Stephen C. Meyer’s 2009 book, Signature in the Cell, continues to draw rebuttals from proponents of an evolutionary view of origins.

This situation is an excellent example of the futility and unfruitfulness of trying to resolve such questions by amassing data and appealing to theories. On the one hand, advocates of “intelligent design” believe that the facts of cell construction and operation clearly indicate a product of design, not random material interactions. On the other hand, proponents of an evolutionary view of origins – such as Randy Isaac – look at the same data and arrive at a different conclusion altogether.

Writing in the December, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, Dr. Isaac dismisses the “design” argument regarding cell origins and operation and stands squarely in defense of evolutionary processes as best explanation for the beginnings of life (“Information, Intelligence, and the Origins of Life”).

Dr. Isaac’s concluding paragraph highlights some of my own problems with this approach:

Though the mysteries of life’s origins have not yet been solved, it seems reasonable to conclude that the inference to the best explanation is not an indeterminate intelligent agent but processes akin to reproduction with variation and natural selection. As Christians, we have faith in the existence of an Intelligent Designer who utilizes the design tools of these natural processes to carry out his creative intent.

First, note the use of that word, “solved.” Implied, of course, is the belief that matters cannot be truly known until science has demonstrated the truth of them. Dr. Isaac’s article outlines his “solution” the question of life’s origins by appealing to information theory. His science, he believes, is more reliable than Dr. Meyer’s. Previous generations of Christians, not dependent on the latest findings of science, were happily settled in their thinking that life began in response to the command of God’s Word – out of nothing, into nothing, whole, complete, and varied. How quaint.

Second, note the use of “reasonable” and “inference” – two words associated with the weighing of evidence, as in a court of law. Of course, what seems reasonable for Dr. Isaac to infer from his perspective is not at all reasonable for Stephen C. Meyer to infer from his. Is there no way of arbitrating between these two views, other than the relentless quest for more evidence to back up one’s preferred perspective and to prolong this unnecessary and unhelpful quibble?

Third, Dr. Isaac comes very close to a form of Gnosticism with his mention of “processes” and “the design tools of these natural processes” as if these existed independent of God, albeit at His disposal. Where did these “natural processes” and their “design tools” come from? Are they eternally existent? Like God Himself? And if God did not create and does not sustain these, by what right does He use them at all? And are they His servants or is He theirs?

Fourth, contrary to Dr. Isaac’s assertion, Christians do not believe in “an” “Intelligent Designer.” Christians believe very specifically in the God of Scripture, Who is Creator and Sovereign over all things, and Who works all things according to the counsel of His own good and perfect will. It does not serve the purposes of the Kingdom of God, or of establishing a distinctly Christian presence in the science, for us to dance around the question of Whom we actually profess to believe and know.

Finally, the bit of linguistic alchemy attempted at the end of Dr. Isaac’s quote – believing in “an Intelligent Designer who uses the design tools of these natural processes to carry out his creative intent” – might strike some readers as disingenuous. It says, in effect, “OK, you insist on an Intelligent Designer. Fine. But He has to use evolutionary processes.” That is, nothing outside the confines of current scientific theory. No “special” acts of creation by this “Intelligent Designer.” Hence, no “intelligent design.”

This ongoing debate about origins is getting tiresome, especially as no one in the secular scientific community cares a fig about it, and it’s clear that Christians are going to continue to disagree on this question.

So why do we insist on keeping this up? With the developments taking place in other sectors of the scientific community – neuroscience, the environment, transhumanism, bioethics, and the like – Christians who want to make a mark for the Kingdom in the scientific enterprise would be better served by simply agreeing to disagree on the question of origins and then joining together to find ways to employ the work of science more directly for the cause of God’s glory.

That would be helpful, and that will always be necessary.