Spirituality Guide

Concept of God or Form

According to Wikipedia, the intelligent design controversy revolves around the concept that the universe and all the living things of the planet came about due to an ‘intelligent cause or agent, as opposed to an unguided process such as mutation and natural selection�?.

Proponents of the said thought believed that the irreducible complexity, information mechanisms and specified complexity manifested in the living things require a “design�? from a Superior Intelligence or God.

Irreducible complexity pertains to the complex design of the irreducible system that renders the organism functional. Without this system in place, the living thing would not be capable of performing. Adherents to Intelligent Design or I.D. believe that the functionality of the irreducible system of a living thing was in place before mutation took place. And that should mutation occur as claimed by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, it would be in micro-levels only.

Specified complexity of living things pertain to the details being similarly characterized such as ‘patterns’ of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as in DNA that are too specifically complex and could not possibly be a result of physical law and chance.

These complex mechanisms could not have come about by ‘mutation and natural selection’ as contained in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Those in favor of Intelligent Design believe that a Superior Intelligence or an Intelligent Designer is behind all the wonderful creations. It is the concept of God as opposed to Form.

The use of the line of reasoning as applied to a Supernatural Designer is known as the teleological argument for the existence of God. The most notable forms of this argument were written by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae (thirteenth century); design was the fifth of Aquinas’ five proofs for God’s existence.

Richard Milner & Vittorio Maestro’s Intelligent Design? mentioned that the most well-known advocate of the idea was English theologian Willaim Paley. Paley created the famous watchmaker analogy to support his claim In this analogy, Paley in 1802 explained that if we happened to find a pocket watch lying in the field, we immediately jump to the conclusion that it was made by creative human intellect. To believe that the watch was produced by natural processes without employing the intellect or as an accident of nature is to deny the existence of a Supernatural Creator or God.

The idea of God responsible for creation of the universe and all living things is the core of the Intelligent Design argument. Richard Milner & Vittorio Maestro’s Intelligent Design? stated that this reasoning prevailed until Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859. Darwin patiently accumulated evidences to prove his claim that evolution by natural selection best explained the diversity and complexity of life. In defense of his theory, Darwin wrote in 1868 “I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts.�?