Ignorance of the gaps

[Charlemagne_III]

It will prove that if these elements are present in open space and come together they could initiate life with no need for intelligence, or intentional design. The only intelligence here would lie with the design of the experiment…not the results.

Well, another aspect of the problem of proof is that the conditions prevailing at the time of abiogenesis are not well known. So the environment in which abiogenesis happened, if it cannot be reproduced, cannot possibly yield results that prove anything verifiable at the time of abiogenesis. Again, the odds of abiogenesis happening randomly would require possibly thousands or millions of years of experiments … (if that is how it happened in nature) not a pleasant prospect from anybody’s point of view and therefore not at all likely to be funded or endured.

 

[oldcelt]

Well, another aspect of the problem of proof is that the conditions prevailing at the time of abiogenesis are not well known. So the environment in which abiogenesis happened, if it cannot be reproduced, cannot possibly yield results that prove anything verifiable at the time of abiogenesis. Again, the odds of abiogenesis happening randomly would require possibly thousands or millions of years of experiments … (if that is how it happened in nature) not a pleasant prospect from anybody’s point of view and therefore not at all likely to be funded or endured.

It would be quite a bit simpler than that. If the combination yields life at one set of level, simply alter them levels and try again, and again. How many successful times would be needed I can’t say, but it would probably be only a matter of a few years.

 

[balto]

If Behe uses terminology like “God” in his thesis, I would be sirprised. Anybody is free to supply his own interpretation of what the source of the Intelligent Design is. But if as thing appears to be intelligently designd, there should be no real objection to asserting that.

Right, but just saying that it is a generic designer is not helpful to this debate. There’s no reason the designer couldn’t be an incredibly powerful race of aliens or a programmer outside the simulation of the universe. Or they could just proposed an infinite multiverse. None of these things gets someone any closer to the God of classical theism.

I’m a little perplexed by the notion that the final cause argument can be applied to all of creation without being applied to abiogenesis as well. If all of Creation was intelligently designed, why is abiogenesis not also intelligently designed. I can’t imagine a Catholic theologian (not even a Jesuit) supposing that the universe can be seen as something that just popped into existence with all its laws programmed to unroll without being intelligently designed.

Abiogenesis would be finally caused like everything else. I’m not proposing that it wasn’t designed. It’s more like the case that everything is designed and being led to a final cause, which is how classical theism understands God. You cannot make sense of anything that happens without recourse to finality.

Here’s the dilemma with ID: somehow abiogenesis happened because there was a time when there was no life but now life exists. There’s a natural process that led to the first life form regardless of how likely it was as a random event. Eventually scientists will figure out what led to it and then whatever the process ends up being will be absorbed into a comprehensive theory of evolution. Then the Darwinists will claim victory and declare that God is dead, etc, etc. Even though the God they were arguing against is a red herring. Any issues with randomness will just be attributed to an infinite multiverse and they will appeal to parsimony to suggest why that explanation is simpler than God.

Instead of arguing over that, I think it’s more prudent to show why meaning is completely unintelligible without recourse to final causes. Evolution is full of purpose and function so the question is inescapable. If things tend towards final causes unconsciously, then there must be an ordering intelligence behind them otherwise they would not tend towards specific outcomes over others. The Darwinists can propose as many parallel universes as they want but they explain absolutely nothing about our universe as far as purpose and meaning is concerned. If there is meaning or purpose in nature (even unconscious meaning) then there has to be intentionality behind it. You can see the meaning behind the words in my post because we gave the symbols intentionality. There’s nothing about the physical symbols alone that gives them meaning. We can recognize meaning in nature that is not dependent on our intentions. So the meaning came from a cosmic intelligence. There would be no meaning for us to discover otherwise.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Right, but just saying that it is a generic designer is not helpful to this debate. There’s no reason the designer couldn’t be an incredibly powerful race of aliens or a programmer outside the simulation of the universe. Or they could just proposed an infinite multiverse. None of these things gets someone any closer to the God of classical theism.

**Abiogenesis would be finally caused like everything else. I’m not proposing that it wasn’t designed. It’s more like the case that everything is designed and being led to a final cause, which is how classical theism understands God. You cannot make sense of anything that happens without recourse to finality. **Here’s the dilemma with ID: somehow abiogenesis happened because there was a time when there was no life but now life exists. **There’s a natural process that led to the first life form regardless of how likely it was as a random event. Eventually scientists will figure out what led to it and then whatever the process ends up being will be absorbed into a comprehensive theory of evolution. Then the Darwinists will claim victory and declare that God is dead, etc, etc. ** Even though the God they were arguing against is a red herring. Any issues with randomness will just be attributed to an infinite multiverse and they will appeal to parsimony to suggest why that explanation is simpler than God.

Instead of arguing over that, I think it’s more prudent to show why meaning is completely unintelligible without recourse to final causes. Evolution is full of purpose and function so the question is inescapable. If things tend towards final causes unconsciously, then there must be an ordering intelligence behind them otherwise they would not tend towards specific outcomes over others. The Darwinists can propose as many parallel universes as they want but they explain absolutely nothing about our universe as far as purpose and meaning is concerned. **If there is meaning or purpose in nature (even unconscious meaning) then there has to be intentionality behind it. **You can see the meaning behind the words in my post because we gave the symbols intentionality. There’s nothing about the physical symbols alone that gives them meaning. We can recognize meaning in nature that is not dependent on our intentions. So the meaning came from a cosmic intelligence. There would be no meaning for us to discover otherwise.

I agree that finality is he fundamental issue, but there is intelligent design behind the final cause. You can talk all you like about final causes, the evolutionists will see no connection between that and some intelligent design at work. Abiogenesis is the perfect instance for showing intentionality in nature that the evolutionist is free to disregard, and most often does disregard because it might bring God into the picture.

As for the Darwinists finding out how Abiogenesis happened, I think that is about as likely as finding out how the Big Bang happened. These events are shrouded in mystery. The circumstances that produced both of them (Big Bang and Abiogenesis) have long since disappeared and cannot be reproduced. I know science likes to think of itself as potentially omniscient, but I don’t think so. God is entitled to his secrets, to alone knowing how his miracles are performed without the vanity of scientists presuming they know as much as the Creator who intelligently designed them.

Again, what strikes me as truly amazing is the vanity of men who think their lab experiments have to be intelligently designed but can’t acknowledge that Abiogenesis, an event a good deal more complex than any of their experiments, could have been a random product of a blind watchmaker.

Isaac Newton, by no means an evolutionist, was very much able to bring intelligent design into the picture.

“This most beautiful system [the solar system] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Isaac Newton

 

[cfauster]

I appreciate the quotations of Isaac Newton as much as anyone, but when it comes to design arguments, remember:

“Some say Darwinism undercuts the Argument from Design. They are wrong. It may be “a design-defeating hypothesis,” as Cardinal Schönborn says, but only in the sense that it defeats some design arguments, not all. And some design arguments deserve to be defeated. For example, Newton believed that the mutual gravitation of the planets would cause their orbits to wobble increasingly, like a top that is running down, and that God had to intervene periodically to readjust them. But Laplace showed by a famous calculation that the solar system is self-stabilizing. It would be wonderful if there were convenient scientific proofs of God’s activity in nature of the kind proposed by Newton and the Intelligent Design movement. But God doesn’t always sign His work. Human reason, unaided by faith, can indeed see convincing evidence of design, Providence, and purpose in nature, but that does not make valid every purported scientific demonstration that God has acted in this specific place or that. And it is deplorable that God’s title of “Intelligent Designer” is now widely seen as depending on highly disputable claims about the mechanics of evolution.”

The above comes from:
inters.org/Barr-Miracle-Evolution

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I appreciate the quotations of Isaac Newton as much as anyone, but when it comes to design arguments, remember:

"Some say Darwinism undercuts the Argument from Design. They are wrong. It may be “a design-defeating hypothesis,” as Cardinal Schönborn says, but only in the sense that it defeats some design arguments, not all. And some design arguments deserve to be defeated. For example, Newton believed that the mutual gravitation of the planets would cause their orbits to wobble increasingly, like a top that is running down, and that God had to intervene periodically to readjust them. But Laplace showed by a famous calculation that the solar system is self-stabilizing. It would be wonderful if there were convenient scientific proofs of God’s activity in nature of the kind proposed by Newton and the Intelligent Design movement. But God doesn’t always sign His work. Human reason, unaided by faith, can indeed see convincing evidence of design, Providence, and purpose in nature, but that does not make valid every purported scientific demonstration that God has acted in this specific place or that. And it is deplorable that God’s title of “Intelligent Designer” is now widely seen as depending on highly disputable claims about the mechanics of evolution."The above comes from:
inters.org/Barr-Miracle-Evolution

That title of Intelligent Designer depends on no such thing. All that title suggests is that God did intelligently design the universe and everything in it, and the evidence is there for all to see. What’s really pathetic and deplorable is the feebleness of the argument (when “intelligent designer” is refused) that everything has a final cause **who cannot possibly be an intelligent designer but can be a “blind watchmaker.” **

By the way, God’s signature is everywhere in the universe and He does not sign with invisible ink.

If the scientific mind ever finally concedes that God is an Intelligent Designer, that would surely be the first step toward the realization that God is also an Intelligent Lover. Until then too many scientists will never see him as existing, never mind as intelligent and loving, in whose image He made us.

 

[cfauster]

I understand. I guess all I can say is that perhaps your argument is primarily with people like Richard Dawkins. We (you and I and many others in this dialogue) all reject the atheistic metaphysics of Dawkins and company. We all appreciate the genius and faithfulness (despite his non-trinitarian leanings) of giants such as Isaac Newton. May such people give us confidence that science is not the enemy of faith, and the dogged pursuit of scientific explanations does not undercut religion.

Look at it this way. When the Church asks physicians to search for a possible natural explanation for some possibly miraculous healing (as part of a canonization process, for example), those physicians might be wonderfully faithful believers but they are being asked - by the Church itself - to play the “devil’s advocate” in a sense and leave no stone unturned in their pursuit of natural explanations for the healings. There is a time and place for the metaphysical and theological conclusions of our faith in Christ. Those conclusions can and should be entirely compatible with all truth, including scientific truth. But when the scientist is working as a scientist (which is not the entirety of any whole person’s meaning and life), they have an important role to play in searching for what we call natural explanations. And when those are found, such success does not subtract from the glory of God, or even the valid evidence for God.

 

[balto]

As for the Darwinists finding out how Abiogenesis happened, I think that is about as likely as finding out how the Big Bang happened. These events are shrouded in mystery. The circumstances that produced both of them (Big Bang and Abiogenesis) have long since disappeared and cannot be reproduced. I know science likes to think of itself as potentially omniscient, but I don’t think so. God is entitled to his secrets, to alone knowing how his miracles are performed without the vanity of scientists presuming they know as much as the Creator who intelligently designed them.

I think that this is a very strong scientific claim to be making. If someone put together a coherent theory about how, due to chemical interactions and natural selection, a living cell could come together then this claim would be defeated, or at least severely weakened. Even the Big Bang is not good enough to establish God because, as you know, opponents will just propose multiverses and/or cyclical universes so they don’t have to explain it. The reason why I keep harping on finality is because a full development of finality leads to God and denial of finality leads to incoherence and absurdities.
Charlemange III:

What’s really pathetic and deplorable is the feebleness of the argument (when “intelligent designer” is refused) that everything has a final cause who cannot possibly be an intelligent designer but can be a “blind watchmaker.”

Yes, I agree that this proposition is silly, but the problem is that it is not ruled out by ID. As long as something is putting the pieces together, even if it is some kind of cosmic robot, it fits with ID. It also calls into question the existence of things that don’t seem necessarily to the final end design, which calls the intelligence into question.

I think we are really in agreement about God but what we disagree over is how effective ID is in getting someone to God. If ID at best stops at some kind of super-anthropomorphic designer then I don’t think that is all that useful for convincing a naturalist of God’s existence because that’s not the classical theistic God and it is vulnerable to a number of counter arguments.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

There is a time and place for the metaphysical and theological conclusions of our faith in Christ. Those conclusions can and should be entirely compatible with all truth, including scientific truth. But when the scientist is working as a scientist (which is not the entirety of any whole person’s meaning and life), they have an important role to play in searching for what we call natural explanations. And when those are found, such success does not subtract from the glory of God, or even the valid evidence for God.

I agree that the scientist must work as a scientist. But I also think he must work honestly. If a thing appears to be intelligently designed, why would a scientist feels he needs to resort to the blind watchmaker to refute such a premise? Mostly because he doesn’t want to mix science with religion. But it is mainly the atheists who need the blind watchmaker to explain everything. That is because they are blind to God, but still need something in the universe that can intelligently design a watch.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I think that this is a very strong scientific claim to be making. If someone put together a coherent theory about how, due to chemical interactions and natural selection, a living cell could come together then this claim would be defeated, or at least severely weakened. Even the Big Bang is not good enough to establish God because, as you know, opponents will just propose multiverses and/or cyclical universes so they don’t have to explain it. The reason why I keep harping on finality is because a full development of finality leads to God and denial of finality leads to incoherence and absurdities.

Let them propose all the multiverses they like. It is the essence of scientific stupidity to demand proof for the existence of God but be satisfied with no proof for the existence of multiverses, and the extreme likelihood that no such proof is forthcoming.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I think we are really in agreement about God but what we disagree over is how effective ID is in getting someone to God. If ID at best stops at some kind of super-anthropomorphic designer then I don’t think that is all that useful for convincing a naturalist of God’s existence because that’s not the classical theistic God and it is vulnerable to a number of counter arguments.

Is Aquinas’s fifth proof not a classical proof? Does it contradict Intelligent Design?

“The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move toward an end, unless it is directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I think we are really in agreement about God but what we disagree over is how effective ID is in getting someone to God. If ID at best stops at some kind of super-anthropomorphic designer then I don’t think that is all that useful for convincing a naturalist of God’s existence because that’s not the classical theistic God and it is vulnerable to a number of counter arguments.

As a post script to what I said above, I agree that ID will not by itself get anyone to God. But a baby learns to walk by taking baby steps. Clearly, ID suggests a daddy who is helping the clueless baby learn to walk.

 

[cfauster]

Like Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle was another giant who was in some ways very much what we would call a proponent of ID today, while in other ways he would frustrate some contemporary ID enthusiasts with his reluctance to invoke anything other than natural causes. Over at BioLogos, Ted Davis is doing a fascinating series of blog posts about that history.

The Boyle Lectures were revived in London about a decade ago, and many of those lectures are pertinent to what’s under discussion here. In particular, I recommend
Philip Clayton’s Boyle Lecture for 2006 entitled The Emergence of Spirit: From Complexity to Anthropology to Theology?

From Clayton’s introduction: “The contemporary naturalist should be pulled in two directions by the growth of science. On the one hand, the sciences suggest nature’s self-sufficiency as a closed and coherent system; on the other, they hint at what we may credibly view as a transcendent source for nature.”

From Clayton’s conclusion: “Science therefore does not undercut the belief that this rich and diverse natural order may reflect an intentional act of creation. Science certainly constrains our beliefs about divine action, but it does not eliminate the possibility that a Creator is engaged at least with humanity, and perhaps elsewhere in the universe as well.”

If you want to read the transcript of the lecture, it’s here:
stmarylebow.co.uk/download/i/mark_dl/u/4007154270/4528510113/

 

[balto]

Let them propose all the multiverses they like. It is the essence of scientific stupidity to demand proof for the existence of God but be satisfied with no proof for the existence of multiverses, and the extreme likelihood that no such proof is forthcoming.

Agreed, but they have this issue because they adherents to a positivist philosophy that is clearly unfounded. They would argue back that a multiverse is more parsimonious than an intelligent designer and since ID accepts many of the same basic premises as the Darwinists (i.e. that the universe is mechanistic, adhering to a set of brute fact laws) it cannot refute this claim directly.

 

[balto]

Is Aquinas’s fifth proof not a classical proof? Does it contradict Intelligent Design?

“The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move toward an end, unless it is directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

Aquinas’ proof is not the same as Intelligent Design for reasons I’ve indicated already. The problem, as I keep saying, is that Intelligent Design accepts that the universe functions as a machine and just says that it has artificial intentionality imposed on it by an intelligent agent. This can be traced back to the moderns’ acceptance of a division between matter and mind. ID theorists want to keep the mind around and Darwinists want to throw it out. Newton and Descartes were two of the earliest adherents to this philosophy. Aquinas sees matter and mind as inseparable. Again, Aquinas would see God as a minstrel performing a musical piece rather than an engineer putting a machine together as ID sees it. All the parts of the musical flow together and make a coherent whole while the machine is just a bunch of parts that are forced to do things they don’t naturally do. The implication of ID is that, were it not for God, the universe would not produce life.
Charlemagne III:

As a post script to what I said above, I agree that ID will not by itself get anyone to God. But a baby learns to walk by taking baby steps. Clearly, ID suggests a daddy who is helping the clueless baby learn to walk.

I can understand this sentiment, but I don’t think it will work well with someone coming from a highly scientific background because they will point out all the flaws with this conception of God and think that the real arguments are just patches on an already flawed argument.

 

[tonyrey]

The implication of ID is that, were it not for God, the universe would not produce life.

God becomes redundant if the universe can produce life by itself!

 

[balto]

God becomes redundant if the universe can produce life by itself!

The fact of the matter is that the universe cannot do anything without God. It can’t even exist without God’s eternal creative act. It seems that (correct me if I am wrong) under ID assumptions creation occurred in the past and the universe therefore can exist on its own but it just won’t produce anything irreducibly complex without tinkering from the designer. The causal series proposed seems to be more of an accidental series in the ID view rather than an essential one in the classical view.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Agreed, but they have this issue because they adherents to a positivist philosophy that is clearly unfounded. **They would argue back that a multiverse is more parsimonious than an intelligent designer **and since ID accepts many of the same basic premises as the Darwinists (i.e. that the universe is mechanistic, adhering to a set of brute fact laws) it cannot refute this claim directly.

And I would argue back that as scientists they are first required to find scientific evidence for a multiverse before they commit themselves to the existence of same. Good luck with that.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Aquinas’ proof is not the same as Intelligent Design for reasons I’ve indicated already. **The problem, as I keep saying, is that Intelligent Design accepts that the universe functions as a machine and just says that it has artificial intentionality imposed on it by an intelligent agent. ** This can be traced back to the moderns’ acceptance of a division between matter and mind. ID theorists want to keep the mind around and Darwinists want to throw it out. Newton and Descartes were two of the earliest adherents to this philosophy. Aquinas sees matter and mind as inseparable. Again, Aquinas would see God as a minstrel performing a musical piece rather than an engineer putting a machine together as ID sees it. All the parts of the musical flow together and make a coherent whole while the machine is just a bunch of parts that are forced to do things they don’t naturally do. The implication of ID is that, were it not for God, the universe would not produce life.

I’ve never heard Behe or anyone else in the ID movement refer to the universe functioning as a machine put together by an engineer. Unless I am mistaken, he certainly doesn’t say that it has “artificial intentionality imposed on it by an intelligent agent.” I think these may be your interpretations of ID rather than what Behe and others have said. There’s nothing artificial about Abiogenesis. It was the product of God’s intelligent design of the universe.

Yes, as tonyrey suggests, the implication of ID is that were it not for Intelligent Design it would be possible that the universe would not produce life if the appearance of life was based solely upon random chance events. This goes contrary to the teachings of the Church. The universe was created to produce life, and certainly the life that is on earth and man himself. It’s evolution that leaves open the possibility that man might never have come to be if random events had worked differently than they did.

Aquinas did not believe that the truths of science trumped the truths of faith. Scripture tells us over and over that God designed the universe and everything in it. It tells us also that at key moments God intervened in the history of the human race, and even became Inarnate in order to nudge the human race toward salvation. That was not part of Darwin’s theory at all. So I would say that Divine Intervention is a given, and it could have been present at Abiogenesis just as it was at the Creation of the universe and the Incarnation.

I know this is a bit much for evolutionists to allow, but they are mostly atheists so they are stuck with no other theory than random events engineered by a blind watchmaker. And their theory, of course, must logically apply to the entire history of the meaningless universe in which they reside.

 

[balto]

I’ve never heard Behe or anyone else in the ID movement refer to the universe functioning as a machine put together by an engineer. Unless I am mistaken, he certainly doesn’t say that it has “artificial intentionality imposed on it by an intelligent agent.” I think these may be your interpretations of ID rather than what Behe and others have said. There’s nothing artificial about Abiogenesis. It was the product of God’s intelligent design of the universe.

Well I remember reading both Darwin’s Black Box and Edge of Evolution and Behe seems to concede that random mutations and natural selection can produce variety on the microscale level. He argues that it cannot explain irreducibly complex structures and macroevolution. My question has always been “well how did it happen then?” I don’t think he’s suggesting that a gigantic hand came out of the sky and put things together. I’m guessing it would be more subtle than that. Maybe like if I produced a computer simulation but then dropped little pieces of code in here and there to move things around using the laws I set up when I created the simulation. But that’s exactly what the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition would call a “mechanism.” If God set up the universe, then He set it up exactly the way He wanted. He didn’t set it up and then later say “hmm, maybe I could get something interesting if I did this…”
Charlemagne III:

Yes, as tonyrey suggests, the implication of ID is that were it not for Intelligent Design it would be possible that the universe would not produce life if the appearance of life was based solely upon random chance events.

Yes, and that would be fine if it stopped there. But ID proposes to offer a new form of science that can detect design. So it seems to concede that there are multiple brute laws under which the universe operates that are taken as a given but there has to be another brute fact that accounts for the design. But this brute fact is that the designer can manipulate the other laws to do whatever He wants (in this case, produce life), which introduces arbitrary whims into the universe.
Charlemagne III:

So I would say that Divine Intervention is a given, and it could have been present at Abiogenesis just as it was at the Creation of the universe and the Incarnation.

It’s not that it “could have been present” at abiogenesis. It is always present. If divine intervention were ever not present then everything would fade back into nothingness because only God exists through His nature. This is what we mean by the universe being a machine. If God only has to intervene every once in a while to have it do what He wants, then the universe in principle exists apart from Him. If He decides to intervene at certain times and not others, then there must be reasons why His nature is changing but His nature by definition is unchanging. If Behe, Dembski, et al. understand this then I am not quite sure why they are making the arguments for God that they are making because it’s not getting this point across.