The End of the Intelligent Design Debate?

Yesterday The New York Times reports that Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker. I will briefly touch on four important things discussed in this article.

First, The New York Times disturbingly reports, “While intelligent design has hit obstacles among scientists, it has also failed to find a warm embrace at many evangelical Christian colleges. Even at conservative schools, scholars and theologians who were initially excited about intelligent design say they have come to find its arguments unconvincing. They, too, have been greatly swayed by the scientists at their own institutions and elsewhere who have examined intelligent design and found it insufficiently substantiated in comparison to evolution.” Scholars and theologians? Evangelical Christian colleges? These are our supposed leaders, our learned men, and yet they have traded the wisdom of God for the foolishness of man. I only hope that you, like Paul, are asking, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (I Corinthians 1:20)

Second, “The only university where intelligent design has gained a major institutional foothold is a seminary. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., created a Center for Science and Theology for William A. Dembski, a leading proponent of intelligent design, after he left Baylor, a Baptist university in Texas, amid protests by faculty members opposed to teaching it.” As Christians, we need to support schools like The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who teach sound doctrine and oppose schools, like Baylor, who do not.

Third, the Dover trial will determine “whether intelligent design can be taught in a public school, or whether teaching it is unconstitutional because it advances a particular religious belief” Intelligent design advances the most ecumenical, universal, and basic religious belief possible, a belief in a god who created the universe. Evolution advances a particular religious belief, ATHEISM. I agree with Derek Davis that, “It's a religious worldview that's being advanced.” The only problem is that if advancing a particular religious belief is the determiner of unconstitutionality then the theory of evolution is just as unconstitutional. This gets to the heart of the ecumenical monoculture, erasing the knowledge of God and replacing it with lies (Romans 1:23, 25, 28). The issue is not constitutionality, it is not truth, and it is certainly not ecumenism. In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote The Gay Science, in which he exclaimed, “God is dead.” and now, that God is dead, the proponents of the monoculture are attempting to erase Him from our memory. If God the Creator is erased then all of God is erased and this is their goal.

Fourth, “If the judge in the Dover case rules against intelligent design, the decision would be likely to dissuade other school boards from incorporating it into their curriculums. School boards might already be wary because of a simple political fact: eight of the school-board members in Dover who supported intelligent design were voted out of office in elections last month and replaced by a slate of opponents.” Far too long have American evangelicals been plagued by the sin of theological and intellectual sloth we must study God’s Word and defend it. The opponents of Intelligent Design are forcefully advancing their worldview and we cannot afford to stand idle any longer.