Actually, I gave more detailed explanations and I also linked to a priest on ZENIT who says the same things. You, Edwest, and that redneck dude did your best to discount everything. I’m sure you don’t remember, but I certainly do. Another time, I quoted from Fr. Stanley Jaki along a similar line and was attacked by the same gang of three who had no idea what they were dealing with.
Ok, that is true - you did provide those explanations. I disagree that I simply discounted what was said. I also don’t think it’s necessary to claim that I have no idea.
Furthermore, I not sure you and your friends have the philosophical background to understand my position. For example, I have repeatedly stated that ID theory confuses design with finality. What is your response to that charge?
I disagree that ID confuses design with finality and I quoted a text from St. Thomas showing that. I also quoted from Dr. Peter Kreeft and you claimed that I misrepresented him.
I cannot give an online course in metaphysics to prep you for understanding my critique. So, where do we go from here?
If you don’t want to explain or discuss it any further, that is fine with me. But if you’d like to continue, I’ll offer this passage from a book used widely in Catholic colleges for a while.
This is from the work "
Cosmology" by Fr. James A. McWilliams, S.J (pgs 16-18).
If you’re interested, I would like your analysis and assessment of this passage:
Teleology is order in activity, and is therefore called dynamic order. But there is also the order of structure. **Structural order **; is the harmonious arrangement of diverse integral parts in one pattern or configuration. Thus the frond of a fern or palm has leaflets or blades, arranged along the stern in a recognizable pattern. Structural order is characterized by symmetry and proportion. Symmetry is the repetition of some feature, as in the similarity of two leaflets on opposite sides of the stem, or the two eyes of an animal. Proportion is the gradation of a feature or character according to a more or less fixed ratio; thus in the frond the row of leaflets on either side of the stem is arranged in gradually diminishing sizes from the base to the tip. Structural order is observable in the wings of a bird, in a snowflake, in a frost- flower on a window-pane. In fact, a most interesting study is the examination of natural objects, even with a microscope, to discover their intricate and amazing structures. Moreover, X-rays disclose a structure in the very atoms themselves.
It is true that structure is often suitable for useful activity, still it can be recognized without our knowing its utility.
Hence, structural order, apart from dynamic order, furnishes independent evidence for intelligence. But since the formation of the arguments the same in both cases, we combine the evidence from both sources to one set of proofs. And although we recognize purposive activity from its useful results, which we contend could not be attained unless intended, structural order is recognized by merely noting its symmetry and proportion, without our being required to know its purpose … We may even extend the term to graceful motion; and, on the authority of musicians, to the very bird songs, which, to be truly musical, must have harmonious “structure.”
Many things, when taken on a large scale, as mountains and the stars, have no symmetry or proportion. By reason of their immensity and their inherent mystery, they can only be denominated as sublime and as transcending the status of mere patterns. Nevertheless, on a small scale, the very crystals of granite and the atoms which are known to exist in the stars, have a minute and intricate structural order. Order cannot be explained by_chance much less can its repetition and continuance be so explained. The only alternative is intelligence. And whether that Intelligence created the world, or merely arranged and operates it, to reject His existence is to dethrone reason.
Thesis 2. The material universe displays purposive finality and structural order, for which the ultimate reason must be sought in a supramundane intelligent cause.
Part 1. Intelligence is required
All grant that there is marvelous order in nature, that countless specimens of natural objects exhibit an in an intricate structure, and act and interact in such a way as to preserve and develop a highly ordered universe. But such order can be explained only on the ground that some intelligence intended it.
The minor. a) There is no other sufficient cause, as is acknowledged by the conviction of all mankind in much simpler effects. Let a man but discover on some lone island a crude tomahawk or a sundial, and no amount of argument will persuade him that these things were the product of unreasoning nature. The human mind recognizes an essential connection between fitness and intention.
Our experience also warrants the conviction that a highly complicated order cannot result
otherwise than from intelligent selection and arrangement of the parts. We cannot so much as lay a tile floor in a simple pattern of alternate colors unless we be allowed to see the color of each tile, and thus recognize its fitness for its particular place. The same is true of the construction of the simplest implement or machine. One may construct a photographic camera which with proper adjustment will focus an object before it, but he cannot secure this effect without intelligent selection and arrangement of the materials to that end. Yet every eye regularly represents what is before it, even the most shifting scenes. And if the ordered performances of the eye are worthy of years of study, what shall we say of the order throughout the universe from atom to solar system?
Mea culpa, sort of…