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Doubting Thomists and Intelligent Design

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Abstract

Contemporary Thomists, by and large, have been very critical of the intelligent design movement. Their criticism raises two important issues; the first being whether such criticism is well-founded, the second being whether it is consistent with the views of St. Thomas, from whom they claim to take their direction. I shall argue that their criticism typically misses the mark and that they are mistaken in their representation of Thomas’s views as regards intelligent design.

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Notes

  1. Beckwith, Francis. “How to Be an Anti-Intelligent Design Advocate.” University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy. Vol. 4, No. 1., 2009–2010, 35–65.

  2. Carroll, William E. “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.” Revue des Questions Scientifiques. 2000, Vol. 174, No. 4, 2000, 319–347.

  3. Feser, Edward. The Last Superstition. (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine Press, 2008)

  4. George, Marie. “On Attempts to Salvage Paley’s Argument from Design.” (http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/ti/george.htm (Accessed January 3, 2016) Although this article is often cited by Thomists critical of the intelligent design movement, in fairness to George, her position is less dogmatic than those by whom she is routinely cited. In a later article, ‘“Intrinsic” and “Extrinsic” Teleology: Their Irrelevance to Aquinas’s Fifth Way and to Paley’s Argument from Design.’ she criticizes the insistence of Edward Feser and other Thomists that Aquinas’s Fifth Way and Paley’s Argument from Design bear no resemblance to one another. This insistence, she argues, leads them to ignore “what would otherwise be an argument for God’s existence worthy of further consideration.” EPS Article Library, http://www.epsociety.org/userfiles/George%20(Immanent%20revisited-Final)[2].pdf (Accessed February 20, 2016)

  5. McMullin, Ernan. “Plantinga’s Defense of Special Creation.” 243–273 in Intelligent Design: Science or Religion? Ed. Robert M. Baird & Stuart E. Rosenbaum (Amherst, New York: Prometheus, 2007)

  6. Tkacz, Michael, W. “Aquinas vs Intelligent Design” Catholic Answers Magazine Vol.19, No. 9, November 2008 http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/aquinas-vs-intelligent-design (Accessed December 28, 2015)

  7. Fr. Michael Chaberek is a welcome exception to this tendency. See his “Could God Have Used Evolution.” 228–245 in More Than Myth. Ed. Brown, Paul/Stackpole, Robert. (U.S.A.: Chartwell, 2014) Also his “Thomas Aquinas on Creation, and the Argument for Theistic Evolution from Commentary on Sentences, Bk II” EPS Article Library, http://www.epsociety.org/userfiles/Chaberek%20on%20Aquinas%20and%20Creation.pdf (Accessed February 20, 2016)

  8. Feser, Edward. The Last Superstition. (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine Press, 2008) 113.

  9. Aquinas. “Writings on the ‘Sentences’ of Peter Lombard Bk. 2, Distinction 1, Question 1, Art. 2, Solution” in Aquinas on Creation. Transl. Steven E. Baldner and William Carroll. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1997)

  10. Ibid. Art. 4.

  11. Carroll, William E. “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.” Revue des Questions Scientifiques. 2000, Vol. 174, No. 4, 2000, 326.

  12. Carroll, William E. “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.” Revue des Questions Scientifiques. 2000, Vol. 174, No. 4, 2000, 322.

  13. Tkacz, Michael W. “Aquinas vs Intelligent Design” Catholic Answers Magazine Vol 19, No. 9, November 2008 http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/aquinas-vs-intelligent-design Accessed January 6, 2016.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Carroll, William E. “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.” Revue des Questions Scientifiques. 2000, Vol. 174, No. 4, 2000, 377.

  17. Marie, George. “On Attempts to Salvage Paley’s Argument from Design.” http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/ti/george.htm (Accessed January 3, 2016)

  18. Behe, Michael. Darwin’s Black Box. (New York: The Free Press, 1996) 196.

  19. Dembski, William. The Design Inference. (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP, 2004) 42.

  20. http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Accessed January 10, 2016.

  21. Charberek, Michael. “Seeking the Truth about Theistic Evolution, Animal Death, and Intelligent Design.” 146–159 in More than Myth? Ed. Paul D. Brown & Robert Stackpole. (U.S.A.: Chartwell, 2014) 154. The question is not whether God could create a universe in which the design of living beings is ‘front-loaded’ but whether the nature of the universe he has actually created permits this.

  22. Presumably, Carroll and Tkacz, as Thomists, recognize that God acts directly in human history, that is to say miraculously intervenes to produce events that would not otherwise occur. If one is open miracles in human history, say Jesus miraculously creating fish to feed a hungry crowd, (Lk. 9:12–17) it appears suspiciously ad hoc to insist that God cannot be thought have directly intervened in the natural order at points prior to human history. Lydia McGrew’s suggestion that “we should eliminate any a priori theological dichotomy between creation and miracles more generally considered and then see, with an unbiased eye, what the evidence points to” is a much more sensible approach. “Creation does not have to be different” February, 21, 2105, http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.jp/search/label/intelligent%20design (Accessed January 19, 2016)

  23. Chubb, Thomas. “A Vindication of the Author’s Short Dissertation on Providence” in A collection of tracts on various subjects, Vol II, Pt. I. (London, 1743), 50.

  24. Morgan, Thomas. Physico-theology: Or, a Philosophico-moral Disquisition Concerning Human Nature, Free Agency, Moral Government, and Divine Providence (London, 1741) 76

  25. Ibid. 77 Although the term ‘deist’ is something of an umbrella term that describes a diversity of views, and thus to some extent resists easy definition, deists typically acknowledged the distinction between God’s primary causality in terms of creating and sustaining contingent reality and secondary created causes. They did not deny God’s continual preservation of the world, but rather that He intervenes in the natural order. Thus, Morgan denies any divine intervention of the world, but writes that “Preservation, therefore, or the Support and Continuation of Existence and Motion is as necessary an Effect of God’s presence, Power, and Authority as Creation itself. Morgan, Thomas. The Moral Philosopher (London, 1738) 188.

  26. Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk 3, Chapter 99, Art. 3. (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles3b.htm#99) (Accessed December 27, 2015)

  27. Ibid. Art. 6.

  28. Ibid. Art. 9.

  29. McMullin, Ernan. “Plantinga’s Defense of Special Creation” 243–273 in Intelligent Design: Science or Religion? Ed. Robert M. Baird & Stuart E. Rosenbaum (Amherst, New York: Prometheus, 2007) 262.

  30. Aristotle. The History of Animals. Bk. V, Part I https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/history/book5.html (Accessed Dec. 27, 2015)

  31. Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles Bk 2, Chapter 43, paragraph 6 http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles2.htm#43

  32. Marie George “On Attempts to Salvage Paley’s Argument from Design (http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/ti/george.htm (Accessed January 3, 2016)

  33. Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles Bk. II, Ch. 39, paragraph 3 http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles2.htm#39 (Accessed January 3, 2016)

  34. For a fuller discussion, see Larmer, Robert. “Is there anything wrong with ‘God of the gaps’ reasoning?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Vol 52, No. 3, Dec. 2002. 129–142. Also, Ganssle, G. E. “God of the Gaps” Arguments, 130–139 in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, Eds J. B. Stump and A. G. Padgett. (Chichester, UK., John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2012)

  35. Thus, for example, if, after an exhaustive search, there is no evidence of any shots being fired by other than Lee Harvey Oswald at Kennedy’s assassination this is good evidence that there was no second shooter.

  36. Meyer, Stephen. Signature in the Cell. (New York: Harper Collins, 2009) 110.

  37. Ibid. 376–377.

  38. Carroll, William, E. “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.” Revue des Questions Scientifiques. 2000, Vol. 174, No. 4, 2000, 337.

  39. Michael W. Tkacz, “Aquinas vs Intelligent Design” Catholic Answers Magazine Vol 19, No. 9, November 2008 http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/aquinas-vs-intelligent-design Accessed January 6, 2016.

  40. Feser, Edward. The Last Superstition. (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine Press, 2008) 113.

  41. Ibid. 110. One wonders what examples Feser has in mind of apparently irreducible complex structures being accounted for in terms of more simple, impersonal, unthinking forces of nature.

  42. Ibid. 114.

  43. Ibid. 113

  44. Ibid. 112.

  45. I owe this example to Lydia McGrew, “Special agent intention as an explanation.” Extra Thoughts. May 12, 2014 http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.jp/2014/05/special-agent-intention-as-explanation.html Accessed January 19, 2016.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Ibid. 143.

  48. Feser, Edward. “Teleology: A Shopper’s Guide.” Philosophia Christi. Vol. 12, No. 1. 2010, 142–159, 155.

  49. The cell is often viewed along the lines of a highly sophisticated factory of intermeshed systems that is capable of reproducing itself. There seems no reason to deny that, at least in principle, humans could construct a factory capable of reproducing itself.

  50. Feser, Edward. “Teleology: A Shopper’s Guide.” Philosophia Christi. Vol. 12, No. 1. 2010, 142–159, 155.

  51. Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk 3, Ch 100, Art. 6. (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles3b.htm#99) (Accessed December 27, 2015)

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    Robert Larmer

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Larmer, R. Doubting Thomists and Intelligent Design. SOPHIA 58, 349–358 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-017-0593-x

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