Intelligent Design or unthinking blasphemy?

Despite the fact that I utterly repudiate ID and the whole idea of design in this context, I absolutely disagree with this particular point. Trial and error is not inherent in the idea of design. It is only a practical means for humans to acheive effective design despite their limitations. Trial and error is only required as part of a design process when you cannot accurate predict what the result of your design features will be. Design in less complex project can be done without trial and error even for human beings with their limitations.Look I understand very well because trial and error is the process I depend on in computer programming. But trial and error is not always feasible in every situation where design plays a role, so I think that design is theoretically possible without any kind of trial and error at all. It is certainly possible in computer programming. It is only very very difficult.If God uses trial and error in the creation of living things it is because living things are inherently unpredictable and cannot be designed at all. Although I would not actually say that God uses trial and error, I think this is exactly the situation. Living things cannot be designed and anything which is designed cannot be alive.Edited by mitchellmckain, : continuation.

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Either I'm not seeing where you make a distinction from design and from chance or you are using a non-sequitur to establish your point. On the one hand you cede the premise that God could not use trial and error, i.e. some sort of evolutionary propagation, and on the other hand, you posit that anything that is designed cannot be living. How can you render both notions useless and still have both lifeforms and God?

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I am not establishing my point with that statement. I allready made my point. "Trial and error is only needed as part of the design process when you cannot predict the result of design features due to its complexity and the limitation of the designer." Since I do not attribute limitations to the knowlege of God especially where mere calculation can predict the result of design features, I made the following conclusion. IF (I said IF) God uses trial and error then the inability to predict the result of "design features" is inherent in what is being created. But in that case, I think the use of the term "design" is utterly inappropriate, for I think that the idea of knowing ahead of time how the thing you are creating will function and what it will do is a part of what the word design means. Otherwise, the word "design" could be used to describe patently inapproapriate activities like teaching, saying that a teacher "designs" his students.I am stating the postulate that living things cannot be designed at all - that the idea of design and what it means to a living thing are utterly incompatable. The only way that a living thing can be "created" is in participatory process as described by words like, cultivation, caretaking, guidance, training, and teaching. It is the nature of living things that they participate in the process of their own creation and thus that they bear some responsibility for what they are. A process of design attributes all the responsibility for what is created to the designer, and thus something which is designed does not have the characteristics of a living thing.So I said that I would not use the words "trial and error" for God's creative process because I think it is tied in the above manner to human efforts at design without the ability to predict the result of design features. However the words "trial and error" are not completely inappropriate either. A teacher can successively try different techniques and ideas until he gets his point accross, for although "design" may be an inappropriate description of the teaching process, the teacher can still have definite goals in mind and try various things to achieve those goals. Likewise in the effort to achieve particular goals in the lifeforms of earth, "trial and error" may be an applicable description of parts of God's creative work.Hopefully, that answers your question because I am not very clear what you mean by disinguishing design from chance or what you mean by rendering "both notions useless".Edited by mitchellmckain, : No reason given.

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I assume this is a tacit recognition that God and the current paradigm concerning evolution would be incommensurate unions. But at the same time, you object that God designed His creatures in a, I'm guessing, Creation ex Nihilo type scenario. Is that a correct assumption? I'm wondering where this leaves you philosphically as far as causation for all that is actual.

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nwr seems to be understanding what I say. I too cannot see any relationship between my words and your responses. I suspect that your difficulty arises from the attempt to force my meaning into your own rigid conceptual framework. This makes communication difficult but the categorization of the whole truth into seperate issues is somewhat arbitrary and so explaining this to you is forcing me to go beyond the orignal topic of discussion.I see no incompatability between God's creation and the scientific description of evolution because that description is no more a complete description of reality than the conception of reality in physics as a system of mathematical relationships between measurable quantities.Certainly a creation ex nihilo senario would indeed have to be an example of a creation by design. But the creation of Adam as a magically animated golem of dust is no better.As for causation, God created natural law to operate autonomously and independently in order to give living things an independent basis of existence. However the material efficent causality (using Aristotle's terminology) or the local time-ordered causality (to use more modern terminology) of modern science finds its limitation in quantum physics with the uncertainty principle. Through the window that this limitation allows, God is able to interact (without violating physical law) with His creations in a non-forceful manner to care for, guide, encourage, and teach his living creations in an interactive process. This is the "small still voice" of God.

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But what do these fallible human attributes have to do with the concept of God when the very basis of perfection is measured by God, the very basis of good is measured by God, and the very basis for actuality is measured by God?

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But the "trial and error" process in teaching is not about the fallability of the teacher it is about the fallability of the students. Free will is the essence of life and living things and so living things do not always respond to God - they do not always move in the direction that God guides. I am not a Calvinist, and do not even try my patience arguing that point of view. The process of creating life cannot be facilitated with raw power, it take patience and love. God help a child if a parent tries the raw power approach in every thing the parent teaches the child.If you just don't like the word error, how about "try and try again?"

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In other words, are you saying that our understanding of design prohibits God from 'planning', so to speak, because His thoughts do not move on a time-line?

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No I said nothing of the sort. I would not limit God like this or in any other way. But neither do I think that God's omnipotence means that he can accomplish any result by any method that we care to dictate. Ridiculous counter-examples to this are easy. The result of creation is not independent of the method of creation.

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If God did not have His thoughts manifested in the form of space/time/energy/mass ... When you say God could not 'design' anything ...

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It sounded as though you were denying both design and chance for God. What other option exists? Life is either intentional or its unitentional. There is no third option.

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space? time? energy? anything????? As nwr observed I was talking about living things only!Ohhhhhh! Finally I get it. (maybe?) Life itself - the process of life - is an utterly intentional creation of God. That is entirely his invention! You could definitely say that God designed the process of life itself. In fact the content of that design can largely be found in the laws of physics, all of which were created with the single purpose of giving birth to life. But that is just creating the conditions for life to occur. The actual process of creating a living thing itself is one of careful encouragement of it from its fragile beginning.As for the beginning itself that cannot be clearly classified as either completely spontaneous or completely by design, because the careful preparation of the proper conditions where life can spontaneouly start is by design and there is no black and white line here because of that. NOT that we really know all that much about this very beginning. This is pure speculation only.Edited by mitchellmckain, : fixing errors and additions

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This is what I'm confused on. You stated that God does not design anything by trial and error. Isn't that the very hallmark of the theory of evolution? Obviously it is. So, I'm asking how you how that tenet of yours does not conflict with its own premise.

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As nwr observed I am saying that trial and error cannot be a part of God's design of anything. BUT that does not mean that God does not need the "try and try again" process in getting through to human beings, for example. Nor does it mean that "trial and error" plays no part in God's creation of living things, because this is NOT design - not even close.Evolution is a description in terms of objective observations only of a process of partnership between the creativity of living things making their own choices and the subtle shepherding influence of God. Trial and error is most definitely a part of this because trial and error is the basic learning process, and the development of life is a learning process. God does not exercise absolute control over life and therefore His "infallablity" is just not an issue.

The only portion of the Newcomb's paradox that I think any conclusions can be drawn from is the glass box version. Since the predictor is a participant in the game, his actions affect the actions of the other player, which means that the predictor's knowledge of the future can only be conditional, such that he knows what the other player will do depending on what he himself does. So here is where I see the real conflict between human free will and the omnisicence and omnipotence of God. Since God is a participant in the lives of his creatures, knowledge of what human beings will do as a result of his own actions, necessarily means that he has absolute control over their actions. This would mean that free will is at most an illusion and since God would then make all the choices, it would be irrational for Him to hold us responsible for anything. A God outside time and space seeing the future laid out in front of him can only be compatable with the idea of human free if God remains an observer only, like the Deist conception of God. As a Christian who believes in a personal relationship with God, this is not an option.Here is my own paradox: Does God know how to give someone privacy? It would be very strange if God cannot do something that every human being can do. I think a key question here is if God is truly all-knowing and all-powerful, does this mean that He is limited by our definitions and descriptions of Him? Is God a real person or just a human concept? If we are going to believe that God is all-knowing and all-powerful then we certainly cannot adopt interpretations of these which are contradictory. I think that the only way to avoid contradiction is not to interpret these as defining God or dictating what God must know or do. Or to put it another way, an essential aspect of God being all-powerful is that He is ruled only by his own will not our definitions and that it is in pursuing His will that He has no limitations. Therefore to be all-knowing or all-powerfull means that God can acomplish whatever He chooses to accomplish and know whatever He chooses to know. This means that God is capable of giving privacy as well as taking risks, making sacrifices and limiting Himself in any way that He chooses.God can make a log so heavy that He Himself cannot lift it, because He can define and limit Himself as He chooses, we cannot define or limit Him in any way. God is not only capable of risk, sacrifice and self-limitation, but He is ready and willing to do so all the time. He is ruled by His will and His will is not to power or to knowledge but to love.Life and free will are the same thing. Creation without sacrifice is a trivial exercise. God sacrificed absolute control, limiting His own knowedge and power in this way, to create this entire physical universe as a womb of life. It is irrational that He would would then destroy this capacity for life and free will by annihilating the possibilities open to us. I think that God works to do just the opposite, that is to increase the choices open us and magnify our free will as much as possible. In fact I think this is the essence of God's opposition to sin, for sin is just a general term for all the different forms of addiction in the world, and all of them destroy our free will. Therefore God begins by not choosing to know what our future actions will be, giving us, at least, that one type of privacy.God certainly exists outside of the space and time of the physical universe because He created it. But to be consistent with the analysis above, this does not mean that he is incapable of change. This is absurd. Is it impossible for God to change from the person who intends to create the world to the person who has already created the world? Being outside the space and time of the physical world does not mean to be changeless and without time. If God can create time for us then He certainly can create time for Himself. Being outside the time and space of the physical universe only means that His time and our time are not bound together. He can choose how interact with this universe at His own discretion.Certainly God created the physical universe with time and space, but He also created it with free will, which means that from the vantage outside of time and space it is a superpostion of possibilities. How that superposition of possibilities resolves into actual events depends on how he chooses to interact with it. Guided by both ethics and aesthetics He will certainly choose to interact with the physical universe in a time-ordered manner as a participant bound within the limitations of time. He will not read the end of the story before the beginning. But as a participant He will exert His own will to guide it toward the future of His choosing, but only within the limitations that the free will and "future privacy" of His creatures imposes upon Him. Since sinful men and women rarely exercise their free will anyway, this is not a very burdensome limitation.

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I wonder if you changed your mind by the end of the post where you say He can limit Himself as He chooses. Surely if He can do that, then He can also give some privacy if HE chooses. Yes I have heard this quaint refrain before and I do not buy it. "There are things we can do that God cannot because God cannot sin." Tell me do you think that God cannot kill a person? Do you think God cannot take something that belongs to a person away from them? Do you think that God has never said anything which is untrue? Try Genesis 6:7 where He said that He would destroy every human being and animal on earth. If He can do all of these things as He chooses then what exactly does it mean to say that He cannot sin? I don't know. But whatever it means, it doesn't place any real restrictions on Him as far as I can tell. Frankly I think it is word game. Sin is going against the will of God, so God cannot sin.This prohibition against God doing anything which contradicts our definitions of Him sound like really pathetic attempts to put God in our pocket. People cannot stand the fact that they have no way to manipulate or control God. God is utterly good and loving, so why should we fear Him. Because we cannot manipulate or control Him. We cannot manipulate Him with our praises (flattery), appease Him with our good works, bind Him with legal contracts or promises, and we cannot confine him with our theological definitions. Oh yes, He is terrifying.

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Thanks for asking. He gives the same privacy to everyone. He gives us the privacy of our future actions. He doesn't peek at what we are going to do. Of course, as I said before, sin destroys free will and so there are some people who are so utterly predictable, that He would not need to peek anyway. Ok, maybe this is beating a dead horse since you practically conceded the point when you said "good point". But I thought I would point out that I agree with what you say in these statments but that they illustrate why saying "God cannot sin" is no limitation upon God. You try to distinguish between killing and murder, but the murderer also kills the people who break "their law". But God's law defines true right from true wrong so if He kills it is justice. If He takes, He is only taking what is His. If He says something, His power probably makes it true.PS. You need to reread this. You missed it somehow. This was an example of God "lying" not murder. But he didn't destroy every human being and animal on earth. Ok poor example, this could be called changing His mind and not lying.

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Ok, so maybe it is time to tie it back together.In Shh's first post, He put forth the idea that Intellegent Design is laughable because the term "Intellegen Design" is incompatable with the idea of God. His entire argument was based on the presumption that "trial and error" was a necessary part of the activity of designing. In post 54, however, I utterly repudiated this because the only need for "trial and error" in a design process comes from the difficulty that the designer has in predicting how design features will effect the end result. I suggested, therefore, that we are left with two possible conclusions. The first comes from the possibility that the difficulty arises from deficiencies of the designer, which is certainly inapplicable to God. The second arises from the possibility that the difficulty arises from the nature of what is being created, in which case I claim that the word "design" is inappropriate for the process of its creation at all.Therefore I agree with Shh that there is a contradiction between the idea of "Intellegent Design" and "God", but not for his reason and only when the nature of living things is also considered.To understand this shift in the argument has required some exploration of the omnisicence of God in relationship to living things, for it depends on the idea that God can create something which He cannot predict. This required justification in my argument in post 73 that the only consistent understanding of omnicience and omnipotence must include God's ability to decide what He knows and thus having the ability to give privacy to his creations.Of course there is certainly a sense in which I have hijacked this thread for rather than simply pointing out the flaw in Shh's original argument (which was from an atheist perspective), I replaced it with different argument from a theistic perspective. I have "rudely" changed the nature of this thread from a battle beween atheists (ridiculing Christian ideas) and Christians (defending them), to a theological battle between Christians.It just goes to show that Christians have enough to argue about among themselves without engaging in arguments with atheists. On the other hand, an argument between groups that share so few fundamental presumptions is a lot less productive than between those who share at least a few. LOL Edited by mitchellmckain, : gramatical mistakes

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Well that is certainly a different issue which I have addressed in Message 121 of Creationism/ID as Science, and it is not an issue between atheist and theist but between those who understand science and those who do not. Atheists who think that science is "on their side" proving that religion is nonsense are guilty of exactly the same thing. I beg to differ for that does not jibe with my experience. It may be more true of the agnostic crowd, but it is certainly not true of the majority of atheists. Not only do many seek to revive the idea of a steady state universe, but there are others like Steven Hawking who look for an explanation of a beginning in spontaneous phenomena.For some you could call it a difference of opinion but there are also atheists who do not know the difference between science and rhetoric just as their are theists who do not know the difference between science and rhetoric. And the majority (barely, not overwhelming) of non-theists that I have encountered, in other forums at least, are of this variety that are either uninformed or simply refuse to see the difference. These do think that they can disprove the idea of creation.It is true however that their are religious groups including some branches of Christianity which seem to encourage this kind of uninformed attitude, and this willfull and organized promotion of rhetoric as if it were science is definitely the greater tragedy.

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