An Intelligently Designed Statement of Adventist Belief
by Jack Hoehn
By Jack Hoehn, December 5, 2013
I met two other Adventists during the Seattle-based Discovery Institute’s 9th Annual Briefing on Intelligent Design. One was a female attorney living near to Seattle (who told me she was a recent convert to Adventism) interested in Stephen C. Meyer’s new blockbuster book on ID called Darwin’s Doubt. She believes in Young Earth Creationism and values the simplicity of 7s. She sees a numerology in 7 days of creation, 7 days of a week, and 7,000 years of earth history. She doesn’t like the idea of “God presenting creation as 7 recent days, when it was millions of years.”
But she was open to listening to Stephen Meyers explain how the fossil record cannot be explained by standard undirected evolutionary mechanisms. By standard geological reckoning, the 5-10 million years it took to lay down the 541 million year old Cambrian layer close to the bottom of the geologic column, is but a blink in geologic time. This layer containing the sudden appearance of so many phyla of animal fossils, will be called an “explosion” of life, not only if you think it happened on the 5th 24-hour day of Creation, or during the 5th stage of the much longer scientific chronology of the appearance of life.
The sudden appearance of multiple different animal phyla in the ancient oceans with no discernible fossil predecessors in a geologic instant is a refutation of neo-Darwinian evolution. Darwinian mutations and stepwise natural selection is falsified as a possible mechanism for the creation of multiple complex novel forms of life in such a short geologic period of time. So even if this Adventist didn’t agree with the chronology, she did recognize that the Intelligent Design scientists falsifying undirected Darwinism are our allies in our Adventist belief that life was created by the God of the Bible.
ID Supporters
The other Adventist I met, also a lawyer who lives closer to Portland, Oregon, is a long-time supporter of Intelligent Design. He believes that Creation is best explained by some synthesis of Bible inspiration and study of the natural world by non-materialistic science, which is what ID is all about. He had previously arranged for Discovery Institute spokesman Casey Luskin to give presentations of the science behind ID at Portland Adventist Academy and later to the Adventist Forum/Spectrum Chicago conference on Creation in 2012.
The rest of the attendees were mostly wealthy Christians and Jewish supporters of the Discovery Institute who reject godless materialism in both science and economics. They include radio personality Michael Medved, who with his wife, Dianne, opened the Sabbath for the group with Jewish traditional blessings Friday night, and for Sabbath lunch. The Sabbath recognition was novel for much of the group, and appreciated by us Adventists.
Darwin’s Doubt featured at the conference is a book I think many serious Adventist creationists would want to own. Along with his previous book, Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyers has produced two pivotal works showing how recent scientific discoveries make traditional Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism scientifically inadequate to the facts. This does not make evolutionists into creationists. And it would not make any scientist I can think of agree that the world was created in 144 hours, about 6,000-7,000 years ago.
But it does show that Darwin’s theory of how life might have started at a cellular level, or how it has been diversified into the different phyla of living animals tiny step by tiny step, is just wrong.
Post Darwinian Evolution
That things change or evolve over time within limited boundaries cannot be denied. This is clearly recognized by Intelligent Design advocates such as Michael J. Behe in his seminal book, Darwin’s Black Box, and the more recent The Edge of Evolution. But Darwinian stepwise mutations acted on by survival due to fitness cannot create the massive changes in biologic complexity in the geologic time and space available. The multiple new body plans of creatures recorded in the Cambrian fossils require the infusion of massive amounts of data, of information, of genetic code.
That 20 of the 27 animal phyla recorded in the entire fossil record could suddenly appear in the 5-10 million years of the Cambrian layer found from China to Canada without engineering, without planning, without an unnamed source of intelligence, a Designer, is not a “god of the gaps” argument, it is the most plausible and rational conclusion from the data.
Darwin’s theories of how diversity and complexity could suddenly appear were perhaps plausible in the 1800’s due to large gaps in knowledge. They no longer are scientifically sustainable. And evolutionists search for alternative naturalistic mechanisms. Even when critical of Darwin’s mechanisms, most evolutionists remain materialists. The doctrinaire evolutionists continue to demand before the fact, that they exclude Intelligent Design as a possible explanation of the data.
“Evolution is a fact,” they assert, “and even if Darwin was wrong in explaining how evolution happens, it still has happened.” There is a lot of scramble in the post DNA profiling of life’s codes to find another mechanism that works. Darwin’s Doubt in chapters 15 and 16 explore the post-Darwinian evolutionary landscape.
Here are four of the books on the Science of Intelligent Design that I think any serious creationist with a scientific bent would want to own. Evolutionists often attack the Theology of creationism, but so far they have not seriously answered the Science of Intelligent Design except by hand waving attempts to dismiss it.
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Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer (Jun 18, 2013)—the fossil evidence for Intelligent Design, in the Cambrian explosion.
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Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer (Jun 22, 2010)—DNA and cellular evidence for Intelligent Design in every cell of every creature including you. Code has a source.
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The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism by Michael J. Behe (Jun 17, 2008)—Evolution Science, what the evidence does and does not permit evolution to do.
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Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe (Mar 20, 1998)—The classic and first scientific case for specified complexity, although dismissed by evolutionists it has never been falsified.
(These books are scientific arguments, not theology. ID attempts to discuss the science of life without philosophical bias. I have previously listed books on the theology of Old Earth Creationism that I would highly recommend to Adventist creationists looking for a more adequate theology of creation.
John C. Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the World, Zondervan, 2011. – A Christian Oxford don in the C.S. Lewis tradition ends his short and readable book on understanding the Bible creation days with this wonderful sentence, “It is high time for a Sabbath!”
David Snoke, A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, Baker Books, 2006 – A Christian physicist and astronomer gives both things you will agree with and things you may disagree with, but he is giving Biblical evidence supporting Old Age Creationism.
Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days, NavPress Publishing, 2004 – Astronomer and president of Reasons to Believe, directly addresses how creation-days can be understood in a fashion both true to the Bible and the facts of science.
Hugh Ross, Why the Universe is the Way it Is, Baker Books, 2008-Why God used long ages to create life on earth.
Brian Bull & Fritz Guy, God Sky and Land, Adventist Forum, 2011. A Seventh-day Adventist effort to understand the literal meaning of Genesis 1 for Moses’ audience, not what we read into it with our 19th or 21st century science.)
Adventists and Intelligent Design
There is no viable replacement for Darwin’s discredited mechanisms yet visible on the materialistic horizon. Adventists know of one, but so far no one listens to us because of our refusal to re-evaluate our historic chronology of creation as a recent and instantaneous event.
Perhaps this is why, since God’s church has lost our credibility in the scientific community, God has had to work on seminal thinkers with no visible religious sentiments like Thomas Nagel to publish a book called Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False? This book debunking materialism as an adequate explanation of life should be welcomed by creationists, but I wish our Adventist scientists and philosophers could be unshackled from the narrow Young Earth Chronology of creation to begin participation in the debate.
So where does Intelligent Design leave historic Seventh-day Adventists?
Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution can’t have happened—Hooray!
Animal life is intelligently designed—Hip, Hip, Hooray!
Animal sea life appeared suddenly (on the 5th Creation Day) about 530,000,000 years ago—Huh?
Modern Humans like us appear to have been created (DNA shows an Adam and Eve) between 70,000 and 150,000 years ago—Really? No way!
But actually there is a “way.” Do we have a God and a Trust in that God big enough to handle the science of Intelligent Design? Is our present Doctrine of Creation adequate to handle this? Would a new Fundamental Belief specifying Young Earth Creationism as the only acceptable option, make it better or worse?
Another new Adventist (John Evans whose letter appeared in a blog earlier this year) recently asked me in an e-mail if I favored rewriting our Fundamental Belief #6 on creation. I said, no, I preferred to just leave the present one quoting Biblical texts, and let each Creationist decide on the timing and chronology of Creation on their own understanding of the evidence. But when pressed, I said if it were to be rewritten, I would hope it might say something like this:
Adventists believe that in the beginning God through Christ created all that is and continues to direct and sustain life to this very day. We believe that the Genesis story is the true introduction to God’s creative actions in a simplified or outline form, and establishes the pattern for our weekly worship on the Sabbath day. We believe that the record of nature is also true as discovered by careful science. We look to Scripture to inform us what and why God created, and why there is evil as well as good on this earth. We look to science to suggest when and how God might have acted. Our understanding of both science and Scripture are subject to correction and reinterpretation as God reveals new information and insights through further discoveries and the ongoing revelations of the Holy Spirit.
How would you like it to read? We welcome positive signed comments from readers suggesting a better way of wording the Adventist Statement of Belief on Creation. Help our church craft one that could be of use to the larger world we live in—a statement that could serve as a guide to understanding God’s purposes for our Intelligently Designed world. Send us your Intelligently Designed statement.
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COMMENTS: Although the mechanism for allowing edited comments is still not ideal, for now e-mail them to the editors at editor@atoday.org, and they will all be read with interest. Include your real name and comments that correct, advance, or improve the topic of this article. They may be published whole or in part within Adventist Today guidelines.
(Comments are requested to 300 words. Joseph Erwin’s have been shortened(…) down to 475 words trying to preserving his important key comments.)
Date: Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 10:24 AM
I read with interest Jack Hoehn's commentary regarding intelligent design and fundamental belief #6… I find it interesting to see how an … individual like Dr. Hoehn struggles to rationalize the Adventist tenets of faith with real world evidence. His efforts are mind-bendingly gallant, but I find them unconvincing…. It really is the time scale that creates such a problem for those who insist on recent creation…
It should be noted that "Darwinism" and "Neo-Darwinism" and even "Materialism" are essentially "straw men"… Somehow those who reject evidence and ideas based on an objective study of nature and material reality, find it necessary to set up authoritarian caricatures of such "isms" as if those who follow the evidence are blind devotees of some authority figure…(but) there are people who have broken free of authoritarian models. And, of course, there are plenty of authoritarian "Darwinists" who are willing to engage in debates using their own straw men. However, when people define their own tenets, such as #6, no one has to invent a caricature. It is what it is, and it is blatantly discordant with actual tangible evidence–and some wish to make it even more so…
To me, the concept of "intelligent design" is not a terrible or stupid idea. After all, we see things all around us that function more or less well, and are undeniably "goal directed." They got that way somehow. There is consistency. There is certainly in some sense, design. Denial that there is "design" is misplaced. Functionality and orderliness are inherently "intelligent." The question is whether or not one believes that there are natural processes that (can or do) shape or refine or influence what we see, versus, belief that some or all things are caused by magical or “super-natural" forces. Many who choose to believe in a divine creator see that creator as acting through natural processes (whether or not those processes were "designed" by the creator).
One … can commit to an open process in which objective evidence is used to inform hypothesis formation, testing, revision, refinement–appreciating that understanding is elusive and that complete knowledge may not be possible, and is certainly unlikely.
Scientific methods are devised to attempt to document and understand the real, physical world,
and the processes we see and can measure directly or of which we can see material consequences. So, I am fundamentally agnostic, recognizing that anything I think I know may not be as I think it is. Everything is subject to revision. Some concepts are held with more confidence than others. The best I can do, I think, is successively approximate aspects of reality, and live accordingly…
Wishing you well,
Joe
Jack’s comments: Joe thank you. I only ask for a broad minded science that does not exclude apriori the possibility of Intelligent Design and a Designer. I don’t feel “mind-bending” to try to enlighten science as to purpose and meaning by revelation and correct theology from being unbelievable by listening to the scientific evidence. Statements of Belief, are that. I just want Adventists to have Believable Statement of Belief regarding creation.
Joe I’d appreciate a careful review of “Darwin’s Doubt” by Stephen Meyers. Let me know if you agree and I’ll send you a copy.
From: Yvonne Stratton
Jack, enjoyed your post. I think it is clear that evolution doesn't work. The evolutionists are trying very hard to make their model fit and it falls apart every which way.
Having said that, I have never look at the Biblical accounts as anything but the story of God's people and their interaction with God. It is not an accurate history book in some places and is not a science book.
Nature is God's second book – I might argue it is God's first book since nature came long before any books. We do need to be open, continue to study and over time it will be made clear… I certainly hope they do not change the wording of Fundamental Belief #6. It is fine as it is. It is based on scripture and adds nothing on the speculative side. However, I do believe it will be changed as the makeup of our church now has gone back to the 1950's.
Arlin Baldwin’s comments have been edited for length with ellipses (…):
I have both of the new books by Dr. Stephen Meyer that Jack Hoehn recommends … I agree …that we now live in the period of “Post Darwinian Evolution.” And I agree … about Intelligent Design. The recent discoveries of modern science, especially in the fields of DNA, Information Theory, and Nuclear and Quantum Physics, have left Darwinian Evolution, with its absolute Naturalistic Materialism, no longer tenable, even from a strictly scientific point of view…
Genesis 1 can be interpreted to mean “Day One” started at the creation of light in Gen. 1:3-5, so that allows verses 1-2 to relate to an indeterminate period outside and prior-to the beginning of the first seven-day week of linear “Earth-time… This interpretation … would thus allow for the scientific view that the basic elements of the Periodic Table may be very old, much older than the Earth as we presently see it… This would seem to allow for an agreement between the Bible and various dating methods based on radioactive decay.
But this interpretation still leaves us with the problem of the fossils in the “Geological Column” made up of the various strata of sedimentary rocks that now exist all over the earth… unless there was life and death earlier than the Edenic and Adamic Creation described in… Genesis chapter 1, there is a fundamental problem with these animal and human fossils unless they were all injected into the sedimentary layers afterward in a world-wide Flood in Noah’s day, or in subsequent catastrophic events in Ice Ages or other world-wide or localized catastrophes.
I find it very difficult, even impossible, to see how the 6-day creation as described in Genesis chapter 1 and later confirmed in many subsequent passages of Scripture … can
all be reinterpreted to mean thousands or millions of years… If the entire Bible has to be reinterpreted in order to accommodate… these fundamental problems, then it would appear that we would have a very different “Bible” than we have now—one that would be stripped of all its “salvation history” and its “GOOD NEWS” about Jesus Christ and the Gospel. I think most Christians would find this “reinterpretation” abhorrent and unbelievable—not just Seventh-day Adventist Christians, but all Christians! *
So… there are at least two fundamental issues that must be resolved before any “Intelligently Designed Statement of Belief” can be made: (1) the Problem of the Fossils, and
(2) the Problem of the 6-day Creation in Genesis 1 and as it is confirmed in all of the Bible.
I don’t see how a “Statement of Belief” can be made at this time that would find general acceptance unless freedom of belief was granted in at least these two fundamental areas. And probably freedom of belief should be granted in several other areas of belief,
rather than attempting to narrow the “Statement of Belief” down so narrowly that it becomes a restrictive “Creed” that even the early founders of Adventism would refuse to sign!
Sincerely,
–Arlin Baldwin
Jack’s Comments: Arlin, your observations are welcome and you see the issues correctly. I am asking what you suggest, that we leave our official Statement of Belief on Creation open to further study and discussion.
*Regarding your concerns about fossils showing death and life in conflict before the creation of Adam and Eve–I have written a major article trying to offer an alternative theological interpretation of “death before Adam.” This is based on Adventist theology that the Great Controversy started in Heaven concerning the planning of the creation of earth, well before Creation Day one.
I hope that you are a subscriber to the print edition as the editors of Adventist Today assure me it will be published in a future issue and would allow this conversation and exploration of Adventist Creationism to continue.
I would like to express my appreciation concerning the civil discussion of the subject of ID and our Fundamental Belief on Creation by the author. I have read some of the books he recommends and look forward to reading others.
It seems that both the positions of the materialists and the advocates of a 7000 year old earth stray far from an adequate approach because they deny any possibility of another option – the materialists deny the possibility of a God capable of creating ex nihilo the world/universe (a very unscientific approach if you think about it which refuses out of hand to consider with an open mind all possibilities) and the “7000-yearers" refusing to consider that science can inform serious Bible students about the true understanding of what happened.
[Materialists] place great faith in the hope that somehow, some way, someday science will come up with something that can work other than a creating, designing God.
[Young Earth Creationists] place great hope that some creation minded scientist, somewhere, some time will come up with adequate solutions to the many enigmas in the fossil and physical world.
Closed minds rarely, if ever, lead to good science, faith, or theology.
Sincerely,
Dan M. Appel, Pastor
Jack's Editorial Comment: How welcome are pastors willing to consider broader alternatives. I find many like Pastor Appel who deal with people and their concerns, much more willing to be flexible and pastoral about our doctrine of creation, than administrators and theologians who have less contacts with common people and non-members of our sub-culture. My pastor is very kind to me and my controversial suggestions. I’m sure all of us could feel safe to worship and explore in Pastor Dan’s church.