Is there intelligent design to the universe? Is the universe like a giant clock, requiring, like our own watches, an intelligent maker? Are there developments in living beings that are "irreducibly complex", and thus require an explanation at the level of intelligence? On the other hand, is evolution through the mechanism of natural selection sufficient to account for the complexities of human nature? And isn’t the latter strictly a question for science, as opposed to the former? The answers to these types of questions form the center of a debate, which touches on matters of practical import; matters both political and educational. Should we teach evolution AND intelligent design in public schools? For that matter, should we teach either one, and how does either fall into the highly contested Church/State debate? I, for one, think all of these questions gloss over something very important.

Perhaps I should disclose a number of things at the outset. First, I am a Catholic, and I believe that part of our soul (soul in the Aristotelian sense) is purely immaterial, thus naturally immortal. Second, I believe that evolution is a theory, which is useful in describing how our material being has developed to its present point. Third, I am not a scientist, just a layman who finds himself intrigued by the exchange of powerful ideas in the midst of man’s Great Conversation, and who, to be clear, agrees with various points from both sides of the debate. Fourth, I think I should give a little personal history about why this topic is important to me, which will require a short digression.

I was raised as a Christian, but it wasn’t until my teens that I started to take my beliefs seriously. Thus, it was in my junior-high school years that I quickly gravitated to a fundamentalist mindset; a mindset through which I interpreted the Bible, including Genesis, in as literal of terms as possible. Fast forward a bit – I’m now into high school, my parents have divorced, I’m in and out of depression, and the one strong support in my life is my church. My church beliefs, it must be understood, are connected, rising or falling on the question of the accuracy of the Bible as I then was taught to interpret it. Therefore, taking a biology class in which the theory of evolution is treated as historical fact in a history spanning millions of years, and at the same time attending a church which is teaching me that history only stretches back three-thousand years; well, suffice it to say that the contradiction opened the door for a creeping nihilism and despair.

It’s been sixteen years since high school. Now, as a Catholic, I take a bit of a different approach to interpreting Scripture, which I mention primarily to point out that, even though I disagree with the fundamentalist interpretation, I still have a certain sympathy, in one important regard, for the fundamentalist motive. You see, the fundamentalist, right or wrong, sees the scientist promoting evolution in a way that threatens to dismiss the need for God, destroy transcendent goodness, and undermine human dignity; that, in a word, threatens to render his most cherished beliefs superfluous. I think it’s important to understand this motive, and I think there’s something noble and truthful about it; I’ll return to this in a moment.

The argument that Intelligent Design is not science, but more akin to philosophy, is a strong argument for keeping it out of the mandatory public-school curriculum. But what about a lecture in Biology class, or a biology text book, or a PBS broadcast, which begins, “Man has evolved…”, and which concludes as if evolution accounts for man’s existence in a way that leaves a difference only of degree between he and his animal ancestors, not one in kind? In this case, there’s an implicit clash of philosophy, by which I mean reason, not faith; and, though this clash is subtle, it is, I think, still very much detectable, especially at a sensitive age. I’ve already pointed out where I stand on man’s (immaterial) soul, and I don’t intend to debate the point in this article; my real purpose, to be clear, is to point out that there is a clash, there is a debate, there is a problem -- and I’m sure I‘m not the only one who’s been affected by its implications.

So, what are we to do about this conflict? Well, as someone who’s a Christian and who provisionally holds to the theory of evolution, I suggest perhaps teaching some form of ethics, though one, which specifically proceeds from the conviction that man is more than an animal, that he is, in fact, a rational animal. This was the classical view of man, held by our Founding Fathers, and by both the medieval Christians and the ancient Greeks who influenced them; its propagation does nothing less than form the logical basis for establishing the equality of man firmly in the mind of society, from which it may then issue politically. This is not an article of faith, i.e. a strictly religious proposition, but a subject of rational inquiry; it is for that reason that it serves as a point where religion and science can meet. Thus, certain religions, like my own, can supplement public school curriculum with their particular benefits, not contradict it with whatever unfortunate consequences to which one may be sensitive.

In conclusion, I would say this: though reason can be opposed to some people’s faith, for others it need not be; not, that is, unless reason be prescribed, implicitly or otherwise, to the workings of an irrationally dogmatic materialism. Walking the tightrope between two extremes often seems to be the road less traveled; I think, as the greatest pioneers and martyrs of truth, neither Socrates nor Jesus would disagree with me here. Neither men, however, were pessimists; thus neither would give up hope.

Objectivity
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” Note, Jefferson did not say a free people claim their rights as derived from a Constitution, for the rights enumerated in the Constitution must be a reflection of the rights found in natural law. When you ask people about equality, they often reply, “we’re equal before the law,” and they’re right, we are equal before the law according to the Constitution. However, the real question is, are we equal in reality, as a law of nature, which the Constitution then reflects and secures as law?

Subjectivity
A negative answer to the latter question lands morality in subjectivity. Subjectivity is the basis for might makes right, which runs counter to a rationally based ethic; an ethic which all persons are rationally obligated to uphold, and which forms the basis for freedom and true happiness. The logic of subjectivity goes like this, If value and morality are purely subjective, that is, exist only in your head and not as a reflection of reality, then when you say that such and such is wrong you are really saying you feel or imagine such and such is wrong *though it's really not*. The 'really not' logically accompanies every expression of a subjective moral view. To be clear, when I say 'really' I mean 'in truth', and I accept the classic definition of truth: 'the conformity of the mind to reality.' Therefore, to take the subjectivist line looks like this, in real terms: "I feel the holocaust was wrong, but it really wasn't." Or, "I think dragging homosexuals behind my car is wrong, but it's really not." This is monstrous thinking, and it’s patently false.

Natural law
Invariably, discussions about the natural law produce some form of this common response, “but desire x IS natural because people are born with the inclination; plus, such desires exist in the animal kingdom”. However, if natural law is to mean anything, then clearly we cannot say that just because a person is born with a certain tendency that therefore it is natural; likewise, we cannot point to animals and say that what is natural for them is natural for us – clearly, we cannot do this.

No, the meaning of natural law -- what Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Aquinas, and other great proponents of natural law knew it to mean -- starts from the premise that man is a rational animal, that it is part of our nature to rationally govern our mere animal desires according to an outline, an over-all goal. The rational part, if you’ll notice, allows us a certain insight into the skin, so to speak, of other rational animals – we can speak for other people, for our rationality is in some way common. For instance, according to the self-evident principles of rational thought, we can say that any given person is in error if they state that a finite part is greater than the whole of which it is a part; likewise, if another person affirms that two and two equal six we can speak for them and say that they are wrong.

However, many people want to treat morality as if it somehow escapes our ability to speak from within each other’s skin; but this is simply nonsense. There are certain things we can say with certainty about other human beings concerning moral choices. We can say, for instance, that acting on the anorexic aversion (not acting to eat normally) is bad for human beings, but we can also say it is wrong. It is wrong for you to starve yourself, because it is wrong for me to do so; since we share the same essential nature I cannot say that something, which adversely affects what is essential to my being, is ok for you, since it effects what is conceptually indistinguishable from my own nature (your essence).

 
"(I)f you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as widely as possible… From Hilaire Belloc to Mr. Mortimer Adler... men of good will have for generations been advocating the decentralization of economic power and the widespread distribution of property." -Aldous Huxley, from Brave New World Revisited

Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton (who, of course, goes hand in hand with Belloc), Mortimer Adler, and even, in his Dr. Jekyll moments, Aldous Huxley (who seems to be throwing his weight behind the general solution); all intellectual powerhouses and distinct societal influences who affirm another "Way," a "Third Way" from that which leads to the dominance of Big Business and Big Government. Now, in full context Huxley states that these theories are obvious, but, falling within a chapter titled What Can Be Done?, he naturally states that the problem is in their specific application. Strangely, Huxley later writes a novel called Island, which abandons the collective wisdom he's tacitly endorsed above -- or perhaps it's not so strange, for much of Brave New World Revisited is not in line with the perennial stream of wisdom in which Belloc, Chesterton and Adler were immersed (all, by no strange coincidence, Catholic - a religion Huxley is not shy about attacking).

I call this all to your attention because there is an attempt afoot to meet Huxley's challenge (incidentally, with similar Huxlian eloquence and wit) by an author named John Medaille, and, to boot, he'd like to do so with the helpful input of people like you and me http://distributism.blogspot.com/2008/05/come-let-us-reason-together.html  . Mr. Medaille is writing a book, The Political Economy of Distributism, for the "non-specialist", and is, before publication, posting the book chapter by chapter for us to read and comment on. I'd also recommend his essay Practical Distributivism (http://www.medaille.com/pracdist.htm  ); for me it offered refreshing insight, which began to take up where the solid and promising parts of (Jekyll) Huxley's work left off, and which will no doubt serve as a good introduction to The Political Economy of Distributism.

Also, for "A QUICK COMPARISON OF CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND THE "JUST THIRD WAY", see: http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm  

1. “Miracles are, by definition, impossible, so Christians will believe 1+1=3 if ‘God’ tells them to.”

Reply: Miracles are not, by definition, impossible. There’s a distinction between the Ideal Order and the Existential Order. The first deals with thought laws, like the principle of non-contradiction (a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same way), and mathematical propositions; the second deals with physical matters of fact, like rocks, water, insects, plants, planets, and human beings. The Ideal Order deals with why causes that are self evident, they cannot be denied. The Existential Order deals with that causes, causes we see that occur (we see that rocks fall according to what we call gravity), but the why of which we do not see, and can therefore see no reason they should continue to hold. The Christian miracles concern the Existential Order, and contain no inherent “why” cause contradictions in the Ideal Order. (For more on the difference between orders see David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, SECTION IV PART 1: http://www.etext.leeds.ac.uk/hume/ehu/ehupbsb.htm#index-div2-N943628287 .
See also G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV--The Ethics of Elfland, beginning at the ninth paragraph: http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/orthodoxy/ch4.html )

2. “If the Universe needs God as a cause, then why doesn’t God need a cause?”

Peter Kreeft points out “the argument does not use the premise that everything needs a cause… Everything in motion needs a cause, everything dependent needs a cause, everything imperfect needs a cause.” (See http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm , near the bottom of the page, with a dot by it, starting out “Third, it is sometimes argued…”)

3. “Asking me to prove the non-existence of God is forcing me to prove a universal negative, which is like me asking you to prove that unicorns don’t exist when you’re not looking, or that the spaghetti monster isn’t flying about on some distant planet.”

First, you CAN prove a universal negative if it contains an inherent contradiction, but that’s beside the point. The comparison between God as the logical conclusion of various proofs (like the Cosmological Argument, the Argument From Desire, and the Argument From Reason) and the randomly devised spaghetti monster, Santa Clause or Easter Bunny, is a comparison of apples and oranges. The former conclusion is a construct of the intellect, a concept, which is
inherently un-picture-able (unimaginable), like the concept of a triangle, which contains the un-picture-able essence of all imaginable triangles, or, in the realm of the existential order, like the concepts of a black hole and a quark, both of which are inferred by effects, yet are none the less unimaginable. (See William Buckley’s interview with philosopher Mortimer Adler for more on intellect vs. imagination: http://radicalacademy.com/adlerinterview2.htm ).

4. “Faith is blind, irrational; it is believing without evidence.”

A.) Faith is trust in reliable authority. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York… The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority-because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority… A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.” (Full quote from Mere Christianity, Book II, Chapter 5, third paragraph: http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt )

B.) Christianity has what are called preambles to faith, also called motives of faith; for instance, God is knowable by reason with the attributes of goodness and truth; and Jesus, who was crucified for claiming to be God (for blasphemy) was indeed what he said he was. A reliable authority is one who has knowledge and veracity (moral integrity): God known by reason together with Jesus of Nazareth who claimed to be God provides us a reliable authority.

C.)“It is only in the waiting, thirsting spirit that revelation can find a reply.” --George Brantl

The need for faith in the Christian God is the result of an attempt to live according to conscience, according to what one knows is right, and the subsequent failure to do so -- in other words, it involves the recognition that one needs a savior who has a direct relationship to his will, not his abstract intellect alone (i.e., not to mental assent to propositions alone). Christianity, says Lewis, "is addressed only to penitents, only to those who admit their disobedience to the known moral law… [i]t offers forgiveness for having broken, and supernatural help towards keeping, that law."

5. “The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin didn’t see God anywhere, nor does the Hubble; so show me scientific proof that God exists -- till then I’m a skeptic…”

God is known by His effects, and in two different realms.

First, in the descriptive realm, the realm with which science deals where we describe what is, not what ought to be, we can come to a philosophical understanding of God. One way we (the traditional "we") rationally come to the intellectual construct "God," is a posteriori (after experience). It's method is no different from that by which we arrive at scientific "constructs," the only difference is the particular explanation of observable phenomena for which it is used to account. We start with the empirical world, and see a necessity to explain it's various aspects: science deals with becoming, with what philosophers term secondary causes; philosophy deals with existence, with ontology and metaphysics. It's either bias or misunderstanding, which would discount the one, arrived at by the same method as the other, for the mere fact that it is used to explain a different aspect of observable phenomena. Therefore, if you ask for empirically discoverable evidence for God's existence in favor of the scientific method to the exclusion of the philosophical, you are simply asking to affirm and deny the same method at the same time. In other words neither Yuri Gagarin nor the Hubble can, in principle, see a black hole, and we shouldn’t expect them to – the same goes for God.

Second, in the prescriptive realm, with which personal relations and morality deal; this is the realm of the will, and is really the more important and, as it concerns the existence of God, the relevant realm. Peter Kreeft notes that science operates on the principle of mistrust, but personal relations are just the opposite. If God is not a being with whom we can have a personal relationship, then He’s largely irrelevant in our practical lives; if He is then we need, like all relationships, to trust. But what idea of God do we trust? First, if God exists He is all good, and we must do our best to follow the moral law, which we can never completely uphold. Second, there is only one claim that God has actually come to us and we need to trust Him, and that we need his help to keep the law, and to transcend it in order to find ultimate fulfillment – that claim is made by Jesus Christ. Therefore, when you understand the Christian God to be the only source of the forgiveness and help we need, then it's quite clear that it’s our desperation stemming from the most important and basic attribute of our humanity -- our moral and relational experience, that drives us towards trust, towards a relationship with that "source"; a relationship which beckons: "taste and see," for the evidence will be a transformation of that deepest and most important part of yourself.

(For more on the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive, visit: http://radicalacademy.com/adlermoral.htm )

First, this is only a matter for the States, a States rights issue, if it does not fall under the application of the Comity Clause of the U.S. Constitution. If it does, and I don’t see how it doesn’t, then it becomes a federal issue, and this is why some have moved for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage the traditional way.

Second, marriage is NOT for everyone, nor should it be. You cannot, for instance, marry your sister, nor for that matter can you marry more than one person – like, say, your brother and sister. Yet there are, no doubt, a small minority of people who would want these “rights”. Why do we deny them their rights (the incest produces deformed children argument not withstanding – the state could simply demand the two “lovers” be “fixed”)? The question points to the fact that marriage between a man and a women must be somehow different in kind from these other unions…

Third, there’s the inevitable “homophobia” charge. Most people who don’t support “gay marriage” are not homophobes – a phobia is an irrational fear. The fear of most of us is a rational fear, a fear legitimately grounded in the idea that objective morality exists, homosexual acts are objectively wrong, and supporting things, especially politically, that are objectively wrong undermines the principles, which ultimately support Constitutional safeguards and human rights.

Fourth, most of us who do not support “gay marriage” do support the full range of common human rights for those persons homosexually inclined, and also afford them the decency and civility which the dignity and value inherent to them, as human beings, rightly warrants. On the other hand, it is the very basis upon which the idea of equality, human dignity and value rests to which many of us feel the proponents of “gay marriage” are ultimately laying an axe.

The controversial Italian journalist Magdi Allam, born in Egypt and raised a Muslim (though he remained one only nominally), was baptized into the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI this past Easter Vigil (‘08) (see story here:http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-22151). One of the motives Mr. Allam gives for his conversion was his being led to understand, by the help of Benedict XVI, “the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilization”. However, such a statement might leave some people scratching their heads. A “link between faith and reason”? Isn’t that like saying a link between a circle and a triangle? Since the definition of one excludes the other, there can be no “link.” Similarly, if faith means fancy or blind speculation, and reason equals empirical science, then a “link” between the two is just as unintelligible. “If”, however, is the operative word.

Here in the United States, one can sense a wearisome reaction to the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation; the fact is it depends in what sense the claim is made. Many of our Founders (like Jefferson and Franklin) and men of influence (like Paine) were actually deists; Washington was a Mason. But despite such differences, all the great men of the Revolutionary period were the beneficiaries of a philosophical succession reaching back through the scholastics of the Middle Ages to the Greeks of Antiquity. Indeed, they inherited an intellectual universe governed by first principles, which was vast enough to anchor all sorts of grand edifices (like the flowering of sciences, objective morality, the existence of God, the immortality of man, and the nature of revelation -- to name but a handful), and dynamic enough to unite and animate men in causes like declaring independence from a tyrannical king and establishing an unparalleled Constitutional Republic.

I think it accurate to call the view of reality, which our Founding Fathers inherited, a classical western view (one can become sufficiently acquainted with this view by following the ten-year reading plan outlined by Mortimer Adler in the first volume of The Great Books of Western Civilization, or at least by exploring the “Great Ideas” composing volumes 2+3 (Check your local library)). I think it also safe to say that an acquaintance with the classical western view will reveal, at its heart, a very definite philosophy, even, to borrow from Agostino Steuco, a perennial philosophy. An example of the importance of this philosophy lies in one of its core tenets: that “Man [is] a rational animal”. It is from this tenet that freedom’s indispensable proposition, the equality of man, derives. Consequently, it is from this tenet, and the worldview that supports it, that the political implications of man’s equality are born into action. Abraham Lincoln wrote, “The assertion that ‘all men are created equal’ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration not for that but for its future use.” It’s “future use,” of course, manifested, slowly but surely, to the inclusion of blacks, women and non-land owners.

Unfortunately, however, the divide between the present and the intellectual and moral foundations of our past appears to be growing at an alarming rate. Prominent atheist professors lecture on the “abuse” of raising children in a religious atmosphere, Anglican bishops urge Sharia Law in Britain, courts challenge the inclusion of “God” in the pledge of allegiance, and the State censors long-standing Boy Scout policies and cuts funding to Catholic adoption agencies “on principle” – the list goes on and on. And what should we make of the list itself? The list, I’d submit, is nothing but a growing litany of consequences stemming from a largely polarized society. If I may take some liberty with a well-known physics axiom and apply it to the universe of these polarized worldviews, it would seem that every over-reaction has an equal and opposite over-reaction; thus, for instance, a Mr. Dawkins stands in relation to, say, an Archbishop Williams. These polarizing over-reactions, which really have taken place on many levels, have denuded words like faith and reason of their traditional meanings and relations (one need only read St. Thomas Aquinas to find that a link between the two is not an inherent contradiction).

In the mean time, many fair minded exiles wander aimlessly, feeling a disconnect from an animating, comprehensive, lost view of reality, and searching for some type of via media, some type of middle ground upon which to stand and by which to make sense of all the polarized madness. The convert Magdi Allam, in so many words, claims that he has found this lost view as an integral part of his religion; and, finding the same truth four years ago, I believe him. Still, though he and I, as Catholics, believe that the “gates of hell shall not [ultimately] prevail”; even so, “eternal vigilance…” says Andrew Jackson, “is the price of liberty,” and, if strategies from the Communist Manifesto are sure threats to our liberty, then a widespread break with our formative past -- whether through ignorance, apathy, or design -- must invariably pose a threat, in the words of our Preamble, “to ourselves and our posterity.”

Buses in Washington DC will now carry the "humanist" slogan, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake." But what does that honestly mean? To me it's no different from asking, Why believe in goodness? Just be good for goodness sake. Or, Why believe in God? Just be good for God's sake. Nor can I consider that people who sing this song have seriously taken the music of goodness to heart; otherwise, I believe they would have discovered the desperate need to call upon a muse for divine help, for the art of morality and our inevitable failures to be good are, according to great men like St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, and C.S. Lewis, the very motive for seeking revelation from God. Moreover, I'd argue that part of "being good for goodness sake" involves believing in God for people's sake; humanists who were good for people's sake wouldn't slight their deepest convictions, and spurn the hope, which attends their faith. To me, the "humanist" slogan is an oxymoron, I see nothing fundamentally humane about it.  

The very slogan itself, really, is an embarrassing tribute to its own authors. I'm sorry to say, it shows they either lack an awareness of, or refuse to acknowledge, the fact that God is not just a being religion holds exists, but philosophy does as well; that He's not only an object of faith, but of reason too; and, in either case, that it's traditionally posited that God is distinguished from all else by having no limitations, so that the slogan reading "a god" is confused from the start. There is and can only be one God, THE God; another "god" would have to be distinguished in some way, which would involve a limitation, thus would not BE God. In a country founded by Christians and deists, who believed in a basic idea of God, which served as the foundation of human ethics, is there, then, perhaps more to this inaccuracy than meets the eye? It's an ever-present temptation for those who want dramatically to alter the present to blur the past, even, I would think, if it starts with the most subtle propaganda (like inaccurate and uncharitable bus slogans).

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" Apparently, Thomas Jefferson would seriously doubt that a nation "can be good for goodness sake", that is, if goodness is deprived of an eternal context, i.e., divorced from the notion of God. This philosophical deism of a Jefferson or a Franklin, however, is, in itself, practically dead, and only really survives into the present through living forms of Christianity (like Evangelical and Conservative Catholic Christianity). The rub for certain people is that these active forms of Christianity are, in large part, the primary forces behind things like saving traditional marriage, banning embryonic stem cell research, and attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade. In other words, belief in a God of "justice" and "wrath" currently translates politically, so that political reaction, I'd suggest, is what drives things like "humanist" bus ads.       

I hear and read all of the time that people motivated by faith should keep their religion out of the political arena. To an extent I believe this principle is correct, but I think it helps to define that extent, which is really only to reclaim what I believe was understood by our founders, and by those in their succession, like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'd like to do this, to define that extent, with the help of one more quote from Jefferson, "A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature." For many, that quote might understandably bring to mind the phrase in the Declaration of Independence reading, "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God", especially in light of Jefferson's earlier quote. But the point is that no one that I'm aware of wants to introduce articles of faith into the political arena -- no one, for instance, wants to force public schools to recite the Nicene Creed or, perhaps instead of fluoride, to take Holy Communion wine. Instead, the controversial issues rest, and should be discussed, at the level of "natural law"; that is, as subjects of reason, not faith. Whether or not one's reason is motivated by faith should be of nobody's concern, but that, I'm afraid, is what really angers people.

Indeed, it's religious motivation, I believe, that "humanist" reactionaries attempt to undermine through things like inaccurate and uncharitable bus slogans. To be sure, humanists have their own motives. The atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche knew that the death of belief in God would mean the rise of our own selfish motives as gods in His place. Humanist slogans, in that case, might ultimately and more accurately read, "Why believe in God? Trust in OUR gods for goodness sake."