Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion

Click here for more information on the Philosophy of Religion:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/
In this section, we look at religion from point of view of philosophy. The main concerns we have are:
assuming God does exist, how can we reconcile Her existence with the coexistence of evil. This is called
theodicy. The next concern we have is whether or not religious belief is rationally justifiable? The
philosophy of religion examines the truth of religious claims and whether or not religious claims can be
substantiated. This is not a survey of the various religious beliefs, but rather a study of religion from the
standpoint of reason. And really the main question here is whether God exists or not.
Before beginning our foray into the philosophy of religion, there is an important conceptual distinction
that Id like to make: most of you probably know that atheism refers to a person who does not believe
in god. But a recent philosopher of religion named Anthony Flew points out an important distinction in
the kinds of atheism. The difference between positive atheism and negative atheism. Flew says that a
positive atheist actively affirms the non-existence of God. That is, a positive atheist comes up with
reasons for why one should not believe in God or why God does not exist. On the other hand, the
negative atheist should be understood from the standpoint of the literal translation of the wordwhere
atheist simply means, from the Greek, not a theist. The negative atheist does not affirm that "there is
no god". Flew explains that the prefix "a" in "atheism" should have same negative meaning as in words
like amoral, atypical, asymmetrical etc. Some good examples of negative atheism lie in what I call
the psychological deconstruction of belief in god of the like we see with thinkers such as Freud who
thinks, We accept religious beliefs not because we have evidence for them, but because they satisfy
deep-rooted psychological needs, fulfilling "the oldest, strongest and most urgent needs of mankind.
Or like for Nietzsche, where God is dead; where he means to say not that God has actually lived and
died, but that the idea of God is one that people no longer seriously consider. And finally with Karl Marx
who is famous for saying that religion is the opiate of the masses. Marx also wrote, The abolition of
religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to
give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires
illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which
religion is the halo For Flew, the debate of gods existence must begin with a presumption of, similar
to a presumption of innocence in criminal law. Part of this is simply an approach in philosophy that is
well described as such by Annie Wood Besant1, If my interlocutor desires to convince me that Jupiter
has inhabitants, and that his description of them is accurate, it is for him to bring forward evidence in
support of his contention. The burden of proof evidently lies on him; it is not for me to prove that no
such beings exist before my non-belief is justified, but for him to prove that they do exist before my
belief can be fairly claimed. Similarly, it is for the affirmer of God's existence to bring evidence in support
of his affirmation; the burden of proof lies on him. --Why I do not believe in God
The first concern, theodicy, is technically a theological question because we begin with the assumption
that god exists. Theodicy addresses the so called problem of evil and involves reconciling the existence
of god as the traditional omni-god, having the qualities of omni-benevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience. The word theodicy comes from the Greek,Theo (god)dike (justice). One of the first known
theodicies comes from the Greek philosopher Epicurus and is called the Epicurean Paradox or the
Epicurean Riddle. It captures the heart of the problem of evil:

(1 October 1847 20 September 1933) was a prominent British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist,
writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule.

If God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
If he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
If he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from?
If he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
One of the reasons I like to discuss theodicy even though technically it is a theological and not really a
philosophical question is because it is of concern to manyeven non-believersand one often sees
various forms of this issue raised in popular media. Not long ago, while surfing through my hometown
newspaper, I learned of a couple in their twenties who had been recently wed and were on their
honeymoon in Hawaii. While there, they took a tour of the volcano by helicopter. The helicopter
crashed and they both died. All of the hopes and excitement of their future were dashed. Here is what
the Newspaper reported, A newlywed couple killed on board a helicopter that crashed in Hawaii were
nuclear engineers who had been married in Pittsburgh less than a week earlier. Clearly this is a tragic
loss for the families involved and for Westinghouse. They had so many friends and colleagues who speak
glowingly of them," Gilbert said. The couple was married at Saint Mary of the Mount Parish in Mount
Washington on Nov. 5. "The first thing you feel is a disbelief -- like, no, this couldn't have really
happened -- and the second thing is a sadness," said the Rev. Michael Stumpf, of Saint Mary of the
Mount. The Abels were on a 45-minute aerial tour of west Maui and Molokai when their helicopter
crashed around midday Thursday. All four passengers and the pilot of the Blue Hawaiian Helicopters
flight were killed. This story caught my eye because it makes one wonder how there could be a God
who is all loving and all good who could let this happen.
Another story that I recall from recent times was of a man who was randomly shot by a crazed gunman
at the corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood a few years back. His name was John Atterbury and he
was a former Death Row Records vice-president. Of course he was somebodys son, brother, co-worker,
or friend. At first the news reports showed that he might survive his injuries, but then his health took a
turn for the worst and he died. Ill never forget the poignant message his sister Cynthia wrote on her
Facebook page. Today I lost my JOHN. My baby, my guardian angel, my protector, my little brother at
3:00 p.m. I do not understand now nor will l ever is why such a senseless act of violence was inicted
upon such a GOD-fearing, kind, compassionate, loving individual. What a do know is that GOD makes no
mistakes. So if God makes no mistakes, then does God want these kinds of tragic deaths to happen?
Why would God want these things to happen? The fundamental question here is how can we
understand how bad things happen to good people? To this end, we are going to look at the writings
and philosophy of John Hick and Saint Augustine to see if and how we can make sense of such loss in the
face of the existence of God.

Hick
Click here for more information on the John Hick:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hick
Our first reading from this section comes from John Hick (19222012), a contemporary philosopher of
religion. Hick addresses the theological question of theodicy and points out what he sees as the three
main theodicies: The Augustinian, Iranaen, and Modern Process Theology. First there is the Augustinian
which he says mainly involves the idea that humans have free-will and he talks about our fall from an
original state of perfection. This involves the fall of man (Adam) from a previously untainted position.
Basically Augustine clears the creator. Misuse of free will is evil.

Next Hick discusses the approach of St. IrenaeusGreek early church father130 CE-200 CE. There
is no sinjust imperfection--world is soul making and that we as humans will ultimately be transformed
into children of god. There is more value in life and the world if there is suffering and a struggle to be
good. Gods world is not a utilitarian world where there is maximum pleasure and minimum pain. The
world is about soul-making, where one confronts evil, struggles, and becomes a child of god. Irenaeus
says that we go through three stages in life. 1.) We come in to the world as immature, yet intelligent
creatures. 2.) Then we go through what is called the transformative stagelike a seed, we must die
before we can get to the fullness of life that comes in the third stage. 3.) God likeness.
In the third approachfrom the Modern Process Theologians, God is not the omni-being of traditional
Western theism. Instead, the belief lies in deismthat is, God is either not willing, able, or interested in
being involved in human affairs. Humans reside in an autonomous creaturely realmpg. 98. The world
humans reside in is part of an uncreated process. Modern process tries to rectify these seeming
differing ways of conceiving creation. God did not create but is able to influence 97. God is limited by
the ultimate metaphysical structure of reality. 98. Deism is an important feature of the Modern Process
approach and reflects the idea that the bad things that happen are a result of force(s) outside of the
power or interest of god.
I think all three of these reflect in many ways the common understating that people have of theodicy.
As far as Augustine, goes people will often absolve God saying that it is humans who have free will and
that it is not his fault when something goes bad. Parents do this. They raise the child and then when he
commits a crime after he reaches a certain age, they say he is an adult and makes his own choices. I
remember this with my own brother. When he starting getting in trouble around the age of eighteen,
my other visited the local priest who told her that it is not her fault, that he has free will.
The Iranaen theodicy reflects the commonly held idea that when we experience some evil or hardship,
it goes towards soul-building. The idea is reflected in a passage made famous by a recent Kelly
Clarkson song, What doesnt kill you makes you stronger. I am sure Nietzsche, the person she is
famously quoting, is rolling over in his tracks now. The full quote by Nietzsche is, What does not kill me,
makes me stronger.
The idea that god is not involved or uninterested has been around for a while. Epicurus said that of the
gods, if they do exist, are living blessed lives and as such unconcerned with the petty affairs of humans.
There are a few other common ways of thinking about theodicy. Sometimes people think in terms of
karma, that is, you get what you deserve. So if something bad happened to you, there must have been
something bad that you have done. This is reflected in the baffling expressions like this by Pat
Robertson, Implied on the September 12th broadcast of The 700 Club that the storm was God's
punishment in response to America's abortion policy. He suggested that September 11 and the disaster
in New Orleans "could... be connected in some way". The idea here is that God is keeping track and will
punish people for their immoral behavior. The idea of karma is that you reap what you sow. It is
related to one of the worlds oldest and most famous codes of justice, Hammurabis Law.
Augustine
Click here for more information on Augustine:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 C.E.) better known as Saint Augustine, was born in Algeria. His mother,
Monica, was also a Saint and devout Christian who was said to have taught him to pray. She sat
patiently and waited for her son to come around to the Christian faith and she never gave up on him.
Her name is the namesake of our local beach city, Santa Monica. His father on the other hand, was a
pagan. During Augustines time only about one in ten Romans was Christian, but in 313 the Emperor

Constantine converted to Christianity. This did not officially legalize Christianity (that comes later with
the Edict of Milan) but it paved the way for more and more Romans to become Christian. In the work
that we look at of Augustines, we see a reflection own his struggles with sin and evil which basically
amounts to his inability to control himselfto control his feelings and desires. He struggles with that his
entire life. What is really interesting about Augustineand distinguishes him from his Greek
predecessorsis that he talks about his struggles with self-control in the way that is unprecedented in
history. Now it is common to turn on the TV and hear someone talking about the deep dark areas of
their life (think Oprah and Dr. Phil), but in late antiquity, this is almost unheard of. When Plato and
Aristotle write of akrasiaor weak will, they are not talking about their own problems with this; they
are speaking in the third person, and considering the subject of weak will from an objective standpoint.
Augustine on the other hand, presents his issues in a very public way. I find this quite admirable. His is
a personal journey; one where he is trying to get a sense of control over his life and is more than just
philosophy. This is extremely uncommon in 300 CE. Ultimatelywe will learnthat Augustine was
looking to situate himself squarely in Gods favor. At some time around 383 Augustine travelled to
Roma and his attempt to understand his sinful and weak-willed nature begins.
The writing we look at by Augustine is called The Confessions and was written between 397-398. The
name of the work really says it all and will ring a bell to those who were raised in the Catholic Christian
faith. In a Catholic confessional, a sinner goes into a booth and in front of (either behind a veil or
directly facing) a priest, and admits what it is they had done that was bad. After that the priest assigns
some penance in order for the sinner to come back into Gods grace; usually this penance consists of a
number of prayers. So we can see from the name of Augustines work that he is someone who is feeling
bad about himself and not content with his life. In the Confessions, Augustine writes eloquently of his
struggles with evil, which amounts laziness, thievery, obstinacy, childishness, and to an inability to
control his sexual urges. Instead, the mists of passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of
the flesh, and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and overcast my heart that I was
unable to distinguish pure affection from unholy desire He suffered from concupiscence (a former
student called this dirty-mindedness), which is strong sexual desire/lust and famously wrote, give me
chastity and continence, but not just now." In the Confessions, Augustine is very eloquent; when
reading Augustine, you can get a sense of pity and a sense of admiration.
There are various stages he goes through in order to get a sense of control over his urges and to relieve
of him of his terrible guilt: 1.) sin is the result of the misuse of free-will. See previous section from Hick
2.) There is actually no bad or evil, they are just instances where good is limited. 3.) He attached to
Manichaeism: an old religion of the near east that states that reality is an eternal struggle between the
forces of good and evil where the universe is a cosmic battleground. 4.) Augustine articulates a version
of Platonic metaphysics and observes that happiness is impossible in this realm, and all that one could
do is to look for the mercy of God in the next realm.
In the first stage, sin is misuse of free will as evidenced by the fall of Adam in the garden of evil.In the
next attempt he rationalizes. Augustine also spends time talking about fallen angels. He goes through
an intellectual process = process to rationalize = justifying. He resolves that God only makes good. Its
not a bad act; its just an act that has a small amount of good. Evil is the absence/privation of good. He
also thinks, that it was not possible for evil to exist (De Civ. Dei, xi. sec. 22) but, as he here states, evil is
"a privation of good." The evil will has a causa deficiens, but not a causa efficiens (ibid. xii. 6), as is
exemplified in the fall of the angels.
Manichaeism combines aspects of Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, and Christianity. As mentioned above,
Manichaeism is an old religion of the near east that states that reality is an eternal struggle between the
forces of good and evil. Augustine is looking to gain a sense of insight, understanding, and of course,
control of his life. He wants to know why is he so bad, which means, why cant he live up to his ideals.

His sins = theft, disobedience of parents and teachers, lust. Through Manichaeism, Augustine was able
to attribute the sins he was committing to a force outside of himself. The guilt evaporates away; this
relieved his guilt, but it didnt solve the problem, i.e., he is still doing it! So Manichaeism is passive. In
reality he believed that is was all his own responsibility. As Augustine writes, still thought that it is not
we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no
guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it. I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing
which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my
own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think
myself a sinner. (Confessions, Book V, Section 10) Augustine eventually falls out with the Manichaeism
for that reasons and also as he says his mother disapproved of it and prayed for him, CHAPTER XI19.
And now thou didst "stretch forth thy hand from above"[80] and didst draw up my soul out of that
profound darkness [of Manichaeism] because my mother, thy faithful one, wept to thee on my behalf
more than mothers are accustomed to weep for the bodily deaths of their children.
He is settled in his belief in Jesus and that is his hope. This life is a life of challenges, soul building, and
struggle. Compare Augustine to Aristotle and his idea that happiness is the goal (Nicomachean Ethics).
Ultimately Augustine thinks his problem and lack of control amounts to a discorded vision or view. We
should aim for mind-to-mind love the bright path of friendship. Instead, burning in a hissing cauldron
of lust. "But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be loved? Still I did not keep the
moderate way of the love of mind to mind -- the bright path of friendship. Mind-to-mind love involves
the intellect and is also known as Platonic love. It didnt work. Evil is disordered love. Augustine is a
Neo-Platonist; he reviews some of the ideas of Platonic philosophy. The world that we live in is a
corrupt version of superior forms. Plato originally gives us the idea of the Heaven of Forms. The
dialectic method and contemplation brings us to a higher sense of consciousness, and it brings us to
essence. Love is love of someones essence. The basic idea of the Forms are that Form = something like
Beauty in heaven of forms; Beauty with capital B. The Form is the highest expression of an idea. Then
Beauty, or an idea in the mind. Then beautiful things, bodies, animals, landscapes. Then reproductions
of beautiful things, e.g., paintings. Interestingly, art in Platos ideal society was limited to narration and
minimized art as imitation. As Plato says, Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the
true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights
and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into
the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from
earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. The artist is employed in
imparting grace and harmony. I think of the works of Homer and the other works were mainly what
Plato had in mind. This is why Nietzsche refers to Christianity as Platonism for the masses.
For Augustine the world we live in is corrupt, and rather than trying to achieve happiness in this life,
we should set our sights for the next life. Aug section how to do good in Gods eyes; good life? No, life
sucks and then you die. Augustines other work is the City of God and talks about what he thinks a=our
prospects as humans is.
The second thing we are going to look at in this section is whether or not the existence of God could be
rationally demonstrated To this end we will look at several prominent attempts to show that the belief

in God is rational. We will look at in this order, the ontological argument, the cosmological argument,
and the teleological argument.

Anselm
Click here for more info on Anselm and his ontological argument:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/
Anselms project is intellectual = I have the faith in God because I have a certain intellectual capacity.
He calls his project faith seeking understanding. Augustine was at the beginning of the medieval
period. Anselm comes at the latter part of the medieval period. Project in mind = how is it that we
understand Gods existence? Is belief in God something that can be rationally articulated? Is belief in
God rational? This was the project of the medieval thinkers.
He says: my belief is rational. If you dont believe, you are a fool. The doubter/non-believer has made
an intellectual error. He says that the fool has an idea of God because everyone, even the denier of God
has an idea of God. Anselm refers to the fool of the Proverbs where it is said that the fool hath said in
his heart there is no God. The denier, or doubter = the fool = has an idea of God, but he is unable to
take that idea and recognize it, to properly, fully understand what it means. He hears the definition and
understands it, presumably, but then concludes that God does not exist. Idea of greatest conceivable
being = God is the being than which none greater can be thought = God is the greatest conceivable
being. If you still believe that God is not existing = you havent properly ciphered, figured it out.
The fool doesnt have the intellectual ability to understand that God is in the category of reality.
The fool says why cant I say the greatest conceivable being is an island, instead of God?
One of the assumptions that Anselms argument makesthat the fool seems to missis that things
that exist in reality are superior to things that exist in imagination. According to Anselm, existence is a
great-making quality. So you are superior to the idea that your parents had in mind before you were
conceived. Reality/Imagination
In terms of criticism, Anselms argument commits the fallacy of reification = when you try to infer the
extra-mental existence of something simply by analysis of definition. This is pointed out by Gaunilo in
the essay. Guanilo says lets imagine the lost island
Anselms defense: my argument only applies to things/beings that are infinite in nature. An island is
finite = limited, it can be understood numerically.
Aquinas
Aquinas
Click here for more information on Aquinas:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas-moral-political/
Thomas Aquinas came from a large family, and at some point they were unable to support him. He was
sent to a monastery to study with the monks. He was said to have had a very keen intellect, but because
of his large size, was called the Dumb Ox. He will give five arguments, commonly known as the five
proofs, or the five ways.
Aquinas is similar to Anslem in believing that human reason could lead us in some ways to know God
that could exists. Aquinas says that the truth of faith surpasses the capacity of reason, however, it is
also true that human reason is naturally endowed to know. Faith in God is indeed something that
supersedes reason; however it does not oppose or contradict reason. Aquinas was famous for saying
Gods handiwork cannot contradict God. The physical laws are designed by God; God is thus an

intelligent designer. We may not be able to understand all the complications of the cosmos, but it
cannot contradict God and we can get to know God through his work.
Where Augustine adopts Platos metaphysics: the idea that we can understand ordinary reality by
assuming, by inferring that there is a super-reality, a hyper, meta-reality. Aquinas favors Aristotle who
the medieval thinkers simply referred to as the Philosopher. Aquinas adopts some of Aristotles main
ideas: the belief in first principles, alternately known as limiting principles = sets up the boundaries for
rational thought: if something is in motion it was moved, you cannot take something from nothing; you
cant draw something existing from something not existing. Do things come from nowhere? Everything
has a cause. He also takes on Aristotles geocentrism, and his idea that everything has 4 causes:
material, formal, efficient, and final.
The first three of the five proofs are based on limiting principles and what I refer to as a master
principle: Eternityor the idea that God is eternal. A point of interest for Aquinas is that he spent a lot
of time trying to consider what eternity is. I think it is a question thats worthy of considering. For
Aquinas eternity/being eternal is a feature of God. He says: lets make a distinction. Eternal =
simultaneously whole, while time begins and ends. From what he is saying we can infer that time and
eternity are not the same things. God is a being that has this quality. What is eternal? In Thus spoke
Zarathustra Nietzsche says: joy wants eternity, deep abiding eternity. I think he, like Aquinas, was
clued in to how deep and important this term is. For Aquinas, if we have an eternal God, we avoid an
infinite regress of going back and asking how things started: God has always been there.
So, the first proof is the proof from motion. If something is in motion. There had to be something that
put it in motion; something that acted upon that thing to put it in motion. A kid would ask: what put
that something (the first thing) in motion? Similar to the kind of questioning one can imagine taking
place between a parent and a child. The child asks his mother, mommy, where did everything come
from and mother says, God created all that we see. The child reflexively asks, Well, then where did
God come from? and at that point mommy says Ask your father. Aquinas says: stop silliness, we put
a prime mover in place; a mover that can move, but is himself unmoved. This stops us from going into
an infinite regress. God is the unmoved mover. God has the ability to move without being moved. Time
begins.
The second proof, the proof from efficient Aquinas says that the universe has an efficient cause and it
is God. Then, why does not God require an efficient cause? God is the uncaused cause. He doesnt need
an efficient cause. The third proof = proof of necessary vs. Contingent, or possible beings. Proof from
Possibility to necessity. In this proof, God is a necessary being and humans are contingent, possible.
Was it necessary that you were to exist, or was it possible? God is the being that cannot not-exist.
Human beings can not-exist. God cannot have the quality of being non-existent. God is self-caused,
cause Sui.
The Fourth and Fifth ways are versions of the ontological argumentsee Anselm, and the teleological
argument see Paley. In the fourth way, Aquinas points out that there are gradations of perfection = if
things have degrees of perfection, there must be one thing that is perfect. Its similar to Anselms
ontological argument. In the fifth way, called the proof from the governance of things is based on the
idea that since there are things that lack knowledge and are not perfect there must be some intelligent
being with knowledge who directs things to their end. Similar to Paleys teleological argument.
Everything has a purpose. There has to be a source of their purpose. God is the being that directs.
While celebrating Mass, Aquinas had a mystical experience. He left Summa Theologica unfinished.

Paley
Click here for more information on Paley and the Teleological argument for the existence of God:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/
William Paley was a philosopher from England who presented a very famous version of the teleological
argument for the existence of God. One of Paleys main ideas in the argument concerns the difference
between something that is random or planned/contrived. When you look out in the universe, do you
see evidence of planning/contrivance or does it appear random? Do you see a watch or a stone? Lets
clarify the ideas random and planned. Imagine you were walking down a path in the woods ad you see a
tree branch lying there in a field. Was it brought there by some intelligent agent? Or was it there
randomly? You are walking farther down the art and now you see a ranch and it is leaning against a tree.
You will think it I random or planned? Did some intelligent agent place it there or did the wind blow and
the branch just happened to land there? Finally, imagine that further on down the path you come
upon three branches that are in a tee pee shape and tied together at the top. Is it possible that that
configuration could have come about randomly, or was it assembled by an intelligent designer?
Even Charles Darwin, who says that biological organisms become what they are as a result of
adaptation, i.e., the way that biological organisms respond to their environment, said that it sounds
absurd in the extreme to think that the human eye, with all of its complexities, could have come about
as a result of randomization.
later edition add criticisms of the argument from intelligent design:
The designer theory suggests that Gods power is limited. For example, humans need a watch to tell
time. The watch is a means to telling the time. An all-powerful being would not need the means; He
could go straight to the end and know the time without the use of a watch. Now, human beings in the
arguments are thought of having been created with a purpose, presumably. God created us with some
end in mind. We are tools in Gods imagination with a purpose in mind for us. If God is all powerful, why
does he need us? Why were we created? Does it have to be for an exalted end? Other concerns: why
assume there was one God, why not a committee. Why must this God be the traditional God of the
West?

Unintelligent Design
By JIM HOLT

Recently a school district in rural Pennsylvania officially recognized a supposed alternative to Darwinism.
In a one-minute statement read by an administrator, ninth-grade biology students were told that
evolution was not a fact and were encouraged to explore a different explanation of life called intelligent
design. What is intelligent design? Its proponents maintain that living creatures are just too intricate to
have arisen by evolution. Throughout the natural world, they say, there is evidence of deliberate design.
Is it not reasonable, then, to infer the existence of an intelligent designer? To evade the charge that
intelligent design is a religious theory -- creationism dressed up as science -- its advocates make no
explicit claims about who or what this designer might be. But students will presumably get the desired

point. As one Pennsylvania teacher observed: ''The first question they will ask is: 'Well, who's the
designer? Do you mean God?'''

From a scientific perspective, one of the most frustrating things about intelligent design is that (unlike
Darwinism) it is virtually impossible to test. Old-fashioned biblical creationism at least risked making
some hard factual claims -- that the earth was created before the sun, for example. Intelligent design, by
contrast, leaves the purposes of the designer wholly mysterious. Presumably any pattern of data in the
natural world is consistent with his/her/its existence.

But if we can't infer anything about the design from the designer, maybe we can go the other way. What
can we tell about the designer from the design? While there is much that is marvelous in nature, there is
also much that is flawed, sloppy and downright bizarre. Some nonfunctional oddities, like the peacock's
tail or the human male's nipples, might be attributed to a sense of whimsy on the part of the designer.
Others just seem grossly inefficient. In mammals, for instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go
directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it.
Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the
neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have done. If
this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.

Such disregard for economy can be found throughout the natural order. Perhaps 99 percent of the
species that have existed have died out. Darwinism has no problem with this, because random variation
will inevitably produce both fit and unfit individuals. But what sort of designer would have fashioned
creatures so out of sync with their environments that they were doomed to extinction?

The gravest imperfections in nature, though, are moral ones. Consider how humans and other animals
are intermittently tortured by pain throughout their lives, especially near the end. Our pain mechanism
may have been designed to serve as a warning signal to protect our bodies from damage, but in the
majority of diseases -- cancer, for instance, or coronary thrombosis -- the signal comes too late to do
much good, and the horrible suffering that ensues is completely useless.

And why should the human reproductive system be so shoddily designed? Less than one-third of
conceptions culminate in live births. The rest end prematurely, either in early gestation or by
miscarriage. Nature appears to be an avid abortionist, which ought to trouble Christians who believe in
both original sin and the doctrine that a human being equipped with a soul comes into existence at
conception. Souls bearing the stain of original sin, we are told, do not merit salvation. That is why,

according to traditional theology, unbaptized babies have to languish in limbo for all eternity. Owing to
faulty reproductive design, it would seem that the population of limbo must be at least twice that of
heaven and hell combined.

It is hard to avoid the inference that a designer responsible for such imperfections must have been
lacking some divine trait -- benevolence or omnipotence or omniscience, or perhaps all three. But what
if the designer did not style each species individually? What if he/she/it merely fashioned the primal cell
and then let evolution produce the rest, kinks and all? That is what the biologist and intelligent-design
proponent Michael J. Bee has suggested. Bee says that the little protein machines in the cell are too
sophisticated to have arisen by mutation -- an opinion that his scientific peers overwhelmingly do not
share. Whether or not he is correct, his version of intelligent design implies a curious sort of designer,
one who seeded the earth with elaborately contrived protein structures and then absconded, leaving
the rest to blind chance.

One beauty of Darwinism is the intellectual freedom it allows. As the arch-evolutionist Richard Dawkins
has observed, ''Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.'' But Darwinism permits
you to be an intellectually fulfilled theist, too. That is why Pope John Paul II was comfortable declaring
that evolution has been ''proven true'' and that ''truth cannot contradict truth.'' If God created the
universe wholesale rather than retail -- endowing it from the start with an evolutionary algorithm that
progressively teased complexity out of chaos -- then imperfections in nature would be a necessary part
of a beautiful process.

Of course proponents of intelligent design are careful not to use the G-word, because, as they claim,
theirs is not a religiously based theory. So biology students can be forgiven for wondering whether the
mysterious designer they're told about might not be the biblical God after all, but rather some very
advanced yet mischievous or blundering intelligence -- extraterrestrial scientists, say. The important
thing, as the Pennsylvania school administrator reminded them, is ''to keep an open mind.''