Why a Designer?

Faith & Science Conversation
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23

There’s design right there, unless you want to maintain God just sort of stumbled into making different things. Either He designed them or each one is a complete divine accident.

So you are contending that those atheist and agnostic students were pursuing power?
That’s so ludicrous I can;t even find words to describe it! They saw the elegant system that things run on and said, “This was designed!”

I don’t know what issue you have that brings you to distort and disparage the motives of everyone with whom you disagree, but the only power that recognizing a Designer behind Creation gave my fellow students and I was power over our own lives that came from realizing that we were each equally designed by God and thus no one stood above us to tell us what we were worth, rather God stood above all and told us we were of equal worth.
And it pointed to “God . . . defining the very nature and purpose of their existence”:

“For freedom Christ has set you free; stand fast, therefore, and do not submit to any yoke of bondage”,

and in terms of the church,

“Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”

So what results from recognizing that there is a Designer? A mandate to not submit to any system like you describe, and an admonition to not believe preachers without checking out what they have said.
The power you speak of only happens when people can be enticed into ignoring the scriptures.

For those science students, seeing that there is a Designer just made them want to get deeper into the science and in a number of instances brought them to recognize that the only reason we can do science at all is because the universe isn’t haphazard and unpredictable but rests on a foundation of One Who is faithful and consistent.

Another perspective:

What Richard didn’t quite state is that when we recognize the Designer we find that we are His followers, not followers of any human except Jesus. The only power that comes from recognizing a Designer is the power to serve, not to lord it over others (something, BTW, that Jesus firmly denounced). Any “leader” who asks for power over others is not, by the standard of the Savior, a leader at all That’s one reason I admired Chuck Smith once I’d met him and saw him in action: he never, ever gave a response that put him in a relationship of power over others, but always gave a biblical response that pushed people gently back into the freedom Christ brings.

Shepherd, teacher, guide – these things all require order, and order is the essence of design. These are the categories that come from the scriptures; not commander, drill sergeant, or boss, which rest on power over others, but gentle persuasion that honors the freedom of others.

The only obsession with power I see here is yours; when the scriptures proclaim freedom, you insist it’s about power

It seems odd that you would say this because repeatedly when something in the scriptures or some aspect of God directs us to love and freedom you insist it’s all about power.
In this case, recognizing that God is Designer gives a foundation for freedom to learn and to act with the confidence that reality isn’t going to go shifting under our feet, as well as the freedom that comes from knowing that you are just as valuable as anyone else because we are all products of the same Designer.

So you ARE saying that those students wanted power, so they used science as an excuse to get some!
I think you really need to go back and read my opening post, because you are in essence slandering my fellow students and I! No one was interested in power, they/we were only interested in following truth where it led. So your application of your measuring stick is not what you are following here – those students weren’t seeking power, nor did they get any; they primarily gained just a few things, such as ridicules from other students (and from faculty), a new confidence in the order of the universe and thus a foundation for further study of science, a new perspective that their lives had value.

24

Maybe you did not notice all the present tense verbs? When God is working it is intentional, and intention implies purpose and design.

25

Living things are in physical terms just biological machines.

Okay – show us where these students, who due to their study of science concluded that there must be a Designer, were trying to use religion for power!

One of the joys of being part of our informal club was seeing some end up turning to Christ despite all the negative results it brought them.

I have to agree: Here he is, judging and condemning students he never even met who due to their study of science concluded there is a Designer – and who, as a result, set about examining the evidence for this Designer having communicated with His/Her/Its (occasionally jokingly abbreviated as “hertz”) creatures. Without actually paying attention to their experience he condemns them as seeking power – as though they all became Christians, and as though “baby” Christians would have any power to speak of!

13 and 14 were on the office door of my first college biology professor.

Absolutely!

Can’t resist . . . this could have been an anthem for out little group–

Though I remember once a couple of us walking from campus to my apartment singing this one–

(though we were a bit higher in tempo and . . . I’ll say “enthusiasm”.

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26

…which you formed to frolic there.

How is that not design?

And look at all the prepositions – they almost all denote design.

…formed to frolic

Never mind all the rest and all the other verbs – it would get pedantic. The whole chapter shouts ‘Design!’

27

No it does not. Just because someone has the intention to have a child doesn’t mean the child is designed. Just because a farmer has an intention to grow corn doesn’t mean the farmer designs the corn. etc… etc…

Yes God created the universe and all living things with plenty of intention, but no it does not mean that He designed everything. The laws of nature, sure. But living things definitely not.

Psalm 104:26 There go the ships, and Leviathan which thou didst form to sport in it.

The word “design” is spelled “d” “e” “s” “i” “g” “n” not “f” “o” “r” “m”.

We also say a teacher molds the minds of his students. It doesn’t mean he designed them.

God didn’t design the creatures of the sea any more than he designed the ships on the ocean. The ships were a product of design but not by God. Living creatures are not a product of design at all. They are a product of growth, learning, and evolution.

28

That’s convincing and totally makes your case. Good grief. When a sculptor forms something, it’s by design. When a craftsman forms something, it’s by design.

Our difference is in a matter of faith, faith in God’s absolute and immanent sovereignty and his providential interventions. In his omnitemporalilty, he ‘was’ (that’s in scare quotes because it’s in past tense and does not really apply to God), he was not surprised. If you want, it would be tedious, but I can cite the several conversations where our difference in understanding the facts and reality of his sovereignty is plain. Or you could just read the Bible.

Factual evidence for Christians to rejoice in, remember and recount, and for true seekers to ponder paints the picture of how God’s providential designs are executed in his children’s lives, and it is not a difficult extrapolation to understand (in the limited sense we can understand how his providence works), to understand how it works in his interventions since the beginning of time, to be thankful for them and to delight in his creativity and craftsmanship.

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Instead of design, it is worthwhile to contemplate the Orthodox teaching of God’s energies and dynamics sustaining the creation. The unfolding of the cosmos (and all that sciences may study) is sustained and given theological purpose via the energies of God as Creator and sustainer - the dynamics infer the actions in accord with the laws articulated by physics and chemistry, and the unfolding (growth in time and space) include the natural aspect of the physical world.

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30

Having spent some amounts of time teaching, I’ll dispute this: that “molding” of minds follows a design, the most immediate manifestation of which is called a “lesson plan”.

No, but he does design the field.

The difference is that God started without even a field, so His design work started at the very beginning . . . which is a very good place to start! When you read you begin with A B C
When you sing you begin with Do Re Mi, when you make life you begin with DNA.

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31

The farmer also ‘designs’ how it is planted, cultivated and harvested.

32

Stop insisting that it only qualifies as design if it’s unit-by-unit design – system design is also design.

And in fact system design is the more elegant version!

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33

Tangentally:

Nowadays, this is often called “pushing an agenda”, especially if it involves teaching critical thinking skills.

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34

This debate may progress if there were an agreement on the definition of “design” as a term, neither scientific nor theological, but how the term itself is meant to be used.

35

An interesting point.

My view of design is that it involves both a purpose and a fixed destination. Something I fail to see in evolution.

Richard

36

I understand that view; I note the dictionary states:

*"… plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of something before it is built or made. *
**.… the art or action of conceiving of and producing such a plan or drawing. *
…purpose or planning that exists behind an action or object."

I also think the term may be taken to mean in debates, as a scientifically detectable property in nature … I disagree with such an outlook.

I also do not agree with describing God as a designer, as this places a limitation to how we may discuss the divine attributes.

37

Just because God designed does not make that His exclusive modus operandi. It would be the same as only viewing Him as Father.
I do not see it as having any sort of negative effects on any other attribute God may (or may not) have, sorry

Richard.

38

We may enter a theological debate on terms that may be used - these are usually analogous or negation. So… if you state that God as the Creator brought everything into existence from nothing, then design is a poor way of saying this. If otoh you wish to convey analogically some activity, it would imply an artisan or tradesman making a plan and constructing from objects available to him, and the analogy would be inadequate.

Perhaps you have something else in mind?

39

Forgive me, but you seem to be knit-picking.

It is the difference between humans being a product of an uncontrolled developing system and a controlled one. The first is not designing, the second one is.
You make a design for a finished product, complete with specs and then you find a method to construct it.

Richard

40

Yep! It is all about control. And control is power. These religionists want people in their power under their control and God is their tool for accomplishing this. Thus God as shepherd in the Bible won’t cut it and they need a god who is a designer like a watchmaker so that people can be tin Xtian soldiers theirs to control. …chanting “yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do and die” absolute goodness is what god (we speaking for him) tell you to do. That is the difference between living organisms and machines. Machines are made for a purpose and function to simply do what they are told and ask no questions. But living things dare to have a life and choices of their own.

Logically God has no need of power and control, so this does not come from God.

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41

Been here, refuted once, will do so again.

How we came into being bares no relation to how we are treated once we are made. Designs do not necessarily include specs for specific behaviour, only the abilities necessary to decide for ourselves. Once the designed creation is done we are left to our own devices and can take notice of our creator if we want to, or not if we don’t.
That is why the watchmaker analogy fails.

Richard

42

I VERY much disagree. Ends are NOT independent of the means. Quite the contrary they are one and the same. How something came into being is the essence of what it is. No you cannot use evil to accomplish good. Neither can you accomplish love by power and control. Design is the essence of the machine. Growth, learning, and evolution is the essence of living organisms. How they came into being is what they are. That is the difference between dream and reality. In dreams there is no logical consistency and there is no coherent connection between what you do and the results. Thus the notion of omnipotence which claims you can accomplish whatever you want by whatever means you care to dictate is the omnipotence of a dreamer, which any child can do. Real omnipotence is quite different than this, with a logical coherence between the means and the result.

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