My Intelligently Designed Experience in Seattle

I have just returned from spending nine days in Seattle. Quirky, yet beautiful Seattle. Home to the Space Needle, Pike’s Place Fish Market, Puget Sound, Ivar’s Salmon House, and the Discovery Institute. Chances are that you may have heard of some of those places. I for one highly recommend going to the top of the Space Needle. For 20-odd dollars you can purchase a transcendent experience. Amazing.

But the reason that I left my wife and children, whom I have hardly seen this summer, for Washington state was to attend this year’s Seminar on Intelligent Design (ID) in the Natural Sciences with the Discovery Institute. Unless you have been in a coma for the last few decades, you will probably know that what I just did would be considered outright heresy in many circles. Subversive. Idiotic. Damnable.

The scientific establishment in the West, and particularly in our country, would assign a thoroughly dark and hideous corner of hell for ID proponents. If only they believed in hell. They certainly think they have the requisite power. It is completely acceptable in our country to “come out” as a homosexual or a conservative (although this particular unveiling will probably result in fewer invitations to cocktail parties). But the one thing that you must never do is admit to questioning Darwin. This is heresy of the first order, and it will not be tolerated.

I am a heretic. So be it.

Something like 45 of us heretics wore our little eyeballs out with piles of preparatory reading (they sent me two full boxes of books, articles, and DVDs) and then sat through nine full days from 9 AM to 9 PM with breaks for lunch and dinner. As a participant in the science track(they also had a track relating to the humanities), I had classes on understanding Neo-Darwinism, Cosmological fine-tuning, detecting design, philosophy, biochemistry and much more. We had great interaction with many of the leaders in the ID research community.

One of the greatest benefits for me was meeting and befriending like-minded design enthusiasts from all over the world. It was a fantastic experience for this community is so gracious and welcoming. Not everyone who came initially accepted ID at the same level – some were a little skeptical of various aspects of ID upon arriving. Not everyone was a Christian. All they asked of us is that we have an open mind.

I cannot speak for others, but my own experience was such that after departing I am even more convinced of the inherent design in nature. Darwinian evolution is so scientifically unlikely that few would believe it if it were not first motivated by strong metaphysical and psychological reasons to avoid a personal Creator.

ID provides empirical evidence, evidence from the natural world, that materialism is false. We are not just particles bumping together in the grim, dark night, but we have been purposefully designed. This inference is as far as ID will get you, however. You cannot reason from empirical design in nature to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For that you need other apologetic tools.

Though ID can be used in a properly restrained argument for theism, I am not just a theist. I am a follower of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob come in human form, Jesus of Nazareth. And the design that I observe and study in nature leads me to worship. This Seminar has, among many other things, brought me to my knees in awe of our Creator. In a different context Paul erupts in a doxology (Romans 11:33-36) that I think is appropriate as a capstone on my reflections:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable his judgments,
    and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory forever! Amen.