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Miracles, Intelligent Design, and God-of-the-Gaps*

Both traditional Christian claims and the newer project of “intelligent design” have been held to commit the “God-of-the-gaps” : that is, they depend on our ignorance of the material processes that produced them and invoke action to explain the unknown. By this argument, scientific research will eventually reduce the “gaps,” and hence the motive for believing in God. In reply, I argue that a proper treatment of this question requires careful definitions of such terms as “natural,” “supernatural,” “design,” and “gap.” An attentive consideration of the Christian scholastic metaphysic provides definitions of “supernatural” and “design” that give criteria for detecting such events without committing the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. We must distinguish between different kinds of “gaps”: those that are simply gaps in our knowledge, and those that are genuine gaps between the properties of the components and the complex structure we are considering.

I shall outline t is a curi ous fact that both tradi tional biblical one), that will lead to the defi ni tion Christian mira cle claims and the con - of “mira cle” and provide a con text for dis- the Christian Item po rary pro ject of “intel li gent design” cussing “design.” This will allow us to say face simi lar objections. For example, both whether and when it is possi ble to make a scholastic may be ruled out a priori as incom pat i ble mira cle or design claim that is not liable to with the modern sci entific world view, or as the God-of-the-gaps objection, which then metaphysic …, outside the realm proper for sci entific pro - will give some basis for discuss ing how this nouncement; and both can be called “sci ence metaphysic might relate to natu ral theol ogy. that will lead stop pers” (i.e. they prevent further research). Both may be dismissed as exhibit ing a Definitions, Part 1: Nature and to the flawed view of God’s action in the world; or Miracle as involv ing their par tic i pants in the “God- To dis cuss our topic, first we need to define definition of-the-gaps” fal lacy; or as an improper use some terms: what is “ordinary” or “natu ral,” of “reason” to compel ; or as incompat i - and what is a “mir a cle”? Straightaway we of “miracle” ble with the existence of evil. face dif fi culties, since there is no techni cal bibli cal dis cussion of either of these notions. While I am far from claim ing that one That, of course, is hardly evidence that the and provide a entails the other, I find the common opposi - con cepts themselves are foreign to the . tion to these two claims to be striking. In Rather than rely on etymol o gies 1 or on the context for this brief paper, it is impossi ble to cover the var i ous def i ni tions of mir a cle that have been full range in any depth; so I shall focus offered (often for polemi cal purposes, and discussing on the problem of “God-of-the-gaps.” I shall often rep re sent ing var ied meta phys ics),2 out line the Chris scho las tic metaphysic I shall state the standard scholas tic meta- “design.” (which I claim accurately repre sents the physic of ordi nary and mirac ulous events, Jack Collins is professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary in and cite a few bibli cal texts that clearly sup - St Louis, Missouri. His S.B. and S.M. are from MIT (Electrical Engineering), his port this position. 3 M.Div. from Faith Lutheran Seminary, and his Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool (Hebrew). He has been an engineer, church-planter, and now a teacher. Lutheran theo lo gian Hein rich Schmid gives His publications focus on the grammar of Hebrew and Greek; but he also has a rep re sen ta tive descrip tion of divine Prov i - received grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Discovery Institute dence as hav ing three ele ments: (1) preser - for work in and faith. He was Old Testament chairman for the English va tion, (2) con cur rence, and (3) gov er nance.4 Standard Version, and is the author of The God : An Exegetical Examination of God’s Action in the World (Crossway, 2000 / InterVarsity, 1. Pres er va tion is the act of Divine Prov i - 2001). An ASA member since 1996, he and his wife have two children. His email dence whereby God sus tains all things address is: [email protected]. created by Him, so that they continue in

22 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Jack Collins

being with the proper ties implanted in their nature and It is inherent in this metaphysic that “mira cles” (better, the powers received in creation … Created things have “supernat u ral events”) are possi ble. Under what condi - no power of subsis tence in themselves … Therefore tions they may be expected is another question. Christian pres er va tion is also desig nated as con tin ued cre ation.5 theolo gians commonly add provi sos about them not being 2. Con cur rence, or the co-opera tion of God, is the act of capricious but related to God’s pursuit of relation ship with Divine Prov i dence whereby God, by a gen eral and human beings. These provi sos are quite appropri ate. At the immedi ate influence, propor tioned to the need and same time, Chris tian resists the notion that super- capac ity of every creature, graciously takes part with natu ral events are in some way unworthy of God. It is sec ond causes in their actions and effects.6 quite true that a doc trine of creation posits a created world that has all its neces sary capaci ties built into it, needing no 3. Gov ern ment is the act of Divine Provi dence by which tinker ing. But those capaci ties are the ones neces sary for God most excellently orders, regu lates, and directs the the world’s assigned pur pose: namely, of being the back- affairs and actions of creatures according to His own ground for the lives and choices of rational agents.14 wis dom, justice, and goodness, for the glory of His name and the welfare of men. … Definitions, Part 2: Design The Provi dence of God ordinarily employs sec ond How is “design” related to nature and provi dence? His- causes, and thus accom plishes its designs; but God is torically, mention of design has involved purpose. For by no means restricted to the use of those sec ond example, Aris totle’s term for it was heneka tou “on account causes, for he often exercises His Prov i dence without of something.” 15 Paley defined it as “the sev eral parts … regard to them, and operates thus contrary to what we framed and put together for a purpose.” 16 Thus the theis tic call the course of nature, and hence arises the dif ference design argument is also called the “tele olog i cal argument.” 17 between ordi nary and extraor di nary prov i dence.7 But, as Paley himself acknowledged, there are differ ent There is no doubt here that both ordinary and extraor- kinds of design, rang ing from “a princi ple of order” to spe - di nary (mirac u lous) prov i dence are expres sions of God’s cific instances of “con triv ance.” Hence, we need a more active power: it is never correct to refer to the mirac ulous as care ful def i ni tion. We may dis tin guish two dif fer ent kinds having God more “directly” or “immedi ately” involved. of design:18 However, the mode of that expression of power is differ - design-prop er ties results in the produc tion of a material with ent, and, at least in princi ple, some of those differ ences are proper ties that will serve some pur pose. detect able by human observers. 8 God’s activ ity in ordinary provi dence is not physi cally detect able, since it is not part design-imposed results in the imposi tion of structure upon some object or col lec tion of objects for some purpose, of the order of the world we experi ence with our senses.9 where the struc ture and the purpose are not inherent in Some sample bib li cal texts show that this is a good in- the proper ties of the com ponents but make use of these ference. 10 For exam ple, James 3:11–12 sup ports the idea of proper ties. “nat ural pow ers” by which a fig tree can not yield olives; Examples of design from everyday life include: steel Col. 1:17 and Heb. 1:3 speak of all things de pend ing on and plas tic (both design-prop er ties); a digi tal watch (combi - Christ’s ac tive power of uphold ing; Exod. 14:21 shows an na tion of design-prop er ties and design-imposed); and Stone- extraor di nary (mi racu lous) event that uses a means (the henge (design-imposed). Detec tion of design-prop er ties is east wind); and Luke 1:34–35 de scribe the mecha nism of a normally possi ble against a backgroun d of “non-designed” super na tu ral event (the concep tion of ) as being due items, and thus a theis tic infer ence from the proper ties of to the special agency of the Holy .11 the natu ral world (e.g., the anthropic princi ple) is a weak This metaphysic allows us to see that it is more helpful one, since the proper ties of the whole are designed. The for our purposes to speak of the “natu ral proper ties” of intel li gent design program says, at its sim plest, that it is created things and their inter ac tions rather than of the legit i mate to have as part of our tool-kit for scien tific “laws of nature.”12 We may employ this to arrive at the explana tions for natu ral things, the option to say that they following def i ni tions: may contain instances of design-imposed.19 Nat u ral: God made the universe from nothing and We might further notice that, as it applies to design in endowed the things that exist with natu ral proper ties; nature, there are differ ent possi ble lev els of design-imposed, he preserves those proper ties, and he also con firms their ranging from the micro level of partic ular biolog i cal struc - interactions in a web of cause-and-effect relations. tures, to the larger level of an organism or an ecosys tem, to Super nat u ral: God is also free to “inject” spe cial oper ations the percep tion of pur pose in the world as a whole. Paley of his power into this web at any time, e.g., by add ing includes argu ments for design at all of these levels, but objects, directly caus ing events, enabling an agent to do does not dis cuss whether they are concep tu ally dis tinct. what its own natu ral proper ties would never have made it capable of, and by imposing organi za tion, according Finally, it should be clear that, given the defi nitions of to his purposes. 13 “natu ral” and “supernat u ral” above, the detection of a

Volume 55, Number 1, March 2003 23 Article Miracles, Intelligent Design, and God-of-the-Gaps

supernat u ral event is analo gous to the detec- event for which we do not have a natu ral is tic tion of design- imposed, because it detects a explana tion, and then say, “See, God must gap between the result and the prop erties of have done that,” and then proceed to base the com po nents.20 either our own or our apolo getic for belief on such an instance. This involves us Detecting Design-Imposed in a risk. Let us suppose the sci ences provide There are We may take the decla ration that Stonehenge a nat u ral-pro cess based expla na tion. Then is an instance of design-imposed to be indis - where does that leave God’s involvement in different possible putably rational. What do we do when we the matter? Are what once were grounds for make this decla ration? We are saying that believing in God now made an argument levels of design- 23 we do not believe that the proper ties of these for dis be lief? imposed, ranging rocks or of their interac tion with non pur - A seri ous theo log i cal prob lem also is posive aspects of their envi ronment (wind, involved (at least within tra di tional theism) from the micro rain, seis mic events, etc.) would lead to the if we think that it is possi ble to say of some forma tion that we see. It does not matter that events or objects, “God made this,” and of level of the structure is in dis repair, nor that we do the natu ral ones, “God did not make this.”24 not know who made the structure or even The doc trine of provi dence cited above particular why they made it. affirms that the products of sec ond causes are every bit as much direct divine action as biological In other words, we find a gap between the mirac u lous events. the proper ties of the com ponents and their structures, to the envi ronment, and the structure we find. This It is widely held that Darwin’s the ory larger level of an gap is not a product of our ignorance, but of undermined the classi cal (Paleyesque) argu - the natures of the compo nents: we do not ment from design.25 Accord ing to the stan- organism or an believe that any research into the compo - dard reading, Paley had put for ward many nents will undo the inference of design- instances in the biolog i cal world that were ecosystem, to the imposed. We may label this kind of gap as impossi ble to account for except by divine a lacuna naturae causâ (Latin: “a gap on imposi tion of design (design-imposed). Then, perception of account of nature”)—an explan atory gap due how ever, Darwin’s the ory of nat u ral selec - to the natures of the compo nents. tion provided a natu ral-pro cess based expla - purpose in the nation of the features and interac tions of We must carefully dis tinguish this kind organ isms.26 The most that design could world as a of gap from the other kind. For example, claim, by this understand ing, was that God sup pos ing I can not explain why a vol cano had designed the proper ties and the laws whole. …The erupted when it did. I would not be war- govern ing the process (along the lines of ranted (at least not without fur ther research) design-prop er ties above).27 detection of a in declar ing this as due to design-imposed, From within the perspec tive of tradi - since the explana tory gap is due to my igno- supernatural tional Chris tian theol ogy, there are many rance of the pro cesses (which in prin ci ple pos si ble cri tiques of Paley’s argu ment. I will are explica ble). We may label this kind of event is give only three.28 First, he overreaches. He gap a lacuna ignorantiae causâ (Latin: “a gap apparently thought that ascertain ing design on account of ignorance”)—an explana tory analogous to the involved dis cerning the purpose for a large gap due to our ignorance of the processes. 21 detection of part of the creation, and potentially for the Therefore it fol lows that the detec tion of whole of it. The book of Eccle si as tes explic- 29 design-imposed, design-imposed amounts to the iden ti fi ca tion itly denies that such is possi ble. Sec ond, he of lacu nae naturae causâ (and not nec es sar ily apparently assumed a static view of the cre - because it detects to the percep tion of the purpose of the event ation, i.e., that what one observes today is or object). just what came forth from the special design a gap between of the Creator. This makes no allowance for God-of-the-Gaps devel op ment under nat u ral (and pos si bly the result and supernat u ral) factors; nor does it allow for To claim to have detected a mira cle, or an the of human evil. And finally, he instance of design in the nat ural world, ren - the properties of apparently assumed that a fairly full range ders one lia ble to the charge of commit ting of divine attributes, including benevo lence, the “God-of-the-gaps” fallacy. 22 That is to the components. could be derived from the created order. say, suppose we come upon some object or Paul simply referred to “his eternal power

24 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Jack Collins

and ” (Romans 1:20). However, this hardly implies God’s activ ity is that of maintain ing the order of what he that all design argu ments must be thrown out.30 made. Appeal to any special divine action is unsuited to a context like that.34 To invoke super nat u ral cau sa tion here Rationality and Detecting Design-Imposed would involve the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. Further, many The claim that all appeals to special divine action lead to histor i cal events, such as the 1980 Mount St. Hel ens erup- the God-of-the-gaps fal lacy, amounts to a claim that all tion, may be explica ble by appeal to natu ral factors. To gaps are gaps due to ig no rance—namely, that behind every attribute these to supernat u ral action would be improper gap lies a completely natu ral expla na tion. On the face of it, (at least, without plenty of further research). On the other this is not an em piri cal claim. In stead it sets lim its on what hand, there may be unique events that do involve special kinds of expla na tions are allowed for what we meet em- divine activ ity (e.g., creation, exodus, vir gin birth, res ur- pir i cally. For ex am ple, con sider the fol low ing state ment rection of Jesus). In such cases, it would be incorrect and from the Na tional Sci ence Teach ers As so ci a tion (NSTA): mislead ing to insist that only natu ral factors are valid for Sci ence is a method of ex plaining the natu ral world. describ ing what happened in those events. It as sumes the universe op erates ac cord ing to reg u- lari ties and that through system atic inves ti ga tion we can under stan d these regu lar i ties. … Be cause sci ence is limited to explain ing the natu ral world by means of natu - The biblical theist will not appeal to ral pro cesses, it can not use su per nat u ral cau sa tion in its special divine action in a nomothetic ex pla na tions. Simi larly , science is precluded from mak ing state ments about su per nat u ral forces, be- context, because in situations like the 31 cause these are outside its prov enance (my ital ics). ordinary function of God’s creation, we Sim i larly, the National Asso ci a tion of Biol ogy Teach ers (NABT) claims the follow ing: recognize that God’s activity is that of The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolu - maintaining the order of what he made. tion: an unpre dict able and natu ral process of tem po ral descent with genetic mod i fi ca tion that is affected by nat u ral selec tion, chance, his tor i cal con- It is wise to avoid construct ing, a priori , unre al is tic tin gen cies and chang ing envi ron ments.32 requirements for what consti tutes rational ity. It makes more sense to identify actions and judgments that we In saying this they are in effect denying the existence of know to be rational, and to dis cern from them what any lacu nae naturae causâ. They then go on to claim: characteristics they have.35 We know the judgment that Pro vid ing a ratio nal, coher ent and sci en tific account Stonehenge is an instance of design-imposed is rational; and of the taxo nomic and diversity of organisms any phi los ophy that would call the rational ity of this judg- requires inclu sion of the mech a nisms and princi ples ment into ques tion is itself under mined by the clash. We of evo lu tion. have experi ence of rocks, wind, and water, and the kinds In effect they are saying that to be scien tific and ratio nal, of arrangements they produce. We rec ognize in Stone- you must agree that “all explana tory gaps are lacu nae henge, however, some thing that is beyond those natu ral ignorantiae causâ only.” capac i ties; we see that a pat tern has been imposed on the components. The key to the identi fi ca tion of lacu nae To eval uate whether we ought to follow this def i nition naturae causâ is to iden tify the princi ple that sepa rates the of rational ity, we must first recog nize the two domains of design from the natu ral proper ties. scien tific explana tion , the nomothetic and the his tor i cal.33 In nomothetic explana tions, we con sider what normally Another example of iden ti fying a princi ple that sepa - happens, and explain its causa tion. We are looking for rates design from natu ral proper ties is William Clark’s “laws,” hence the name. This domain is repre sented in signa ture on the stone forma tion called Pompey’s Pil lar in most common defi ni tions of science. In histor i cal explana - Montana. We do not have any problem being confi dent tions, we are asking what specific chain of cause-and- that either Clark wrote it or someone forged it. It simply effect produced the item we are studying. Obvi ously, the cannot be a product of the stone, because a linguis tic mes - two are related, but they are also dis tinguish able, e.g., how sage is not a product of the proper ties of its medium. animals interact in an eco sys tem (nomothetic) versus why This approach to detecting design-imposed is, to be sure, a partic ular species went extinct (his tori cal). Of course, our an intuitive one, and perhaps some people will find this to his tori cal explanations make use of our nomothetic ones. be a shortcom ing. There is, however, research under way Now the bibli cal theist will not appeal to special divine to make it more than that.36 We may also feel cautious action in a nomothetic context, because in sit ua tions like about using it, since we do not know everything there is to the ordinary function of God’s creation, we recog nize that know about the rele vant natu ral proper ties. On the other

Volume 55, Number 1, March 2003 25 Article Miracles, Intelligent Design, and God-of-the-Gaps

hand, we know enough about some things and some take it in opposi tion to spe cial that we can have con fi dence when speak ing rev e la tion.42 of them. C. S. Lewis pointed out: It is better to step back and ask what No doubt a modern gynaecolo gist one hopes to gain from natu ral theol ogy. knows several things about birth and Aquinas, in discuss ing whether God exists, begetting which St. Joseph did not gave what he saw as the two really tell ing know. But those things do not concern argu ments that God does not exist. The first the main point—that a vir gin birth is is the ; and the second is what contrary to the course of nature. And we may call the problem of the redundant 37 Supposing we St. Joseph obviously knew that. deity. He said: agree to the Can empir ical study identify instances of What can be fully accounted for through design-imposed in the nat ural world? The fewer princi ples is not produced through NSTA popu lar writer G. K. Chesterton observed: more. But it seems that all things that appear in the world can be accounted No philos opher denies that a mystery for fully through other prin ci ples, requirement still atta ches to the two great transi - when it is supposed that God does not tions: the origin of the universe itself exist, because those that are natu ral are that “science and the origin of the princi ple of life reduced to a princi ple that is nature, itself. Most phi los ophers have the but those that come from intention are … cannot use enlighten ment to add that a third reduced to a princi ple that is human mystery attaches to the origin of man reason or will. Therefore there is no supernatural him self. In other words, a third bridge need to suppose that God exists.43 was built across a third abyss of the causation unthink able when there came into the One function, then, of natu ral theol ogy, is to world what we call rea son and what remove these objections to reli gious believ ing. we call will.38 in its There are several variet ies of argument These bridges across the abyss of the from design. For example, some focus on explanations,” unthink able equate to what I am calling gaps design-prop er ties: those that adduce the cos - due to natu ral proper ties, not due to igno- mo log i cal anthropic prin ci ple as evi dence does it follow rance, and they, in prin ci ple, are empir i cally that the uni verse is espe cially hos pita ble to detect able.39 life; or those that express wonder that our that we must minds and the uni verse are so well fit ted for Suppos ing we agree to the NSTA require - each other. These are important, but rela - ment that “sci ence … cannot use super nat u ral agree that there tively weak. Someone may reply: “Well, if it cau sa tion in its explana tions,” does it fol low were other wise we would not be here dis - that we must agree that there are no natu ral are no natural cuss ing it.”44 gaps? The only way this could be ratio nal gaps? The only is if we knew beforehand that there are no Darwin ism is often said to remove all such gaps; but that is beyond the bounds evidence for design-imposed from the biolog i - way this could of the natu ral sci ences.40 No sci entist who cal world.45 It is cer tainly the case that the refuses to be a theist should be required to a-tele o log i cal descrip tion of evo lu tion from be rational is if say that these gaps have a supernat u ral the NABT does so; and this is because it is no cause; but it is only hon est to acknowledge longer simply a theory about natu ral origin we knew the gaps’ exis tence.41 of any number of species, but a bio logi cal theory of every thing. At its heart is a pre- beforehand that Miracles, Intelligent Design, and commit ment to the absence of gaps, rather Natural than the empiri cal dis cov ery of that absence. there are no If the detec tion of gaps due to nature makes The the ory can not, how ever, elim i nate the inference of design-imposed rational, we appeals to design-prop er ties. then may ask about the role of mir acles and such gaps … Those who think that their religious faith intel li gent design in nat u ral the ol ogy. But requires design-imposed will conclude both what is “natu ral theol ogy”? Some take it as that a-tele o log i cal evo lu tion is an ideo log i cal the dis ci pline of produc ing proofs for the threat, and that only allow ing design-prop er - exis tence of God; others take it as eluci dat - ties leaves the believer with too thin a soup; ing the knowl edge of God that comes to us hence they will want to see if there are coun- as humans apart from special rev e la tion;

26 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Jack Collins

ter-argu ments to the a-tele o log i cal the ory of evo lu tion.46 read his book, Rational ity and Sci ence: Can Science Explain Every - This is what Behe has provided in Dar win’s Black thing? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), with profit. I am grateful to Pro fes sor Trigg and to the audi ence for help ful comments. Box: his con cept of irreduc ible com plexity is claimed to be 1The English word “mira cle” derives from Latin miraculum, which an instance of a lacuna naturae causâ. He argues: in turn comes from the verb miror “to won der.” That is, it contains Dar win ism is the most plau si ble unin tel li gent mech- the notion of the sub jec tive response of amaze ment on the part of the onlook ers; but this notion is not uni formly pres ent in the anism, yet it has tremen dous dif fi culties and the biblical passages which are held to describe mira cles. evi dence garnered so far points to its inability to 2E.g., , Enqui ries Con cern ing the Human Under stand ing do what its advo cates claim for it. If unin tel li gent and Con cern ing the Prin ciples of Mor als, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge mecha nisms can’t do the job, then that shifts the focus (Oxford Univer sit y Press, 1902), 114 (section x.1), defined a “mira - cle” as “a vio la tion of the laws of nature,” while oth ers have to intel li gent agency. That’s as far as the argu ment preferred to speak of a sus pen sion of those laws. Still oth ers think against Dar winism takes us, but most peo ple already of an event that is per son ally sig nif i cant but not nec es sar ily meta - have other reasons for believ ing in a phys i cally dis tinct from ordi nary events, e.g., R. J. Berry, who who just might act in history, 47 and they will find the wrote: “Prob a bly all mir a cles are sus cep ti ble to an expla na tion other than the super nat u ral.” This state ment appears in Sci ence argu ment for intelli gent design fits with what they and Chris tian Belief 9, no. 1 (1997): 77 (a response to P. Addinall’s already hold. reply to Berry’s previ ous article on “The Vir gin Birth of Christ,” With the evidence arranged this way, evidence Science and Chris tian Belief 8, no. 2 [1996]: 101–10). The occa sion al - ist G. C. Berkouwer, The Provi dence of God (Grand Rap ids, MI: against Darwin ism does count as evidence for an Eerdmans, 1952), 196 (draw ing on Abraham Kuyper), asserted active God … Life is either the result of unintel li gent that a mir a cle “means nothing more than that God at a given causes or it is not, and the evidence against the unin- moment wills a cer tain thing to occur differ ently than it had up to tel li gent produc tion of life is clearly evidence for that moment been willed by Him to occur.” 3A full exegetical and theolog i cal discus sion of the options in tradi - intel li gent design.48 tional Christian ity appears in C. John Col lins, The God of Mir acles: An Exegetical Exam i na tion of God’s Action in the World (Wheaton, There are many strengths to this way of fram ing the IL: Crossway, 2000). This work conclud es that the schola stic meta - argu ment. First, it does not ask of the empiri cal evi dence physic has the advan tages both of being exegetically sound and more than it can provide (an improvement on Paley). Sec - of being robust in the face of mod ern ism and postmodernism. ond, it rec ognizes that most peo ple have reli gious faith for 4Hein rich Schmid, Doc trinal The ol ogy of the Evan gel i cal Lutheran Church, trans. Charles Hay and Henry Jacobs (Min ne ap o lis, MN: other reasons than the argument from design—but once Augsburg, 1961), 170–94. For the same position from other they have that faith, it is rea son able of them to want a sci - branches of West ern Chris tian ity, cf. Hein rich Heppe, Reformed entific the ory that is both ratio nal and compat i ble with Dog mat ics, trans. G. T. Thomson (Grand Rapids , MI: Baker, 1978), that faith (or else the faith should be mod i fied or even 251–80; and Alfred Freddoso (Roman Cath olic) , “God’s Gen eral aban doned).49 And finally, it exposes the nub of the issue: Con cur rence with Sec ond ary Causes: Why Con ser va tion Is Not Enough,” Philo soph i cal Per spec tives 5 (1991): 553–85. Some theolo - the a-teleo log i cal theory says life (including us) results gians dis pute whether con cur rence should be included, but from unintel li gent causes, but it has not presented the evi- Freddoso’s essay is, I believe, proof that it must. Such a nota ble dence it would take to back up a claim with such far- Pres by te rian theo lo gian as Wil liam G. T. Shedd, Dog matic The ol - reaching metaphysical consequences. ogy (Nash ville: Nel son, 1980), i:527–30, speaks only of pres erva - tion and gov ern ment, but from his expo si tion it is clear that his I do not consider here whether the empiri cal case made def i ni tion of pres er va tion includes con cur rence. 5The term “con tin ued cre ation” can cause some con fu sion, since by Behe is ade quate. However, it deserves con sid eration, dif fer ent writ ers may mean dif fer ent things by it. The Reformed and can not be ruled automat i cally invalid for commit ting com pen dium of Heppe uses sim i lar lan guage about “con tin ued the God-of-the-gaps fal lacy. This is because it is based on cre ation,” but adds a clar i fi ca tion: “conservatio is to be con ceived the claim of having dis cov ered lacu nae naturae causâ. as a continuata creatio, rest ing upon the same command of God as cre ation. … At the same time pres er va tion must not be concei ved as a con tin ued cre ation, as though by pres er va tion the essen tial We will likely never know who made Stonehenge, or identity of the once created world were abol ished” (Heppe, why, until we uncover and interpret a text from its mak ers. 257–8). This illus trates nicely the limits of design when it comes to 6The expres sion “gra ciously takes part” is some what vague; it reli gion: it takes a text from the Maker, special rev e la tion, refers to God’s confirm ing the inter ac tions of their causal prop er - to eluci date the Creator’s iden tity, charac ter, and will.50 ties. Heppe, 258, cites Swiss theolo gian J. H. Heidegger (ca. 1700) for a defi n ition: “Concu rrence or co-opera tion is the opera tion of But, like Stonehenge, it raises the question: now that we God by which he co-oper ates directly with the sec ond causes as know it was designed, what was it designed for? And now depend ing upon him alike in their as in their opera tion, so that humans see them selves as the products of design, as to urge or move them to action and to oper ate along with them what were we designed for? ] in a manner suitable to a first cause and adjusted to the nature of the sec ond causes.” 7“The form of divine gubernatio in which God is active with out sec - ond causes or uses them in a man ner devi at ing from their orderly appoint ment and activ ity is God’s per for mance of mir a cle” Notes (Heppe, 263). *This paper was first read at the Gifford Bequest Inter na tional Con - 8Cf. Ste phen T. Davis, “God’s actions,” in In Defense of Mira cles, ed. ferenc e on Nat ural Theol ogy, Aberdeen, Scot land, 26–29 May R. D. Geivett and G. R. Habermas (Down ers Grove, IL: Inter - 2000. My responden t was Profes sor Roger Trigg; and I have since Varsity, 1997), 163–77, at 166. I say “at least in princi ple” and

Volume 55, Number 1, March 2003 27 Article Miracles, Intelligent Design, and God-of-the-Gaps

“some of those differ ences ” because it is conceiv able that a given 20To identify design-imposed in the nat u ral world does not of itself spe cial divine action is not dis tin guish able to us from a “nat u ral serve as an iden ti fi ca tion of a “super nat u ral” agent; we must event.” Some which are clearly dis tinguish able, under the super- bring in our back ground beliefs about what kinds of agents may natu ral ist scheme, are the ini tial cre ation ex nihilo event; the virgin have pro duced such an effect. But this is the same sit u a tion with con cep tion of Jesus; the turn ing of water into wine; the res ur rec - Stonehenge: the agents may be aliens, dei ties, or humans; and it is tion of Jesus; and the conver sion of ners, even at the hands of our back ground beliefs that ren der any of these worth pur su ing incom pe tent mes sen gers. as the expla na tion. 9Cf. Paul Helm, The Provi dence of God (Down ers Grove, IL: Inter - 21It was inter est ing to me that, after I had arrived at this anal y sis, Varsity, 1994), who help fully says “the exact sense in which I discovered a sim ilar dichot omy in ’s Quarks, objects which are dis tinct from God are yet upheld by him is dif fi - Chaos, and Christian ity (New York: Cross road, 1994), 71–2. cult to get clear” (p. 82); and “it should be stressed that this Polkinghorne writes of gaps that are “patches of con tem po rary uphold ing, being meta phys i cal or onto log i cal in char ac ter, is igno rance” and “intrin sic gaps in the bot tom-up descrip tion alone physi cally unde tect able” (p. 89). Other writ ers have referred to in order to leave room for top-down action.” This is inter est ing, the hiddenness of the “causal joint” between God and the cre ation both because of his prom i nence among writ ers on sci ence and (Aus tin Far rer’s term). Note also Helm’s p. 146, where he vir tually reli gion, and because Polkinghorne is not an adher ent of the scho - defines “prov i dence” as “that great matrix of causes and effects lastic metaphysic given above, nor of intelli gent design (design- through which God gov erns the world.” imposed) in the biolog i cal world. 10These and many other texts are dis cussed at length in Col lins, The 22Examples of the charge are easy to multi ply: for exam ple, God of Mir acles , chaps. 5–7. This con clu sion is stron ger than that of Michael Roberts’ review of Behe’s Dar win’s Black Box in Sci ence Paul Gwynne, Spe cial Divine Action (Rome: Gre go rian Uni ver sity and Chris tian Belief 9:2 (1997): 191–2, and his reply to a response to Press, 1996), 65, who sup poses that the biblical mate rial is not that review, Science and Chris tian Belief 10:2 (1998): 189–95; Rich- deci sive. ard Bube, “Seven Patterns for Relating Science and Theology,” in 11Cf. Matt. 1:18, 20. Of course, God is rep resen ted as active in the Michael Bauman, ed., Man and Creation: Perspec tives on Science and for ma tion of every embryo (cf. Ps. 139:13); the question is the mode The ol ogy (Hillsdale: Hillsdale Col lege Press, 1993), 75–103, at of his involvement . 83–6; Pennock, Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New 12Although arrived at independ ently, my approach resembles the (Cam bridge: MIT Press, 1999), 163–72. views of Stephen S. Bilynskyj, God, Nature, and the Con cept of Mir a - 23For example, vis i tors to Mount St. Helens in Washing ton State are cle (PhD dis serta tion , Univer sit y of Notre Dame, 1982), 104–5, treated to a his tory of Amer i can Indian beliefs about the moun - who speaks of “natu ral powers. ” tain’s erup tions: these were held to be due to spe cial acts of the 13For a refer ence point, com pare this with ’s def ini tion . If a geol o gist can show that the reg u lar work ing of nat u ral of “mira cle,” as “an effect which exceeds the nat ural power of the pro cesses fully explains the erup tions, then the erup tions are no means which are employed for it; and what is not a mir a cle is an lon ger super nat u ral (but, on the Chris tian view, not nec es sar ily effect which does not exceed the nat u ral power of the means irrel evant to divine provi dence). I have heard religious speakers which are employed for it,” in Pensées (Paris: Garnier Frères, on the BBC defend igno rance on the causes, say, of light ning 1964), no. 804 (no. 891 in Krailsheimer’s transla tion). This is also strikes or the 1987 hur ri cane in the south of Eng land, because that sim i lar to Gwynne’s defi ni tion of “special divine action” in Spe cial leaves room for God’s mys te ri ous action in his world. Divine Action: “God brings it about that some partic u lar out come 24For example, the subti tle of R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. is dif fer ent from what it would have been had only nat u ral, cre - Habermas, In Defense of Mir acles (Down ers Grove, IL: Inter - ated factors been opera tiv e,” (p. 24). Varsity, 1997), is “A compre hen sive case for God’s action in 14Cf. Helm, Prov i dence, 106–7. The objection that mira cles are his tory.” Although some of the authors in the col lec tion try to pro - unwor thy of a fully-fit ted cre ation seems fre quently to rely on a vide a more care ful nuancing to this, it nev er the less shows the met a phor for the world as a machine or artifact : it would be a problem in popu lar parlance . A Scripture text such as Ps. 119:126, reproach on the Crafts man if it needed “tinker ing.” But sup pose “It is time for the Lord to act,” must be taken as analog i cal—t hat is, we change the met a phor, and pic ture the world as a musi cal it speaks as if God were doing noth ing about the wicked, rather instru ment, and its his tory as the tune. It is no shame to the Crafts - than assert ing that he actu ally is doing noth ing. man if his instru ment does not have the tune within itself! 25Charles Darwin, The Ori gin of Spe cies, Harvard Classics 11; (New 15Pos te rior Ana lyt ics 95a (II.xi, pp. 216–9 in the Loeb edition, lines York: Collier, 1909). 3ff.), where it is dis tin guished from ananche “neces sity” and tyche 26Strictly speak ing, the sit u a tion is actu ally more comple x than “chance.” Hence “design” is tradi tion ally “teleol ogy.” that. Many of Paley’s examples seem to be to the effect, “I cannot 16Wil liam Paley, Nat u ral The ol ogy (New York: Ameri can Tract Soci- imagine a natu ral sce nario that could have produc ed such phe- ety, n.d. [orig i nally 1802]), 1; cf. his descrip tion of the design ing nomena,” while Dar win replied, “But I can.” Darwin described mind as “that which can per ceive an end or pur pose, as well as the vari a tion plus nat u ral selec tion as a mech a nism that could have power of provid ing means and direct ing them to their end” pro duced these struc tures; he never sup ported the modal ity shift (p. 265). Paley also uses the term “con triv ance” through out as a from imag in able to pos si ble, much less to plau si ble or prob a ble. syn onym. Instead he argued, “I can not see why it could not,” shift ing the 17Cf. Thomas Aqui nas, Summa Theologiae I.a, 2, 3, which con tains burden of proof; and he offered no empiri cal tests for the pro- the five ways of show ing that God exists. The fifth way is the tele o - posed possi bil it y. logi cal argument : “We see that things which lack intelli gence, 27David Living stone, “The Idea of Design: The Vicissitudes of a such as nat u ral bod ies, act for an end [operantur propter finem] … Key Concept in the Prince ton Response to Dar win,” Scot tish Jour - Now, what ever lacks intel li gence can not move towards an end nal of The ology 37 (1984): 329–57, pres ents such a reading of the unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and nine teenth cen tury. Living stone that the design-prop er ties intel li gence.” line of argument was a posi tive move in response to science, and 18Thomas McPherson, The Argument from Design (Lon don: that the later Princetonians’ return to the older argu ment for Macmillan, 1972), 8, dis tinguish es what he calls “design-A,” or design-imposed was a regres sion. Inter est ingly, Paley was aware of order, from “design-B,” which specif i cally refers to purpose. My the design-prop er ties line of argument (he called it a “princi ple of cat e go ries do not align with his. order in nature”), and consid ered it inad e quate for what we see 19Since the pro gram does not rule out the func tion of nat u ral pro - (Paley, 54–5). cesses, it is clear that intelli gent design offers a larger of tools 28These are com plemen tary to those in Michael Behe, Dar win’s than the purely nat u ral is tic approach. Black Box (New York: Free Press, 1996), 211–6.

28 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Jack Collins

29See J. Stafford Wright, “The inter pre ta tion of Eccle si as tes,” Evan - empiri cal inves tiga tion. For a Chris tian theist, this is a partic u - gel i cal Quar terly 18 (1946): 18–34. larly bad approach: as Helm put it: “It is not appropri ate to argue, 30It is likely that Paley, writ ing a quarter of a cen tury after David a pri ori, what God will and will not do with and in the phys i cal cre - Hume’s Dia logues Con cern ing Nat u ral Reli gion (New York: Hafner, ation, but—as with any con tin gent mat ter of fact—it is nec es sary 1948; orig inally 1779), intended to overwhelm Hume’s case with to inves ti gate what God has done” (Prov i dence, 76). example s; and some think he was at least par tially suc cess ful. Cf. 41For example , with such words as: “This object or event looks like it D. L. LeMahieu, The Mind of Wil liam Paley (Lin coln: Uni ver sity of has an agent as its cause. I do not know of a non-pur pos ive pro cess Nebraska Press, 1976), 29–54, 67–8; David Burbridge, “William that could have pro duced this effect. I do not wish to attrib ute the Paley Confronts Eras mus Darwin: Natu ral Theology and Evolu - effect to a super nat u ral agent.” tionism in the Eighteenth Century,” Science and Chris tian Belief 10 42Cf. James Barr, Bib li cal Faith and Nat u ral The ol ogy (Oxford: Clar en - (1998): 49–71. For the purposes of this paper, I accept Elliott don Press, 1993), 1–20, for a sur vey of “Natu ral theol ogy in this Sober’s assess ment of Hume’s objec tions to the design argu ment, [i.e., the twentieth] cen tury.” in Phi los o phy of Biol ogy (Boul der, CO: Westview, 1993), 34–5, 43Aqui nas, Summa Theologiae, I.a, 2, 3 (my trans lation ). namely that they do not defeat Paley’s form of it. (Sober thinks 44Cf. John North, Norton History of Astron omy and Cos mology (New that Dar win’s case does defeat Paley.) York: Norton, 1995), 619. This is not to say that there is no rejoin - 31National Sci ence Teach ers Asso ci a tion, NSTA Posi tion State - der to this; cf. Wil liam Lane Craig, “Cosmos and Creator,” Ori gins ment on the Teach ing of Evo lu tion, 1997 (http://www.nsta.org/ & Design 17, no. 2 (1996): 18–28, for a vigor ous discus sion. Furth er, 159&id=10). such cos mo log i cal con cerns dimin ish the force of Hume’s 32National Asso ci a tion of Biol ogy Teach ers, NABT State ment on objection (Dia logues Con cern ing Nat u ral Reli gion, 22) that our Teach ing Evolu tion , adopted March 15, 1995 and modi fied in experience is too local to be applica ble to the universe. October 1997 (http://www.nabt.org/Evo lu tion.html). The ear - 45Cf. the famous job descrip tion of the biol o gist from Rich ard lier version of this statement appeared in The Amer i can Biol ogy Dawkins in The Blind Watchmak er (New York: Norton, 1987), 1: Teacher 58, no. 1 (1996): 61–2, and described evolu tion as “an “Biol ogy is the study of com pli cated things that give the appear - unsu per vised, imper sonal, unpre dict able and nat ural pro cess.” ance of having been designed for a purpose” (with a view toward The newer state ment is not dif fer ent in its rejec tion of design, only removing that appearance, cf. his sub title, Why the evi dence of evo- less bla tant: for exam ple, it goes on to say that “nat u ral selec tion lu tion reveals a uni verse with out design). … has no specific direction or goal.” (The most recent update, 46This is not the same as say ing they will reject all forms of evolu - August 2000, does not change in this respect.) tion ary the ory; a great deal depends on the meta phys ics 33Cf. Ian Barbour, Reli gion in an Age of Sci ence (New York: Harper under ly ing the the ory. SanFrancisco, 1990), 66–71. 47I assume Behe means this ana log i cally! 34Indeed, as Helm put it, “It should be stressed that this uphold ing, 48Michael Behe, review of Robert Pennock, Tower of Babel: The being meta phys i cal or onto log i cal in char ac ter, is phys i cally Evidence against the New Creationism (Cambridge: MIT Press, unde tect able” (Prov i dence, 89). 1999), in The Weekly Standard (7 June 1999): 35. 35I pro fess the influ ence of Mikael Stenmark, Ratio nal ity in Sci ence, 49Indeed, the believer must often con front pro posed rea sons for Reli gion, and Every day Life (Univer sit y of Notre Dame Press, 1995), aban don ing faith; and it is spir i tu ally healthy to rec ol lect the evi - who stresses that our cri te ria of ratio nal ity ought to describe dence of design at times when the over all design of the cos mos is somethin g it is possi ble for real peo ple to achieve. invis i ble. Paley, Nat u ral The ol ogy, 344–7, was well aware of this, 36Wil liam Dembski, The Design Infer ence: Elim i nat ing Chance and commented: “It is one thing to assent to a prop o si tion of this through Small Prob a bil i ties (orig i nally a Uni ver sity of Illi nois at sort; another, and a very dif fer ent thing, to have prop erly imbibed Chi cago PhD thesis , 1996; now publish ed by Cambridge Univer - its influ ence. I take the case to be this: per haps almost every man sity Press, 1998). Jona than Edwards’ Trea tise Con cern ing Reli gious liv ing has a par tic u lar train of thought, into which his mind glides Affec tions, in The works of Jon athan Edwards (Edin burgh: Ban ner of and falls, when at lei sure from the impres sions and ideas that Truth, 1974), i:234–343, is an attempt to provide crite ria for identi - occa sion ally excite it: per haps, also, the train of thought here spo - fy ing super nat u ral moral trans for ma tion. ken of, more than any other thing, deter mines the char ac ter. It is of 37C. S. Lewis, Mir a cles: A Pre lim i nary Study (New York: Macmillan/ the utmost con se quence, there fore, that this prop erty of our con - Simon and Schuster, 1960), chap. 7, paragraph 5. stitu tion be well regu lated … In a moral view I shall not, I believe, 38G. K. Chesterton, The Ever last ing Man (Gar den City, NJ: Doubleday, be con tra dicted when I say, that if one train of think ing be more 1955 [1925]), 27. desir able than another, it is that which regards the phe nom ena of 39The more than sev enty years of sci en tific research since nature with a con stant ref er ence to a supreme intel li gent Author. Chesterton wrote this have not done any thing but pro vide To have made this the rul ing, the habit ual sen ti ment of our minds, confirmation of this. The Big Bang the ory of the ori gin of the cos - is to have laid the foun dation of every thing which is reli gious. mos looks like a sci en tific the ory that rec og nizes the first of The world thenceforth becomes a temple, and life itself one con - Chesterton’s gaps. For the sec ond, Charles Thaxton has argued tin ued act of ado ra tion. The change is no less than this: that that the infor ma tion-bear ing func tion of DNA cannot result from whereas for merly God was sel dom in our thoughts, we can now a law-based reg ular ity (cf. Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton, scarcely look upon any thing with out per ceiv ing its rela tion to The of Science [Wheaton: Crossway, 1994], 243–5). This is a him.” McPherson, The Argument from Design (pp. 12–3), notes that stron ger con clu sion than that of Paul Davies, The Fifth Mir acle Kant also saw this as a value. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), that we have not yet dis cov - 50Theo log i cally, one of the func tions of mir a cles has been to authen - ered the law; it is instead a denial by prin ciple that we can. Finally, tica te the mes sen gers sent by God con vey ing such rev e la tion. as many have observed, human rational ity is hard to square with a purely law-based expla nation of it: “If I am physi cally deter- mined to think as I do, if these physi cal condi tions are suffi cient for me to have a certain belief, then the relation between that belief and any evidence there may be for it is purely coinci den tal” (Paul Helm, Prov i dence, 221). Inter est ingly enough, even Dar win (Ori gin, 251) acknowl edged that he must bracket out the sec ond and third of these. Once these three are acknowl edged, it becomes a valid research pro ject to see if there are others. 40Surely, at least from the point of view of the sci en tist, this is a con - tin gent mat ter of fact; and as such it can not be known except by

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