Evidence, Philosophy and Faith

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

(Francis Crick, Nobel Prize
famous co-decoder of DNA,
What Mad Pursuit
[New York: Basic Books, 1988], p. 138.)

The question that has to be asked at this junction is: Why is it that biologists have to constantly remind themselves that those things they observe have not been designed? The fact is that what they see in the machinery of life, in all the systems of information storage, transcription and transfer, and of translation of the said information to the cell and intercellular structures and functions, carries with it a powerful inference of a transcendent and purposeful divine plan. And to maintain a predetermined materialistic view, it is necessary to repeat the following mantra: “this has evolved, this has evolved, this has evolved ...”

Actually, the rest of the paragraph —which begins with the sentence above— is deeply interesting:

"It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large role in guiding biological research, but that is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To try to figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary arguments can usefully be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood." (pp. 138-139; emphasis in original.)

All this agrees certainly with the words of geneticist and materialist Richard Lewontin, professor al Harvard, when he says "... we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." New York Review of Books (January 9th, 1997, p. 31).

And Lewontin is by no means the only one in acknowledging this prejudice. Amongst others, cosmologist Carl F. von Weizsäcker had already said so much in his Gifford Lectures 1959-1960: “It is not by its conclusions, but by its methodological starting point that modern science excludes direct creation. Our methodology would not be honest if it denied this fact. We do not possess positive proof of the inorganic origin of life or of the primate ancestry of man, perhaps not even for evolution itself if we want to be pedantic” [The Relevance of Science, Collins, London 1964, p. 136.]

We see, then, that materialism is a philosophical prejudice as a starting point, not a scientific conclusion; more than that, that its purpose is not to follow the evidence where it leads, but to search for material explanations, excluding any other possibility as a matter of principle.

Design - an inference, not an assumption

On the other had, the existence of God is not a hypothesis at all, but an inescapable conclusion founded in a whole line of evidence which commands full assent, and that, as we have seen, can only be denied because of a wilful adherence to a materialism in spite of all the weight of evidence. Regarding the evidence of a not apparent, but real conscious design, biochemist Michael Denton has this to say:

"The almost irresistible force of the analogy has completely undermined the complacent assumption, prevalent in biological circles over most of the past century, that the design hypothesis can be excluded on the grounds that the notion is fundamentally a metaphysical a priori concept and therefore scientifically unsound. On the contrary, the inference to design is a purely a posteriori induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications, but it does not depend on religious presuppositions."

Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
(Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler
Publishers, 1986), pág. 341.

Most certainly, the evidence of a plan and design of a necessarily transcendent and uncaused personal Super-intellect is denied by materialism, but not at all refuted. The existence of God is therefore simply a matter of evidence and not of faith. The belief of God as a vital and tangible reality is based in that which He has created, as it is stated clearly in the words of Paul to the Romans: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse ...”

The futility of atheism

Dostoyevsky makes one of his characters say in his novel The Brothers Kamarazov: "If there is no God, everything is permitted". And this is the approach generally taken with reference to atheism. However, this looks like a very myopic stance. The fact is that if there is no God, all is absurd. Jean-Paul Sartre was clinging more to the logic of things when, through his main character in Nausea, describes the feeling of emptiness, of absurdity, of an existence that has come by accident, which comes from nothingness and goes back to nothingness, and which has an instant of consciousness of self but as something completely illusory. It is thus that the feeling of nausea springs up in the well informed atheist that Sartre describes in such masterful way.

A professor of the University of Deusto said it many years ago in "La Fontana d'Or", in Girona, at a lecture on philosophy: From Kant to the Present. I don't remember his name, only that he was a professor of philosophy, and that he was of the University of Deusto. But he made a statement that impressed me and that I have always remembered: "The optimistic atheism of the XIXth Century believed that, by excluding God, man obtained his space to be truly a man. But the pessimistic atheism of the XXth Century realised that, by excluding God, man lost all space to be a man". The godly Augustine of Hippo said it with other words: "O God, thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts do not find rest until they find it in Thee".

Here we have the great contrast between the ill informed optimistic atheist and the well informed pessimistic atheist; between the childish atheism of the XIXth Century and the mature atheism of the XXth Century, which finally realises the consequences of proclaiming the death of God. Man, as man, loses all space to be such. Because the space of man is God, and without God he is thrown into a black hole which sucks him into the personal perdition in all aspects, in time, in space, and in eternity. And it is because it is not God who has died, but man, separated from God, and excluded not from existence, but excluded from life.

Philosophy or revelation?

Philosophy seeks the knowledge of the ultimate realities by means of a critical reflection, including the methodical doubt. But given that the ultimate reality is the Personal Reality, the personal Being of God, philosophy becomes impotent. At best, philosophy may reach some limited approximations about reality. But if that Reality is personal, it can only become known when a flux of communication is established proceeding from the said personal Reality to the contingent personal realities that we are. It is only by means of the word that there can be communication from one person to another one. This knowledge is only possible as we open one another by means of the communication of our thoughts by verbalizing them. And this is what happens with the knowledge of God: revelation is essential. Here, philosophy is impotent. All the philosophy of the world will never reach the knowledge of the Other One. At most, it may reach inferences "about" the Other One, but it will never come to the personal knowledge. We only know the others by the word, and in the same way we will only come to know the Other One by the Word.

Philosophy is a useful tool, but limited in its scope. The error lies in the stance of philosophism, in the attempt to embrace the totality of reality by means of philosophy. Reason, as a servant of communication, of Revelation, is a magnificent tool we have received from God. Rationalism is in practice idolatry, by placing as supreme that which is subordinate. Reason cannot establish the measure of reality, but, beginning with reality as it is known through the senses, including Revelation, to reason within the framework given by the facts. But reason can never presuppose the facts. This is done by a misguided rationalism. Reason examines the facts, acknowledges them, and begins with them. But what is essential is communication, the personal Revelation. Without it we will never come to know the others, nor the Other One.

Faith —more, not less

Faith is much more than a knowledge acquired through the senses, not much less. By direct observation we may come to perceive aspects of the reality around us, and we are taken to the inference of design, of a real intelligent design, not an apparent one, of the wonders of life and of its environment. An open mind not set against God acknowledges in Creation the Power and Wisdom of God. But this is not faith, but to follow the evidence where it leads us. And evidence cannot lead us beyond this point. It cannot give us the knowledge of God Himself (not to speak of the explanation of the tragedy present in this world, which so affected Darwin, and which so affects every person that comes to this world). But it gives us the conviction that God is there. How can we come to know this God?

The question could be put also this way: How can we get to know somebody in a personal way? Only insofar as this somebody opens to us, communicates with us, and this in a VERBAL form. And for such knowledge it is imperative that confidence should exist. Without confidence in the interlocutor, no personal tie can be established nor is it possible to come to the knowledge of the "other one". There can be no relationship, nor personal acquaintance, where there is distrust.

In the Revelation, God has spoken. But we can only come to know Him and to establish a tie with Him when there is trust. When we listen to God and trust in Him, it is then only that we can come to know Him and to have a personal relationship with Him. Now, this can only be through a way. Man, in his own questions about whether God is or is not, shows by itself his departure from Good —man, in his natural state, has no relationship with God. It may well be that some may make efforts, that some may philosophize, that they may seek to remake the tie with God (by means of "religion" understood as the human effort to achieve acceptance from God). This obvious departure of man from God shows the reality of some fundamental factors which form part of this same revelation of God in Whom we are called to trust. This revelation from God tells us of the FALL of man, of the blinding effects of sin in the human mind, and of the inclination of men against God —of the natural enmity of men against God. This is the antithesis of trust.

The Revelation tells us also about HUMAN GUILT, and of how God necessarily must condemn all that is contrary to His holiness —the rebellion of the creature against his Creator. But it also tells us of the love of God towards His creature and of what He has done to return Man to Himself while maintaining His righteousness.

God the Son becomes Man and becomes, in this way, He who is Man and God in the person of Jesus Christ, in His double nature as a true MAN (member of our race by the Incarnation, but exempt from sin) and true God (His infinite and eternal nature as He who is the Word that was already in the beginning and from eternity, who was with God and who was God —John 1:1ss). And he does it following the announcements given from the beginning and along the history of Revelation:

1) To manifest Himself in the midst of men and to reveal in a full way the love of God, being He "God with us".

2) To share with us the afflictions that we suffer because of sin: «In all their affliction he was afflicted». He suffered with us.

3) To present Himself, as that holy man, in behalf of men, whose human nature He shared, as a member of our race, as a sacrifice for ourselves, a sacrifice worthy of God (with all the infinite value of His infinite and eternal person and the reality of His humanity by which He represented us). Thus He could bear the burden of our guilt, giving full satisfaction on the cross, by His death, to the justice of God for the sins of those He represented —and in this way to open the door for us to be acceptable and accepted by God, by believing in Him and coming to God by Him. He suffered for us.

The key: FAITH. That faith that is confidence in God, and in that which God has done by means of Jesus Christ and in that which God has told us about the same —beforehand through the prophets and in retrospect by the announcers of the great and good news; that God has brought salvation, that He has not only the knowledge of Himself, but that He has solved the great issue of our moral guilt which barred the way as an eternal barrier to our entrance before God. Now we are invited in Jesus Christ to enter freely before Him.

The three great points of God's salvation are:

1) the Incarnation (the identification of God the Son with the human race, sin excepted);

2) the Cross (the offering of Himself before God as our representative and substitute, giving satisfaction before the justice of God for the sins of all humanity. He had legitimacy to do it, as a member of humanity; he had capability to do it, by virtue of His infinite and eternal nature —the value of His Person was infinite, as also was the value of His sacrifice);

3) the Resurrection: this event seals His work of full satisfaction of God's righteousness, and certifies that together with the satisfaction of sin He has abolished its fruit: death. He is the head of the new creation, which He will introduce in due time in its fullness.

Therefore, faith is not less, but much more than any perception of that which is visible in our surroundings. In the same way as the confidence in our interlocutors is the only way to know them, to open up mind to mind, heart to heart, person to person, thus trust in God —in what He is, in what He has done, in what He communicates to us (and His full communication is in Jesus Christ) is the only way to come to know Him —by FAITH we have the greatest of knowledge: the personal, real, knowledge of God, and of all that He communicates to us, about our history, about our need, about His provision and His plans for the future. Thus, therefore, faith is the deepest of the means of knowledge. Excluding lying, which destroys confidence and communication as such, it is the only way of knowledge amongst humans. And from Him who neither lies nor can ever lie, God, we receive a communication for the restoration of our hearts in faith to Him. And we can certainly found our faith on Him who having died, rose again, and Who says to us: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John, chapter 14, verse 6).

Santiago Escuain

The origin of life – an unsolvable problem for materialism

When we address the question of the origin of life, we refer really to the origin of the first metabolic unit which can reproduce and perpetuate itself.

Before the great advances in microscopy and other observation techniques, it was believed that cells were relatively simple entities, a protoplasm where chemical interactions gave them their dynamic and reproductive properties. Not until the structures of the cell were observed by high resolution electronic microscopy and by means of other techniques that it was known that it was not a matter of mere chemical interactions, of more or less complexity, but of very complex interactions where a whole set of highly miniaturized complex machines made up of pieces of protein material fulfilled very specific functions within a vast biological-industrial complex, with systems for storage and retrieval, translation, transcription and maintenance of information, of regulation and control of processes, of capture, transformation and application of energy, of selective entrance of materials, and their automated transport by codified identification systems, with clocks and timers for all the rates of function and operation.

Thus, the problem of the origin of a living system is not limited merely to the origin of its functional systems as such, but:

1) If at first the systems were formed by some chance (systems of energy capture, energy conversion, and energy application for functions),

2) then, how did these proteinic structures come to be described in a codified system of information supported by the DNA

3) which afterwards could reproduce them by means of the complex of DNA-RNA transcription together with the whole complex of protein machines which are in their turn codified in DNA?

Support of information and Information – a needful distinction

Sometimes there is the unconscious idea that DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) IS the genetic information, and that if the formation of DNA could be explained we would have solved the problem of the origin of the codes of life. It is necessary to distinguish between the support of information and information itself.

An example of it we find in a high-frequency wave, which is no information by itself, and which could be explained as an emission due to a natural process. But a high-frequency wave can be a support of information, when a source of information (the human voice, a musical source, etc.), modulates either its amplitude, its frequency or its phase by means of devices applied to this end.

Another support of information is paper and ink, which cannot by themselves explain the message expressed by their means; the sequence of letters gives the message, either a novel or technical specifications to build a machine. The same with DNA, which by itself could never explain the sequence of the chemical bases, which gives codes for an end in view. This besides the inability of any merely chemical system to produce this molecule.

The same information can be transferred from one support to another one, from electromagnetic waves bearing a Morse code (... --- ...) to letters on paper (SOS) or to binary computer code or to the Braille alphabet. The message, the information, is an entelechy that communicates meanings and which can ride on different supports, and which, therefore, is not the support itself, but independent from it.

Therefore, the DNA chains are not information, paper and ink are not information, the surface of a CD-R is not information – but they serve as media to contain information. It may be said with these words: The plays of Shakespeare are much more than the paper and ink with which the book is produced. There is another magnitude besides the material support: the message.

Thus, what we have is information, which is generated by a mind, (1) either to communicate it to another mind when both minds share the same code, or have means to translate the codes to make them understandable, or (2) to dictate instructions issuing from a mind for achieving some specified purposes, which are thereafter applied by a set of mechanisms that are capable to receive this information and translate it into results.

What was first – the chicken or the egg?

So, the problem stands thus: Were the proteinic machines first formed by chance? In this case, how did they become described and codified on the DNA support and how was formed the whole proteinic machinery for the transcription and materialization of this information to give in its turn all the proteinic structures formed first by chance?

Or perhaps the DNA was first formed by chance, with the codes of life? With all the instructions for the different components of the cellular machinery, for the capture, conversion and application and energy, and for identification and transportation of materials to different parts of the cell, as well as the instructions for the sequences and timings of the assembly? And how much time passed until all the machinery to READ these instructions and to apply them in a functional way was formed by chance?

And, while the machinery was being formed to be able to use the information on this DNA support, which is chemically very fragile, how can the non-degradation and dissolution of a rich-information DNA chain be explained, without the needed proteins and enzymes for its protection, activation, repair and reproduction?

The alternatives

The differing options that have been proposed regarding the origin of life, regarding the origin of the first functional cell, are:

a. Chance + Natural Selection

b. Natural deterministic law

c. Personal intelligent direction

a. Chance + Natural Selection

An argument used by materialists is that the machinery of life, with all its complexity, bears no comparison with the "true" machines invented and made by men, "because he machines made by men do not reproduce, and it is the capability of reproduction what makes it possible for living beings to evolve by natural selection". But this argument is wholly false in relation to the origin of life: It is not only because the machines of the cells, which are real and highly miniaturized machines, are of an exquisite complexity, and because they are coordinated in their functions in time and rates for the systems of treatment, translation and transcription of information. The matter is also that cell reproduction cannot happen UNTIL WE HAVE THE CELL AS A WHOLE. Therefore, the materialist cannot adduce any difference between the cell machinery and the machinery invented by man "because those are living systems". There is no biological life until we have all the information systems with all their machinery, both the information itself contained in its DNA material support, transcribed then by a whole set of machines made up of specific protein pieces which then translate this information for the manufacture of the needed materials and as instructions for the positioning and addressing of the materials, and for the timing and regulation of the different cellular and organismic functions of life. The whole system is needed for the highly complex functions of life TO START TO EXIST. The parallelism of the origin of a cell by chance should be established with that of a whole industrial automated set-up of such a complexity that it could reproduce itself, from all the databases with the complete specifications of all machines, their placements, the materials they have to receive and how they have to process them, and for the maintenance of the whole complex, to the machines themselves and all their environment, connections, systems of capture, transformation and application of energy, systems of regulation and control of processes, selective hoppers for the feed of specific materials, and automated hatches for the exit of other materials, etc,

Therefore, the materialist cannot dodge the real problem posed as to the origin of this machinery with the statement that "those are living systems", because these living systems do not exist until we do not have in existence the integrated whole of all these informational system with all of its machinery, where the protein machines are codified in the DNA, but where DNA cannot express its information except by means of the operation of these protein machines.

In the pairing "Chance + Natural Selection", even when great importance is attributed to "selective pressures" to give the impression that the said pressure brings about the emergence of new organs and of new biological functions, it must be considered that selection, whether natural or artificial, can only operate on that which already exists, and also additionally that it can only operate on entities that are already reproductive. Therefore, natural selection can only exist when the living cell already exists and reproduces itself. It cannot therefore be invoked as a cause of its origin. Obviously, natural selection would not be able to act to build the reproductive system of the cell, as the indispensable reproductive function would not exist as yet. In this case, what we contemplate is the origin of the integrated whole of the first cell by pure chance. And chance is ruled out.

b. Natural deterministic law

In the first decades of speculation regarding the possible formation of a living cell by purely materialistic processes, a branch of materialists expressed the conviction that the natural laws themselves would have brought about the unavoidable formation of life. Amongst others, Kenyon and Steinmann expressed this position in their book Biochemical Predestination. Nowadays this idea is still held in the popular concept that if conditions are right, life will necessarily happen. The idea is that if we should find a planet or a satellite with "earthly" conditions, we could expect to find life, naturally brought about by these same natural laws, as it is assumed.

But the reality is that the properties of the chemical systems PRECLUDE the accumulation of the needed components for life, and even the formation of the said components (DNA, polypeptidic chains, etc.) not to mention all the assembly of the compounds into dynamic and coordinated systems of code-reading, mutation-correcting, and transcribing, regulating, manufacturing protein machines, as well as systems for the capture, transformation, application and regulation of energy, of automated transport of materials, etc. Natural laws are helpless to explain the origin of life. Even more, they prevent it in the absence of a deliberate action, either immediate or mediated, because they act in a contrary direction; they are not of an integrating nature, but disintegrating.

c. Personal intelligent direction

In the same way as the complex of mechanical, electrical and pneumatic components, static or dynamic, of a coordinated and automated system of machines, cannot be explained by chance nor by the laws of matter (although when the whole complex has been built intelligently, it certainly follows the laws of physics and chemistry), those biochemical structures and their concatenation cannot be explained by chance nor by the action of natural law, either. They are the expression of Contrivance for the performance of a special purpose; it all bespeaks a Mind, and a purposeful Creating Mind at that: of the Godhead and the Power of God.

Denial – no refutation
----Materialism as idolatry

Those that refuse God His capability and power to create end up, many of them, ascribing this quality to that which objectively does not possess it —to the universe (por example, Sir Fred Hoyle [The Intelligent Universe], De Duve [Vital Dust], to the physico-chemical systems, etc.

So, such people refuse God the being, the wisdom and power, and ascribe all this to [N]ature, "Mother Nature", etc. They refuse to God the worship that belongs to Him and worship the creature, that which is justly denounced by Scripture as a capital sin of a culture that has risen in rebellion against God:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, ... Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen."

(Romans 1:18-22, 25.)

Santiago Escuain

The detectability of Intelligent Design

What is considered as unacceptable — that Intelligent Design may be detected objectively.

This is the true battlefield in the controversy of Darwinism against the thesis of the Intelligent Design of the structures of life and of organisms as an integrated whole. In Romans 1:18-20 we are told clearly that those that deny the reality of the Creator God as the source of life, do it denying the evidence itself ("so that they are without excuse"). The world will tolerate "religion" provided it is considered as a leap of faith without any contact with objective reality or with historical truth. In such case it will be considered harmless. What the world does not tolerate nor will tolerate is the approach of a rational faith (in contradistinction to "rationalist"), founded on realities, the realities of God being present, with the obvious testimony of His works, and that God has acted in an effectual way in the midst of History, that God has spoken, and that God has brought this revelation to its fullness in that the Son of God became man in a supernatural Incarnation, and was manifested also in the midst of the time and space of this world, partaking of our blood and of our flesh. And the world does not tolerate either that this manifestation may have the support of an undeniable testimony. This sober and well-grounded position is attacked with epithets like "religious extremism" and branded as "dangerous" from many worldly quarters. In fact, this position collides openly with watered down versions of a falsely understood Christianity which ends up denying or relativizing the Word of God, and which is accepted by the world —the world will accept all that which pertains to itself, but not that which comes from the God revealed in Christ Jesus, who was fully rejected by the world.

This rational faith, grounded on the truth of a God made evident by the things that are made, and this to the point that those that deny him "are without excuse" (Romans 1:20), and in the reality of a God that has manifested Himself in many ways and manners through the history of men, until He was manifested in a full way in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-4), is a threat to incredulity. This faith has the true arguments which leave without answer those that show themselves as adversaries of God. This rational faith is the true enemy of incredulity.

A merely "mystical" faith in God, dissociated from reality, is well tolerated. A faith in the Word of the God that manifests Himself in an undeniable way in His works attracts the hostility of the materialists. It bears repeating the words of Richard Lewontin, the famous Harvard geneticist and avowed materialist, who said openly:

"... we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

New York Review of Book(9 de enero de 1997, p. 31).

Thus, the argument of Design and of an Intelligent Design of the Universe and of the structures and forms of life is, for materialism, the great enemy to beat. And the collision with (neo)darwinism as the explanation proposed from the materialistic viewpoint as the explanation for the origin and development of the different structures and forms of life is necessarily direct. And emotional. Materialists and atheists have always been around. It is only necessary to remember the Greek Democritus (ca. 460 B.C. — ca. 370 B.C.) and the Roman Lucretius (1st. century B.C.), which shows it is not a recent phenomenon due to the enlightenment provided by science. In fact, the proposals of Darwinism were welcomed eagerly by a big public educated in the Enlightenment, led by an elite educated in the rejection of a God that intervenes and that acts in a sovereign way. The apparent plausibility of the mechanism of Natural Selection, given the state of ignorance of the true nature and sources of variability in the living beings, gave wings to the materialists, who believed that Natural Selection was the great motor for that evolution in which they believed ever since the times of the ancient Greek philosophers. What the materialists were lacking was a mechanism that would justify their belief in this origin of all living beings by chance and natural law, without any divine intervention. And it was the Natural Selection proposed by Darwin which seemed to be at the time this plausible mechanism. And this is how Richard Dawkins, who is amongst the most militant of materialists and atheists of our time, could say that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" (p. 9 of The Blind Watchmaker).

In fact, and from the very beginning, Darwin did not feel himself very sure about his own theory. He was emotionally very attached to it, but when he was confronted by arguments like the one of the complexity of the design of the eye itself, and of other structures, he even says that "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind...?" [Letter 13230 — Darwin, C. R. to Graham, William, 3 July 1881.]

And the proposal and the rigorous justification of the Design inference and of the need of a deliberate design, both on the basis of what was already known in the times of Darwin as well as —and in an overwhelming way— due to all the knowledge piled up through the last 60 years about all the mechanisms of the working and of the reproduction of the cells and of the coordination of the different tissues in the biological processes of the multicellular organisms, again leaves materialists void of that apparent justification which they thought they had with the mechanism proposed by Darwin for the origin and development of the life-forms. Objectively, we are back to the pre-Darwinian situation. Materialists accept and believe there has been an evolution, but the mechanism of this evolution, which for a time it was believed that had been solved by Darwin, is at present a matter of heated polemics. Scientific research has unveiled the fundamental structure of life, and that this constitution, control and reproduction are based on systems of filing, treatment, transcription and expression of Information, of a nature and of a complexity that give evidence that are the embodiment of the purpose of a Super-Intelligence. The big problem facing materialists is the origin of the information that appears in the background of all organic systems and of the make-up of all the nanomachinery performing the cellular functions. Materialists are holding to their paradigm of chance and natural law as a necessarily sufficient explanation for the origin of the forms of life and of their mechanisms, but this paradigm is really void of a true answer to this question: What is the origin of biological information?

Pierre P. Grassé, a distinguished French zoologist, reflected the following with reference to this problem, back there in 1973:

"When we consider a human work, we believe we know where the 'intelligence' which fashioned it comes

from; but when a living being is concerned, no one knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus, neither Leibniz nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides.

An act of faith is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another. Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should not, acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this problem which, we are certain, exists and has reality.

If the search for the origin of information in a computer is not a false problem, why should it be when it is a matter of the information contained in the cellular nuclei?"

(Grassé, P. P., L’Evolution du Vivant,
Éditions Albin Michel: París, 1973, p. 15)

Thus, it is not only a matter of the evidence proceeding from structures of great perfection, not only from the eye, or in general of all the structures of life which give evidence of an intelligent design governed by a Purpose that expresses the wisdom and the power of God. We have much more. At present the evidence has piled up of a whole cybernetic system in the basis of life itself and of all its expressions. And this fact of this information built-in in magnitudes that go beyond all measure brings us to an unavoidable fact:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life ..." (Gospel of John, 1:1-4)

Santiago Escuain

Materialism, Science and Reality

The definition of science that is being disseminated nowadays wants to exclude from the start all possible consideration of a supernatural origin of life and of the creation of species, and extends the naturalistic methodology to all fields. In the words of astrophysicist and evolutionist Carl F. von Weizsäcker:

"It is not by its conclusions but by its methodological starting point that modern science excludes direct creation. Our methodology would not be honest if we denied this fact. We do not possess positive proof of the inorganic origin of life or of the primate ancestry of man, perhaps not even of evolution itself if we want to be pedantic. ..."

The Relevance of Science,
Collins, London and Glasgow,
1964, p. 136].

In this same work he continues saying:

"We do not yet understand the causes of evolution too well, but we have very little doubt about the fact of evolution; ... What are the reasons for this general belief? In the last lecture I formulated them negatively: We do not know how life should have come to exist in its actual form by any other way. This formulation leaves silently aside any possible supernatural origin of life; such is the faith in science of our time which we all share."

ibid., p. 141.

These words, taken from the Gifford Lectures pronounced in the Winter of 1959-60 by von Weizsäcker, are not an isolated case. This attitude is still the norm, as we can see in a statement not so far back in time as the one by Weizsäcker. In a remarkably candid essay in the New York Review of Books (Jan. 9, 1997), Lewontin explained the true basis of evolutionary science. There, Lewontin expounded his low opinion of the adaptationist "just-so" stories of the neo-Darwinists. In spite of his skepticism about Neodarwinism, however, he accepts the basic story of evolutionary naturalism because, in his own words,

"... we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Richard Lewontin,
New York Review of Books
(January 9, 1997, p. 31)

(Emphasis added).

The logical question is: Is this legitimate? The academic Establishment insists in the proposal that "science" is the search of NATURAL explanations for the phenomena that sorrounds us and for our own existence.

That which may be object of repeated observations, or of repeatable experiments, in relation to causes and effects which may operate in it and of the effects produced by the said causes, is the legitimate field for the naturalistic methodology. But it is not legitimate to exclude intelligent design from the equation when we are dealing with something qualitatively different, as it is the case of the ORIGIN of the system whose operation we are studying by means of the naturalistic method.

- The OPERATION of a system is one thing.

- Another very different thing is the ORIGIN of the said system.

It would be far better to open the debate on origins, instead of maintaining the naturalistic methodology in a dogmatic way, and to begin an investigation of LOGICAL answers, not necessarily NATURAL ones, in what has to do with origins. The approach proposed by Weizsäcker, Lewontin and a host of other researchers prejudges the result from the beginning, as they themselves acknowledge. And, with this, they confuse the study of the operation of a system (the forces operating in the same and the effects of these forces) with the origin of the said system, as if the forces that operate in the said system should explain the origin itself of the system, and with this they ignore a fundamental difference between origin, on the one hand, and operation on the other.

Darwin himself acknowledged the legitimacy of the debate, at the beginning itself of this speculative work The Origin of Species, when he recognized that:

"... I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question. ..."

On The Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection
[Introduction], 1859.

As to the false materialistic approach of "religion versus science", it tries to bypass the essence of the matter. It is evident that the matter of origins suffers from influences and has consequences as to the worldview, but these consequences and these influences appear on all sides. It is correct to identify them. But they should not determine the analysis of evidence. Although Irreducible Complexity (IC) and Intelligent Design (ID) have clear theistic CONSEQUENCES, naturalistic methodology has evident philosophical atheistic assumptions which imply an atheistic perspective of life. Are the atheistic assumptions legitimate as a foundation and as a framework for the research of these matters, with the atheistic analysis of the origin of life that they comport? Do they accord with the evidence?

As the agnostic researcher Denton has acknowledged, the thesis of Design is not founded on religious considerations, although it may have religious consequences. He expounds it in this way in his book Darwinism: A Theory in Crisis (Burnett Books, London 1985, p. 341):

"The almost irresistible force of the analogy has completely undermined the complacent assumption, prevalent in biological circles over most of the past century, that the design hypothesis can be excluded on the grounds that the notion is fundamentally a metaphysical a priori concept and therefore scientifically unsound. On the contrary, the inference to design is a purely a posteriori induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications, but it does not depend on religious presuppositions."

Thus, the inference of an intelligent design in the origins is arrived at by means of an analysis and an evaluation of criteria extant in the system under observation. These criteria pertain to a rigorous "forensic" analysis, and allow to determine if something might have been produced by chance, or if it is due necessarily to a design, to a deliberate intention. However, by means of this design inference the identity of the Designer cannot be determined. Let's suppose, for example, that we study an industrial system composed of a sequence of robots with belts for the transfer of pieces, in an automated assembly process. We can study this automated manufactory system composed of industrial robots from different approaches:

1) We may proceed to study all aspects of its operation from the criteria of the forces that work in the same, and of the effects exerted on the several pieces that are fed from the different hoppers in different places of the system.

This will imply the observation of the structure and function of the different electromechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic devices, the measure of the electrical and mechanical forces applied, for the machining, assembly, bolting, as well as the study of processes like welding, trimming, painting in tanks, the study of electric circuitry and their distribution and application, as well as that of pneumatic and hydraulic conduits, together with the several pressures of fluids used in the different points for different functions.

Thus, the study of the diverse structures, functions, devices and fluids (electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic, etc.), as well as the wear and tear processes, will give us a clear idea of the OPERATION OF THE MACHINE and OF ITS MISSION (for example, the automated assembly of fridge compressors). And the deduction we will make from our study will evidently be that behind all this system we have the matter of its origin, which undeniably is due to the technical and inventive capability of the human mind. All this study brings us to the answer of the WHAT (what this is), the HOW (how it works), and up to a certain extent WHAT FOR (its purpose).

2) This way, by means of the detailed study of the parts and of the design of this system we can understand its mode of operation, and we will be able to deduct that it has its origin in the capability of human ingenuity. But with this data we cannot come to know the identity of its designer(s). The question of Who? cannot receive an answer by the method just described, as this method can only bring us to the point of showing us the existence of an intelligence, of a purpose and of means that have brought about the origin of the system. And the answer to this question of WHO?, as well as of the HOW? (how it was done), requires other methods of knowledge, which are different from the objective analysis of the system. It requires a personal communication with the engineers that had the idea for the robotic system for machining and assembly of the fridge compressors; in the case of the complex systems of the cell, it demands the personal communication from the Creator of the systems of life. This knowledge is beyond the capability of the scientific method, of the human analytic capability; its discovery is beyond the mere analysis of the system. A Revelation from the Creator is needed.

Santiago Escuain