God is the orchestrator of creation. Everything from the dirt on the ground to the birds in the sky, God made it all with a purpose. Scripture reflects this in Colossians 1:16 ,“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

The purpose of creation, according to Colosiians 1:16, is to glorify God as the creator. Recently, the theory of intelligent design has become popular and  is being utilized to demonstrate that an intelligent designer must be responsible for the creation of all things. 

AN ARGUMENT FOR DESIGN

The theory of intelligent design began in the early 1980s by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley and Roger Olson. It is important to note that ID is different from creationism. ID is based purely on science while creationism is based solely on the Bible. Stephen C. Meyer notes in “Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design” that “intelligent design is not a deduction from, or an interpretation of, a religious text but an inference from scientific evidence.” 

Meyer proposes that DNA is an indicator of intelligent design and thus an intelligent designer. He says “the specific way in which the nucleotide bases are arranged is crucial to the function of the DNA molecule in the cell.”

According to Bill Gates, “DNA is far more advanced than any software ever created.” Meaning it would be difficult for new information, like DNA, to randomly form over time.

Meyers says, “Indeed, explaining the origin of the digital information stored in DNA – again, a striking appearance of design – has turned out to be a formidable problem for both branches of evolutionary theory – for biological evolutionary theory, which attempts to explain the origin  of new forms of life from simpler pre existing forms of life, and for chemical evolutionary theory, which attempts to explain the origin of the first life from simpler non-living chemicals.”

CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

On the Good Book Blog, visiting scholar in philosophy William Lane Craig addressed if Christians should believe in ID and why it seemed that few Christians respond to the theory. Craig responded saying, “Of course, there is great confusion about ID. Some people wrongly take it to be religion or some form of creationism. On the other hand, as explained above [see full response], one may be an enthusiastic proponent of design arguments from nature without embracing all the tenets of ID. So you need to ask people who decry ID, ‘Exactly which tenets of ID do you reject?’ That will tell you right away whether they understand what they are talking about!” 

ID is arguably one of the best secular arguments for a creator. DNA is incredibly complex–almost nothing we can create would come close to the depth of the information within DNA. From a Christian perspective, an issue with ID could be related to the separation of this theory from religion. However, this could be a strength if the theory uses secular information but maintains resounding theological impacts.