Intelligent Design?

I ran into a lawyer the other day who was an admitted non-believer. We were enjoying the morning sunrise at a hunting camp in Florida, where I had gone to spend some time with a youngster who has life-threatening cancer. The lawyer asked me if I’d heard of a circuit court ruling by a judge on the subject of “intelligent design”, where the issue of design versus evolution was debated in sort of a “trial” format for the sake of argument. The lawyer indicated to me that the judge had ruled in favor of evolution by the facts presented in the case.

I asked this very accomplished lawyer if he recalled where it was written many years ago that God had put many things in place to confound the wise. I’ve learned that when an intelligent man quotes the world, it’s best for me to only quote the Word. The lawyer explained to me that perhaps the premise of “intelligent design” was simply a way to lure others into religious belief. God allowed me to hold my own during our brief debate, but the lawyer’s statement regarding design did leave me thinking. Are Christians attempting to visualize the existence of life based on tangible facts?

The “intelligent design” movement sometimes seems to be taking on a sort of “new age” aura. The growing snowball stemming from all of the “science and spirit” theory seems to be swallowing up Christians that are drifting away from the real truth. The real truth is that we are not a product of intelligent design, we are products of divine creationism. To even remotely imply that intelligence as we understand it could in any way compare with the power of God may be an insult God’s ultimate authority. God’s power cannot and will not ever be explained or interpreted by quantum physics or molecular formulations. We can only make things, duplicate things or manipulate things from what God has already created, but we cannot “create” anything any more than we can explain His creation with our intelligence. God’s wisdom is beyond the realm of our intelligence, and God’s power is vastly beyond the concept of design. We were not designed by a higher intelligence, we were created by a higher power. When Jesus healed the sick and the blind, did He draw it out on a scratch pad first? Nope, He did it by His power, not by design. We can slip into a quagmire of debate, facts, figures and endless explanation, but God said let there be light, and by His power there was light, and that is really all we need to know. Trying to “figure” it out may simply be nothing more than distraction from our faith.

So, if we try to look at the “facts”, are we losing focus on the truth? My lawyer friend was right about one thing, the concept of intelligent design may be drawing some toward religious persuasion. But as Christians, we probably should be cautious so as not to attempt to replace God’s power with our concept of “design”. We must never replace faith with facts and we must remember that it is not what we know so much as what we believe that develops our relationship with God. Some may choose to think that mankind and our universe were designed by intelligence, but I was created by the power of God, the magnitude of which leaves me humbled in the presence of His glory. I don’t require a scientific document or court opinion, the proof is in the prayer and the only explanation I need is clearly written in black and red. I’ll leave the concept of evolution to the Darwinites who have their own “faith” in accidental evolution, and I’ll leave the concept of “intelligent design” to those who have “faith” in the intelligence of men. But through all of that I will simply continue to believe that all things come from the power of God and only by His divine creation.

Troy Jens -

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