A Non-Technical Look at Intelligent Design – Part VI

We are examining four examples of intelligent design drawn from the website intelligentdesign.org, “The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act.

Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.”^[1] 

Finally, we ask the question, “Can we Identify the ‘Intelligent Designer’?”

To this point we have carefully looked only at what the Intelligent Design Movement says about itself. We have used their words and their evidence to lay out a brief case for the origin of the design in our universe. We will deviate from that now as we move into an area that is a point of contention for some Christians. 

One of the reasons^[2] that many theologians are reluctant to embrace the ID theory is the failure of the movement to identify the intelligent agent responsible for the design we see. But according to one source, the reason they stop short of naming the designer is that “the question of the identity of the designer goes beyond the scientific evidence for design into philosophy and religion.”^[3] Fair enough.

But I will contend that we actually have some pretty compelling testimony pointing to a “person of interest” in the search for the Designer of the universe and everything in it. 

The first and most obvious place we see this is in Genesis 1 where we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (verse 1). The account goes on to describe the separation of darkness from light; of land from water; the creation of the sun, moon and stars are described; followed by creation of plants and animals. And He declared all those things “good.” 

Finally, God describes how He created man “in his image” from the very dust He had previously created (Genesis 2:7). Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

The psalmist David tells us more about God’s creation of mankind when he says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:13-16).

But Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are not the only place that speaks of God’s creative work. Consider these verses referring to the creation of the universe:

• Job 9:9 – He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
• Job 26:7 – He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.
• Psalm 8:3-4 – When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
• Psalm 33:6 – By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
• Psalm 90:2 – Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
• Isaiah 40:22 – He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
• Isaiah 40:28 – Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
• Isaiah 42:5 – This what God the Lord says—the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it.
• Isaiah 45:18 – For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited—he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
• Jeremiah 10:12 – But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
• Jeremiah 32:17 – Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
• Amos 9:6 – He builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth; he calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land—the Lord is his name.
• Colossians 1:16 – For in him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
• Hebrews 1:10 – In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
• Hebrews 11:3 – By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
• 2 Peter 3:5 – But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.

Is that enough evidence for you that our Creator God qualifies to be the “Intelligent Designer”? If you are willing to go there, then your response can only be:You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being (Revelation 4:11).

Go Deeper

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• The Most Asked Prophecy Questions – Updated 2021 – Book

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1. https://intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/ ↑
2. There are others we won’t go into in this article. ↑
3. William A. Dembski, Sean McDowell, Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language (ConversantLife.com®) (Harvest House Publishers. Kindle Edition), p. 45. ↑