On the Revelation of Jesus Christ and Natural Theology

How ironic that Eric should post a blog on Natural Theology just as I was deciding to do likewise. Rather than responding to Eric in the comments section of his blog I have decided to go ahead and post my blog.

I take the point of Eric (I think) that the term 'Natural Theology' is a bit of a misnomer. The abuses of ignorant atheists and biblical compromisers is insufficient cause to abandon the term but the more I read and understand about the Person of Jesus Christ in His Creation I am increasingly inclined to bring that which has been called 'Natural Theology' under the heading of 'Revelation of Jesus Christ'. That said, I now proceed with a blog and I expect to be posting more on the subject in the future.

We have much to be indebted to our Lord for, not the least being his gifting His Church with some giants whose legacy lives on well beyond their passing from this world. One of the giants has been spoken of elsewhere on this site and I wish to quote him in this blog and invite comment on his proposition. I refer to the late Professor A.E. Wilder-Smith, a man who had three (3) earned Doctorates. He was a Biochemist and among many other credits was an accomplished debater of Naturalists. Perhaps the thing that impresses me most about him is his predictions made twenty or more years ago concerning scientific discovery and applications which are being realised today.

For this blog I quote an extract from his book "The Creation of Life - a cybernetic approach to evolution." I quote from pages 227 to 229 of the third printing (1981) of the book first published in 1970. Having dealt with the inadequacies of (a) the Naturalistic explanation of matter possessing some inherent psychic property urging it up to life, and (b) the emergence of life on earth by an extra-terrestrial intelligence, he proceeds to expound the merit of a third option.

"Of the third account, that the substrate of the first-cause intelligence must be sought in the supramaterial, there is evidence. The fact that materialistic, physical sciences have missed finding such intelligence with physical means is surely proof of its transcendental nature. It is only by reasoning, logic and mathematics, that the gap in purely materialistic Darwinian randomness has shown up.

One cannot see, physically speaking, the intelligent energy that goes into the working out of a vitamin C synthesis. Nor can one physically see the intellectual effort that goes into a suspension-bridge blueprint. Yet no scientist would ever deny the presence of intellectual effort just because he cannot physically see it. He measures it, in so many man-hours to do so much blueprinting and so many man-hours to realize the blueprint in actual tons of suspension[-]bridge. He knows how to measure the work involved in both the encoding process and the decoding or realization (reading), process.

If this is so, why should there be difficulty in accounting for the basic encoding process by which the blueprint for life was drawn up at archebiopoesis or the beginning of life? Or why should there be difficulty about explaining the decoding process by which life is realized by growth regulated by the code on the material genes? In experimental everyday life, both coding and decoding are simply and boldly explained in terms of intelligent man-hours. Obviously then, there should be no difficulty either about the same basic processes in the origin and realization of life. The principles behind both are identical, even though their scale of operation may vary a trifle!

Thus the assumption of intelligence to account for origins and maintenance (or realization) of life, does not present any real difficulties of principle. Whether the intelligence is artificial, biological or even transmaterial does not offer any real impediment to theory. If we have no difficulties in using this same assumption of intelligence when dealing with pattern construction in the laboratory and industry, why should we ba[u]lk at the same assumption when we transfer our field of inquiry to the much grander scale of the universe and its patterns and codes, especially to the code we know as life?

The same principle applies to the patterns and codes behind atoms with their electron orbits (which decide the patterns of their chemical properties). The chemical patterns on DNA spirals, in their turn, decide the patterns and codes behind the genes and their outworkings in various morphological, physiological and metabolic codes. Each code and pattern gives rise to another, but they all revert, eventually, in their origin, to the grand code and pattern-maker known as intelligence.

The difficulties incurred in denying intelligence as the basis of code-order realization are certainly greater than those of assuming intelligence as the author. One is always finally reduced to assuming that randomness gave spontaneous birth to order (the Darwinian position) which amounts to a denial of the laws of thermodynamics and indeed all laws - for randomness is not subject to laws. [emphasis mine]. But to get around and to avoid the necessity of assuming exogenous intelligence (or Deity), scientists have been willing to commit even this type of scientific hara-kari, for to deny law is to kill all science.

If, on the other hand, we assume an intelligence behind the codes and order of the universe, we are more or less inevitably forced to assume the position described by our third postulate - that this intelligence must be transmaterial or transcendent. This position has the great advantage of destroying that old bugbear of the past which has hindered so many intellectuals in dealing with the Christian position - an anthropomorphic deity, and 'old man in the sky'. The intelligence we are talking about is ineffable, supreme, supramaterial and time-transcending. [emphasis mine]

Thus an intellectual stumbling block which has long stood in the way of intellectuals and kept them from believing in a supreme intelligence has been removed in principle by progress in cybernetic science , since it has been shown that intelligence is no longer bound to human biological substrates. Perhaps it may some day be shown that thought and intelligence, even in the laboratory, are not even bound to electrical phenomena; that they are both the activities of 'spirit'. For the Holy Book assures us that God is 'spirit' and that they that worship him must do so in 'spirit and in truth'." [emphasis mine].

Professor Wilder-Smith then went on to explain why William Paley's book 'Natural Theology' for a while held sway in intellectual thought but later succumbed to Darwinism. Professor Wilder-Smith then demonstrates advances in 'Information Science' which have since exposed the paucity of the Darwinian argument.

Now, it goes without saying that a theistic evolution position, being a corrupt hybrid position resorted to by a Church retreating with haste from the battlefront, has no place where the valid contenders for intellectual thought 'square-up'.

In light of the case presented by Professor Wilder-Smith, I find myself compelled to explore, with much caution and therefore requiring guidance from intelligent people, the revelation of Jesus Christ in the coding for all things in creation - for what do the Biblical passages "In the beginning was the Word [or as Professor Wilder-Smith says elsewhere - 'logos or concept'] and the Word was with God and the Word was God' (John 1:1) and "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:17) and "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." ( Romans 1:20) mean in the light of our more recent understanding of genetic coding (non-matter) of DNA (matter) and patterns and coding (non-matter) of atoms (matter)?

The answer to such a question is not found in Pantheism for it is clear that the encoder or source of the code is also exogenous to the code carrier.

I may soon have to abandon this pursuit because a respondent may point out a potential heresy. I don't want to pursue a heresy. On the other hand the potential to know our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately, He being closer to us than hitherto recognised, is advantageous over smouldering and not yet extinguished Deism in Sydney Anglicanism.

Could it be that in this proposition a more meaningful explanation is given for the premature death of an 'innocent' child in that the Lord Himself suffers in the cessation of the code for life in that infant? Our Lord Jesus Christ felt 'power' go out from Him for healing when touched by the woman with the bleeding complaint (Mark 5:30) perhaps he feels something of the injury or cessation of life.

What is involved in the "giving up the spirit' when someone dies? What is the distinction between the coding of the 'animate and the inanimate'?

There are many other Biblical statements, events and doctrines against which this concept for the order of life has to be measured. It has a long way to go. One thing that seems to fit is that the miracles of the Incarnate Son of God need not have occurred with the necessity of spoken words. Only thought was necessary to produce the outcome. The words were spoken only to let the audience know through whom the miracle came to pass.

I invite comments.

Neil Moore