What exactly does proving to atheists that God designed viruses accomplish in a Christian apologetic sense? What is the path between “God designed viruses” and “Jesus is Lord and his kingdom is coming”? It’s something about the whole ID apologetics endeavor I have never understood. If seeing design in nature is edifying and reassuring and strengthens the faith and resolve of a Christian to go out and excel in love and good deeds, then that’s great. But “proving” the existence of some generic Designer isn’t the gospel. At all. So what is the point of being so evangelistic about it, when we have an actual evangel we were specifically told to go out and share with the world? (Mark 16:15)
I too have not been overwhelmed with apologetics. I attended a two day conference to humor family and out of curiosity run by Lee Stobel’s group, and while interesting, did not get a lot out of it.
In the end , my impression is that there is a lot of cognitive dissonance due to literalism being at odds with the observed world, and apologetics is popular because it provides an escape valve and eases the psychic pain by presenting a rational basis of faith. Perhaps the lack of popularity of apologetics in the EC crowd is due to there being less conflict and dissonance when a more metaphorical approach to scripture is taken.
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I fully agree with what has been said. ID theory falls short on the basis of science and scripture. It conflates the biblical view of design (Ps 19:1, Rom 1:20) with the God-of-the gaps view of design and creates a false dichotomy between evolutionary processes and intelligent design. The beauty and complexity of the creation can provide compelling arguments to believe and strengthen the faith of the believer. But no one ever came to faith in Christ by the scientific method because by definition science cannot address metaphysical truth claims.
Apologetics in general has some value, I think, in keeping us all honest and consistent. No worldview is above the need to give an account with logical consistency and empirical adequacy. And it’s fair to challenge folks on who they believe Christ to be using Lewis’s argument (liar, lunatic, Lord). But at the end of the day, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). They will know that we are Christians by our love not clever arguments.
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no, all wrong… there are no gaps in our understanding.
because,
in 21st century, all engineers in the World know, that to design a miniature autonomous self-navigating flying drone requires an incredible amount of knowledge.
In 21st century, we design autonomous cars, smartphones, we fly to the moon and mars…and still, to design an autonomous self-navigating flying drone of a size of a fruit fly is an engineering SCI-FI…
So, again, there are NO GAPS in our understanding.
21st century engineers know what it takes… there are NO GAPS, we understand very well…
And then, there are the other guys … biologists and other -logists who come an say:
no problem guys, it is perfectly possible to design an autonomous self-navigating flying drone without any knowledge, but we can’t show you how…
I also recommend, to close all technical universities around the World, and send engineers to study evolutionary theory…
I am not sure what you are saying here, friend.
Gonna have to second @jasonbourne4. Let’s start with something simple? How about you tell me what dark matter is. Or is it that we need a modified description of gravity? Which of the two is correct if we don’t have any gaps in our understanding?
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