I cannot tell you how many times I have heard atheists characterize Christians as “wasting” their lives. Some mean it as a pejorative, others are quite sincere about it, but in every case there is some kind of concern about Christians reaching the end of their lives and discovering it was all such a waste. By and large atheists of this sort have a desire to draw the Christian away from his or her faith and into a perspective that will not waste this supposedly one and only life. So there are two thoughts I have had with respect to this notion that I wish to share. And instead of speaking broadly for Christians everywhere, which obviously I cannot do, I will speak for myself.

On the one hand, presumably as I am lying on my deathbed, exactly how do I come to the realization that it was all such a waste? Suppose I am lying on a hospital bed, perhaps overrun with cancer and death just a matter of hours away. I have lived my life according to my convictions of Christ’s redeeming grace, committed to a local church whom I have been lovingly devoted to and who has surrounded me in a warm community of support, edification, opportunity, and guidance. I have engaged my passions in learning and understanding, from theology to philosophy to science, through both self-reflection and discourse. I have pursued my appetite for reading, from captivating novels to academic textbooks. I have experienced family and friendship; I have experienced love and being loved, forgiving and being forgiven. I have known the rewards of success and the lessons of failure. I have loved those who hate me and served those who love me. And in every circumstance I have seen God’s providential hand and (even if not consistently) praised God for it all. I have known the God of all creation and have been known by him, through which I have had a scope of vision that transcends the limits of my self, humankind, or the place in history that my existence occupied. I have seen with reverential awe the breathtaking beauty and interconnected realities of God’s handiwork.

And yet somehow, as I lay here dying, I am supposed to realize this was a waste?

Exactly what might I have otherwise had or done? If I had not these Christ-centered convictions, would I have had friendships? But I had these. Would I have been able to enjoy great learning? Would I have had a rewarding career in a field I love? Would I have explored the halls of knowledge or the wonders of the cosmos? But I had these, too. Would I have loved and helped my fellow man? Would I have gained an understanding and appreciation for the views of others that differ from mine? But I have had and done all this—and much more. Given the sort of people that this expressed concern comes from, perhaps the waste they speak of is a life that was without an abiding wonder and intellectual curiosity about the natural world around us which we have explored and sought to understand through a web of scientific disciplines. But as someone with a profound appreciation and respect for such things, having consumed countless hours learning about cosmological and biological discoveries, my life was not lived without scientific wonder and curiosity. I could go on but at the end of the day I must confess that it escapes me just how I should realize my life was wasted.

On the other hand, what is it about lying at death’s door that is supposed to clue me in to it all being a waste? Granting the atheist his or her view that this life is the only one I have, that when I die there is nothing left but non-existence as my body decomposes in the ground, how am I supposed to realize this was all a waste? While I am yet alive but dying, there is nothing that would indicate that this life was the only one I had; in other words, I have not crossed the threshold of death yet so there is not anything that indicates those atheists were right. The irony which seems lost on them, however, is that even if they are right I will never know it—because as a dead and decomposing corpse I would not realize anything. On the atheist’s view, a corpse does not engage in acts of cognition.

Indeed, as I lay there dying I would not realize it was all a waste, for by the grace of God I did everything I desired to do. When you live the life that you want to, according to the values and passions you have, how is that a waste? Perhaps the things I value and desire to do is uninteresting or tedious to you, but what has that to do with me? For example, if I love to study God’s word and you do not, just how is that a waste for me? Am I supposed to live my life according to your values and desires? The way I see it, and perhaps even you as an atheist would agree with me, my life could be said to have been wasted if I didn’t do the things I value and desire to do; that is, if someone always wanted to do this or that but never did throughout his whole life, then maybe his life was wasted in at least that respect. But if he did those things which he valued and desired to do, if he lived his life fully—even if not always consistently—according to those commitments, pursuing his ambitions and passions, then exactly how was that all a waste?

If the atheist is right, if this life is the one and only life I have and I lived it according to what I value and desire to do, after which nothing but black non-existence awaits me, then my life was neither wasted nor could I realize anything about it. That’s the sheer irony of all this. About the only thing the atheist could say is that I did not live the one and only life I have according to that atheist’s values and desires—but so what? If I did that, then I would be wasting my life.

Although I appreciate the concern that such atheists have, I do have to point out the incoherence of it. Given their view, and especially their disdain for people shoving values down their throats that are not theirs, it quite literally makes no sense for them to suggest that I am wasting my life in any way. Thus their concern is misplaced and unintelligible at any rate. If you want to know whether or not Christians are wasting their lives, then ask them if they are living it according to their values and passions.

And do try being a little more self-consistent; if you are right, then my corpse would be incapable of realizing it.

While in ongoing conversations I am trying to explore with Matt Oxley an intelligible conception of truth—a gentleman who claims to esteem truth so highly as to not only capitalize it but also idolize it ^[1]—he has made explicit and implicit references to a certain article of his regarding misconceptions about knowing truth. Therefore, we shall take a closer look at this article.^[2]

In the second paragraph Oxley admits that in this article he would like to talk about the nature of knowledge, that it is important to rightly define knowledge in order to understand what it actually means. So we have a very specific aim here; as a reader of his blog I expect to hear him talk about the nature of knowledge.

Thus it is quite ironic that he says nothing about it.

In that same paragraph he begins by describing how his understanding of knowledge today is entirely different from what it was when he was a believer, representing a seismic change in his psyche during his deconversion.

In the third paragraph he describes some of the things he knew as a believer and how unshakably he knew them. Except it was not unshakable because that knowledge slipped away from him when he replaced “emotional experiences and feelings” with empiricism as his epistemic criterion.

In the fourth paragraph he recounts his realization that everything he thought he knew had been built solely upon a circular basis and his realization that emotional experience was unreliable; as such “the word knowledge began to change as well.”

Four paragraphs into his article, with essentially only one left to go, and what has the reader learned about the proper nature of knowledge? Not a thing. In fact, the reader has not only learned nothing about the proper nature of knowledge but also nothing about how knowledge was defined or understood by Oxley as a believer. So let us turn now to his final paragraph and see if in those three sentences he finally gets around to talking about the nature of knowledge.

In this final fifth paragraph (disregarding the truly last paragraph, which was just a question to his ex-Christian readers) he describes knowledge as “the place where quantifiable truths meet belief” and something he deeply thirsts after, a motivation that drives him to further discovery and understanding. (And we also get an equally offhand remark offering insight into how knowledge was formerly constituted for him: “something unquestionable and divinely inspired.”)

In an article aimed at talking about the nature of knowledge, the reader is provided half of a sentence among five paragraphs, a clause which simply says “the place where quantifiable truths meet belief.” What does that even mean? Is this a romantic way of defining knowledge as justified true belief? Does it answer Gettier counterfactuals? What does it mean for truth and belief to meet? How is that meeting constituted? What does “quantifiable” mean?

It is too late for such questions. The article is finished.

At the end of the day the reader is left wondering what the nature of knowledge is, because half of a sentence romantically worded is neither perspicuous nor helpful, leaving the reader nowhere closer to understanding how Oxley defines knowledge, much less finding a solid argument why that is the proper nature thereof. What is the nature of knowledge? One cannot say, other than it has something to do with truth and belief meeting. What escapes me is how that is “entirely different” from his conception of knowledge as a believer. Consider, for example, the notion that faith is “the place where quantifiable truths meet belief.” How does Oxley’s romantic clause differentiate faith and knowledge?

If this is his definition of knowledge, then why did he lose his faith?

1. ^[1] He idolizes it in the sense of idolatry, for as he said (emphasis mine); “I’ve always valued Truth—so much that I’ve often capitalized it, as if the word Truth were just as good as the word God. (Actually, it’s better.)” ↩
2. ^[2] Matt Oxley, “Popular misconceptions: Knowing truth,” RagingRev (2011, August 4). ↩

There is this older lady on the Dalnet IRC network who for many years has exhibited a seething antipathy for Reformed theology, and has somewhat more recently been trying to understand the presuppositionalism by which those who are Reformed tend to argue their worldview. Although I often do not bother engaging her on such subjects (given certain reasons that experience has produced), tonight I acquiesced. Since who she is on IRC is not relevant, I have chosen to give her the name “Lisa” in the following conversation.

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“If you had to choose between truth and comfort, which would you choose?”

So the question is posed by Matt Oxley rhetorically to the readers of his blog as a way of introducing his thoughts on the existential tension between truth on the one hand and comfort on the other, a tension he experienced as he progressively expunged his former charismatic Christian faith, a painful process of replacing what was comfortable with what is true. Oxley is a self-proclaimed atheist who is sharing with others the dimensions and contours of his journey away from the charismatic faith that he once held dear, an itinerarium mentis in a direction opposite of mine toward an ostensibly godless view of the world and life.

“When I began recognizing this truth,” he writes regarding the deception in charismatic churches, “it was anything but comfortable.” And this former comfort he describes as a sort of uneasy truce between how he wanted the world to be and how it actually is, a cognitive dissonance maintained by a promissory note of a celestial afterlife. Now if that accurately characterizes the intellectual life of the charismatic, well then, I could hardly fault his journey away from it. In addition to the moralist burden he describes having to shoulder (i.e., “denying your carnal desires and working to please [God] all of your life”), the intellectual anorexia would surely leave me desperate for something more authentic and honest. For some of us, a group I suspect Oxley would count himself among, such intellectual curiosity is inexorable and insatiable. But just here marks a notable difference between someone like Oxley and someone like myself; we both came to a point where we lost faith in a childish understanding of God, but I did not confuse that with losing faith in God whereas Oxley did. Having said that, there is a more important observation that I should like to make about his post.

He places such a high value on truth that often he capitalizes it, almost as though the word Truth were just as good as the word God (although on his view it is better). I should think that as a former Christian he could probably define to some extent what ‘God’ means, and he certainly defined what ‘comfort’ means, but notice the odd fact that he never bothers to define what ‘truth’ means. “The way I determine what is true,” he said, “has changed dramatically,” but then notice that he never bothers to give that account. How is it that someone who esteems truth above comfort can provide an account of the latter but offer nothing on the former? He described what his perspective on truth used to be: “I used to believe that if the Bible said it [then] it must be Truth. I didn’t even have to question that conclusion; my faith allowed for that to be so.” Yes but that was when he firmly staked his yellow Gadsden flag in the soil of comfort. “It was comfortable to me and I had no reason to question it.” Things are different now, he would have us believe. Comfort was swallowed up in truth, that principle he esteems enough to capitalize but not enough to provide an account of. He surrendered comfort to pursue truth, but was that before or after determining what is true? And this issue is made all the more salient by his comment about embracing the “standard of evidence” he knew existed but ignored most of his life, which represents a potential confusion of the metaphysical (what is true) with the epistemological (how we know it).

I can appreciate Oxley’s disdain for the way he viewed the world and life in his charismatic faith, but I find myself concerned by the echoes of Eden reverberating through his equally naive approach to this new journey. Has he exchanged comfort for truth, or just one type of comfort for another? While he says that he has a very different way of determining what is true, he does not give any sort of account of that except by means of what that way used to be and no longer is. Moreover, even his description of the way he used to determine what is true is not entirely meaningful. “If the Bible said it, then it must be truth.” For that to be meaningful there must be some way of determining what the Bible said (i.e., rules and principles of interpretation). I could go on but the point has been made. I should like to offer a challenge to Oxley for an upcoming blog post:

• “Please explain the way you now determine what is true.”

I am not sure I can entirely relate to Oxley’s experience of existential tension between truth and comfort. I am a critical skeptic by nature, an intellectual attitude that I had not only prior to my conversion to the Christian faith but one that has been deeply cultivated by that faith; that is to say, I have always pursued that which shakes me up from intellectual comfort, constantly seeking out things that challenge my beliefs. I am not sure why someone would prefer comfort over truth the way Oxley did; it is a foreign concept to me. But that just goes to underscore the point I had implicitly made earlier, that one does not need to lose faith in God in order to abandon a childish understanding of faith in God. Truth, logic, reason, knowledge, science, etc.; such things thrive under Christian theology, notwithstanding some weak charismatic faith that cowers with a contrary opinion. I applaud Oxley for turning his back on an intellectual wasteland, but I do not understand his choice of embracing another one.

———-

Matt Oxley, “Truth over comfort,” RagingRev (2011, August 25).
http://ragingrev.com/2011/08/truth-over-comfort/

What a big question. A question that I wager almost all of us have struggled with at some time. I certainly do not intend to probe the full depth of this question here – at least not in one article. And nor do I think I would be capable of doing it justice, as to study this question only raises a multitude of others that need to be addressed – Who/What is bad? Who/What is good? Why should we expect only good things to happen to good people? Is suffering bad? Is there an objective purpose to our existence? And the list goes on.

Instead, my goal here is far more modest. To share with you a reflection that was motivated by a brief conversation with a friend of mine. A non-Christian as far as I know – yet not someone who I have any reason to think is at all averse to a Christian world view – who, due to some recent personal events, found herself asking, “Why do terrible things happen to the very best of people?”

And I thought, what a question! And then I thought, what an opportunity! And so I began to wonder, if I’m going to respond to that, I don’t merely want to sympathise with her or provide shallow comfort – I suck at that anyway. Instead, I wanted her to think about the question she asked in a deeper way. I don’t know if this is the best way to put it, but as Christians, I think we do have deeper answers to these questions than non-believers. We have a way of looking at the world that many others haven’t considered.

So I rephrased her question from a broader perspective. “Or, why do bad things happen, at all?” I suggested.

“Too true,” she agreed.

At this point another of her friend’s weighed in. “I completely agree. There’s no rhyme or reason,” she said. “The jails are full of much better candidates for some of this stuff. It seems unfair.”

I took this as an opportunity to offer some deeper observations.

“To reflect on events as being good or bad kind of implies that there’s a purpose to life, I think. So when we despair over bad things happening to nice people, we are implying that their purpose is not being fulfilled. In other words, we have an idea that life does have an objective purpose and that death or suffering unfairly prevents us from achieving that purpose. And that, to me, is quite an interesting reflection to explore.”

But I didn’t want to leave it at that. And so I continued. “Do human beings actually have an objective purpose in life, one that is marred by suffering and death? Or is our purpose merely subjective or illusory?”

Presupposing a certain discomfort with the questions, I apologised. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all deep on you guys. I just find these natural intuitions that human beings have to be a curious thing, and yet many of us are unable to make sense of them.”

At this point I think the gig was up. Duane was getting all religious again. Well, I wasn’t really. But I didn’t quite know how else to interpret the silence. Perhaps they were concerned where I was heading with this. I’d like to think it was because of the gravity of their thoughts. But I let it rest at that, praying for another opportunity to take every thought captive, in the hope that they may be put into service to point the way to our Lord and Saviour.

This argument arose on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in the #ChristianDebate chat room on the Dalnet network. Since I was engaged with another fellow in a rather in-depth conversation on issues pertaining to the gospel, this following argument proposed by the gentleman below did not receive any attention from me at the time. I assured him that I would respond to him the next time we saw each other; but since I am having a difficult time staying connected to IRC lately, I decided that I would respond to him here and simply provide him a link to this article the next chance I get.

On Saturday evening (17:39 PDT) Grey_Fox said that my presupposing the truth of the Bible as the word of God

does not meet the definition of axiom as “the fundamental starting point” because you were not born believing the Bible. There must have been some line of reasoning that caused you to originally believe that the Bible was the word of God, and that line of reasoning was, if not the fundamental starting point, at least closer to it. 

First, when I say “fundamental starting point” I am not somehow talking about beliefs people are born with, so that issue is not relevant to this (however interesting it might otherwise be). I am talking about that which must be the case in order for something else to be the case, that is, the relationship between some Q and the P upon which it necessarily depends. Irrespective of whether we were born with them or not, we all have axiomatic starting points upon which the rest of our mental furniture depends, the necessary P from which we argue for Q.

Second, the suggestion that there was “a line of reasoning” by which I arrived at the belief that the Bible is true simply assumes without warrant that my presupposition is not an axiomatic starting point—which is a fallacious move that begs the question against my view. An axiom by definition is not something a person reasons to; rather it is something a person reasons from. If you want to claim that my belief is something that I reasoned to, not from, then you will have to shoulder the burden of proof and make your case—but without begging the question.

In the comments section of my article “Answering questions and objections,” [1] one of our regular visitors here at the Aristophrenium posed a question to me regarding how the universe and this world operate with respect to God (particularly with a view toward Walton’s exegesis of the Genesis creation account). And once again the depth that I wanted to invest my response with came up against the word-count restriction imposed on comments. Like I said previously, it takes few words to ask a controversial question but far more words to answer it appropriately.

His question itself smacked of deism, I thought, and he seemed to be wondering how it would play out under Walton’s view. Essentially what he wanted to know was whether or not interpreting Genesis under a function-oriented ontology would allow for God’s material creation “to ‘function’ according to the mechanics He devised for it.”

So my question, then: Wouldn’t this also allow for evolution? Life functions according to the mechanics that God has devised for it? That is why, as Adam [Morgan] pointed out, God created ‘kinds’ of animals in Genesis. Then it would be a simple matter to let them ‘expand’ in number based on how He made them. I have heard that Walton is a rather staunch anti-evolutionist, but how can this not fit? [2]

And he wanted an answer deeper than simply “God didn’t create life that way,” but rather an answer with some kind of support for it. So here then is my answer to our intrepid visitor, posted where I have a little more room to write.

Still looking at Genesis for material origins

So first things first: God certainly did bring “every individual species” into material existence (more on this in a moment); however, the point being made here is that the Genesis account is not a record of that. As Walton explained, there is a distinction between building a temple and creating a temple; the former regards the construction phase, but upon completion we do not yet have a “temple.” Without establishing its functions and functionaries and God coming to rest in it during the inauguration ceremony, it is nothing more than an ornate stone and wooden edifice; the “temple” does not exist yet. Your question regards the construction phase, the evolution of kinds and species over billions of years, but Genesis regards the inauguration phase so it is wrongheaded to mine the text for insight on that. The Genesis account presupposes the building phase in its disclosure of the inauguration phase, where God establishes the functions and functionaries and comes to rest in the newly created cosmic temple. Again, Genesis is an account of this seven-day inauguration ceremony, an account that begins with a non-existent temple, not non-existent material. With the building ready, the ceremony can now usher in the creation of the temple.

Scriptures are clear that God brings everything into material existence, but Genesis is not that story. It is an account of the beginning of redemptive history, which is an anthropocentric story rooted in the sovereign purposes of God who tabernacles with his image-bearers, set in motion during the creation of this cosmic temple which God prepared over a seven-day inauguration ceremony and came to rest in, and from which he providentially ordains redemptive history according to his purposes. The beginning of redemptive history is found in God preparing and entering this cosmic temple, with Adam and Eve established as his image-bearers and stewards. And we know how the story plays out thereafter. This temple motif saturates Scriptures; even our own bodies are described in temple terms. No less is the cosmic order itself a temple, from which God tabernacles with his image-bearers through redemptive history, beginning with Adam and Eve as detailed in Genesis.

Deism: winding up the clock and letting it go

The construction phase of this temple is not accounted for in Genesis; it presupposes the material elements (i.e., the building is already erected). But by no means was God uninvolved in the material phase of construction. The notion that you presented, that God created the universe and then left it to operate according to the laws of nature that he designed, is not only foreign to Walton’s exegesis but also to Scriptures as a whole. Such a notion presupposes an interventionist dichotomy between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ which cannot be found in Scriptures, a notion the origin of which is found in the deistic views of the Enlightenment. Scriptures (and Walton) strongly oppose that sort of view, rejecting that God is ever ‘hands-off’ with creation, only intervening here and there ‘supernaturally’, nor does such a view even find any correspondence in the cultures of the ancient Near East. (And I would note that this would be the sense in which Walton is a “rather staunch anti-evolutionist;” namely, Walton is steadfast against both atheistic and deistic notions of evolution since, contrary to atheism, God exists and, contrary to deism, he is never unplugged from creation that way. Moreover, because I understand his view on theistic evolution I am able to articulate it, although I do not myself subscribe to it.)

Consider for example the conception and fetal development of a human. It is obvious that we understand embryology scientifically; the ovum, the sperm, fertilization, genetics, cell signaling and so on, from zygote to blastocyst to embryo to fetus and so forth. It is a broad and well attested scientific field. We understand fairly well how all this works ‘naturally’. And yet what does the Bible say? “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psa. 139:13); “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:4-5). An interventionist dichotomy between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ does not exist in Scriptures; that is, God is not hands-off with respect to nature, intervening here and there. Identifying and understanding the material means by which something happens does not preclude the agency of God in those means. This applies to your question about evolution: we may understand, to one degree or another, how evolution works, the material means by which evolution occurs (like with embryology) but this does not allow us to preclude the agency of God in those means, to think he is hands-off and letting nature work on its own (again, like with embryology). God is definitively and providentially hands-on in the universe. “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17; notice that last clause in particular).

This is yet another problem inherent with young-earth creationism, which tends to assume the same sort of dichotomy: they say that God resting on the seventh-day indicates that henceforth he ceased his work of material creation. But such Scriptures as Psalm 139:13-15 for example defies such a view! See especially verse 15, where the psalmist characterizes his development in his mother’s womb in terms that harken the mind to Genesis. For them to think that God specially created Adam and Eve but not Cain or Abel or anyone or anything else because he ceased specially creating on day seven, letting the laws of nature take it from there, simply defies the biblical witness. From one issue to the next their interpretation of Genesis (under its own terms), shoulders noteworthy problems—which by contrast underscores the strength, coherence, and consistency of Walton’s exegesis of Genesis (under its own terms.)

Not only is God the one who brings all things into material existence but he is also the one who continually sustains all of creation. The idea that God got everything running and then stood back to let nature do its thing “would have been laughable in the ancient world because it was not even conceivable,” Walton notes. “The ancients would never dream of addressing how things might have come into being without God or what ‘natural’ processes he might have used.” If God were to unplug himself from creation the way deists think, Walton observed, everything would immediately cease to exist. [3] Quite frankly, God’s agency is manifest in the formation of every creature of every species of every kind in every age. There is no such thing as God-of-the-gaps; in other words, science does not push God out of creation, but rather discovers the means of his creative agency—like with embryology.

References:

1. Smart, D. (2011, May 10). “Answering questions and objections.” Aristophrenium. [Blog]. http://aristophrenium.com, 17/May/2011.
2. Joe (2011, May 16). Comment to Smart (2011), para. 2.
3. Walton, J. (2009). The Lost World of Genesis One. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press; pp. 20-21.

In a recently published article [1] Duane Proud, a dear friend and colleague of ours here at the Aristophrenium and one of its founding contributors, published what he understands to be Statham’s misgivings [2] about Walton’s central thesis on how the Genesis creation account might be properly understood exegetically. [3] While this is quite appropriate for Proud, given that the origins debate is his primary interest here at the Aristophrenium (i.e., creation versus evolution), I do find myself wishing that he had reached out to me prior to publication because, quite frankly, it does appear that Statham was rather confused about the book he was reviewing. That, in addition to the fact that Proud has not read Walton’s book, is why I say that he published what he understands “to be Statham’s misgivings,” putting the onus on Statham. There is not a lot I can say about Statham’s review because I am still waiting for a copy of his article, as I have been since Proud brought it to my attention November 28 last year in a personal email. [4] But if Proud had have reached out to me I could have cleared some of this fog up, injecting these concepts with the coherence needed for him to digest the ideas, allowing him to publish an article that hits closer to its mark. Instead, I shall have to provide that further clarification here.

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The heart of this post, I hope, can be summarily found in a statement by James Emery White. “What decisively marks a Christian mind is that it is informed by revelation … and then proceeds to think in light of that revelation.” – White, J.E., Serious Times, (Inter Varsity Press, 2004), p.104

With that said I just want to make it clear that my main goal in this post is to demonstrate the natural consequences of biblical compromise. So while I do make many statements against an evolutionary worldview, my intention is simply to highlight the compromise position of the piece for Christian readers – being that it is allegedly written from a Christian’s perspective – and not to engage in great detail on the finite details of the evolutionary worldview. Therefore I do not intend to allow (or argue against) conclusions drawn by non-Christians, who do not accept such authority in the first place and have their own a priori materialistic paradigms and philosophies that will not, by definition, permit some of the conclusions I have made.^[1] Those discussions belong in a separate area.

The article (written a few years ago now) by Peter Sellick is titled “Intelligent Design – Damaging Good Science and Good Theology” – Friday, 9 September 2005. But it does represent a growing view among some evangelical Christians. For example, the recent book by Denis Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? 

I have not dealt with every comment in Sellick’s article because it’s just too long. But I think I have captured and responded to the main points.

According to the On Line Opinion webpage, Peter Sellick is currently an Anglican deacon working in Perth (Western Australia) with a background in the biological sciences. This, I am sure, makes him far more qualified than I to speak on theology or science, but I humbly offer this criticism as one who cares about the truth of Scripture.

The idea of intelligent design is that the universe, particularly the life contained therein, is too complex to have happened by chance as the theory of evolution would have it.

A more complete representation of Intelligent Design (ID) would also mention the observation of what appears to be irreducibly complex systems and specified information with those systems.

Therefore its sole basis lies in a negative:

Keep in mind that this claim is right at the beginning of Sellick’s article and he immediately poisons the well. To the contrary, as many in the ID movement have pointed out, it is not some fall-back position that people cling to because they’re blinded to the wisdom of an evolutionary worldview. It is based on a positive: an innate ability to discern design in our world. It is supported by a historical knowledge of cause and effect, acknowledging that it is most reasonable to think that the source of information and complexity contained in living systems is due to the actions of an intelligent agent. This is a completely reasonable premise upon which ID can stand. It certainly does not lie ‘in a negative’.

On the other hand, evolution by natural selection (which Sellick seems to support) is a dysteleological process seen to act on systems already possessing the information and complexity that it is claimed to have produced, and therefore provides no reasonable basis to explain the origin of these systems in the first place.

the failure to imagine how natural selection could arrive at the complexity of life we see all around us.

Imagination isn’t the problem. Rationality is. Put simply, many people think it is more reasonable that complex information-bearing systems are the product of intelligence rather than the result of random mindless forces. If observation counts for anything in science, natural selection is extremely limited in what it can achieve. (See for example Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution). It simply acts on pre-existing complex systems. It cannot create them or add information to them. In fact, it is the contention of ID-ists like Phillip Johnson that natural selection has no demonstrable creative power at all.

“Darwinian theory insists that natural selection is a creative force of immense power … We have already seen that the hypothesis of creative natural selection lacks experimental support” [chapters 2 and 3] “and that it is disconfirmed by the fossil record. The molecular evidence adds further doubt … The hypothesis that natural selection has the degree of creative power required by Darwinist theory remains unsupported by empirical evidence … [But] Darwinist know that the mutation-selection mechanism can produce wings, eyes, and brains not because the mechanism can be observed to do anything of the kind, but because their guiding philosophy assures them that no other power is available to do the job. The absence from the cosmos of any Creator is therefore the essential starting point for Darwinism.” – Johnson, P.E., Darwin On Trial, (Inter Varsity Press 1993, 2nd edition), p. 95, 98, 117.

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I just finished listening to this video of Bruce Ware laying out the problems with Arminianism’s view of libertarian free will and presenting a positive biblical case for Calvinistic Compatibilism. He argues his case with clarity and persuasion, and I think everybody should take a listen.