Adventism by large supports the idea that intelligent design is a viable scientific theory. Furthermore, many Adventists support the cause that intelligent design be taught in public school. But these Adventists fail to see that intelligent design requires religious belief, and that teaching any religious belief in public schools erodes our own religious liberties.

The Adventist Review has not been outspoken on the topic of intelligent design, but the few articles and editorials it has published on the topic have been in support of intelligent design as scientific fact. One of Christianity Today’s books of the year this year was the Case for a Creator, an apologetic for intelligent design. The idea that our creationist religious principles have scientific backing has caught hold of the Christian consciousness.

Intelligent design in its most simple form is the belief that the universe is too complex a thing to have happened by evolutionary principles, and therefore must have been created by a designer. Although this agrees with the religious perspectives of Christians, and in fact most religions, there is very little support for this idea in the scientific community at large.

In December, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III agreed that intelligent design is based on religious belief. He ruled that the Dover Pennsylvania School District should not be allowed to teach intelligent design in its schools.

It makes sense for Christians to believe in intelligent design on a religious level. We may not be sure exactly where God came into the creation process—if he spoke the world into being in six literal days about six thousand years ago, or if he was involved much earlier in the process—and we should be comfortable believing that. But from a scientific perspective, if the argument for intelligent design were attributed to other areas of science, the conclusions would be laughable.

A medical researcher would never say "the prions that cause mad cow disease are too complex to understand, so they must have been created miraculously." A chemist would never decide that because some enzymes exhibit inexplicable faster-than-diffusion kinetics, they must be moved by the hand of a god. A zoologist would never decide that a lemurs capacity for jumping is the result of the supernatural.

In that same vein, scientists trying to discover the origins of life should never decide that parts of their field of study are too complex for us to understand and must be attributed to a god. There’s no reason that those scientists couldn’t hold intelligent design as a religious view, but they should never let it guide their scientific inquiry. Intelligent design is good religion, but bad science.

Although believing in intelligent design is in no way harmful to the average individual, the danger of intelligent design comes when it is held as pure science; for than religion disguised as science can be taught in public schools.

Here is an area in which Adventist history should serve us well. We have a long tradition of demonizing the political efforts of the Catholic Church, marking Sunday laws as one of the signs of the times and generally defending ourselves from any governmental practice that infringes on our religious liberties. But we forget about rendering unto Caesar when it comes to the Ten Commandments in courthouses, nativities on the lawn of city hall, or creationism in schools.

It is hypocritical of us to pick and choose the religious liberties that we support. Either the government can propagate religious belief, or it can’t. It is our responsibility to support the separation of religion and government whether or not we agree with the religious views being offered by the government. In doing so, we leave ourselves with the responsibility of the religious education of our children, and free ourselves from the obligation of government enforced religious practices.

Adventists should not be fighting to put intelligent design in schools. We should instead be fighting to keep religion in our own hands, and out of the government’s.

Should Adventists support the teaching intelligent design in public school classrooms? Join the discussion on Spectrum Online’s Message Board.

Resources on the Intelligent Design Debate

The Discovery Institute
The most active organization in propagating intelligent design as valid scientific thought.

"Validation"
By Stephen Chavez
An article by the managing editor of the Adventist Review that argues we shouldn’t try to reconcile our religious belief with science.

Creationism’s Trojan Horse
By Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Barbara Forrest was a key witness in the December Pennsylvania intelligent design trial, and Creationism’s Trojan Horse was quoted in Judge Jones’s decision.

The Case for a Creator
By Lee Strobel
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2004)
A journalist chronicles his conversion from atheism, based on scientific evidence for a creator. One of Christianity Today’s books of the year for 2005.

This article first appeared in the January 5, 2006, issue of the Walla Walla College student newspaper, the Collegian.

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