Eddie, “design” has so much rhetorical baggage that we usually don’t use it without some attempt to qualify and explain what we mean by it. And besides what it says in our “What we believe” statements, there aren’t any official positions of BioLogos. We don’t have members. There are a few employees, and quite a few others who do some work for us from time to time. You’re going to find a range of positions on a variety of topics among those who accept that God created through evolution. But I don’t know of anyone within our community who would disagree with this statement: “God intentionally created human beings.” None of us think that we’re just a lucky accident. Is that sufficient for design in your book?
I’m straying from the topic of the post, but @BradKramer is on vacation, and I don’t remember how to move a conversation.
I didn’t choose the byline, and I agree with Jim that “design” is term that has a lot of unfortunate baggage. Like Jim says, I don’t think that creatures made in God’s image are a lucky accident - God says “let us make humans in our image” in Genesis, and I see that as intent. I also think that God feeds the animals (through ecological food webs) and intended solar systems to form (through gravitation and other factors). I view all processes, “natural” or “supernatural” as part of how God acts in creation. Beyond that, this scientist is comfortable with the mystery of it all, to rest in the assurance that the judge of all the earth will do right, that if I have seen Jesus I have seen the Father, and that God is love (not merely loving).
I don’t have time to offer an official defense of the word “design” in the byline, other than to take credit for it, and affirm that I still think it’s a word worth claiming, be it with all the caveats that @DennisVenema and @jstump have already offered.
There are two perspectives on design. One is the perspective that design must have occurred because nature left to itself would never have produced life in the amazing way that we see it… the odds are simply to small, and the processes against it are simply too great. This is a kind of scientific perspective on design.
The second perspective is religious. This perspective says that God designed the universe and all life in it, no matter what processes were used, no matter how miraculous, no matter how natural it appears, and no matter how inevitable it appears to be.
Sometimes these two perspectives come together. But what does God really care about? Does God care about our discovery of design? I think God cares about our acknowledgement of design and plan. We did not create the universe, and it certainly did not create itself, just as we cannot create ourself. God deserves all the glory, every time, in every way, no matter how we may think God actually created this universe. God knew what he was doing, and if he used a long process, he knew at the beginning what would happen. If he used a short process, he knew what would happen. Our world belongs first of all to God.
If we do not acknowledge God in the process, then it doesn’t really matter if we have the process right. We will have missed the main point.
After we acknowledge the main point, then we can argue about the process.
I agree, Eddie that it is not a rational argument to assume that God is not a tyrant, and then to say that alone is enough reason to say that God would let nature be free. Just because I keep my dog on a leash, doesn’t mean I am a tyrant. Just because I have a fence around my cows, doesn’t mean I am a tyrant. Just because I mow my grass and only plant carrots in my vegetable garden, does not mean I am a tyrant. In the same way speaking of God as a tyrant because he controls, maintains and guides life on earth, is irrational.
I’ll have to check out the other thread you mentioned.
God made the universe through some method. It could be Day-Age Theory, the Gap Theory, or Evolutionary Creation. Is design involved? If God did it and he did, the answer would be yes. Therefore, there is an Intelligent Designer. I left out Young Creationism because I do not consider it a valid idea. I will not discuss this any further.