Evolution, Intelligent Design, and St. Thomas Aquinas

EVOLUTION & Intelligent Design IN THE CATHOLIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITION OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

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The Catholic Faith & Modern Science Dr. Michael Tkacz discusses the Catholic Church and the historical relationship between Faith and Reason.

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Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design Dr. Michael Tkacz explores the fundamental contradiction between Thomism and Intelligent Design.

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Aquinas Vs. Intelligent Design II Dr. Michael Tkacz presents St. Thomas Aquinas’s theology on miracles.

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A designer Universe: Chance, Design, & Cosmic order Dr. Michael Tkacz explains how chance and design contribute to cosmic order in the Thomistic perspective.

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The MuLlerian TWO Step Scientist H.J. Muller develops an evolutionary explanation for irreducibly complex structures.

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Cytochrome c The Creationist challenge from cytochrome c comparisons fails from a misunderstanding of common descent.

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Assertion: The theory of Intelligent Design is fundamentally based upon the Cosmogonical Fallacy.

A Thomistic understanding of God’s interaction with creation reveals Theistic Evolution to be the better alternative.

Overview God of the Gaps For ID, God is the immediate cause of certain things or operations in nature. ID advocates identify creation with divine intervention in nature. God becomes a spiritual substitute for a material causes.

ID holds that the all-powerful, all-intelligent God designed the universe such that it has gaps within itself which require God to reach into nature to fill. In short, for the cosmos to reach its telos (end-purpose), God must fill in the gaps in its own natural processes. For example, evolution can function up until point x, at which point God must intervene. Then it can continue until point y, when God must again intervene.

This is the Cosmogonical Fallacy----a confusion between creation and change----commonly called the God-of-the-Gaps Fallacy.

St. Thomas Aquinas rejected such God-of-the-Gaps views like ID as compromising God’s status as creator of the universe, not as a participant in some species of change. Recall that creation is not a process, but an instantaneous act unpreceded by any change. This sets apart Aquinas’s God the Creator from the God-of-the-Gaps of ID who must periodically intervene to cause natural beings or irreducibly complex structures to poof into existence throughout time.

Insofar as ID theory represents a "God of the Gaps" view, then it is inconsistent with the Catholic intellectual tradition.

Christianity is ―radically creationist,‖ said Father George V. Coyne, former head of the Vatican Observatory, but it is not best described by the ―crude creationism‖ of the fundamental, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis or by the Newtonian dictatorial God who makes the universe tick along like a watch. Rather, he stresses, God acts as a parent toward the universe, nurturing, encouraging and working with it. ―God lets the world be what it will be in its continuous evolution.

He does not intervene, but rather allows, participates, loves.‖ God is intimately present in every change as the primary cause, hold everything in existence. All of creation is dependent upon God.

Miracles Since God cannot do anything contrary to the goodness and order he has established in nature, to perform miracles He transcends, or acts above, apart from, and beyond nature. Miracles are not adjustments or fixing ups of nature to make it better, for is already good. Rather, miracles are one of God’s ways he reveals himself to the human race, to draw us into his love, and to turn our hearts to his revelation.

Take for example the Incarnation. It’s not as if the natural means of conception was deficient and God intervened to make it work. By Christ’s conception through the Virgin Mary, God gave life in a different way than new life is caused in nature. God’s miracles reveal his love for the human race. The Incarnation is not a contradiction of the laws of nature, but a transcendence of them.

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Chance & Design It is a common misconception that chance and purpose cannot coexist.

Before we can examine chance in nature, we must specify what we mean by ―chance.‖ Chance is a cause that produces indeterminate outcomes limited only by its system.

To show how chance, order, and design can coexist, the analogy of the duck hunter is used: In order to kill a duck, a hunter plans to use bird-shot instead of a bullets. His purpose is actually achieved when, by chance, a certain pellet of shot happens to hit a vital spot in the flying duck, bringing it down.

There is chance: the random distribution of pellets results in the chance event of a particular pellet hitting a vital place in the duck.

There is design: the hunter plans to use the random scattering of bird-shot to produce the chance event that brings down his bird.

There is a designer: the hunter himself with his ability to cultivate a random distribution of bird-shot in such a way that a chance hit achieves his goal.

T her e ar e l im i ts : the random scattering of bird-shot is not absolutely random, but only random within limits—that is, it is only random relative to the plan and intention of the hunter. The randomly distributed pellets do not go just anywhere— the hunter, after all, aims the gun to produce a certain random scattering of pellets. The pellets are truly random missiles, but their random motions occur within the limits intended by the hunter.

This is analogous to the way nature operates: chance events produce certain outcomes as part of an overall design aimed at that outcome. For example, mushrooms produce an enormous superfluity of spores as part of a natural process aimed at reproduction. Not all of the spores will result in new mushrooms and it is by chance that these do and those do not.

Yet the whole reproductive process is ordered in such a way to produce these chance events, for mushrooms do not reproduce in just any way, but in this particular way.

One of the reasons why St. Thomas Aquinas thought it necessary to acknowledge the chance element in nature is because it is the way that new things are introduced into nature. The chance mixing of elements is a way of bringing out the natural potentials that they have, which would otherwise not be actualized if everything acted uniformly without encountering any impediments.

One common objection to the idea of chance coexisting with loving God is that it makes the human body the outcome of blind chance. Although this is true, it does not mean that the human body was not designed by God. God designed nature which in turn dictated the favorability of the human body plan, which God foresaw nature would do. Random mutations culminated in this body plan from God-designed nature.

Conclusions Thus we can see from Thomistic philosophic in the Catholic intellectual tradition, that God the Creator is involved in every change, but yet allows nature to act as she does to bring about the world that we see today. Intelligent Design Theory, on the other hand, belittles God to a God-of-the-Gaps.

We can also see how chance and design together contribute to an overarching cosmic order.

In the realm of science, we witness how the theory of evolution can account for irreducibly complex structures, as well as evidence in molecular biology.

Together with Pope John Paull II, we can now recognize that "new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than a hypothesis in the theory of evolution,” and as with any field of science, assent to its legitimacy. This belief is called theistic evolution.

What is Theistic Evolution?---- Theistic evolution is the belief that God created the whole cosmos ex nihilio and designed natural processes such as evolution as the tools by which to bring about all life and the entire universe in which we dwell. It does not affirm that God had to intervene to bridge gaps in bringing the cosmos about, but that he sustains all of creation in his loving and providential care.

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The Catholic Faith and Modern Science Pope Leo XIII

By Dr. Michael Tkacz

Charles Darwin

Assoc. Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University

In 1879 the Catholic Church was facing an intellectual crisis. For centuries, Catholic higher education and intellectual life was centered in the great universities of Europe. During the French Revolution, however, many of these universities were closed. In the decades that followed, new universities were established, mostly under direct state sponsorship. These new institutions of learning were generally secular in their orientation and presented a serious challenge to the old intellectual and moral order. An especially important aspect of this challenge was the notion that the great scientific advancement of the age was made possible precisely because intellectual activity had been disassociated from the Church. To many in the new universities, science and human progress seemed to be at war with the older Christian view of reality.

Among the new scientific views of the time that was thought to seriously challenge Christianity was Charles Darwin's theory of the evolutionary descent of species through natural selection. His conception of how the elementary forces of nature generated the complex organic wholes that we observe in the world of living things seemed to many to stand in opposition to the Christian teaching that God created the universe according to his divine design. Darwin seemed to have uncovered the mechanism — natural selection — whereby environmental pressures allow certain organic forms, which arise by chance, to survive better than their competitors and to proliferate. What appears to be designed and made necessary by God is really the outcome of random occurrences joined with environmental opportunities. Whereas once the traditional doctrine of Creation by a benevolent God seemed reasonable, now such a view seemed unscientific.

Darwin's theory of evolution suggested that the highest good of the living thing is not the perfection of the individual within its species according to God's design, but simple survival. As the lowest common denominator of nature, survival came to represent the good toward which evolution progressed — a good that was merely material and without any divine origin. Later, some advocates of evolution came to consider that even this material good was too much like design and held that evolution has no goal at all — that it is simply constant directionless change. Atheist Richard Dawkins, for example, argues that modern evolutionary biology proves that the universe "has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference" (River Out of Eden, ch. 4). If the general secularization of learning made the separation of faith and science seem possible, Darwin's theory of biological evolution made it seem necessary.

In the face of this challenge, Pope Leo XIII realized that something needed to be done to restore Catholic intellectual life and its witness to the truths of the faith. Thus, in 1879, he issued the encyclical Aeterni Patris, in which he reaffirmed a central principle of the Catholic intellectual tradition: the harmony of faith and reason. The teachings of the faith are God's revelation of the truth; science, the product of human reason, is the search for truth. The true faith, therefore, cannot be opposed to good science because truth is the object of both. The secular view that had come to dominate modern intellectual life was mistaken: Faith is not opposed to reason, and modern secular science is not the replacement for the ancient faith taught by the Church. Faith and reason can, of course, seem to be opposed. Yet this can only happen if either we misunderstand what God reveals to us or if we make mistakes in our scientific research. If, on the other hand, we clearly understand divine revelation and we are careful and rigorous in our science, then we will know the truth — not one religious truth and another scientific truth, but the truth — the way reality actually is.

Realizing that the exhortation to unifying faith and reason would be best supported by an example, Pope Leo provided one: the medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas. Were we to take St. Thomas as our model and inspiration, we would have a good foundation upon which we could rebuild Catholic intellectual life in the face of the new secular challenge. In the nearly 130 years since the release of Aeterni Patris, a modern Catholic intellectual movement has indeed been established and, following Pope Leo's lead, its prominent character has been that of a Thomism that seeks to apply the perennial insights of Aquinas to the problems of modern science and culture.

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Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design

By Dr. Michael Tkacz St. Thomas Aquinas

Assoc. Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University

Dr. Michael Behe

One day I received a phone call from a professor of philosophy at a nearby private, religiously affiliated college.

He had just returned from an international conference devoted to challenges to evolutionary biology from intelligent design (ID) theory. There was a bit of urgency in the professor’s tone, so I agreed to meet him. As it turned out, he had something of a complaint to make, for he opened our meeting by showering me with a series of questions: Where are the Thomists? Where are the Catholics? How come you are not out there defending us ID advocates? After all, we are on the same side, are we not? He explained that the conference organizers had invited several Thomists to participate, and he was dismayed that, far from expressing sympathy with the ID movement and its challenge to Darwinism, they were quite critical of it. Perhaps feeling a bit betrayed, he wanted to ask me, a Thomist, just what was going on.

Since the time of Charles Darwin there has been vigorous debate between Christian creationists and Darwinian evolutionists. Neither side has been especially interested in what Catholic Thomism—a minority position to be sure—might contribute to the discussion. To the extent that philosophers working in the Thomistic tradition are considered at all, both sides seem to have been dissatisfied. Secular Darwinians often view Thomists as just another species of literalists attempting to substitute the Book of Genesis for good biology. On the other hand, Protestant creationists often have viewed Thomists as already halfway to secularism and naturalism, depending too little on a literal reading of Scripture and too much on philosophical reasoning.

Now, the advocates of ID have revived the debate with evolutionary biology on scientific grounds. This new challenge to Darwinism attempts to show that the biological evidence supports gradual evolution of species less than it does direct creation by a divine Designer. Given the philosophical sophistication of their arguments, it is perhaps natural that ID theorists would assume that they had allies among traditional Thomists who are known for their systematic defense of the doctrine of Creation.

Yet, as my friend discovered, the ID movement has not been well-received overall in Thomistic circles. So, the question is: Why not? Why have Thomists, who share so many of the same concerns about the secularization of our society, not been more supportive? Why have so many Thomists hesitated to join ID theorists in their campaign against Darwinism? Why do some Thomists appear even a bit hostile to the ID project?

A bit of attention to the Thomistic philosophy of creation may help to answer these questions. More importantly, investigating the coolness of Thomism toward ID theory may help to move the debate away from its polarized Creation vs. evolution state toward a discussion that is more philosophically productive. A look at the Thomistic understanding of God’s relationship to nature may even suggest a third alternative to the already well-known positions of the Darwinians and ID theorists.

An Earlier Creation Crisis During Thomas Aquinas’ life there was a scientific revolution that seriously challenged the traditional Christian doctrine of Creation. From the time of the early Church, orthodox Christians have held that the universe was created by a transcendent God who is wholly responsible for its existence and the existence of everything in it.

This is a teaching that Christians inherited from the Jews and shared with those of the Islamic faith.

At the beginning of the 13th century, however, a great historical change came to Western Europe, as the works of the ancient Greek natural philosophers and mathematicians became available in the Latin language for the first time. Especially important were the works of Aristotle, who had worked out the basic principles of nature and developed a methodology for scientific research that promised, in time, to unlock the secrets of the universe.

This scientific revolution caused great excitement among the Latin-speaking scholars in the then-new universities of Europe. They avidly pursued research in many of the natural sciences and essentially founded the historical

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tradition of experimental science that continues today. It was not long before progress was being made in such fields as mathematical astronomy, optics, meteorology, botany, zoology, and other sciences.

At the same time, the new science was a cause for concern, for some theologians saw in it a challenge to the doctrine of Creation. Specifically, the Greek naturalists held that "something cannot come from nothing." Indeed, the Greek philosophers used their fundamental principle as grounds for arguing that the universe is eternal: There can be neither a first nor a last motion. It appeared to Aquinas’ contemporaries that this was incompatible with the doctrine of Creation ex nihilo.

Into this medieval debate comes Aquinas, who reasoned thus: God is the author of all truth; the aim of scientific research is the truth; therefore, there can be no fundamental incompatibility between the two. Provided we understand Christian doctrine properly and do our science well, we will find the truth.

Yet, what about the apparent conflict between notion of creation from nothing and the scientific principle that for every natural motion or state there is an antecedent motion or state? Seeing a conflict here, Aquinas says, is a result of a confusion regarding the nature of creation and natural change. It is an error that might be called the Cosmogonical Fallacy.

Out of Nothing at All Aquinas argued that their error was a failure to distinguish between cause in the sense of a natural change of some kind and cause in the sense of an ultimate bringing into being of something from no antecedent state whatsoever. Creatio non est mutatio says Aquinas: The act of creation is not some species of change.

The Greek natural philosophers were quite correct in saying that from nothing, nothing comes. But by "comes" they meant a change from one state to another, which requires some underlying material reality. It also requires some pre-existing possibility for that change, a possibility that resides in something.

Creation, on the other hand, is the radical causing of the whole existence of whatever exists. To be the complete cause of something’s existence is not the same as producing a change in something. It is not a matter of taking something and making it into something else, as if there were some primordial matter which God had to use to create the universe. Rather, Creation is the result of the divine agency being totally responsible for the production, all at once and completely, of the whole of the universe, with all it entities and all its operations, from absolutely nothing pre-existing.

Strictly speaking, points out Aquinas, the Creator does not create something out of nothing in the sense of taking some nothing and making something out of it. This is a conceptual mistake, for it treats nothing as a something.

On the contrary, the Christian doctrine of Creation ex nihilo claims that God made the universe without making it out of anything. In other words, anything left entirely to itself, completely separated from the cause of its existence, would not exist—it would be absolutely nothing. The ultimate cause of the existence of anything and everything is God who creates—not out of some nothing, but from nothing at all.

Looking at it in this way, the new science of the 13th century, out of which our modern science developed, was not a threat to the traditional Christian doctrine of Creation. To come to know the natural causes of natural beings is a different matter from knowing that all natural beings and operations radically depend on the ultimate cause for the existence of everything: God the Creator. Creation is not a change. Creation is a cause, but of a very different, indeed unique, kind. Only if one avoids the Cosmogonical Fallacy is one able to correctly understand the Christian doctrine of Creation ex nihilo.

Take the Hippo, for Example Two implications of this distinction between change and creation are worthy of note here. One is that God creates without taking any time to create: He creates eternally. Creation is not a process with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is simply a reality: the reality of the complete dependence of the universe on God’s agency. The other implication is the radical otherness of God’s agency. God’s productive causality is unlike that of any natural cause, for God not only produces what he produces all at once without any process, but also without requiring

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anything pre-existing or any preconditions whatsoever. God does not act as part of a process, nor does God initiate a process where there was none before. There is no before for God; there is no pre-existing state from which God’s action proceeds. God is totally and immediately present as cause to any and all processes.

On the basis of these implications for the correct understanding of creation, Thomists distinguish between the existence of natural beings and their operations. God causes natural beings to exist in such a way that they are the agents of their own operations. Indeed, if this were not the case, then it would not have been that God created this natural being, but some other. Salmon swim upstream to spawn. In creating salmon, God created a fish that reproduces in this way. If God created salmon without their natural reproductive agency, then he did not create salmon, but something else.

Consider another example: A large quadrapedic mammal, such as a hippopotamus, gives live birth to its young.

Why? Well, we could answer this by saying that "God does it." Yet, this could only mean that God created the hippopotamus—indeed the mammalian order—with the morphology, genetic makeup, etc. that are the causes of its giving live birth. God does not "reach into" the normal operations of hippopotamuses to cause them to give live birth. Were one to think that "God does it" means that God intervenes in nature in this way, one would be guilty of the Cosmogonical Fallacy.

Now, if this distinction between the being of something and its operation is correct, then nature and her operations are independent in the sense that nature operates according to the way she is, not because something outside of her is acting on her. God does not act on nature the way a human being might act on an artifact to change it.

Rather, God causes natural beings to be in such a way that they work the way they do. Hippopotamuses give live birth because that is the sort of thing they are. Why are there such things as hippopotamuses? Well, nature produced them in some way. What way did nature produce them and why does nature produce things in this way? It is because God made the whole of nature to operate in this way and produce by her own agency what she produces. Thus, God remains completely responsible for the being and operation of everything, even though natural beings possess real agency according to the way they were created.

"God of the Gaps" In light of this sketch of the Thomistic account of creation and natural cause, one can perhaps understand the reluctance of contemporary Thomists to rush to the defense of ID theorists. It would seem that ID theory is grounded on the Cosmogonical Fallacy. Many who oppose the standard Darwinian account of biological evolution identify creation with divine intervention into nature. This is why many are so concerned with discontinuities in nature, such as discontinuities in the fossil record. They see in them evidence of divine action in the world, on the grounds that such discontinuities could only be explained by direct divine action. This insistence that creation must mean that God has periodically produced new and distinct forms of life is to confuse the fact of creation with the manner or mode of the development of natural beings in the universe. This is the Cosmogonical Fallacy.

Among the most sophisticated attempts of ID theorists to counter the Darwinian account of the formation of organisms is the irreducible complexity argument of biochemist Michael Behe. He argues that there are specific life forms and biotic subsystems which are irreducibly complex and which could not possibly be brought about by means of natural selection. Irreducibly complex systems and forms reveal intelligent design in nature and, therefore, indicate the reality of an intelligent designer of the universe.

ID theorists are often perplexed—and even a bit put out—that Thomists do not acknowledge the cogency of Behe’s argument. After all, Thomists are quite open to the notion that Creation provides evidence for the existence of the Creator—cosmological arguments for the existence of God based on the order and operation of nature have long been the special preserve of Thomism.

Why, then, have Thomists not been among Behe’s most ardent supporters? First of all, Thomists would agree with many biologists who have pointed out that Behe’s claims of irreducible complexity fail to distinguish between the lack of a known natural explanation of the origin of certain complex systems and the judgment that such explanation is in principle impossible. Thomists, however, would go even further than most biologists by identifying the first claim as concerning human knowledge and the second as an ontological claim concerning what exists.

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Now, a Thomist might agree with Behe’s knowledge claim that no current or foreseeable future attempt at explanation for certain biological complexities is satisfactory. Yet, a Thomist will reject Behe’s ontological claim that no such explanation can ever be given in terms of the operations of nature. This ontological claim depends on a "god of the gaps" view of divine agency. This is the view that nature, as God originally created it, contains gaps or omissions that require God to later fill or repair. Given the Thomistic understanding of divine agency, such a "god of the gaps" view is clearly inconsistent with a proper conception of the nature of creation and, therefore, is cosmogonically fallacious.

No Order, No Science Beginning with the insights of Aquinas, Thomists can show that the order and design evident in nature is precisely that which makes natural science possible. If nature were not ordered, then there would not be a reason why natural things are the way we observe them to be. Discovering such reasons or causes is the purpose of natural science. Without order and design in nature, then, there cannot be natural science. So, the followers of Darwin who argue that evolutionary theory removes all need for positing a design in nature are inconsistent. Presumably, they make this claim on the basis of natural science which, if their claim is true, is impossible.

Moreover, as Aquinas argued in the Summa Theologiae many centuries ago, the presence of chance and contingency in nature shows that nature requires a divine Creator in order to exist (I:2:3). Again, the Darwinians, who place so much weight on the role of chance in nature, are inconsistent to deny the creation of nature. So, Thomism provides a cogent response to the secular challenge of an evolutionary theory intended to replace the doctrine of Creation. Observed species of plants and animals may or may not be descendent from common primordial ancestors. If they are, then it can only be because God created them to be so, and their common evolutionary ancestry is part of his divine design.

The insights of Aquinas also provide an answer to the recent challenge to Darwinian evolution from ID theory.

God’s Creation of the world from nothing is not the same as a natural cause. Unlike the causes at work within nature, God’s act of Creation is a completely non-temporal and non-progressive reality. God does not intervene into nature nor does he adjust or "fix up" natural things. God is the divine reality without which no other reality could exist. Thus, the evidence of nature’s ultimate dependency on God as Creator cannot be the absence of a natural causal explanation for some particular natural structure. Our current science may or may not be able to explain any given feature of living organisms, yet there must exist some explanatory cause in nature. The most complex of organisms have a natural explanation, even if it is one that we do not now, or perhaps never will, know.

The Ultimate Cause of Everything Yet, the evidence for God’s Creation of the natural universe is the known fact—a fact that we know on the basis of our scientific research—that natural things are intelligible. If they are intelligible, they are so as the products of nature—that is, they are intelligible in terms of their natural causes. If this is true of the totality of natural things, then there must be some ultimate source of this intelligibility—there must be some ultimate cause for the being of any and all natural things.

This ultimate source for the being and intelligibility of nature cannot be yet another natural thing. It must be something outside of nature that has the power to produce the totality of nature and does not itself require a cause. Both the existence and intelligible order of the natural universe, therefore, show that it exists because of an ultimate cause: God the Creator.

But to show that nature’s contingency and dependency requires God as its ultimate cause is not to argue for the existence of yet another natural cause within nature. In contrast, articulating the details of how the nature that God has created works is the task of natural science. So, Thomism provides a corrective to the ID theorists who claim that the lack of certain kinds of explanation in natural science shows the necessity of divine intervention into nature as a substitute for natural cause. According to Thomism, God is indeed the Author of nature, but as its transcendent ultimate cause, not as another natural cause alongside the other natural causes.

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Aquinas’ Corrective Power Both Darwinism, with its secular challenge to the unity of faith and reason, as well as the attempt of ID theorists to disprove evolutionary theory vindicate Pope Leo’s selection of Aquinas as the model for Catholic intellectuals (see "Catholic Faith and Modern Science," below). Thomism has something useful and corrective to say on both sides of the debate. At the same time, Thomism does not replace the natural sciences, or perhaps to put it better, a Thomistic intellectual synthesis includes precisely the sort of research found in the modern natural sciences that have produced so much understanding of nature. In the Thomistic view, the teachings of the faith are fully compatible with what we learn of nature through scientific research, provided we both understand those divine teachings correctly and we do our scientific research consistently and rigorously. The truth or falsity of the claim that the diversity of living species is due to some sort of evolutionary process is a matter to be settled through biological research. Whatever the outcome of this research, it can never replace the need to explain the existence of the natural world in terms of a creation ex nihilo according to God’s divine design.

Clearly, the secular claims associated with modern Darwinism require the sort of corrective provided by Thomism.

Does this mean, then, that Catholics should make common cause with ID advocates? Insofar as ID theory represents a "god of the gaps" view, then it is inconsistent with the Catholic intellectual tradition. Thanks to the insights of Aquinas and his many followers throughout the ages, Catholics have available to them a clearer and more consistent understanding of Creation. If Catholics avail themselves of this Thomistic tradition, they will have no need to resort to "god of the gaps" arguments to defend the teachings of the faith. They will also have a more complete and harmonious understanding of the relationship of the Catholic faith to scientific reason.

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Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design II Dr. Francis Beckwith

By Dr. Francis Beckwith Associate Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University

Michael Tkacz

In a previous entry on Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design, in which I link to the work of Gonzaga philosophy professor Michael Tkacz, I end with this comment: "I do wish, however, that Professor Tkacz had addressed the question of how the Christian should think of God's interventions in those events we call miraculous." Apparently, I am not the only one who raised this query or one similar to it. I know this because an associate editor of the periodical in which Professor Tkacz's appeared, This Rock (published by Catholic Answers), Sophia A. Sproule, was kind enough to send me the following email message just yesterday afternoon. It includes a response from Professor Tkacz. I am grateful to both Ms. Sproule and Professor Tkacz for taking the time to address this query.

Thank you for commenting on Michael Tkacz’ recent article in This Rock, ―Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design,‖ on your blog. I see that it has spurred quite a debate with readers. You observe that ―I do wish, however, that Professor Tkacz had addressed the question of how the Christian should think of God's interventions in those events we call miraculous.‖ You may be interested to know that we received several letters asking the very same – one reader, in fact, was sufficiently disturbed by Dr. Tkacz’ story to suggest that it was detrimental to the faith of our readers.

That particular letter will appear in our April 2009 issue. As it directly pertains to your question, however, I submit Dr. Tkacz’ response to the letter below.

Michael T. Tkacz replies:

I fully understand [letter writer] Mr. Kirby’s concern about what seems to him a denial of the reality of miracles and the efficacy of prayer. I also understand how one may come to have such a concern after reading an account of St. Thomas Aquinas’ analysis of the doctrine of creation. This analysis is philosophically sophisticated and demands careful study to understand correctly. Let me reassure Mr. Kirby that nothing in St. Thomas’ analysis is contrary to church teaching on these issues, nor did I intend to defend any unorthodox position in my article.

Indeed, I affirmed both the reality of miracles and the efficacy of prayer in the responses to my readers.

Nonetheless, Mr. Kirby is quite correct that neither my article nor my responses provided an extended account of these subjects. My article focused on the correct understanding of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, naturally leaving many related issues unaddressed. One cannot do everything in one article, but perhaps I can put some of Mr. Kirby’s concerns to rest.

Regarding miracles, Thomas points out that God cannot do anything contrary to the order he established in nature. If he did, then God would be acting contrary to his own intention and goodness, which is impossible. So, whatever miracles are, they are not opposed to nature. Rather, says Thomas, miracles are God acting apart from nature. One way in which God reveals himself to us is through rarely occurring, unexplained events that trigger our admiration and draw our attention to his revelation. This is not God adjusting or fixing-up nature to make it better. God created nature to begin with and it is, therefore, already good. Rather, God is doing another good in addition to the good he is already doing in creating and sustaining nature. Thus, Thomas’ point, that creation is not a natural change, is confirmed by miracles, because miracles are no more a part of the natural order than is creation. As Thomas says about the raising of Lazarus, it is not as if something went wrong in nature and God intervened to fix it up. Lazarus’ death is a natural process operating precisely according to the order God gave nature in creation. In raising Lazarus, God is doing good by giving life in a way different from the way new life is caused in nature. God does this as a revelation, providing us with a type of the Resurrection of Christ. Thomas is hardly denying miracles here. Instead, he is providing a better understanding of them through a more consistent and correct account of divine action.

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As for prayer, Thomas warns that we must avoid misunderstanding that may lead to false doctrine. God is absolutely unchangeable and his goodness is absolutely constant and pervasive. The purpose of prayer, then, cannot be to change God’s eternal providential disposition, for this is impossible. We cannot change God and we cannot move him to do what we want in any way. Rather, the purpose of prayer is to dispose us to receive the good God intends for us. This he already provides, not in the sense that he does so before the time we pray (there is no ―before‖ in God’s actions), but in the sense that he does so independently of our prayer. God intends our good whether we pray or not. The point of the necessity of our being steadfast in prayer is not that we can thereby somehow force, pester, embarrass, or manipulate God into giving us what we want. God does not need our prayer, nor does he depend on it in order to intend our good. Rather, the point is that we need our prayer; we need to be constantly acknowledging our dependence on God for all good things.

A central doctrine of the faith is the absolute transcendence of God. He is the unchangeable absolute reality that is the source of all being and good. He created everything from nothing and makes it good. Yet, this very transcendence makes it difficult to understand what God is and how he acts. The best we limited human knowers can do is to use analogies with ourselves and the rest of the natural world. For this reason, we must, in speaking of God, be careful not to be mislead by our analogies. We cannot explain with scientific precision just how God does what he does, for God transcends human understanding. We can, however, be clear about what God is not: God is like nothing else; he acts in a way that is radically different from anything we know in nature. God does not act as natural causes do, nor does he from time to time substitute for a natural cause. What God does do is to create sustainingly in a single divine act of power and goodness. Thomas affirms that we can use our natural analogies for God, provided we are constantly aware of them as mere analogies. This is the point of Thomas’s analysis of the doctrine of creation and of my article: Failure to exercise proper care in our theological claims can result in the misunderstandings and inconsistencies that undermine true doctrine. Additionally, strongly to affirm God’s transcendence in the way Thomas does most certainly confirms the reality of miracles and the efficacy of prayer.

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A Designer Universe: Chance, Design, and Cosmic Order

By Dr. Michael Tkacz Assoc. Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University William Paley

David Hume

Introduction In an effort to illustrate how natural development in the physical universe works, Canadian philosopher Charles De Koninck gives the following example. A duck hunter, wishing to bring down a duck in the most efficient way, uses a shot gun that produces a random scattering of many pellets. It only takes one pellet of shot, hitting a vital spot, to bring down a duck and any one of the many pellets fired will do. Indeed, the hunter prefers fewer rather than many pellets hit the duck—ideally only one.

Yet flying ducks move pretty fast and he wants to be sure of a hit. So, by design, he cultivates a random distribution of bird-shot. This, explains De Koninck, is how nature operates to achieve her ends.

Now, precisely how does duck hunting with a shot gun illustrate natural change? How exactly does it help us to understand how natural kinds come to exist? The point that De Koninck is making is, perhaps, best understood in the context of a fierce debate over what counts as a scientific explanation of natural entities such as planets, animals, plants, and even chemical compounds. Some hold that such beings come about through a series of chance combinations of some basic elements while others hold that such combinations do not just happen, but must be planned or designed in some way.

The debate between these two camps has been going on a very long time. The ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles insisted that natural entities, such as animals and other organisms, arose as a result of the basic chemical elements randomly combining with each other. The viable combinations survived, while the non-viable combinations died out. Thus, it seems as if chemical combinations were planned in such a way that certain living organisms result, but in fact the existence of these organisms is purely chance. Plato, on the other hand, considered Empedocles’ idea insufficient as a scientific explanation of living things or, for that matter, any natural entity. How, Plato asks, can living beings result from a chance combination of material elements which are not themselves alive? And, more generally, how can order result from chaos? Random combinations by themselves can only result in randomly combined beings— beings simply thrown together without rhyme or reason, beings that exhibit no order or plan. Such beings are not intelligible as the beings they are—that is, random combination can never be the scientific explanation of why a certain being is what it is. Plato’s point is that what comes to exist randomly comes to exist in such a way that there is no sufficient reason for its existing and being this rather than that. The explanation for the existence of this particular duck is parent ducks, not zebras; one does not get a hippopotamus from iron ore or even from living vines. If there is no reason why a natural being exists and is the way it is, then there is no reason one can come to know and, therefore, no scientific explanation. The only way to account for the existence and species of a plant, an animal, or other natural entity is to set out the design according to which its material components are ordered so as to make this entity and not some other.

At the very beginning of the history of science, then, a fundamental dispute arose concerning the very nature of scientific knowledge. As our scientific knowledge has increased over the centuries, one might have expected that this dispute would have been resolved, but this has hardly been the case.

The debate about chance and design has intensified and is, indeed, very much with us today. Much of the discussion has revolved around biological evolution: Charles Darwin’s view that the diversity of living things is due to gradual evolution of some species from others by the mechanism of natural selection from random variations. Nor is the debate confined to biology, for cosmologists concerned with the origins and development of the whole universe have also tended to take opposite positions on this question of chance and design. One thing is clear, however: that the two sides agree that chance and design are mutually exclusive. What comes to exist by random combination cannot exist by design and what is designed cannot owe its existence to random variation.

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What reasons do we have for Empedoclean view that everything arises by chance? What reasons do we have for rejecting this view and insisting that the physical universe must be designed— perhaps by some divine designer? Indeed, what precisely is meant by ―chance‖ or ―random variation‖?

What exactly is design? Are chance and design really incompatible as so many have thought? These fundamental questions provide the subject of tonight’s presentation which will investigate a few of the more prominent arguments for chance and design in nature and, further, will suggest an alternative to this dichotomy.

The Watch on the Heath From the time of Plato until about two hundred years ago, the notion that the universe is the product of some divine designer was a commonplace. Most educated people held that God created the universe according to his own design and that human science is the attempt to understand that design.

Such ideas were certainly supported by religious teaching, but they were also thought to arise from the study of nature itself. Isaac Newton, for example, argued that the laws of motion by themselves could not account for the initial design of the planetary system. He points out that: Though these bodies may, indeed, persevere in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have at first derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws.

From this he concludes: [Therefore,] this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.

(Principia mathematica naturalis philosophiae, general scholium) Such ―design arguments,‖ however, also had their critics. Two hundred years ago, Scottish philosopher David Hume rejected such reasoning as Newton’s claiming that it is based on a mistaken analogy with human artifacts. Hume admitted that physical systems, such as the planetary system or biological organisms are like the products of human design in some ways. The eye of an animal, for example, is similar to a mechanical watch in that both are composed of many individual parts, each of which is specifically formed to function along with the other parts to produce the operation of the whole. While organisms are similar to artifacts in this way, they also differ in important ways. In particular, organisms reproduce themselves whereas watches and other artifacts do not. Therefore, since organisms always come from other organisms, analogy would suggest that all organisms and their parts came from some primeval organism rather than some divine designer. In the same way, since motion begets motion, the physical motions of the planetary system would by analogy come from other physical motions. If the elemental combinations from which these organisms and motions emerge are random, then there is no need to bring in some overall design to explain how things got to be the way they are.

Hume’s objections, however, did not stop William Paley who, twenty-four years later in 1803, published what has become the most famous modern version of the design argument. Paley argued like this: Suppose you were out for a walk across the English countryside and, as you were crossing the heath, you came across a working mechanical pocket watch. Now, even if you had never seen a watch before, you would naturally assume that an intelligent designer was responsible for its existence. Why? Because every one of its many parts, each of which is formed to work in a specific way, work together to bring about a clearly discernible outcome—namely, the movement of the hands in a regular manner marking time. In fact, one who thought that the watch on the heath came to exist by pure chance, would be considered a bit crazy. When one investigates the products of nature, suggests Paley, one sees the same sort of intelligent design. The eye of a mammal, for example, has many parts each of which are constructed in such a way that they are just right for contributing to the function of the eye as a whole—namely, to produce sight. Indeed, something similar might be said for the planetary system: the various mechanical laws of motion and of gravity are just the right physical laws needed to produce the motions of the planets as we observe them.

Some, knowing that Paley was a churchman, have been convinced that Paley’s argument is based on religious teaching and have earnestly searched for his hidden theological assumptions. Paley himself,

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however, considered his argument quite general and independent of religious doctrine. Indeed, he considered it based on what he took to be a reasonable philosophical principle: objects in which the parts are well-arranged so as to achieve some specified end are designed for that end and where there is design for an end, then there must be a designer intending that end with the power to bring about that design.

Now, if Hume’s criticism of design arguments seems consistent with Empedocles’ idea that natural beings result from the elements linking up at random, then Paley’s argument is the very antithesis of this ―random-combination‖ view. It is clear that Paley himself thought that it was, for he says: I desire no greater certainty in reasoning, than that by which chance is excluded from the present disposition of the natural world. Universal experience is against it. What does chance ever do for us? In the human body, for instance, chance—that is, the operation of causes without design— may produce a wen, a wart, a mole, a pimple, but never an eye. (Natural Theology, I).

Hume had anticipated this sort of reasoning and rejected the necessity of the conclusion to an intelligent designer. Even if we were to come across a perfectly-designed production, that does not mean that a perfect designer must be the producer. Hume insists that: Were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain uncertain, whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, [for example,] what an exalted idea we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter, who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine. And what surprise must we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving. (Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, 718) Yet Paley thought that he had found empirical evidence that the physical universe is intelligently designed, for he considered that the order observed in nature is so regular and so well-adapted that it could not be the result of pure chance.

Into the Gap Despite its critics, Paley’s watch-to-watchmaker argument made quite an impression some two hundred years ago. Many felt that, thanks to Paley, they could have their traditional religious teaching about creation and progressive modern science too. This all changed with Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution by natural selection. In 1859, Darwin used the analogy with selective breeding to argue that living organisms only appeared to be designed. The intelligent breeder can be replaced with an unconscious mechanism of natural selection acting on random variations to produce the variety of observed organic species from other simpler species. As Hume suggested, then, there is no necessity to posit an intelligent designer as the explanation of organic complexities. As time went on, the success of biological adaptation studies seemed to support Darwin’s view that complex organic structures could gradually emerge from simpler forms by natural selection operating over long periods of many millennia. Thus, for example, one could explain the distinctive morphology of bird feathers required for flight by arguing that the elongated scales on reptile limbs enabled the animal to more effectively catch insects for feeding. Natural selection favoring those efficient insect-feeders, such scales became longer and longer through many generations until the creature was eventually able to fly a few feet above the ground making insect catching even more efficient. Further, what seemed true of organisms could be extended to the physical universe as a whole: if organic structures, such as the eye of the mammal, did not necessarily demand an intelligent designer as an explanation, then neither does the planetary system or any other example of cosmic order.

So, a conceptual shift took place in the later half of the nineteenth century. As Darwin’s theory became better known, more and more people found Paley’s argument less and less convincing. Yet, the intelligent watchmaker argument did not die out completely. It continued to have its advocates and in the past decade has been revived in a sophisticated form by promoters of Intelligent Design Theory.

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Encouraged by developments in physical cosmology that seemed to indicate a finite universe expanding from a primordial ―big bang,‖ advocates of Intelligent Design have urged a reexamination of Darwin’s evolutionary approach in light of updated versions of Paley’s watchmaker argument. Specifically, they have focused on various gaps in the evolutionary process in an effort to show that Darwinian explanations in terms of natural selection are insufficient to explain the development of species observed to exist.

One sort of ―gap‖ argument is given by Michael Denton who argues that the available evidence from the fossil record does not support gradualistic Darwinian-type morphological development. One might be able to argue from natural selection that one form developed from another form within the same or closely related species. Thus, it may be plausible to hold that the long pointed wings of a certain species of hawk gradually developed from an ancestor species with shorter and stubbier wings on the grounds that longer wings made possible soaring at greater heights more effective in searching for prey. Such explanation, however, becomes far less plausible in explaining the development of one phylum, a large group of species with analogous morphologies, from another. This is because their body plans are just not similar enough. The gap between the morphologies of, say, a jellyfish and a fish is simply too big to be plausibly filled by a gradual process of natural selection. Indeed, argues Denton, this is why one does not find the expected intermediaries in the fossil record. Thus, one must have recourse to an intelligent designer as the cause of the observed phyla in the plant and animal kingdoms. Darwinians, of course, respond that, simply because one has not found the expected intermediary forms in the fossil record does not mean that they cannot be found. Such ―plausibility arguments,‖ such as Denton’s, are hardly conclusive.

Another sort of ―gap‖ argument is provided by Michael Behe who argues that the gap between the biologically functional and non-functional cannot be bridged gradually. It is all or nothing: an organism either possesses the function or does not; there is no intermediate state. This is because the various factors in the biochemical pathways needed for a function are so interdependent that, if even one is missing, the function will be lost. In a now famous—or, in the view of some, infamous—book Darwin’s Black Box, Behe argues that some biological structures and processes are so complex that they cannot have come about by random variations no matter how much time has elapsed. In particular, there are those biological complexities which he calls ―irreducible‖ where the parts of a biological system are ordered to a particular outcome in such a way that every one of the parts is necessary for the outcome to occur. In such irreducibly complex systems, the absence or maladjustment of just one part is enough to prevent the whole system from functioning properly. The origin of the whole system, therefore, cannot be explained by the accumulation of chance variations, because natural selection would not retain them. They would not be retained because each random variation in itself is useless or even deleterious to the organism.

Blood clotting in mammals provides an example of the sort of thing Behe has in mind. The clotting of blood is not a simple matter, but is a complex process requiring several stages of change that must happen in just the right way. Thus, there must be a determinate amount of chemical substances activated at the right time and at the right speed. If any factor is missing or if the timing is not exactly right, then the animal might die; blood would either clot too much and clog the circulatory system or not clot enough to prevent bleeding to death. Many other biological systems are similar: a random mutation which simply produced one of the factors and not the others would either be of no use to the organism or, if produced in an unregulated way, would be detrimental to the organism. If a gradual accumulation of random mutations cannot explain the existence of such systems, Behe concludes, the only reasonable alternative is direct intervention by an intelligent designer. More specifically, Behe suggests that God programs the first cell he directly creates for the development of the biochemical pathways of all future organisms, some of these being ―turned on‖ at a later point in time.

Behe has essentially provided a scientifically up to date version of Paley’s argument. If one observes a biological system that is an irreducibly complex structure or process the existence of which cannot be adequately explained by a gradual accumulation of random variations, then the most reasonable conclusion is that this system was intelligently designed. Behe does admit that some biological structures can be explained in Darwinian terms. He specifically mentions the gross anatomy of the eye which was, of course, Paley’s famous example. Such morphologies can come about gradually by natural selection. It is at the biochemical level, argues Behe, that one finds clear examples of irreducible complexity which cannot

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be explained by an evolutionary process of chance events.

The contemporary defenders of Darwin, however, are not so sure. After all, if there are examples of irreducible complexity at the level of gross anatomy which admit of a gradualist explanation in terms of random mutations, then why should we not expect to find the same sort of explanation working on the biochemical level? What is so special about biochemical complexity that in principle precludes random variation and natural selection? The bone structure of the mammalian ear seems to be an irreducibly complex system and, at first sight, there seems to be no way in which it could have come to exist by a gradual series of chance variations of the reptilian lower jaw. How could the intermediate species have survived without a properly functioning jaw, but hearing? As biologist Kenneth Miller has pointed out, however, the discovery in the fossil record of a double-articulated jaw joint solves the problem, for it shows how such an animal could both feed and hear during a transition from reptile to mammal form. Natural selection could then be understood as favoring each of the intermediate stages arising as random variations. Even if it seems difficult to find intermediary biochemical systems bridging the gap between simpler systems and more complex, it does not necessarily follow that it is impossible.

This is where the contemporary debate on design stands: some defending the EmpedocleanDarwinian position that the universe is populated by beings that have come to be as they are by chance combinations of the elements; others defending some version of Paley’s argument for the necessity of an intelligent designer who planned and carried out the elemental combinations in such a way that the universe contains precisely the beings it does. Now, despite the clear differences between these two approaches to explaining the natural universe, they share a very important assumption: chance and design are incompatible. What comes to exist by random combination cannot have come to be so combined by design. The universe is explicable either by chance events or by the unfolding of a—perhaps divine—plan.

Clearly, if chance and design are mutually exclusive at every level of being, then one must decide which is the most reasonable way to explain the universe. The many modern heirs of Empedocles have decided on chance in place of design whereas those who, attempting to keep alive Paley’s argument, advocate design to exclusion of chance.

Bird-Shot and Mushroom Spores Let us return to De Koninck’s duck-hunting example. Recall that, in order to achieve a certain outcome—the bringing down of a duck—the hunter plans to use bird-shot instead of a bullets. His end is actually achieved when, by chance, a certain pellet of shot happens to hit a vital spot in the flying duck, bringing it down. Now, in what way is this example relevant to the controversy over chance and design in nature? How does this example help us understand the production of natural outcomes?

Notice first of all that we have two very different kinds of operations working together to produce the outcome: the downed duck. There is chance: the random distribution of pellets results in the chance event of a particular pellet hitting a vital place in the duck. There is also design: the hunter plans to use the random scattering of bird-shot to produce the chance event that brings down his bird. In fact, we might add an additional element: the designer: the hunter himself with his ability to cultivate a random distribution of bird-shot in such a way that a chance hit achieves his goal. Finally, it might be noted that the random scattering of bird-shot is not absolutely random, but only random within limits—that is, it is only random relative to the plan and intention of the hunter. The randomly distributed pellets do not go just anywhere— the hunter, after all, aims the gun to produce a certain random scattering of pellets. The pellets are truly random missiles, but their random motions occur within the limits intended by the hunter.

De Koninck’s point, then, is that change and development in the natural universe involves chance, but it is also a matter of design. Moreover, where there is design, there must be something that has the power to bring about the outcome according to the design. The hunter uses shot instead of bullets because it increases the probability of hitting his target. In fact, his hope is that most of the pellets will miss the duck.

Yet a scientific explanation of how the duck was felled would indicate that one of the pellets struck the duck in a vital place. This is the way nature operates: chance events causally produce certain outcomes as part of an overall design aimed at that outcome. Mushrooms produce an enormous superfluity of spores as part of a natural process aimed at reproduction. Not all of the spores will result in new mushrooms and it is by chance that these do and those do not. Yet the whole reproductive process is ordered in such a way

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to produce these chance events, for mushrooms do not reproduce in just any way, but in this particular way. Consider, suggests De Koninck, what would happen to humanity if there were but one sperm for each ovum. Clearly, there is a reason for the superfluity of sperm, even though it is by chance that this particular sperm is the one responsible for fertilization.

Now, if De Koninck is right, then the followers of Paley as well as the followers of Darwin are wrong: chance and design are not incompatible. Indeed, De Koninck’s point is that the dichotomy of chance and design, so common in contemporary debates about cosmic and biological evolution, is a false dichotomy. Chance and design are not mutually exclusive at every level. One of the earliest thinkers to see this clearly was the medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas. He pointed out that, in certain ways, chance and design do exclude each other, for what is designed does not come about by chance with respect to the intended end. Reality, however, is not all homogeneous; it is differentiated and one of the ways in which it is differentiated is that it exists at different levels. Therefore, while chance precludes design at the same level, it does not necessarily do so at a higher level. Thomas gives two examples from human experience to illustrate this. The first is the chance meeting of two servants who, without their knowledge, were independently sent by their master to the same location. From the servants’ point of view the meeting is chance, but it was intended by the master (Comp. Theo. 137). His second example is the chance finding of a treasure by someone digging a grave in a certain place at the instigation of another who hid the treasure there (Summa Theo. Ia.116). In order to understand what Thomas Aquinas is getting at here, we must take a quick look at precisely what is meant by ―chance.‖ Chance, he says, is a certain relationship between causes and outcomes. An agent cause is a chance cause when it is incidentally the cause of a meaningful outcome which could be the outcome at which the cause aims but normally is not.

[Thomas’ actual words are ―Chance is a per accidens cause of things in the realm of purpose which happen in the fewer number of cases‖ (In Aristotelis physicorum, II, lect. 12). So, an effect comes to be by chance when what caused it acts blindly to produce the effect which it would not normally produce. When some agent acts for an end, the outcome is what the agent aims at, unless the action of the agent is impeded. When we are presented, then, with a meaningful outcome to be explained, one must either hold that it was aimed at or it was not aimed at the same time and in the same respect. This, of course, is contradictory and the reason why many hold that chance and design are incompatible.

There is no reason, though, why what happens by chance—that is, what is not aimed at a certain outcome—cannot be a functional part of a larger whole which is aimed at that outcome. At the level of the part, the event is chance, but at the level of the whole system the event is a functional element of that to which the system is directed. If one only tracks the series of proximate agent causes of the flight of the bird-shot pellet, the trajectory is chance with respect to hitting the bird. If, however, one understands how this chance trajectory is part of a larger system aimed at bringing down the bird, then it is clear that what operates by chance at one level can be a functional element of what is designed for an end at a higher level.

It is important to notice here that Thomas Aquinas does not assume that all instances of teleology— that is, instances of aiming at an end—are intelligent or even conscious. Certainly the human hunter who decides to use shot is an intelligent designer. The hawk that begins its dive toward its prey at a certain point in its stalking flight is a conscious designer. Yet one can certainly say that the earth’s tectonic plates shift in order to relieve stress or acorns fall for the sake of oak reproduction without implying that the earth or oaks do these things consciously. Where there is a process with a natural terminus, there is aiming at an end and such a process need not be conscious. Therefore, a natural system might be designed to produce an outcome without being a conscious system. In cases of both conscious and unconscious teleology, a system might be ordered to an end in such a way that it uses random events to achieve that end.

Paley attempted to argue that such ordering to an end, such design, ruled out chance explanation and, therefore, established the necessity of an intelligent divine designer of the universe. Thomas Aquinas, too, held that the natural order indicated the existence of a divine designer, but not as an alternative to chance. In fact, Thomas sees the presence of chance in the natural world as something intended by God so that nature might be more varied, hierarchical, and complete. If God had created a world in which nothing ever failed and every agent necessarily achieved its end, then the world would be less good. This

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is because the goodness of the universe does not only consist in one thing being richer (better) in its way of existing than another—as there is more to being an animal than there is to being a plant—but in one thing producing (causing) another—as there is more capability in being able to reproduce a being like oneself than to just be such a being. Chance has goodness of this latter sort.

Thomas Aquinas would also disagree with Behe and other Intelligent Design Theorists regarding their view that God must directly intervene within the physical universe to bring about the forms we observe.

Despite the complexity of biochemical processes, there is no a priori reason why chance cannot be involved in their production. Using an example of the biology of his day, Thomas points out that, claiming that animals are designed does not rule out their production by random combinations of the elements: Nothing prevents the generation of something to be in itself [per se] designed when referred to one cause and, nevertheless, accidental [per accidens] and chance [casualis] when referred to another cause. This is clear in the production of animals generated from putrefaction. If this process is referred to particular causes, acting here at the lower level, it is found to be accidental [per accidens] and chance [casualis]. For heat which causes putridness does not tend by its natural appetite to the generation of this or that animal which follows from putrefaction. But if it is referred to the heavenly power which is the universal power ruling generation and corruption in these lower things, the generation is not accidental [per accidens], but in itself [per se] intended. This is because it belongs to this intention that all the forms which are in the potentiality of the matter be drawn [educantur] into act.

(In Aristotelis Metaphysicorum, XII, §1403) Despite the fact that we now know that the spontaneous generation of certain organisms the medievals thought they were observing is not actually a way these organisms reproduce, nonetheless, the point that Thomas is making is clear: in nature, what is chance at a lower level can be part of a larger design at a higher level.

In the same text, Thomas cites an example given by Aristotle which makes the point even more clearly. Suppose that one goes to get a massage just because it feels good—perhaps to relieve stress— but that on account of this one’s blood pressure is lowered contributing to overall health. At one level the contribution to health is chance, but at another level it is by design: For it is outside the intention of the masseuse that health be obtained, whereas health itself, if it is referred to nature which rules the body is not accidental [per accidens], but intended in itself [per se]. Indeed, if it is referred to the intellect of the masseuse, it will be accidental [per accidens] and chance [casualis] . . . and, therefore, Aristotle here rightly assimilates those things which come into existence by skill to those which come into existence by nature.

(In Aristotelis Metaphysicorum, XII, §1403) Both the skill of the masseuse and the natural dispositions of the body are involved in the production of a healthy blood pressure. That one of these causes is incidental to the healthy outcome does not make it any less of an explanation of the outcome. Yet the skillful actions of the masseuse could not have had their incidental effect unless the body in fact operated in such a way that, by its design—that is, by its natural order—the relief of stress tended to result in the lowering of blood pressure. Thus, the chance cause produces its outcome within the context of a natural order—a system that is supposed to (is designed to) function in this way.

One of the reasons why Thomas Aquinas thought it was necessary to acknowledge the chance element in nature is that it is the way that novelty is introduced into nature. As he would put it: the chance mixing of the elements is a way of actualizing the natural potentials of the elements which would otherwise not be actualized, if thing acted uniformly without encountering any impediments. Philosopher Marie George once told me that her favorite example from modern biology illustrating Thomas’ point here is the way white blood cells produce antibodies. They do so by randomly mixing pieces of genetic material to produce millions of different antibodies. One among the many random combinations inevitably is the right one. This kind of system working by random processes plainly has better chances of producing antibodies

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to deal with new mutant strains of germs than a system which produced determinate types of antibodies according to fixed rules.

Other modern followers of Thomas Aquinas, such as De Koninck, see the value of modern biological research in this context. An important element in adaptation studies in modern botany and zoology is the identification of the random variations by which an organism adjusts to its environment within its genetic limitations. If nature did not resort to random mutations, new adaptations would not arise. Thus, chance is a source of beneficial novelty in nature. Thomas Aquinas, then, articulated both the reality and importance of random combination in natural operations. Attention to his insight also provides a significant contribution to the modern debate between the Darwinian evolution theorists and the Intelligent Design Theorists, for it shows that the dichotomy between chance and purpose is a false dichotomy.Natural outcomes are the result of both chance events and design and finding evidence of one in the production of some natural being does not rule out the presence of the other.

Once, Always, and for the Most Part If chance has its utility and random combinations can be advantageous, then are not Empedocles and his modern followers correct to reject design? After all, saying that chance variation is an advantage in nature is to say that certain combinations spring up for no definite purpose as a result of random mixing and, when they happen to serve some purpose, they are retained and function for that purpose. This function is not something intended, even though it ends up appearing as if it were intended. So, is design really just apparent, after all? Is it really unnecessary to bring design into our scientific explanations?

Thomas Aquinas did not think so, despite his insistence on the usefulness of chance in nature.

Why? Because it is contrary to our experience of nature. Nature is determined: in its processes and productions it is oriented to doing something, to making something and these processes and productions are regular, even when they are not absolutely inevitable. What nature does is, for the most part, not vain and wasteful. What we observe in the heavens is the regular motions of the planets and stars. What we observe in living things is like giving birth to like. Chance events occur, but they are rare. In fact, were chance events not unusual, they could not be advantageous. What makes the useful random combination useful is that it becomes the regular pattern, it becomes no longer random, but part of a system determined to some end.

Empedocles admitted that chance events are undetermined events, but he insisted that all harmony and usefulness found in nature is chance. His explanation of an animal species, for example, is that it happen by chance that the parts of the animal were assembled so that the animal was preserved in its existence and that this happened many times. This, however, cannot be, because things that happen by chance come about in the fewer number of cases. If it happens all the time, then it is not chance. We observe that order and advantage occur in nature always or for the most part.

Therefore, what cannot happen by chance, must be determined to an end—that is, it must be designed.

Thomas Aquinas points out that chance causes do not bring about their effects by determinate means—this is why we call them ―chance‖ or ―random.‖ When something happens by chance, there is some sort of order between cause and effect, but it is not a determinate order. Nature, however, is a determinate order, as we observe in the operation of the planetary system or in living organisms. It might be that a particular chunk of matter, traveling on a random vector, comes under the gravitational influence of another chunk of matter by chance. Once they thereby become ordered into a determined system, however, their motions are no longer chance. Even if the original pre-biotic soup was formed by chance, its composition would not be chance because it would have a formula, a recipe, which when followed yields determinate results. In general, chance causes cannot be relied on to provide the same determined effect. Therefore, life may emerge from a particular pre-biotic combination of the elements by chance, but when the genes code for the proteins that make up the organisms over and over again, this is no longer chance, but design. As Thomas says:

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It does happen that sometimes what comes to exist for the sake of something, comes to exist by luck, when it is not done for the sake of that something. But if this always or frequently happens, it is not said to be by luck. (In Aristotelis physicorum, II, §516) This is analogous to what happens in human action, according to Thomas. One might achieve some end by a chance action which is not normally associated with that end. When one repeats the action for the sake of the end, however, one can no longer call it chance without overlooking the obvious. Thomas points out: What is outside one’s intention is arrived at in the fewer number of cases; for what is always or frequently conjoined to an effect falls under the same intention. For it is foolish to say that someone intends something and does not want what is frequently or always conjoined with it.

(In Aristotelis physicorum, II, §428) To borrow an example from Marie George: One might make Port wine by accident while transporting wine by sea and the sailing ship, getting caught in the doldrums, continuously rocks gently back and forth while the temperature in the hold where the wine casks are stored gets higher and higher. If this happened once and not again, one might think that it was luck. However, if one noticed that every time these conditions obtained, the wine was turned to Port, then one would realize it was not just luck. Indeed, one might figure out what the recipe (the design) for Port is from analyzing the per se causes at work while the ship was in the doldrums. Clearly, to consider every transformation of wine into Port purely chance, would at the very least be a sign that one was not paying attention to what was going on. So, luck or chance has played its role, but it is not the whole story in the discovery of Port wine.

The point of these examples is not simply to show that chance and design can exist together, but that the advantageousness and productiveness of chance events is bound up with design. By themselves, chance events are simply chance events. It is only with respect to some end that they can be understood as advantageous or disadvantageous, as productive or unproductive. This is because, by themselves, they are undetermined and are only determined as part of a system designed for some end. Bringing about something in an orderly way is something chance does not do. Because our experience of nature is an experience of order, chance cannot be all there is to its explanation. Indeed, if this were not the case, then science would be impossible, for the universe would be unintelligible. Thomas Aquinas adds another element to this analysis of chance and design: intelligence. He says: It is, however, impossible that something unable to known the goal operate for the sake of that goal and arrive at it in an orderly way, unless it is moved by someone having knowledge of the goal. This is just as an arrow is directed to its mark by an archer. (In Aristotelis physicorum, II, §250) It seems impossible that a meaningful result could be brought about in an orderly way without its being known as a goal. If the archer does not know what the target is, he will not be able to aim the arrow nor know how to manage the bow. You can have a series of blind chance events operating for the sake of an outcome. This operation, however, cannot be a matter of the chance events alone. It must also be a matter of how chance happenings function within a system itself operating for the sake of the outcome.

This system may be blind too, but in a different sense. The blindness of chance events is not just that they are not intelligent, but also that they are indeterminate, as already mentioned. The system within which the chance events become part of what brings about the outcome is determined, and so not blind in this sense, but it may not be intelligent. This system, however, could not operate in its determined way unless it were part of another system which is intelligent—that is, not blind in any way. Thus, one has a natural hierarchy with an intelligent designer in the highest place.

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Conclusion It may seem that Thomas Aquinas and the Intelligent Design Theorists end up in the same place.

Perhaps, in a certain sense. In another very important sense, however, they are quite different positions.

There are two general ways in which the design argument has been made. The first is to attempt to find reasons why certain natural phenomena cannot come about by chance as an immediate cause and then to conclude to an intelligent designer as the immediate cause as the only alternative explanation. This is the sort of design argument Paley and Behe are attempting to make. The second sort of design argument points out that chance and design are not mutually exclusive and that chance always operates within a system designed for an end which itself must be, ultimately, the product of an intelligent designer. This is the argument of Thomas Aquinas.

The difference between these two design arguments has to do with where the intelligent designer— in the case of the design of nature, the divine designer—fits into the order of nature. For Intelligent Design Theorists, such as Behe, God is an immediate cause of certain natural entities and operations—namely, the ones that are irreducibly complex. This sort of ―God of the Gaps‖ view makes God something like a natural cause, only spiritual rather than material. God is an alternative to natural, material, chance causes. It is as if God, having created the universe, must ―reach into it to make certain parts of it work.‖ Thomas Aquinas rejects such a view as compromising God’s status as creator of the universe. Far from being an alternative to natural causes or acting within nature, God is the author of all nature, including all of its natural operations. God is not an immediate cause, but an ultimate cause. Thus, God, the Intelligent Designer, stands outside of nature as its ultimate source. Nature has an integrity of its own and operates according to its own principles with which God endowed it. God is present to all of nature in its operations making them exist, but God is not within nature nor does God need to intervene in nature. On Thomas’ view, Intelligent Design Theory makes natural science impossible, for it claims that some or all of nature is inexplicable by its own principles—the principles with which God endowed it. On the contrary, Thomas held that natural science is possible precisely because it is possible to scientifically comprehend design in nature without having to scientifically comprehend the design of God, a task impossible for human beings to carry out.

In studying the historical debate about chance and design in nature, then, we must consider all the possible positions, not only those premised on the dichotomy between random variation and design.

Those currently engaged in this debate would do well to attend to the position of Thomas Aquinas who provides an alternative to this stark dichotomy and, perhaps, a more integrated approach to understanding the striking order of the natural universe.

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The Mullerian Two Step One of the key arguments for intelligent design is the irreducibly complex structure. However, 78 years before Michael Behe published Darwin’s Black Box, science had discovered how they evolved, debunking his claim that natural selection cannot evolve irreducibly complex structures.

The Mulerian Two Step to Create Irreducibly Complex Structures 1.

2.

Add a part.

Make it necessary.

H. J. Muller predicted and discussed Michael Behe's "irreducibly complex" structures in two different papers, one in 1918 and one in 1939. This prediction was made long before the genetic material was known or anyone had seen the structure of a "molecular machine". "... thus a complicated machine was gradually built up whose effective working was dependent upon the interlocking action of very numerous different elementary parts or factors, and many of the characters and factors which, when new, were originally merely an asset finally became necessary because other necessary characters and factors had subsequently become changed so as to be dependent on the former. It must result, in consequence, that a dropping out of, or even a slight change in any one of these parts is very likely to disturb fatally the whole machinery; for this reason we should expect very many, if not most, mutations to result in lethal factors ..."

(Muller 1918 pp. 463-464) H. Allen Orr has explained Muller's explanation for "irreducible complexity" in several articles in the Boston Review criticizing Behe's and William Dembski's writings. Orr has emphasized the adaptive possibilities in the Mullerian two-step (i.e. improvement of function at each step). However, the mechanism is more general and does not even require selection, a point that Muller himself made originally, 50 years before neutral evolution was found to be important in molecular evolution.

"An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required."

(Orr 1996) "... gradual Darwinian evolution can easily produce irreducible complexity: all that's required is that parts that were once just favorable become, because of later changes, essential. "

Parts may become necessary if: A structure previously using more parts than necessary for a function rids itself of the useless part(s) if they impede the overall fitness of the organism.

2 or more parts codependently evolution as necessary for the survival of the organism Random variety of chemicals and mutations add a new part to a structure, giving it an entirely new function.

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The Stone Bridge A clear example of the Mullerian two-step is given by a stone bridge. Consider a crude "precursor bridge" made of three stones. This bridge spans the area needed to be crossed and is thus functional. For step one of the Mullerian two-step, a part is added: a flat stone on top, covering all precursor stones. Whether this improves the functionality of the bridge is irrelevant — it may or may not, the bridge still functions. For step two of the Mullerian two-step, the middle stone is removed. Voilå, we have an irreducibly complex bridge, since the last step made the top-stone necessary for the function.

The precursor bridge: three stones.

Step #1, add a part: the top-stone.

Step #2, make it necessary: remove the middle stone. As promised, we now have an irreducibly complex stone bridge. None of the three stones can be removed without destroying the bridge's function.

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Cytochrome C One piece of claimed Creationist ―evidence‖ against evolution’s common descent is found in molecular biology. In molecular biology proteins of the same type in different organisms can be tested for difference in amino acid makeup. The figure resulting is converted into a percentage. The lower the percentage, the less difference there is between the proteins. Dr. Michael Denton, in experiments with Cytochrome C, a protein that converts food into energy, and hemoglobin, found the following.

Cytochrome C Bacterium to to yeast . . to wheat . . to silkmoth. to tuna. . . to pigeon. . to horse . .

Differences Six Organisms . . . . . 69% . . . . . 66% . . . . . 65% . . . . . 65% . . . . . 64% . . . . . 64%

Cytochrome C Differences Silkmoth to Vertebrates to lamprey . . . . .27% to carp. . . . . . .25% to pigeon. . . . . .26% to turtle. . . . . .25% to horse . . . . . .30%

Cytochrome C Differences

Hemoglobin Differences

Carp to Terrestrial Vertebrates to bullfrog. . . . . . 13% to turtle. . . . . . . 13% to chicken . . . . . . 14% to rabbit. . . . . . . 13% to horse . . . . . . . 13%

Lamprey to Other to human . . . . to kangaroo. . . to chicken . . . to frog. . . . . to carp. . . . .

Vertebrates . .73% . .76% . .78% . .76% . .75%

The reason why a human, a fish, an insect, a plant, and a fungus have cytochrome cs that have close to the same similarity to a bacteria’s cytochrome c is that a human, a fish, an insect, a plant, and a fungus have the exact the same evolutionary relationship to that bacteria. The time since the common ancestor of man and a specific bacteria is the exact same time since the common ancestor between a reptile and that same bacteria. This is because the common ancestor in both cases is the same. Furthermore the number of generations is about the same in both cases as well. Thus the observations that the creationists and typologists are crowing about is merely what one should expect if one accepts that evolution is true. It is not disproof of evolution but a surprisingly powerful confirmation of evolution’s reality.

This sort of argument is really based on a common misconception of evolution. This misconception is that evolution is a ladder from bacteria to man. One might dispel this misconception by realizing that the many millions of forms of life on Earth right now and thus it should be obvious the evolution is not merely a path from bacteria to humans. But unfortunately this ladder of progress is what most people envision when they hear the world evolution and it allows creationists the opportunity to take advantage of it by constructing strawman arguments like this one. It is easy to ―disprove‖ evolution when you take apart an imaginary construct that has nothing to do with evolution.

Now lets pretend that we could find the cytochrome c of a bacterium that lived billions of years and was an ancestor of man. Now if you compared its cytochrome c with a fish that was a direct ancestor of man, an amphibian that was a direct ancestor of man, a reptile that was a direct ancestor of man, and with man himself then one would expect to find the pattern that the above authors expect. But unfortunately all of them are long dead and we don’t have access to their molecular biology. We can only compare to bacteria, fish, amphibians, and reptiles that are alive today. But the bacteria did not stop evolving after their common ancestor with man. The same with fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Thus that cytochrome c of various eukaryotes are approximately equidistant should expected.

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If you need more explanation, or want more detail on how proteins can trace evolution, then see Wesley R. Elsberry’s ―Sequences and Common Descent‖ which illustrates in an easy to understand manner with excellent illustrations.

With this understanding it is easy to take apart another statement from Milton’s previously quoted essay: Perhaps the most baffling finding of all is that radically different genetic coding can give rise to animals that outwardly look very similar and exhibit similar behavior, while creatures that look and behave completely differently can have far less genetic divergence. There are, for instance, more than 800 species of frogs, all of which look superficially the same. But there is a greater variation of molecular structure between them than there is between the bat and the blue whale. [My emphasis.]

The common ancestor of today’s frogs would have to have lived before the common ancestor between the blue whale and the bat. But this is to be expected because amphibians were around before mammals. Therefore, frogs would have been diverging among themselves longer than their relatives the blue whale and bat. ―Refuting Evolution: A Study Guide‖ by Jonathan Sarfati tells us: The α-hemoglobin of crocodiles has more in common with that of a chicken that that of a viper (their fellow reptiles).

That the α-chain of hemoglobin of crocodiles and chickens are more similar than that of a crocodile to a viper is not surprising since it has long been known that a chicken and a crocodile share a more recent common ancestor than a crocodile and a viper. Again, this evidence supports evolutionary theory, not at all disproving it.

It should be noted that it can be dangerous to base hypotheses of evolutionary relationships on just one protein since it is a very small sample of date and by chance can mess one up. It is far better to use many proteins (including proteins which evolve at different rates) or just use DNA which generally done today. But it can’t be overstated that these molecular comparisons have been a dramatic confirmation of evolutionary principles.

Molecular data, along with the rise of cladistics, and the use of computers has also lead to a dramatic increase in our knowledge of evolutionary relationships.

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