Neal's Workshop

Per The Guardian's John Hooper on Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design (emphasis mine):

There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design"
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A prominent anti-evolutionist and Roman Catholic scientist, Dominique Tassot, told the US National Catholic Reporter that this week's meeting was "to give a broader extension to the debate. Even if [the Pope] knows where he wants to go, and I believe he does, it will take time. Most Catholic intellectuals today are convinced that evolution is obviously true because most scientists say so."
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The Pope also raised the issue in the inaugural sermon of his pontificate, saying: "We are not the accidental product, without meaning, of evolution."

I was previously under the assumption that intelligent design was already the prevailing view of most Christians and Catholics, alike. Thus, this article left me a bit confused. The Catholic News Service helped fill in the details:

It is right to teach "the science of Darwin, not ideological Darwinism," Cardinal Schonborn said Aug. 23.
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In 2005, Cardinal Schonborn helped fuel the debate over evolution and intelligent design when he wrote in The New York Times that science offers "overwhelming evidence for design in biology." He later said some scientists had turned Darwin's teachings into an ideological "dogma" that admitted no possibility of a divine design in the created world.
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Cardinal Schonborn said there should be no doubt that the church does not support creationism, the idea that the biblical account of the creation of the world in six days should be taken literally.
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But when teaching evolutionary theory, he said, schools should underline the points still awaiting clarification, the "missing links" in the theory which were recognized by Darwin himself, he said.

Cardinal Schonborn said Darwinian theory and the faith can coexist . . .

Apparently, Schonborn and Benedict are "close", which indicates, I guess, that the Pope may think similarly to Schonborn. Schonborn is "One of several scholars invited to join Pope Benedict XVI at his summer villa in early September for a private two-day symposium on 'Creation and Evolution'": perhaps the Church will determine that acceptance of Darwinism with a twist of Intelligent Design is acceptable.

If the Church does just that, where's the conflict? What is the problem of evolution? Is Schonborn's contention correct: can Darwinian theory and faith coexist?

Darwinian evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, which is the idea that life-perpetuating characteristics either propagate via reproduction or are eliminated in proportion to their ability to meet environmental demands. Herbert Spencer coined the term, "survival of the fittest" to describe this process.

Natural selection is an automatic process: it is self-reinforcing and self-regulating. As a result, there is no master hand required behind natural selection.

Comparatively, the creation argument from intelligent design contends that life is too complex to be the result of natural selection. The complexity of life appears to have a design. Like the existence of a watch implies a watchmaker, the existence of life implies a creator. About this time, Ockham's razor is employed to conclude that since intelligent design is a simpler explanation of life's complexity than the random iterations of evolution, intelligent design is preferable.

The argument from intelligent design has evolved, if you will, as the theory of evolution has become more accepted by humanity, which has occurred in step with increased supportive evidence. A common, current iteration of intelligent design allows some evolution to take place. It's a sort of hybrid, evolution-by-the-hand-of-God; I call it, "Intelligent Evolution."

Though new to the idea of Intelligent Evolution as it pertains to the Catholic church, it would seem that the Pope may be on the verge of officially endorsing such a hybrid theory of creation.

There's only one problem: and it's big.

The Problem of Evolution or Why Did God Write Himself Out of Creation?

Assuming God created everything that is, or reality as we know it ("existence"), the qualities of existence can be and are indicative of God's nature. Therefore, the characteristics of living things, the biological diversity of life, the fossil record, and the apparent age of earth, the galaxy and the universe must all be reconciled to any belief in God as creator.

Belief in evolution as propped up by intelligent design necessarily implies that God is a deceptive creator. The theory of evolution is overwhelmingly supported by evidence prevalent both in our DNA and in the fossil record. The evidence supports natural selection, which is a process that, in theory, runs without the intervention of supernatural events (Otherwise, it might be called, "Supernatural selection", right?). Therefore, if God was intricately involved in the evolutionary process whereby he directed natural selection at every step in order to produce the lifeforms he found desireable, why employ a process that requires no such master designer? Why would God leave a trail of evidence that would allow his rational, reasoning creations, man, to reasonably conclude that God wasn't a necessary part of the creative process?

If you were God, why go through all the trouble? If God wants human beings to believe in him, why imply by the very nature of existence that man is merely a by-product of natural selection, a process without any inherent purpose other than the self-regulating, self-reinforcing propagation of life?

Intelligent evolution is problematic because it takes a process that doesn't require God and assumes God drove the process anyway. It makes this juxtaposition while maintaining that God is a benevolent creator who intended on giving man the facilities of reason: the same facilities that, combined with the evidence of existence, would allow a reasonable man to conclude that God had nothing to do with the creation of life.

Said concisely, why would God write himself out of creation and then claim he was behind the whole thing? Is God so arbitrarily deceptive? What gives?

Conclusion: The Catholic Church (and many Christians, it would seem) has clearly failed to extend the belief in "Intelligent Evolution" to its inevitable conclusion, which is that it leads to uncomfortable questions about the nature of God. Is God arbitrary? Why would God so blatantly trip-up the faith of the reasoning man by creating evidence that God was unnecessary for the creation of life? Even more, why resort to such an inefficient process as natural selection when God's power would allow for absolute efficiency?

The problems and questions rage on, mostly unanswered and unasked.