Intelligent Design – KNOWING GOD'S PATH

NEO-DARWINISM CANNOT EXPLAIN MAN’S DISTINCTION FROM ANIMALS

The Biblical text was not intended as a precise scientific document, but it does describe essential facts that Man needs to know, including the two phases of Man’s creation.

These phases correspond to the scientific evidence we have.

Phase I:

“And God formed the man of dust from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living being”

(Genesis 2:7)

The term “living being” used in Genesis 2:7 is the same term used in Genesis chapter 1 to describe the animals that God created before Man.

The great rabbinic sage Sforno explains that in phase I primitive Man existed as a higher form of animal, but still an animal similar to all the other animals which are lacking the ability of speech and intellectual reasoning.

We might conclude from this that these animal like humans could have existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but they left no evidence of language, writing, civilization, or abstract thought.

Line drawings on a cave wall, with no evidence of language or abstract thought, do not really distinguish primitive Man from animals.

Phase II:

“God planted a Garden in Eden, to the East, and placed there Man whom He had formed.” (Genesis 2:8)

The rabbinic sage Sforno explains that the “Garden” is the location where Man received the “image of God” so that higher Man gained the ability for speech and intellectual reasoning that primitive Man and animals are lacking.

This second phase would have occurred less than 6000 years from the present time, IE in the year 5786 according to the Jewish calendar that counts from the creation of higher Man.

Honest scientists will admit that the oldest writing that exists is less than 6000 years old, which was the period when Man was placed in the “Garden” and received the “image of God”.

No amount of Darwinist imagination can explain Man’s ability for speech, language, writing, and intellectual reasoning. These abilities could only be granted by a supernatural Creator.

God’s Mind is Far Above Man’s Puny Mind

Could all the Neo-Darwinist scientists in the world construct even a one-celled living organism from (non-living) laboratory chemicals? I rather doubt it.

Could anything as enormously complex as a 1 celled organism have evolved from un-directed natural causes?

https://www.britannica.com/science/cell-biology

How could the cell nucleus survive before all the other components evolved?

How could the components outside the nucleus survive before the nucleus evolved?

We should have the humility to admit that God’s mind is far above Man’s puny mind.

In contrast, the pompous and intellectually dishonest New Atheists and Neo-Darwinists refuse to admit that they have no explanation for the origin of the Universe, nor can the Neo-Darwinists explain the origin of life on Earth.

At best Neo-Darwinist theories can explain minor changes within the same species (such as the size and shape of a finch’s beak) due to un-directed natural causes. These changes do not represent any increase in the complexity of the species.

The many articles and books by Dr. Stephen Meyer teach true science within the limits of Man’s knowledge.

“the probability of producing even a single functional protein (a gene product) of modest length (150 amino acids) by chance alone stands at a “vanishingly small” 1 chance in 10^164 (10 to the 164 power)”

Signature in the Cell

Intelligent Design vs. Neo-Darwinism

Darwinist and Neo-Darwinist theory postulate that random, unguided, undirected, natural processes caused the proliferation of complex life forms on Earth. Although the Darwinist concept of Natural Selection (a component of Evolution theory) by itself is not a random process, Natural Selection can only operate on existing biological features and species. Variations in the biological features and species can only occur due to random genetic mutations.

It seems clear that the objective of Darwinism seems to be to openly deny the requirement of a Creator to explain life, so how can Darwinism not be considered a type of atheist belief system?

In Chapter 19 of the scholarly book “Darwin’s Doubt”, Dr. Stephen Meyer explains how ID opponents have invoked “demarcation arguments” and methodological naturalism against ID. Dr. Meyer then explains how materialistic evolution theories fail the same demarcation standards that are being used to deny the validity of ID.

“I believe we can certainly invoke demarcation arguments against any materialistic explanations for the origins of the Universe and for the origin and development of life on Earth. Assuming the Earth is billions of years old, we cannot observe, measure, or really know exactly what conditions existed during much of those earlier epochs of Earth history. As a result, methodological naturalism must itself rely on numerous inferences and speculations in order to argue for a purely materialistic origin and development of life. Invoking methodological naturalism to explain the origin and development of life requires a much greater inference and leap of faith than ID.”1

The great rabbinic sage and philosopher Maimonides explained a related idea that the state of the Universe during its creation phases did not resemble its state when it was completed. This concept can help validate modern Intelligent Design theory, as Neo-Darwinism erroneously assumes that the same Natural Order we observe now always existed:

“No inference can be drawn in any respect from the nature of a thing after it has been generated, has attained its final state, and achieved stability in its most perfect state, to the state of that thing while it moved toward being generated. . .a being’s state of perfection and completion furnishes no indication of the state of that being preceding its perfection.”2

The treatise “Drush Or HaChaim”, by the 19th Century rabbinic sage Tiferet Israel, cites Genesis Rabbah 3:8 (also Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Recanati) to show that the world had been created and destroyed a number of times, each time in a greater state of perfection, and that the fossil record confirms this. Tiferet Israel was aware of Darwinist theories in his time, but he did NOT support Darwinian evolution. He makes no mention of any Darwinian type evolution processes.

Tiferet Israel also cites the renowned scientist Dr. Georges Cuvier, who taught “catastrophic theory” while firmly opposing evolution. Dr. Cuvier believed that species appeared and disappeared in the fossil record without significant changes to each species while it lived, but overall there was a continual increase in complexity.

It is intellectually dishonest to morph certain Medieval rabbis, who are considered “rationalists”, into some type of modern rationalist Neo-Darwinists. It is evident that the concept of “intelligent design” is not only compatible with Torah concepts, but in fact the study of design in the Universe may have been mandated by some Torah sources.

For anyone interested in the fascinating subject of intelligent design and the influence of various Biblical concepts on Western philosophy and science, I highly recommend the very scholarly book “Return of the God Hypothesis” by Dr. Stephen Meyer.

Although the author is a non-Jew, the book’s thesis seems quite compatible with a Torah based understanding that the Universe and life on Earth could only be the intentional products of a Superintelligence, and not the products of random natural processes such as Neo-Darwinists might claim. Dr. Meyer’s book actually cites Biblical and rabbinic sources in a number of places.

1 Dr. Stephen Meyer http://www.darwinsdoubt.com/

2 Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, 12th century CE.

Intelligent Design is Consistent with Judaism

The modern concept of Intelligent Design seems to be quite consistent with classical Biblical and rabbinic concepts. In contrast, Darwinist evolution theories not only require great leaps of faith to explain the evident complexity in the Universe, but Darwinist evolution also removes any meaning or purpose to the Universe.

The concept of reflecting on the wisdom evident in the design of the Universe has strong roots in ancient rabbinic thought. Within various rabbinic writings are some concepts that seem quite consistent with the modern Intelligent Design movement. In the famous medieval (11th Century C.E.) Jewish ethics book Chovos HaLevavos, a whole shaar (gate) is devoted to explaining how we should examine the created Universe and thus deduce proofs of the existence and wisdom of the Creator.

“One is obligated to reflect on the created things, and deduce from them proofs of the Creator’s wisdom, by the dictates of reason, Scripture, and rabbinic tradition.”

(Chovos HaLevavos, Shaar HaBechina, Chapter Two)

Chovos HaLevavos also explains that the wisdom evident in the design of the Universe offers proof that the Universe was created with the intention of an Intelligent Agent. Thus Chovos HaLevavos is in direct conflict with Darwinist evolution which can only posit an “appearance” of intelligence in the biological order that lacks any actual purpose.

“It is evident to us that for things which come about without the intent of an intender (i.e. an intelligence who designed it with a purpose) — none of them will display any trace of wisdom or ability. Behold and see, that if a man suddenly pours ink on clean paper, it would be impossible for there to be drawn on it orderly writing and legible lines like it would be with a quill, and if a man brought before us orderly writing from what cannot be written without use of a quill, and he would say that ink was spilled on paper, and the form of the writing happened on its own, we would be quick to call him a liar to his face and tell him that it must have been written without an intelligent person’s intent. And since, in our eyes, this is something impossible for mere symbols (the alphabet) that we have agreed on — how could we entertain the notion for something whose engineering is far more fine, and whose assembly is infinitely more deep and beyond our comprehension, to say that it is without intent of an Intender, and without the wisdom of a wise and powerful Being.”

(Chovos HaLevavos, Shaar HaYichud, Chapter Six)

What is Intelligent Design

A basic definition of “Intelligent Design” might be the concept that we observe various physical and biological features of the Universe whose existence is best explained as due to the actions of an Intelligent Agent rather than due to the effects of undirected natural processes such as natural selection.

In contrast to Neo-Darwinist (evolution) theory, intelligent design philosophers and scientists argue that the best explanation for the origins of life, and the origins of the many biological forms, is an Intelligent Agent.

Intelligent Design (ID) theory postulates that design is empirically detectable in various physical and biological aspects of the Universe. For example-

the overwhelming scientific evidence that the Universe had a definite beginning, observed since the 1920s in the red-shift and the expansion of the Universe,
the substantial evidence that the physical constants of the Universe have been enormously fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life, and
the large amounts of functional information present in the DNA of biological organisms.

The three factors mentioned above, among others, all provide convincing evidence that a Superintelligence created the Universe (and continues to maintain its existence), and this Superintelligence must have also created the life forms present on Earth. Materialist scientific theories, citing undirected natural causes, simply cannot provide convincing explanations for the origins of the Universe and the origins and development of life on Earth.

ID theorists may or may not specify that the Intelligent Agent responsible for design in the Universe is God, and ID in general does not attempt to define the exact nature of the Intelligent Agent. ID theorists recognize that our Universe could not have simply popped into existence by itself. ID theory would only be inconsistent with Judaism if it implied a Creator with characteristics contrary to Torah theology. I am not aware that ID does imply any such characteristics. However, its astounding how some Jews can believe that acceptance of atheist Darwinist evolution can be preferable to acceptance of ID.