Intelligent Design

[Hans_W]

This is a better solution and does not involve “tinkering”.

IDvolution - God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act.

That looks worse than ID to me. A lot worse.

 

[buffalo]

That looks worse than ID to me. A lot worse.

How so?

 

[edwest2]

So basically ID is the view that God created everything but intervened here and there to ensure that it evolved properly?

While Theistic Evolution is that there was no intervention since, God the creator of all, would have developed a perfect evolutionary process?

I feel like there very similar but ID has some theological holes in it because why would God create an evolutionary process that was full of error and needed intervention?

Look at a Biology textbook. In essence, nothing created us. This happened, then that happened and had there been a different twist or turn along the way, we might all look like lizard men. Nothing but chemistry followed by a series of accidents that led to modern man.

From a scientific standpoint, there’s no need to add theology to the mix. Just look at any organism. How does it survive? How does it reproduce? What is food? What is not food? What? The first fish to crawl onto land with its “modified enough to slither around on land” fins just suddenly knew what to eat? It would have been a lot easier to stay in the water and keep eating whatever it normally ate.

ID does not even have to say evolution even happened, in other cases, it does. The whole point is: the human genome is way too complex to have developed without some outside agent designing it. Scientists have only recently discovered that there’s a second code ‘hidden’ in our DNA. That, and admitting that “junk DNA” has been found to be mostly functional, combined with that second code, raises the possibility that our DNA formed all by itself into the impossible realm.

Ed

 

[LoganBice]

Look at a Biology textbook. In essence, nothing created us. This happened, then that happened and had there been a different twist or turn along the way, we might all look like lizard men. Nothing but chemistry followed by a series of accidents that led to modern man.

From a scientific standpoint, there’s no need to add theology to the mix. Just look at any organism. How does it survive? How does it reproduce? What is food? What is not food? What? The first fish to crawl onto land with its “modified enough to slither around on land” fins just suddenly knew what to eat? It would have been a lot easier to stay in the water and keep eating whatever it normally ate.

ID does not even have to say evolution even happened, in other cases, it does. The whole point is: the human genome is way too complex to have developed without some outside agent designing it. Scientists have only recently discovered that there’s a second code ‘hidden’ in our DNA. That, and admitting that “junk DNA” has been found to be mostly functional, combined with that second code, raises the possibility that our DNA formed all by itself into the impossible realm.

Ed

Even on a larger scale science has show that the specific factors that allow for life on earth are extremely rare. Distance from the sun, age of our sun, size of our planet, neighboring planets such as Jupiter and Saturn who’s massive gravitational pull keeps earth from getting hit with astroids and other bodies flying through space. To me it seems that such order and perfection can only come out of a creator, not random chaos. Even if you take it back all the way to the big bang, before that was nothing, and how can a physical 3 dimensional plane of existence come out of nothing. One may argue that it was the ripple of another dimension or there are theories that if you go through a black hole another big bang is on the other side, but there is no proof so if someone takes these theories as truth they themselves are putting faith into the unknown.

 

[fhansen]

ID is pseudoscience and poor theology.

As the previous poster said, God has set up the laws of physics in such a way that the universe has the potential to evolve without any supernatural tinkering.

So does this mean no design, no plan, only randomness after the initial creation? Or does the order and complexity of all creation reflect the rational aspect of God’s mind?

 

[Hans_W]

So does this mean no design, no plan, only randomness after the initial creation? Or does the order and complexity of all creation reflect the rational aspect of God’s mind?

Did you look up post #2?
It is explained in more depth on another thread dealing with the “scientific method”.

 

[rossum]

That would be against Catholic teaching. The immaterial is immaterial. The soul cannot be studied by science so what we know about it comes only from Scripture and Divine Revelation.

For one, Ed, I agree with you.

Souls do not evolve, they do not fossilise and they do not have DNA. They cannot be studied by science.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

Look at a Biology textbook. In essence, nothing created us. This happened, then that happened and had there been a different twist or turn along the way, we might all look like lizard men. Nothing but chemistry followed by a series of accidents that led to modern man.

From a scientific standpoint, there’s no need to add theology to the mix. Just look at any organism. How does it survive? How does it reproduce? What is food? What is not food? What? The first fish to crawl onto land with its “modified enough to slither around on land” fins just suddenly knew what to eat? It would have been a lot easier to stay in the water and keep eating whatever it normally ate.

ID does not even have to say evolution even happened, in other cases, it does. The whole point is: the human genome is way too complex to have developed without some outside agent designing it. Scientists have only recently discovered that there’s a second code ‘hidden’ in our DNA. That, and admitting that “junk DNA” has been found to be mostly functional, combined with that second code, raises the possibility that our DNA formed all by itself into the impossible realm.

Ed

:clapping: Irrefutable. The exclusion of God from the process of development amounts to deism not Christianity and contradicts the teaching of Jesus.

 

[tonyrey]

So does this mean no design, no plan, only randomness after the initial creation?..

Reductio ad absurdum!

 

[tonyrey]

Even on a larger scale science has show that the specific factors that allow for life on earth are extremely rare. Distance from the sun, age of our sun, size of our planet, neighboring planets such as Jupiter and Saturn who’s massive gravitational pull keeps earth from getting hit with astroids and other bodies flying through space. To me it seems that such order and perfection can only come out of a creator, not random chaos. Even if you take it back all the way to the big bang, before that was nothing, and how can a physical 3 dimensional plane of existence come out of nothing. One may argue that it was the ripple of another dimension or there are theories that if you go through a black hole another big bang is on the other side, but there is no proof so if someone takes these theories as truth they themselves are putting faith into the unknown.

:tiphat: Theism is replaced by an appeal to obscurity!

 

[Al_Moritz]

So does this mean no design, no plan, only randomness after the initial creation? Or does the order and complexity of all creation reflect the rational aspect of God’s mind?

The latter.

 

[tonyrey]

So basically ID is the view that God created everything but intervened here and there to ensure that it evolved properly?

While Theistic Evolution is that there was no intervention since, God the creator of all, would have developed a perfect evolutionary process?

I feel like there very similar but ID has some theological holes in it because why would God create an evolutionary process that was full of error and needed intervention?

The blind laws of nature cannot possibly cater for every contingency. To deny that God ever intervenes is contrary to the teaching of Jesus that we should ask and we shall receive - which implies that He is a loving Father not a remote Observer who does nothing whatsoever to remedy the ills in the world…

 

[Al_Moritz]

Reductio ad absurdum!

The fact that you gave a to only the first question without quoting the second one in the post you responded to, a question that posed an alternative, says something.

But then, quote mining is something that you ID proponents are famously good at.

---

In contrast to your approach, i gave a proper answer in my previous post.

 

[LoganBice]

:tiphat: Theism is replaced by an appeal to obscurity!

All that shows me is no matter how much one attempts to say God isn’t real and that they don’t need God, still thirst for answers but in their arrogance or ignorance they reject those truths that God gave us. Those who look for answers of the origins of our creation through science alone are like thirsty wanders that are offered water but refuse to drink because they don’t believe it’s water. (Thirsty wanders being the lost seeking truth, with truth being the water.)

I think science is awesome but to use it as truth alone is like holding a picture and denying that something existed to take this picture.

Iv been up awhile so these metaphors my be quite silly

Basically I’m saying that looking to science alone for answers will always leave one begging for more. An empty was that only God alone can fill.

 

[grannymh]

So, Al, why could that infusion by God of an immaterial rational soul not have happened, say, as a result of the infusion of information into the first cell that would then via genetic replication and evolution become the basis for each “rational” soul in each individual human?

Just as theistic evolution claims that God front-loaded all the potential for the evolution of living things into the laws of physics and chemistry, why could he not have accomplished the infusion of every immaterial, rational soul into the primordial genetic information found in the first cell. Immaterial “form” or “information” infused at that point, could then “evolve” via genetic replication into its intended evolved form, eventually as each and every individual human being. Human immaterial “form” or the “rational soul” is, then, passed on via genetic transposition (immaterial “information” passed from parents to offspring.)

Why would we suppose God waits for each conception to “infuse” the soul, when that could have been accomplished - just like front loading the possibility of life itself in the laws of physics - by the front loading of “information” into the first cell? We would then have a “tidy” explanation for the origin of genetic information as well as the method by which God “infuses” or “informs” the possibility of rational souls into living matter.

The immaterial soul would then be identical to the distinct “information” that is present at conception when a zygote is formed from genes from both its parents.

It would be a kind of theistic evolution paradigm applied to “soul-making.”

Comments?

Not sure about the “information” bit – but why not ? Theistic Evolution is a “do it yourself” kind of thing.
Anything goes.

Both Intelligent Design and Theisitc Evolution start with some kind of super-natural Creator. That is good.
Both stop when it comes to all of God’s interactions with humans. Catholics, of course, can add on Catholic teachings to both; however, personally, I recommend the Catholic Church per se as the basic way, with great results, of communicating with God.

 

[LoganBice]

Not sure about the “information” bit – but why not ? Theistic Evolution is a “do it yourself” kind of thing.
Anything goes.

Both Intelligent Design and Theisitc Evolution start with some kind of super-natural Creator. That is good.
Both stop when it comes to all of God’s interactions with humans. Catholics, of course, can add on Catholic teachings to both; however, personally, I recommend the Catholic Church per se as the basic way, with great results, of communicating with God.

Yes personally to me it doesn’t matter if you believe in theistic evolution, ID, creationism or that God sneezed out some magic. All that matters is that he is our creator, Adam and Eve our are first parents and that God revealed himself through scripture.
There is a reason God didn’t give us a detailed breakdown, of what is most likely something out of our understanding, on the creation of the temporal realm. It isn’t important to our faith in him. As long as we understand all that is, is because of him. Hmm maybe purgatory is just a class where you learn all the details about how it all works and it takes so long and is so full of suffering because we have to learn all new material that takes a really long time , plus who would want to sit in school for potential thousands of year!!? Of course I am only joking, but I don’t doubt that we will gain some new knowledge when with God in heaven.

 

[fhansen]

Did you look up post #2?
It is explained in more depth on another thread dealing with the “scientific method”.

Yes, I had read post #2. It seems to say that, on the one hand, God creates and then leaves the universe to evolve on its own, with no direction, no design; as has been said, DNA could’ve occurred randomly with God perhaps delightedly surprised by the amazing outcome which He foreknew, but had no part in designing before creating. The only other alternative is simply that God knows how to make DNA; time involved in doing so wouldn’t really be a relevant factor at the end of the day BTW.

 

[buffalo]

For one, Ed, I agree with you.

Souls do not evolve, they do not fossilise and they do not have DNA. They cannot be studied by science.

rossum

Nor can science get to the why without asking someone.

 

[rossum]

Nor can science get to the why without asking someone.

Sometimes there is no “why”.

rossum

 

[Peter_Plato]

I see what you’re saying but consider the following:

1. I have an immaterial idea for the design of an object or even a living thing. I would need the information to produce a working model. This can be based on my own studies or observations of similar systems and how they work. Absorbing this information would be immaterial as well.
2. The final form of my object has to take many factors into account for it, in this case, a living being, to survive in its environment. For example, how does my creation know what is food and what is not food? How does it know the difference between good and bad outside stimuli? How, and by what means, can it reproduce?

The soul, as Catholics know, is immaterial. It survives physical death. At some unknown time, it will be reunited with its dead physical body and be judged. We pray to a living God. In the case of Jesus, he possessed a physical body like ours, died and rose from the dead. He will return to judge the living and the dead.

Best,
Ed

Ed, I am not using the word “information” in the same sense you are. I am using it in the sense required by a robust hylemorphic dualism. Form is what actualizes matter and in human beings the soul is the form of the individual human being. In"form"ation, properly understood, is the collection of immaterial intellective properties that determines the “what ness” of any particular thing - the “stuff” that allows it to be understood.

The traits and characteristics of any particular human are determined in large part by the inherited “humanity” that has been determined by the “information” derived from the genealogical ancestry of that individual.

The coming together of that information occurs at conception, hence the individual soul is formed at conception. The unique form of each individual is immaterial, and this aligns well with the Thomistic view (hylemorphic dualism) of the physical world being comprised of form and matter. In a sense, everything in the physical universe is immaterial to some degree, to the extent that it has intelligible form. In fact, our capacity to apprehend the immaterial forms of things is used by some Thomists to argue for the immateriality of the soul. For Thomists, matter is pure potentiality, actualized by being in"formed."

It is key to understanding my point that you understand the Thomistic metaphysic behind hylemorphic dualism and not view “information” in the watered down sense it connotes to modern thinkers.

As to God acting at the moment of conception to form the immaterial soul, I would content that God ONLY acts in the NOW for he is eternal. There is no past time for him, so determining the forms (souls) of every individual human at some moment (that is in the past time for us) is not, for God, a different “time” than doing such a thing in the present. For God all is done in the eternal now - it is all done e-ternally (without the constraints of time.)

An insistence, by the way, of some kind of mind-body dualism, as if the human soul is a disembodied entity in its own right, is not exactly Catholic thinking. Remember that the Church’s great Creeds speak of the resurrection of the body and Jesus took on a human body and glorified it. I don’t think it is helpful to separate out body and soul as if they are two distinct entities.

Does that mean that under hylemorphic dualism the soul cannot exist without the body. No, but disembodied existence is not the normal state of existence for a human being.

I also suspect the reason genealogies are carefully tracked through the Old Testament relates specifically to this point. Jesus’ body has a particular provenance and genetic origins are crucial even though the reasons were not understood then, nor properly understood now.

It also goes a long way to explaining original sin and how that state is “contracted” and transmitted and not committed. If God simply makes new human souls holus bolus at conception, why does he not just make them pristine and immaculate?

By the way, I am not claiming thus is the correct view, merely that it shouldn’t be dismissed so easily.