Divine evidences — Human hostility

The need of reasoning —its purpose and its limits

“... to attempt to stifle criticism of Scripture by the cry that ‘the Bible is the word of God’ only serves to excite distrust on the part of earnest and honest-hearted inquirers. There never was an attack made upon the truth that could not be refuted. ‘Truth is one’; but error is in its very nature inconsistent, and therefore absurd. And while Divine truth is spiritual, and can only be spiritually discerned, human error is natural, and can be met on its own ground. We cannot ‘reason’ men into the kingdom of God, but by reasoning we can expose errors which prejudice them against it.”

Sir Robert Anderson
- The Bible and Modern Criticism
(London, Pickering and Inglis, c. 1895), p. 27.

The reality of God and human resistance

Many materialists are not bothered by the presence of a faith stated in an emotional and dogmatic form, with no basis on evidence. When they become alarmed and upset is when it is remarked that the Intelligent Design in nature and of nature itself is detectable and provable. That it is a logical inference which, although it does not depend on a theistic or religious worldview, carries an unavoidable inference of the reality of a Wisdom and a Godhead which, although often denied, it is none the less evident. It is a logical inference that has always been present and that has always stood as a barrier against the materialists claims that the whole universe as the environment for life and that all life in the said universe have sprung without direction or purpose.

One of the reasons for this stonewalling on the part of many against the least possibility of an Intelligent Design of nature and of life is that they have the intuition that this brings them before Him who judges the innermost attitudes and motives. And this they will not want to accept at all. They will not want to accept such a conclusion. They want to reject this possibility from the very start. This has always been the great motivator of materialism. The denial of God is not a scientific conclusion, but a yearning of a humanity in search of a false autonomy, a yearning that has been covered under the disguise of a philosophical or a scientific jargon.

For instance, philosopher Thomas Nagel, in his book, The Last Word (Oxford University Press, 1997), talks about what he calls "the fear of religion itself." He writes,

“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.”

In his view, this fear may be “responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time.” (p. 130)

That is why many materialists don't even want to talk about the evidences of Intelligent Design. For them it is a very personal, emotional matter. And they sense that it is a lost battle. Thus, instead of discussing about the facts and data as they are known today about the structures and functions of life, and about the theoretical possibilities that these facts and data allow, and about the limits that might or might not exist in the process of mutation and selection, they lower themselves to ridiculing and to throwing invectives, and try to confuse the matters that should be object of open debate. They even try to prevent the public presentation of these matters, as it happened recently in several places in Spain[1], and, like the squid, they throw a cloud of ink in their attempt to avoid a reasoned discussion of the matter.

On ridiculing the opponent:

When ridicule and mockery take the place of argument, we have to be wary. The use of ridicule against a reasoned exposition of arguments is a wretched attitude. However, humour can be the answer sometimes when the absurdity of a position is either clear by itself or has been demonstrated by a reasoned explanation; then the absurdity of such position may bring up the ridicule of the situation of those who may persist in an argument that has been refuted by facts or as inconsequential with them.

Speaking about evidences

One of the subjects in Physics is that to effect the separation of the molecules of a gas at a given temperature into two distributions of the said gas, a colder portion and a hotter portion, the so-called «Maxwell’s Demon» is needed, that is to say, an agent that may obtain information of each molecule of the said gas and act accordingly, to select it and let it pass and isolate it in the proper section of the system made ready to achieve the said differentiation. In summary, to select you need a given purpose, information and a source of energy for the work needed for the operation of the system, an operation guided by an information addressed to an end. We can also achieve a dissociation to even more segregated thermal groups (we can achieve groups segregated degree by degree). This implies more complication, a more complex mechanism.

By «evolution», when applied to the origin and development of life, what is generally understood is the emergence of new characters, of new structures, of new functions —by natural selection?

Darwin remarked that selection could be made between already existing characters, but this was known from old times. He advanced many examples of ARTIFICIAL selection and proposed a parallelism with natural selection which would improve the already existing traits and favouring the emergence of more and more complex structures.

The problem is that here we have a false parallelism. The real question, when we are dealing with the ORIGIN of new structures and functions (sight, hearing, flight, the diverse physiologic functions, etc.) is not how these structures are selected and improved, but how they ORIGINATE.

The paramount question in the origin and coordination of the diverse organic functions of the cell and of the organism is the production of the components and their coordination. First the material has to be available, then those necessary materials will have to be selected and placed in their due and corresponding relationships. A purpose, an end in view is necessary, and to possess the information that may direct all this arrangement. It is necessary not only to select all the adequate elements, but it is necessary as well to exclude all those that would interfere and that would make it impossible to reach the desired end.

For instance, to achieve the rotary motor of the bacterial flagellum, some given pieces are needed. These pieces are obtained through a manufacturing profess of each component in the desired quantities. And the manufacturing process of these pieces in the cell includes a series of steps which go from the reading of the instructions in the central library cell (DNA) to prepare transcriptions (not a mere copy) where information supports like mRNA are involved, as well as codified transport media of basic materials (aminoacids) as tRNAs, specific enzymes to join the tRNA with the said aminoacids, and machinery for the assembly of proteins (ribosomes) which, by means of a reading head, read the instructions which are transported to the same, and with other functions of this complex machine, weld the unit compounds (aminoacids) in the sequences commanded by the code supported by the lengths of mRNA which tell which tRNAs which each carry a specific aminoacid must enter every time in the entrance zone of the corresponding ribosome, to achieve the production of the proteins, both the structural ones and the enzymes, which are the fundamental components of the structures and of the functions of the cells.

Once the pieces of the motor of the bacterial flagellum have been obtained by means of this process of manufacture assisted by a cybernetic PROGRAMMED system with the reading of the codes and with all its systems of regulation and control, we are just at the beginning. The assembly of the motor follows a whole sequence that has been also PROGRAMMED, wholly regulated and controlled with the sending and receiving of signals of start-up and end of each of the sequential steps.

But this motor would not be able to do a thing without receiving (protonic) energy, which arrives through circuits which are as well product of a manufacture assisted by program, program also stored in the central library (DNA), transcribed and governed by the same process. And these circuits would not be fed by energy without the existence of another mechanism like that of ATP synthase which feeds all the different circuits and functions of the cell, of which we give one amongst thousands of examples.

Thus, we see that the great secret of all the production of these systems is the INFORMATION applied by means of sophisticated devices. It is not possible to achieve the selective production of components and their concatenation in coordinated systems without a system of reading and treatment of information. Codes, information, word and thought are everywhere, embodied in the performance of a plan and of a purpose.

Natural selection cannot achieve the origin of that which it selects. It is irrelevant regarding the origin of the structures of life, at all levels.

The necessary selection to obtain complex systems for regulation and control adapted to an end demands the existence of a transcending Mind and Purpose. The reality of life in particular, and of its framework, the universe in general, takes us to the consciousness of the reality of God, of His power and godhead.

The force of the evidence was felt even before the discovery of the nanomachinery of life by none other than Ernst Mayr, one of the most staunch Darwinists of the 20th Century. He had to confess that

“... it is a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird's feather) could be improved by random mutations. This is even more true of some ecological chain relationships (the famous Yucca moth case, and so forth).”

Mayr, Ernst (1942)
Systematics and the Origin
of Species, p. 296

Of course, he immediately adds that:

“However, the objectors of random mutations have so far been unable to advance any alternative explanation that was supported by substantial evidence.”

Ibid.

This attempt to solve this matter in this way tries to sideline the reality of the evidence that points to life as a result of an act of creation by God. It is here that the well known physicist and cosmologist Carl F. von Weizsäcker, although a materialist and a Darwinist, uncovers the true state of affairs, which, since the time he wrote, has been really worsening more and more for any materialistic approach to the origin and development of life:

“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.” [The Relevance of Science, Collins, London and Glasgow, 1964, p. 141.]

The weight of evidence facing a hostile will

In my view, I.D. will generate hostility in a mind-set that is already hostile to its basic outcome. As Richard Lewontin put it so quaintly in his review of some years ago, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”. It is not that the evidence is weak but that the materialistic mind has an axe to grind. Materialism MUST be maintained at all costs.

So, in fact, this is a deeply personal matter: Materialism, promising Man freedom, but bringing with it all its ultimate despair, or Theism, bringing Man before God. But man's attitude is not neutral; there is nothing irenic in it. Unrepentant man is at enmity against God and therefore in its natural state prefers rather to reject or reinterpret all evidence of God in the design of all nature in materialistic terms.

The bottom line is that Materialism has provided an illusory refuge for Man where to hide from God.

The problem is not in the evidence. There is a mountain of evidence to bring anybody to the conviction of the reality of a Design. But evidence is not a sufficient thing when facing a hostile attitude against God, as the one shown by the philosopher Nagel. We are surrounded by evidence. Out there in created Nature. The problem exists in the mindset of man, looking at design as something to be rejected, not because it is not apparent in the study of the created things, but because of a very strong bias against the evidence. When Dawkins says in his preface to The Blind Watchmaker: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”, and then proceeds to apply the criteria that Lewontin describes in his review, he does so because "they have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism" ... they “CANNOT allow a Divine Foot in the door”. To be able to accept Intelligent Design, more than evidence is necessary, what is needed is a change of inner attitude that may break with the prior commitment to materialism and that may open itself to the reality that surrounds us. This prior commitment to materialism shows a heart of hostility against God. To come to a proper perspective of reality, repentance towards God is needed —and the end in view is a supernatural change of view transforming hostility and thanklessness into worship and thankfulness (Romans 1:20-22).

Yes, the bottom line is that the controversy is about much more than science, it is about the heart of man – which, taking his cue from the diatribes of Voltaire and others like him against God, seeks to deny all sovereign action of God in creation, providence, salvation and judgment. Thus modern man rebuilds his view of reality into one that God is absent, with the illusion of receiving therefore his freedom. But, as a lecturer remarked many years ago, in words that have stayed in my mind: “The optimistic Atheism of the Nineteenth Century thought that by displacing God, Man would have a place to be a man; the pessimistic Atheism of the Twentieth Century discovered that by having displaced God, Man had lost all place to be a man”.

Addressing himself to God, Augustine of Hippo (350-430) says: “Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in thee!” (Confessions, I, 1)

Santiago Escuain

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[1] For information in English on these events, click HERE; for more complete information in Spanish, click HERE
For supplementary reading: Evolutionist Learns from “Neo-Creationists”

For a sobering analysis of recent evolutionary claims that cannot be maintained, about evolution having been proved by lab experiments, and others, see:

• The ID Update - On the evolution of a "key innovation" in Escherichia coli
• Creation·Evolution Headlines - Fossil Frog-amander Claimed to Be Missing Link
• Creation·Evolution Headlines - An Evaluation of Evolution as an Explanatory Device

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