For the scientific among you - just this once :)

One of the areas which I've been pursuing, now that I've plunged into the deep waters of the philosophy of religion, has been arguments for an intelligent designer of the universe. (Yes, I knew about William Paley long ago... it always seemed sloppy to me that he didn't refute David Hume's much older writings, but be that as it may.) Now, I certainly believe in a Creator, but my concept of a 'designer,' for reasons that must be obvious, always leant towards the artistic. After all, I can design clothing, Internet sites (well, back in the days when they were beautiful), calligraphic manuscripts.

Unlike my co-contributors, I have no aptitude whatever for higher mathematics or science. My total grasp of the latter is that I so love dinosaurs that I'll endure being in the company of children (quite a penance, that) in order to view their skeletons, and that I am sent into one of my minor ecstasies when I see representations of the DNA molecule. I therefore was pleasantly surprised today, when I read an essay, in the Peterson anthology to which I've provided a link above, entitled The Anthropic Teleological Argument, by L. Stafford Betty and Bruce Cordell. It presented a strong and fascinating argument, on grounds of both physics and mathematical probability, for an intelligent Designer of the universe. This theory seems to far outweigh the possibility of, for example, the Big Bang's having been totally random.

Those of you who enjoy religious philosophy, and also can wade through the intricacies of quantum theory and the like would undoubtedly enjoy the article immensely, the more because it contained quotations from many contemporary scientific studies. Even I followed most of it - though, where physics is concerned, I doubt my brain capacity exceeds the size of a proton. Yet I had to share a marvellous quotation from the end of the essay, which I found nearly courageous for scientists to make. :)

The authors conceded that, in itself, the teleological argument shows a good case for an intelligent designer, rather than the random, but that it obviously would not show us precisely what characteristics God would have. (They then went on to explain generation of amino acids... but I 'came back' with the next paragraphs.) They did not see that there wasn't a hint of a Creator being far more than a 'supermind.'

I don't think this passage is long enough to violate copyright, so I present it for your reflection. They first commented on how the significantly greater cannot evolve from the significantly less. :

"Would it not be a violation of this law if so much moral goodness as appears in this world were to exceed the goodness of the supermind? ... We occasionally meet Mahatmas, more frequently little old ladies who unfailingly greet us with cheerful smiles in spite of severe arthritis. Not only is there much nobility and goodness in our own species; there is also a reverence for truth and a love of beauty. Beauty, truth, and goodness - those three fundamental values of the Greeks. Do large numbers of human beings significantly surpass the supermind in these 'constraints of the spirit'? This would have to be so if the supermind were merely a mind... It would have succeeded in creating a good of which it knows nothing...

If such a law (significantly greater not evolving from less - EGM) holds, then it would follow that the supermind must be superior to us, not only with respect to intelligence... but in every other important way as well. That mind must be characterised by knowledge, power, beauty, goodness, and love to a degree not known to us mortals. If so, it must be in some sense 'personal,'... for such traits as goodness and love would seem to ahere only in that which is at least analogous to persons. Whether or not the supermind has these perfections to an infinite degree... cannot be predicted by our argument. Nonetheless, it is clear that we are not far away from a God whom we can at least admire. And if admiration should grow to love - a not unnatural progression - then the God of the great theistic religions is not far away. Religion and science will have joined hands."



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