Chapter 1 - 1859 Whose Handiwork?

Abstract

Life’s beauty and variety are prima facie evidence of God’s creative handiwork. Throughout most of human history, and including parts of classical Greek philosophy to 19th century theology, a standard sentiment was that supernatural agents (Gods) were directly responsible for the diversity and the exquisite functional features of life. The 17th century naturalist John Ray famously referred to this notion as “The Wisdom of God”. In 1802, this traditional paradigm – natural theology – was again epitomized in a powerful treatise by the Anglican minister William Paley, who paid homage to a beneficent Creator God for directly fashioning organic material into the myriad phenotypic features that enable organisms to survive and reproduce. In the modern era, natural theology has resurfaced in the guise of the “intelligent design” (ID) religious movement. Proponents of ID posit that complex biological outcomes, ranging from bacterial cells to human beings, were purposefully designed and directly crafted by a supreme intelligence (e.g., by a Creator God) rather than having arisen via non-sentient natural evolutionary forces.