March 19, 2006
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Psalm 19; John 2: 13-22
I read an essay recently in The Washington Post by a man named Henry Brinton. The article concerned a debate that was going on in the Sunday school class he attended at his church on the topic of intelligent design vs. evolution.
The author began by describing himself as a scientist and a Christian. He went on to explain the difference between a scientific theory and a hypothesis. The second is not provable by a set of repeated tests and thus remains a hypotheses, theory is not the same as a hypothesis.
Then he stated his own conviction regarding creation, God did it. The Genesis stories of creation, while different in detail, agree that God did it!! The theme runs throughout the Bible, but he adds that God did it does not suggest how God created us and he found it amusing, annoying and irritating that people had the temerity to insist that God did it in a way that is pleasing to them. He finished with; I feel that God has given us the intelligence to explore the world around us and to do our best to understand it.
This approach, combining the precept of truth through scientific discovery while humbly acknowledging that there are some things known only to God, allows for us to pursue the data that science reveals, including data about the origins of life while praising God as the author of it all.
If one believes that God is the author of all truth, then the pursuit of scientific truth is not to be feared but rather pursued with joy and delight. They will exhibit God’s truth. They are different aspects of truth that leads us to the knowledge of God. Generations of believers have embraced the prayer of Psalm 19 in just this way.
The heavens are telling the glory of God; as the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. The psalmist gazes at the beauty of creation and utters praise to God, the author of it all (God did it). This praise offering comes out of faith. This is not science asserting, it is faith affirming; sciences can do no more, faith can do no less. Science will never be able to tell us, based on empirical evidence, that there’s a God or isn’t a God. Only faith can make such a declaration.
The knowledge of God comes to us through different channels, scientific discovery is one form. Natural revelation is another and written revelation yet another. That said the psalmist then goes on to praise God for the glory of the human person who is unique to all creation.
Darwin’s theory of evolution has had Christians grinding their teeth for almost 150 years. It seems to fly in the face of the Genesis account of the origin of life and the natural world. This is particularly troubling if Genesis is read as a scientific journal rather than a theological document that explores how humans are in relationship with
God their creator.
And so we come to the title of my sermon. There is a new theory out, intelligent design. Intelligent design says that Darwin’s theory of evolution is adequate to describe the wonderfully complex diversity of creation. For the intelligent design theory science is fine and is seen in a positive light. Because behind the science there is an intelligent design to it all, of all this (God did it).
For anyone who has stood on top of a mountain, or watched a sunrise, or watched the ocean who in their right minds can refuse to acknowledge the existence of the creator. It is unlikely that the psalmist, surveying the heavens and praising God for the wonders thereof was thinking about the details of how such wonders occurred. He was simply offering praise and gratitude for his maker and living his life in harmony with the view that God indeed did design all this. The how questions are for science, the why questions are for faith.
Did the psalmist ever consider the question of how, who knows. How many millions of Christians who praise God at the birth of a child consider the issues of chance, randomness and natural selection? For many these matters are part of the fabric of life explained by science and affirmed by faith and pose no threat to their theology or to their spiritual practice.
Perhaps this is where people of faith should let things rest. Matters of science and theories of the origin of life are to be pursued by scientific research. Theology cannot solve scientific matters, nor can science solve theological issues. To insist on empirical evidence for the existence of life would be to do away with faith.
We are not a group of scientists, we are a group of Christians, in that regard we are theologians. We may not consider ourselves theologians but we are. And theology has to do with the pursuit of God; our theology has to do with our understanding and experience of God. This is the path of the psalmist and it has been the path of Christians and Jews for generations. Holy Scriptures offer a window into the explication of God and a view into what it means for human beings to live in a profound relationship with the giver of all good gifts. Christians explore the New Testament assertion that God has been revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the one in whom all things hold together.
It was written by the editors of the Christian Century magazine that the knowledge of God cannot simply be gleaned by looking at nature. The knowledge of nature comes through science, but even then there will be mysteries that remain beyond our understanding.
We as Christians, believing that all creation cohere in Christ in whom the fullness of god dwells, are free to explore all the wonders of the natural world using the tools of science. There is nothing wrong with science. It helps us learn and understand.
But we can join the psalmist who rejoices in the wonders of creation. Such wonders are not diminished by the work or science, they are illuminated. The question is whether people who believe in God can live with the truth of scientific data while offering praise and gratitude to God. To live otherwise is to set truth discerned from science against truth discovered from revelation, scripture and tradition.
That is unnecessary for people of faith there is only one God, one truth and it comes to us through various channels.
Let us join the psalmist in singing alleluia.
Let us pray.