(the) Christian “God” = (the) “God” of Abraham = (the) “God” of Judaism= (the) “God” of Islam

Bill said, “I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.”

To which Alext said, “as it is, we have Mr Dembski stating that the designer is the Christian God, not just that that is an incidental belief that he holds.”

Not really, you have “believe” in the previous sentence, but if that was not enough, he said it is “ultimately the Christian God”. If you think Science decides anything ultimately you should review your concept of Science.

But we have two cases, the second sentence is elaboration on the first, or the second sentence is separate, not expressing belief as the first one does.

Dembski first says “I believe God created the world for a purpose.” How strange that we should impute purpose to design–with God in the role of designer? Now this relatively ID-consonant principle is given with “I believe.” Thus, by isolating belief to the first sentence only, we get an odd condition where he implies that Yahweh is the designer, but he believes that the designer had a purpose. What is Yahweh, a theist God, without a purpose–even if known only fully to him? And how is it the guess that a generic “God” had a purpose can be held looser than an insistence that a God known for purpose is the designer?

It can’t. It’s a bad read. The only thing that makes it worse, is digging in on whether it was a good one.

Anyway, I hope I get to grab a copy of your book here in Lisbon.

It seems like there is a lot of exciting activity on the ID front these days. Keep up the good work!

Point of information, re Newton’s worldview context:

General Scholium to Principia, excerpt:

. . . This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another.

This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator , or Universal Ruler; for God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God1 usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures for ever, and is every where present; and by existing always and every where, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and no where. Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent puts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and every where. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him2 are all things contained and moved [Cites Ac 17]; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always, and every where. Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, or touched; nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing [cites Exod 20] . We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of any thing is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savours; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final cause [i.e from his designs!]: we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. [i.e necessity does not produce contingency] All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from. the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy. [Cf also his Rules of Reasoning.]

Remember, this is perhaps the most significant scientific book of all time.

In short, Newton was a design thinker in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, who understood his science as being integral to and in that context supportive of that tradition in thought.

Observe too, that many of the above thoughts, find rather direct echoes in modern design thinking at both scientific and philosophical levels. [H'mm I think I may be putting up a fourth appendix to the always linked, perhaps!]

GEM of TKI

PS: It is surprisingly hard to find an online HTML text that is complete!

(besides, I think it is more likely that the Designer had something to do with the Talmud but that would be way off track…)

There are plenty of Jews and Christians who believe that G-d is behind all the randomness in this world. They will tell you about the importance of faith (and that there other more compelling reasons for such faith) and that in the end, what appears to be a long string of random numbers is just a small section of the Pi sequence.

They see evolution as vindicating their religious view just as many other people will see ID as vindicating theirs.

As well God has not left Himself without witness in the Christian faith:

Many people would argue that the Bible is proof of God’s supernatural and personal involvement with man since it is the only sacred book in the world, besides the Torah, to have the supernatural watermark of hundreds of precisely fulfilled prophecies in it that can be verified by a variety of sources. This is a compelling hard fact in and of itself; yet, there is one more piece of solid physical evidence that bears powerful witness to the Bible’s validity and also sheds an undeniable light on God’s deep personal commitment to man; The Shroud of Turin. The Shroud of Turin is one of the most scientifically scrutinized artifacts in recorded history. Through a rigid process of elimination for all naturalistic possibilities, it becomes crystal clear that the way in which the image of the man, on the Shroud of Turin, had to be imprinted was “supernatural” in its process. Many solid lines of evidence pointed to the Shroud’s authenticity back in the 1980’s, yet the carbon dating of the Shroud indicated a medieval age. In spite of the many other solid lines of evidence establishing the authenticity of the Shroud, many people unquestionably accepted the carbon dating as valid and presumed the Shroud to be a medieval fake. Yet now the carbon dating question has been thoroughly addressed and refuted in the year 2000 by Joseph G. Marino and M. Sue Benford. Their research, with textile experts showing the carbon testing was done with a piece of the Shroud that was subject to expert medieval reweaving in the 1500’s, has been published in many peer reviewed science journals. Thus, the fact that a false age was shown by the 1988 carbon testing has been accepted across the board scientifically. Now all major lines of solid evidence converge and establish the Shroud as authentic. This rigidly tested and scrutinized artifact establishes the uniqueness of the Shroud among all the ancient artifacts of man found on earth. I know of no other ancient artifact from any other culture which has withstood such intense scrutiny and still remained standing in its claim of supernatural origin. It is apparent God thought this event was so important for us to remember that He took a “photograph” of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, using the Shroud itself as a medium. After years of painstaking research searching through every naturalistic possibility, scientists still cannot tell us exactly how the image of the man on the Shroud was imprinted. Even with the advantage of all our advanced space-age technology at their fingertips, all scientists can guess is that it was some type of electro-magnetic radiation (light) that is not natural to this world. For the “light”, that had to be used to make such a precise (photographic negative) image, left no detectable “heat damage” when it imprinted the image. All electro-magnetic radiation that scientists are familiar with, with enough intensity to make an image of a man on that type of medium, would have left detectable “heat damage” on the Shroud. I have a suggestion, if scientists want to find the source for the supernatural light that made the image I suggest they look to the thousands of documented Judeo-Christian after-life experiences of people who have been deceased for a short while. It is in their testimonies that you find mention of an indescribably bright “Light” or “Being of Light” who is always described as being of a much brighter light than the people had ever seen before. All people who have been in the presence of “The Being of Light” while deceased have no doubt whatsoever that the “The Being of Light” they were in the presence of is none other than “The Lord” of heaven and earth. Another very interesting point is, since the Shroud had to be extremely close to the body when the image was made, and also considering the lack of any distinctive shadow pattern on the image, it is made apparent the only place this supernatural light that produced the image could have possibly come from is from the body itself ! In other words, THE SOURCE OF LIGHT WAS THE BODY ITSELF !!!
God’s crowning achievement for this universe was not when He created this universe. God’s crowning achievement for this universe was when He Himself inhabited the human body He had purposely created the whole universe for, to sanctify human beings unto Himself through the and resurrection of his “Son” Jesus Christ. This is truly something that should fill anyone who reads this with awe. The wonder of it all is something that I can scarcely begin to understand much less write about. Thus, I will finish with a scripture.

Hebrews 2:14-15
“Since we, God’s children, are human beings – made of flesh and – He became flesh and too by being born in human form; for only as a human being could He die and in dying break the power of the devil who had the power of . Only in that way could He deliver those who through fear of have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread.”