The limited usefulness of the "intelligent design" argument

[MikeNovack]

The argument that if the universe is designed there must be a designer is far less useful than its proponents imagine. The problem is that JUST the universe having a creator does not extend to the properties of this creator.

unitary/singular god --- does not follow. PLEASE, in this and with other properties I am not meaning to suggest believers cannot have OTHER reasons for believing the god has the property. Just that not coming SIMPLY from "the universe was created. An intelligent design COULD be the work of a committee.

eternal god --- does not follow. Had to be present at the moment of creation but that does not necessarily imply still present. That hand print made on the wall of a cave implies intentional creation, but the cave painting artist who put it these long gone.

omnipotent god --- does not follow. Powerful enough to create the universe as it exists, but that alone does not mean could have created a different universe, different rules. Does not imply able to change/alter what as been created ecept possibly in limited ways.

omniscient god --- does not follow. Enough knowledge to create, but that does not imply necessarily able to predict what the creation will do.

cares about the creation -- does not follow. Anymore than coming across a sand chastle on the beach implies the child who built it still cares abut it. Supper time came, the child went home, and after supper watching cartoons. Might no even remember the sand castle next morning unless asked "what did you do on the beach yesterday?"

PLEASE --- don't waste time giving OTHER reasons why you believe in singularity, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, caring, etc. You need reasons coming from JUST "intelligent design". About ALL the "intelligent design" argument seems to be good for is in countering the position of the atheist that there is no god, nothing like a god.

[Impenitent]

what if god was destroyed in the big bang?

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

The argument that if the universe is designed there must be a designer is far less useful than its proponents imagine. The problem is that JUST the universe having a creator does not extend to the properties of this creator.

unitary/singular god --- does not follow. PLEASE, in this and with other properties I am not meaning to suggest believers cannot have OTHER reasons for believing the god has the property. Just that not coming SIMPLY from "the universe was created. An intelligent design COULD be the work of a committee.

eternal god --- does not follow. Had to be present at the moment of creation but that does not necessarily imply still present. That hand print made on the wall of a cave implies intentional creation, but the cave painting artist who put it these long gone.

omnipotent god --- does not follow. Powerful enough to create the universe as it exists, but that alone does not mean could have created a different universe, different rules. Does not imply able to change/alter what as been created ecept possibly in limited ways.

omniscient god --- does not follow. Enough knowledge to create, but that does not imply necessarily able to predict what the creation will do.

cares about the creation -- does not follow. Anymore than coming across a sand chastle on the beach implies the child who built it still cares abut it. Supper time came, the child went home, and after supper watching cartoons. Might no even remember the sand castle next morning unless asked "what did you do on the beach yesterday?"

PLEASE --- don't waste time giving OTHER reasons why you believe in singularity, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, caring, etc. You need reasons coming from JUST "intelligent design". About ALL the "intelligent design" argument seems to be good for is in countering the position of the atheist that there is no god, nothing like a god.

This isn't a relevant objection. Unfortunately, it misunderstands the whole purpose of the Intelligent Design argument. It supposes that the purpose of that argument is to indicate a comprehensive description of God -- omniscient, omnipresent, loving, personal, etc. But that was not the purpose of the argument at all. It was merely supposed to provide an argument for A Creator of some kind. It does not extend to describing the particular features of that Creator. Other arguments are for that.

The defense of the particular identity of God requires additional arguments, and every knowledgeable apologist is going to already know this. There will need to be arguments about the self-revelation of God, and His particular characteristics and identity will be established from those -- not from merely the ID argument, which is, as you point out, merely to defeat the basic claim of Atheism itself -- but doesn't solve, or even attempt to address -- subsequent questions about what kind of God is in view.

You've asked the argument to do things it was never presented to do, then blamed it for not doing them.

So you've just missed the mark completely. Sorry.

[MikeNovack]

not from merely the ID argument, which is, as you point out, merely to defeat the basic claim of Atheism itself -- but doesn't solve, or even attempt to address -- subsequent questions about what kind of God is in view.

You've asked the argument to do things it was never presented to do, then blamed it for not doing them.

So you've just missed the mark completely. Sorry.

More precisely, counters those atheists who hold "there are no gods and there never were."
It's not me trying to extend "intelligent design". By your response you seem to understand how limited. But in the political/educational arena, that is not usually the case.

[Immanuel Can]

not from merely the ID argument, which is, as you point out, merely to defeat the basic claim of Atheism itself -- but doesn't solve, or even attempt to address -- subsequent questions about what kind of God is in view.

You've asked the argument to do things it was never presented to do, then blamed it for not doing them.

So you've just missed the mark completely. Sorry.

More precisely, counters those atheists who hold "there are no gods and there never were."

Are there any Atheists who don't, by definition, believe that?

It's not me trying to extend "intelligent design". By your response you seem to understand how limited. But in the political/educational arena, that is not usually the case.

Oh, I find it is. It's possible, I suppose, that laymen on either side of the debate might sometimes expect more of the ID argument than it actually tries to achieve...but I don't find any of the experts or well-informed, either among the Theists or the Atheists, suppose any such thing.

It's actually pretty clear that you're right about ID being useful only for making an argument for the existence of a Creator. But it's also unproblematic to the whole apologetics case, because that's exactly where its supposed to begin and end. As I say, there are supplemental arguments to deal with the "what kind of God is He" question, so the Theistic case doesn't at all rest upon the ID argument in isolation. And it does the job it's supposed to do very well, actually. It's a very powerful argument for the existence of a Creator.

Equally importantly, there's nothing nearly so strong on the Atheist side. Atheism itself rests on the utterly unprovable claim that no God or gods can exist, which is presented with nothing more than bluster to back it. In fact, many Atheists will argue (as they have, sometimes, here) that they don't even owe evidence. So much for the superiority of their claim, then: even they are confessing (accidentally) that Atheism is non-evidentiary. At least ID refers to the great mass of scientific evidence. Whatever one concludes about the ID argument, t's got that, at least, on Atheism: it offers evidence, and offers to debate the evidence. Atheism usually does not.