Christy, I have great sympathy with your perspective here, including the fact that there is one reality, onot two (natural and supernatural). So much of God’s work as recorded in scripture most certainly are utilizing absolutely natural means… someone above mentioned the crossing of the Red Sea which was recorded as having been accomplished (at least in part) by the blowing of a strong wind, as well as a wind that brought quail for the Israelites to eat. many of the things that Scripture recognizes as God’s,intervention are nonetheless recognized, even by the Bible writers, as having been accomplished through natural means entirely. Some things are not claimed as miraculous whatsoever, must rather fortuitous timing.
Nonetheless, there are simply some things that can’t be explained, in their entirety, without recognizing God’s “direct” or quite purposeful intervention. When the people heard a voice from heaven that said, “this is my Son whom I love”… I would have no issue to discover that what they heard was due to some odd cloud formation striking an odd weather pattern in just the right way maybe with a gathering of dust as to spark a series of electrostatic discharges that vibrated the air in just the right way as to produce those particular sounds. But all the science in the world doesn’t explain the remarkable “coincidence” that those discharges made sound waves occur in the exact patterns that would correspond to the Aramaic words for “this is my son…”
Or my other favorite illustration… I’d have no issue whatsoever to discover that the original 10 commandments were actually carved into the rock by lightning produced by the tremendous ash interacting with gaseous volcsnic vapor that repeatedly struck a particular stone as to make numerous chips fall out of it. But all the science in the world couldn’t account for why these perfectly natural means just happened to make those chips fall in such a way that they said, in perfect Hebrew, “you shall have no other God’s before me, you shall not make unto thee…”
So all that leads me to this clarification…if I might speak to this… I can’t speak for the ID proponents themselves, but as one deeply sympathetic to their position, I would clarify in the strongest terms that they don’t think “natural explanations rule out God’s activity.” I certainly don’t at least. I am open to God’s activity in, behind, with, through, etc., all manner of action. And I would have no issue, in principle, with the idea that God utilized all manner of natural forces to create the first or any subsequent life.
It is just that the DNA code to me (and other aspects of biological life) is on the same level as the voice from heaven, or the message carved on the stone… the means may very well have been something we would call “natural.” But natural laws simply can’t explain why they lined up in such a very, very, very specific pattern. Nothing in nature explains this level of intentional arrangement. The amount of specific dna code required to be in certain orders to make even the simplest life function is absolutely astounding, I imagine on the level of the specific wavelengths required to produce the sound “This is my son…”
So for what it is worth, I don’t think it accurate to say that The ID position thinks “natural explanations rule out God’s activity.” Rather, it is that they see that some activity simply precludes natural explanation.