The Pope and Intelligent Design

Pope John Paul II was amicable toward evolution, though not outright conciliatory. On a number of occasions, he said that accepting evolution was not contrary to Catholic teaching, thus setting a precedent for Catholicism which will help it survive well into the 21st Century.

But while his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, does not overrule his late boss, he does seem determined to do evolution in by siding with the "wedge" strategy of the Discovery Institute, and backing the "Intelligent Design" argument.

Saying that the universe was made by an "intelligent project," he quoted St. Basil the Great, saying that some people are "fooled by the atheism that they carry inside of them, imagine a universe free of direction and order, as if at the mercy of chance."

"How many of these people are there today?" the Pope went on. "These people, fooled by atheism, believe and try to demonstrate that it's scientific to think that everything is free of direction and order."

Well, the Pope is an intelligent man, but reckless in his biased reasoning. Let's start with the assumption of an "intelligent agent" which so many people insist on. If I were to say that the Sun shines because there is a giant firedragon within its core, and that it did not burn solely by nuclear fusion, you would think me daft -- and you would be right. Why? Because I would have presented no evidence for the existence of a fanciful firedragon. No evidence means that I cannot cite it as a cause.

Now let's apply that to an intelligent designer. Is there any evidence for such a thing? Interestingly, the amount of evidence in favor of such a designer is exactly equal to the amount of evidence against it: Exactly zero! With no evidence for or against any such designer, can we cite such a fanciful thing as a scientific explanation? The answer is no. To be scientific, we must first find conclusive evidence (as opposed to the zero evidence we have) that such a designer is even there. Until then, "intelligent design" is as unscientific as firedragons inside the sun.

That handles one side of Pope Benedict's myopic statement. But are scientists "fooled by atheism," as he attests? Clearly not, as the overwhelming number of evolutionary scientists who are also devout Christians attests. There are also many more agnostics who fully embrace evolution. Darwin's idea did many things, but one thing it didn't do was endorse a lack of belief in God.

Yet evolution does imply a natural universe -- one where nothing divine influences the regular laws of physics. What does that say about God? Well, three things:

1. There is a God, but He doesn't care to show Himself, and is consequently apathetic to our worship or praise of Him.
2. There is a God, but is too weak to manifest himself in a way which we can observe, making him too impotent to be the God of lore we are all used to.
3. There is no God after all.

Well, all three possibilities are contrary to Catholicism, so it's understandable why Pope Benedict would want to oppose evolutionary science. Yet there is one more possibility: That the universe is a kind of preuve de merite, a test of worthiness. If we are able to figure out the permutations of string theory (or "M" theory, as it's now called), and if we are able to find the underlying equation which governs everything in the universe, we will have achieved the level of intellectual maturity necessary for God to finally reveal Himself via that equation, or by some other means. In other words, God isn't absent, he's just waiting for us to grow up through science -- waiting for us to become smart enough to see Him behind all the stardust which makes the universe go. If so, Pope Benedict, the Discovery Institute, and the Creationist movement are all hindering Man's path to God. They are, in a real sense, unwitting agents of His antithesis, which we can only call Satan. Now isn't that an intriguing notion?

Of course, these are not things I truly believe, nor are they something you the reader should accept. But they are interesting ideas. Will we find God by solving the universe through science? To be honest, I don't know. But it would make one hell of a scientific experiment!

Eric