also pre-ordained to work with the information contained in the genomes of living things to tease out the traits which would best fit the environment within which these obtain.*

You appear to misunderstand the purpose of a physical constant: it’s a fiddle factor, representing something we don’t yet know. The physicist puts the constant into the equation to make the answer come out right, and has to fine-tune the value empirically until the equation agrees with experiment. But the constant is nowhere in nature, it’s just a place-holder for something we don’t yet understand.

Similarly, you appear to misunderstand the laws of nature. They don’t exist outside of our textbooks. A law is a theoretical statement that a particular phenomenon is always seen to occur when certain conditions are present. Rather than a law forcing nature to obey, it’s our current understanding of what nature does, and can be disproved by one contradicting observation.

Similarly your comments on biology also put the cart before the horse. Plus your “preordained” argument is unnecessary: rabbits have a trait of running away when they hear a strange sound, because those which had some alternative trait ended up as a predator’s lunch and didn’t have offspring. The life sciences use scientific theories because “preordained” arguments tell us nothing. Indeed, they tell us to do nothing: if God preordained disease then under no circumstances try to find a cure because that would work against God’s plan.

No point debating misunderstandings, just look them up. But my main beef is that God is supposed to be simple (not made of parts) and unchanging, since otherwise He is contingent, yet you’ve got Him micro-managing protein sequences.

I just see no point in these intelligent design arguments: where we have knowledge, truth cannot contradict truth. Where we don’t have knowledge, admit we don’t rather than inventing a god-of-the-gaps. You obviously feel a need to think otherwise.

 

[Bradski]

In fact, the natural selection processes themselves depend entirely upon the same laws of physics and chemistry that determine the nature of the elements and compounds, which means the design of the selection processes was also pre-ordained to work with the information contained in the genomes of living things to tease out the traits which would best fit the environment within which these obtain.

No wonder it’s a banned topic…

 

[inocente]

As usual, you still avoid answering the question.

I’ll ask it again.

How does God create a universe without designing (planning) what to create so that his creation serves a purpose?

Or do you think the creation of the universe was without purpose?

God was just throwing dice without knowing what numbers would come up?

But if God exists outside time and is omniscient, why wouldn’t he know how it would all turn out?

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:27-31).

I gave my answer, not my problem if you decided to ignore it.

So, once again: You appear to think of God as if He is a human designer working long into the night. You made that clear in your original question when you replaced God with the human reader: “How do you create a universe without first designing your creation?”.

As I said in my answer “The impression you give is you think of God merely as a human or alien with special powers, a long way from a Being greater than can be conceived.”

God didn’t sit at a desk designing through the night like we would. Partly because there is no time before time began. Partly because God isn’t made of parts like us, He doesn’t go through thought processes, He just is.

As to your questions above: On the first two, God isn’t a human designer (or planner or programmer, you keep changing the noun). If you feel everything is designed and must have been designed for a purpose, then by all means spend your days assigning purposes to everything, a purpose for each blade of grass, each grain of sand, a purpose for the Zika virus. But when you’ve finished, all you learned is what purposes you think they might have.

Questions three and four: Einstein thought God doesn’t play dice but was proved wrong in QM. Perhaps Tony is right and God doesn’t micro-manage everything. Or, there was a regular poster here who thought the opposite, he was certain that God has to constantly change the direction of every planet in orbit, of every electron.

Who knows. “For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage [Gal 5]”. Well, obviously that doesn’t include the absolutely essential bondage of assigning purposes to everything, keep up the good work

 

[inocente]

My suspicion is that those who argue against God as the Designer are arguing against a strawman pagan “god” who takes existing matter with all of its properties which exist as they are and merely “forms” matter into unique created beings. So, they argue against this kind of “god” because they assume having to sit down at a table to plan or “design” what will be formed is unbecoming of any “God” worth the name.

The point being that their own limited conception creates the problem of “designer god” for them in the very presumptions they bring to their conception of what it means to design and create. They are attempting to design the designer god in their imaginations and rightly dismiss it because they haven’t thought through the implications of those very presumptions.

The assumption of those who argue against God as Designer is that anyone who proposes a Designer must mean by that word, the very “designer god” they assume can only point to the kind of pagan deity that Christians should not accept.

The problem, as you point out, is that a chasm between the designer god and God as Designer must still be bridged because Christianity insists upon order and purpose in creation.

Alternatively you could confine your comments to the thread topic rather than giving in yet again to the temptation to fantasize about other posters’ personalities.

Here are some standard dictionary definitions, from the OED.

*Designer:
1 A person who plans the look or workings of something prior to it being made, by preparing drawings or plans
1.1 [as modifier] Made by a famous and prestigious fashion designer: designer clothes
1.2 [as modifier] Fashionable: designer food

Creator:
A person or thing that brings something into existence
1.1 (the Creator) Used as a name for God.*

Even though I don’t possess your fabulous intellect , I can see your problem. Obviously you can’t support your case without inventing an additional definition for designer, and then constantly having to juggle between “designer” and “as Designer”.

That’s your problem though. Think of God as a creator (“brings into existence”), and not as a designer (“who plans the look or workings”), and there’s no problem.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So, once again: You appear to think of God as if He is a human designer working long into the night. You made that clear in your original question when you replaced God with the human reader: “How do you create a universe without first designing your creation?”.

As I said in my answer “The impression you give is you think of God merely as a human or alien with special powers, a long way from a Being greater than can be conceived.”

God didn’t sit at a desk designing through the night like we would.

Please point to the post where I said anything like this.

We are not privy to how God plans his creation, or even how the mind of God works.

What we can fairly assume from Scripture is that God had a plan in creating the universe.

God the Son also had a plan when he came into this world.

If you think God is without a plan, just say so. Saying so would deny the entire Old Testaments and New Testaments. A very curious type of Baptist that makes you.

If you believe God made the world but had no idea how it was going to turn out, try finding a passage in Scripture to that effect.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

That’s your problem though. Think of God as a creator (“brings into existence”), and not as a designer (“who plans the look or workings”), and there’s no problem.

You still haven’t answered my earlier question:

Why create without foreknowledge (design) of how your creation will turn out?

In your mind is God a mindless Creator?

What about that library of laws Einstein saw in the universe?

They were just created without a reason?

Keep digging that hole you are standing in.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Alternatively you could confine your comments to the thread topic rather than giving in yet again to the temptation to fantasize about other posters’ personalities.

Here are some standard dictionary definitions, from the OED.

*Designer:
1 A person who plans the look or workings of something prior to it being made, by preparing drawings or plans
1.1 [as modifier] Made by a famous and prestigious fashion designer: designer clothes
1.2 [as modifier] Fashionable: designer food

Creator:
A person or thing that brings something into existence
1.1 (the Creator) Used as a name for God.*

Even though I don’t possess your fabulous intellect , I can see your problem. Obviously you can’t support your case without inventing an additional definition for designer, and then constantly having to juggle between “designer” and “as Designer”.

That’s your problem though. Think of God as a creator (“brings into existence”), and not as a designer (“who plans the look or workings”), and there’s no problem.

I am missing your point, then.

Are you claiming a Creator God is, therefore, a fortiori, NOT a Designer God?

Would not a Creator God absolutely have to be a Designer God?

Although a designer need not be a creator, a creator would have to be a designer by necessity?

Again, I don’t see the point you are making by invoking dictionary definitions. Help me out here.

 

[Aloysium]

Originally Posted by Peter Plato

I don’t know what you mean. There was nothing uncivil in the quote.

Let’s look at the reality behind the stories of who and what is mankind. Little remains in the present of what once existed but was transformed in time. We make assumptions on what constitutes the data and how it is to be interpreted. We run a sort of simulation on what we understand to be the variables and their relationship. Doing so, we get a particular picture. Change any of them and something very different appears. How about we leave it at that; the story that comes together when I organize the facts is very different from yours.

Since this is a Catholic forum, we can speak of creation, which I would point out, had a beginning and is maintained in existence in every moment.

The “pre-ordained” structure of the universe, would be ontological, rather than temporal. God exists outside of time. He has all time to make the universe what He wills. He does this in each and every moment that our reason would cleave from the whole that exists in His vision. Creation started then, is now and continues being, one in God, who is everywhere and in every time as its Father.

The reality of the universe includes countless beings, each with its particular relationships to everything else and to its Source. Each of us is one such whole being, whose physical components are a hierarchy that reaches down into the subatomic and upwards to the intergalactic. Matter is organized and we can understand it as exhibiting specific principles. This organization includes DNA and the vast variety of proteins this complex molecule helps put together, providing for the structure, metabolism and activities of our body. There is a physical reality of this body grounded in the same material relationships that govern all life. Mankind is different in that our soul is spiritual. That spirit-body unity is the person.

Designed from eternity,(i.e. outside time) then and now, as part of a cosmic symphony, mankind emerges out of a whirlwind of physical, biological and instinctive forces, brought into existence by God, whose aim is to guide creation into right relation to Him. We are to bring harmony and life to the universe, doing our part as members of the body of Christ, united in love.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Whereas we possess the power to intelligently design our lives, and we do so constantly, why would we deny to God the power to intelligently design the emergence of a creature capable of intelligently design? Is the creature in possession of a power greater than the Creator’s? Different in degree, yes. But greater in kind, no.

We are made in His image and likeness. To deny that God gifts us some aspect of himself, the power to design and to create, is to deny the reason why his Son came into the world with a purpose.

 

[Bradski]

I don’t know what you mean. There was nothing uncivil in the quote.

No. It was just hopelessly wrong.

 

[GEddie]

It is not thinking for me, but it is like the Windows or Mac OS for life. All life has it, and it performs the same function: getting disparate parts to function for the greater good. Do I think that consciousness is in there somewhere? Probably
One thing for certain, the more complex the animal, the more complex the DNA.

Not necessarily. We share IMS, not only 98% of our DNA with the chimpanzee, and 84% with the mouse, but 61% with the banana. There are several plant species with longer (more complex) DNA than our bodies.

ICXC NIKA

 

[IWantGod]

From reading these questions it would appear pretty clear who it is who thinks the only possible intelligent designer is an alien or superhuman living somewhere in the cosmos.

Answers to questions…

1. The Designer designed EVERYTHING that exists contingently. This includes conceiving of the underlying laws of physics and chemistry which order material cause and effect. This includes the properties which would result from a nucleus being of such and such mass with such and such numbers of electrons since constants such as the strong nuclear force or pull of gravity would effect all interactions which result. In fact, the Designer determined which resulting effects would come about as a result of the nature of matter and the determining laws. In fact, the most basic laws of physics, such as gravity as a pull rather than a push or something else was determined by the Designer.

As regards the genetic code and evolution, it seems very clear that the sequence of nucleotides in the DNA molecule is not and was not determined by any laws of physics or chemistry but rather by some other means. The sequencing is complex and specified to result in some particular outcome - some particular physical or behavioural trait that could not have been known or planned beforehand unless by the Designer who knew which traits would result from which particular and unique folding of which protein sequence.

In fact, the natural selection processes themselves depend entirely upon the same laws of physics and chemistry that determine the nature of the elements and compounds, which means the design of the selection processes was also pre-ordained to work with the information contained in the genomes of living things to tease out the traits which would best fit the environment within which these obtain.

1. Precisely nothing.
2. Probably both, but as determined by the overriding plan of the Designer.

I have said this before in several other threads: I very much doubt that the universe is akin to an 18th or 19th century mechanical device that the “designer” and builder engineered all at once at some past point in time and has allowed to unfold entirely according to its own devices in a “hands off” show of technical expertise. That is far too much a human perspective on what is going on and depending on that model to explain everything is fraught with the potential to spawn misunderstandings.

In particular, it inordinately constrains God to abiding to the laws and natures of things he himself created as if, once having created them, he loses complete control over them never to regain it because nature becomes ascendant over God. Perhaps, we like to think so, but that is very likely because we want to control God through our achieving control over nature - very much a pagan or “magic” view of things.

If a “model” is to be insisted upon, it is much more likely that the universe is better compared to a classical piece of music being performed - along with the time signature itself - at every moment by the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Ground of Being with the physical world being like the musical tracks and living beings (including humans) being “voiced” into existence in a kind of impromptu or improvised performance. We know it takes musicians and vocalists of great skill and creative talent to pull off the kind of “unrehearsed” great performance we would never have expected, absent sheet music and lyrics. Yet we refuse to accept that kind of artistry in creative performance from God in his going about creating the universe and living beings. Why not?

Perhaps, because we want to hold him accountable to our small-minded ways and means that we insist MUST be the case because we make ourselves out to be the measure of all things?

I am guessing our views on the matter of how God does things count very little as far as God is concerned. He is not constrained by what we think, no matter how much we insist he must be.

I think we can know certain things about God by reason. It is not a futile endeavour.

I think people can mean different things by a designer God. If by that one means a God that created the laws which govern the universe then I whole heartedly agree with that conception of God. But if one is arguing for a God that is like a mechanic or some one that puts the universe together bit by bit directly controlling its movements and functionality like a puppet then I have to say this is not what I think God is doing.

It doesn’t make sense of the Universe.