How do laws of nature invalidate design – don’t laws require a designer?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
As laws make a designer redundant, or that is what science says, but does not design come before the laws? Yes, it depends on what design are we talking about. There are designs at various levels. So, for example, if we look at the beauty of a rose, that is a design.
And the normal level of arguments we give for design coming from a designer is that the beautiful thing that we see in this world, they must have a designer. At the same time, what we do see is that the, if you use the word from computer, the program for the design of the flower is there in its DNA. So, then that means, like a computer does something brilliant, computer plays chess, that is because there is a program over there.
So, the specific chess playing ability of the computer is not that of one intelligent person, it is coming from a program. So, the design of the rose, according to science now, it does not come from individual designer. There may be a designer, but that specific design is not directly the product of a designer.
There is the, there is genetics involved, and there is the DNA, which contains the coding by which the design will come about. So, now currently, in mainstream philosophy, no one argues that the visible designs that we see in the world, they are directly the action of God. So, we go back, and so currently the intelligent design movement is arguing that the DNA itself is an evidence of design.
So, that means, there is visible forms, visible designs, which come from certain programs or certain patterns, or we could say nature certain laws. Now, then those laws themselves are so precise, that where do those laws come from? So, where does the DNA itself originate, we could say. Now, there are scientists who try to explain, they have the arguments that the DNA also contains a lot of junk code, that whether it is actually junk or not, that's a matter of debate.
But they say there's a lot of junk in it, and that indicates that it has not come by design, it has come by chance, out of which some of things have worked out nicely. But the basic point which I was making is that the visible design that we see, we cannot directly ascribe it to God, we can ascribe it in a philosophical sense. But if you are going to a scientific analytical sense, that design comes from certain laws, which may be enshrined in certain ways.
Then the question comes, who designed those laws? So, then we are using the word design in a different sense than what we use in normal discourse. And the origin of the laws is something which science does have no answers about. So, there are basically three options, the laws just exist themselves, the laws come from some intelligent source.
And third is that the laws are a product of chance, where there are multiple universes. And in all the other universes that may be existing, the laws have all gone wrong. But in this universe, the laws have worked out right.
So, currently, mainstream science usually goes towards this multiple universe theory. Now, the problem, of course, with the multiple universe theory is that it has zero empirical proof. There is some mathematical reasoning where parallel universes might be there.
But in terms of empirical proof, there is absolutely zero. In fact, not only is the empirical evidence zero, in principle, the parallel universes are non-transferable we could say. So, they are not accessible to each other.
So, not only is evidence not available, but evidence will also not become available in terms of empirical evidence. So, the parallel universe theory is, although it is present quite a bit in mainstream science, but there are mainstream scientists who criticize it saying it is more a product of science, more a product of science fiction than some rigorous scientific research. So, design in an ultimate sense, yes, God, everything that exists in the world is by the super intelligence of God.
But how that super intelligence is manifested in this world? So, is it manifested through the specific designs that we see visibly? Or is it manifested through the design patterns that we see in this world? And the God of the gaps argument is that if we can find out laws, something like meta laws, which could explain the laws that exist in this world, then their idea is that the space for God will become lesser and lesser. There are many Christians also who do not ascribe their design in this world directly to God. Because they say if tomorrow science finds a mechanism by which the design works.
So, earlier we said the planets moved because of God's will. Now we find it is because of gravity. So, God has no role left over there.
So, God will have lesser and lesser role left over there. That is not necessarily true. There are ways in which we can explain how science and God are complementary.
At the same time, so there are two different approaches to talking about the presence of God within the world of science. One is to explain how certain phenomena within nature cannot be explained without pointing, without God. The second way is that the whole existence of nature with all its order, not the specific orders within nature, but the orderliness of nature per se, that cannot be explained without God.
And these are two different approaches, which can be used to show how God and science can still go, how science does not, you could say exile God, that there is room for God. So, one is that God acts within the realm of nature, the other is God acts as the foundation of nature. And both these approaches can be used in outreach.