So don't Quakers believe in Intelligent Design?

"We are a religious people who believe in God’s active agency in our lives: isn’t that pretty much the Intelligent Design argument?"

Yes, but it's an argument that cannot be submitted to any sort of scientific study or measurement. (At least I don't think it can. But then, I'm not a scientist. You are a scientist, so perhaps you can can see a way to do that.) Doesn't mean that it's not true that God intervenes in our lives. It just means that I cannot demonstrate that it's true via any method generally accepted by the scientific community. In a science class, I need to support my arguments with evidence that can be verified by the scientific method. Outside of a science class (in meeting, for instance, as you say) I'm free to support my argument in other ways: by faith, scripture, personal anecdotal experience, a literary passage that really hit home for me, etc.

I don't see a contradiction. If I measure the symmetry of a flower, that's science. If I say that flowers are symmetrical because God wouldn't have it any other way, that's faith. I can be a scientist and a person of faith, if I measure the symmetry and believe that it was God who made it so. However, I do not think it's proper to bring arguments that can be supported only by faith into the picture if I'm teaching a science class in a public school.

I can also be a scientist without being a person of faith. When I encounter something that cannot be explained by science, I can just say that some day perhaps we will have the necessary data.

On the other hand, I think that some of those arguing for ID are persons of faith without being persons of science. They seem to be trying to get scientific facts to conform to scripture. Why they feel the need to do this, I'm not really sure. I don't have a problem with the age of the earth as determined by science and the passages in scripture where we're told that God created it in 7 days. The fact that those passages do not conform to the best scientific evidence we have does not shake my faith in God. (...Other things sure do sometimes, but that's another subject.) I don't think that the purpose of the Book of Genesis is to give a scientific explanation of how the earth came to be. Or, let's say that Genesis has other very profound truths to offer, apart from the literal meaning of the text.

I think you've got a problem with your second link...

I think I'm going to answer your query with a post on the subject... I've been mulling it over since I heard about the decision in Dover the other day.

I know I mention this book nearly non-stop, but the thesis of scientists such as Friend George Ellis (along with theologian and Brethren minister Nancey Murphy) in their book On the Moral Nature of the Universe argue, essentially, an Intelligent Design theology for the universe.

It differs from the typical fundamentalist attempts to "confirm" the "Truth" of the the "Word of God" in that they do not attempt to force or insist that science must confirm anything. They argue that, because of the nature of the Divine the universe exists. That is because God is love. The very nature of love requires something to express or give itself to. Thus, the universe is an "object" (to imprecisely use old psychanalytic terminology :)) for which God gives love to, etc. This argument is clearly a sort of Intelligent Design approach.

OTH, neither author propose that is it should or must be taught in a public school setting given that it is primarily a theological proposition that appears to be supported (but not proven) by the nature of "natural laws".

Barbara - I like your notion about being able to be a person of science and faith. Certainly, George Ellis sees himself in much of the same vein.

Good topic!

But of course, Martin; they're just words, and you make of words what you will. Connotations vary.
God, the Supreme Creative Intelligence works in my life and yours day by day, unceasingly, just like he did on the first day of creation.

The matter of teaching it in secular schools is an entirely different issue. Like most Q's I'm against. it.

For me the essence is in Barbara's words: "When I encounter something that cannot be explained by science, I can just say that some day perhaps we will have the necessary data." Because Science is a study of the Mystery of Creation. What is taught to this generation will be dated before the next generation. Science evolves, knowledge evolves, and beliefs evolve. Science is as much a set of beliefs as any religion. What I feel is vital for our children to recognize that beliefs are created and changing, just as the world is. So what is it that they know from their experience? And can they hold that up to the Light and watch even that change?

But more to the point of the original discussion ... I do not believe that it is only in the lives of humans of faith that ID/G-D intervenes. The prayer study results on bacteria, animals and plants help me "know" the interconnectedness of all, because there is a medium of communion that all life shares. I call that God, an all-inclusive collective energy, rather than an outside agency. I know that collective presence strongest in Meeting for Worship, but find it everywhere.

I have no argument with 'intelligent design'. Except calling God 'intelligent' is, well, condescending. As if we could judge God or the design as intelligent, or merely above average? Perhaps we should give God a 'Genius Award.' No, I have no arguement with 'Intelligent design'. It's the execution that I have some issue with. This is an on-going argument I have with the Creator, esp. as my aging body tries to get out of bed in the morning. Why does everything have to move towards entropy? However, God has not really asked my opinion on His work. I fear, once again, I have veered off point. Ok, back to the discussion: Introducing the possibility that God or some 'intelligent designer' made the universe, and introducing this in a science class doesn't cause outrage in me as it has in others. It seems that most people of faith have integrated science and faith in their beliefs/thoughts. But forcing it to be taught as part of a science class is not good. It's too bad it can't be discussed in some other context in a public school however. My science teachers in public school were Christians and I knew it not so much from what they said (it wasnt allowed), but how they were as people. Perhaps this is how God speaks to us much of the time. He lets Creation speak. Lucky for us, it is not the only way God speaks. Sometimes God is much more direct and personal. Peace and way more than a 'nudge' to you and your family in the New Year.

"ps: yes I know there are some liberal Friends who don’t buy into anything dealing with God, which seems to be to be a different issue. What are those of us who do look for direct guidance to make of Intelligent Design?"

Boy that's not a loaded question, is it? I am indulging in irony, though there is a smile on my face as I write that... But, I think the problem in the question is that many Chirstocentric Friends don't fully understand the parameters of the Hicksite abstraction. In fact many liberal Friends don't as well, and I always make a distinction, as a rather conservative Hicksite, in my upbringing, I would separate that distinction from other branches of the Liberal Friends tradition, which have not been written about in a very scholarly manner yet, for example, New Age Quakers... but, in truth, though I have met Friends who walk out of meeting at the mention of Jesus, or Christ, I have never met a Friend who denied the concept of God - though some feel that to try and create a human abstraction for God, is to not accept God as mystery beyond human understanding - as one is constantly reminded in the Old Testament.

I would say that the core of the Hicksite tradition is to say that there is equal God in all of us, and the potential to be present completely to that is Christ. Under this belief many believed in my youth that Jesus was THE Christ and many other that Jesus was a Christ - but the Hicksite tradition was idol adverse, to make a Rabbi God, or a book infallible was to place a human abstraction in the way of God. I would not say that we deny God.

As to intelligent design, the question is not wether God is behind it all, but I would say a Hicksite view is that God IS it all, and when we try to place the sense of planning we employ, we place God in a human shaped box.

Thanks for this post, I am running out the door, and wish I had more time to consider all this, but, likely will come back to this. I am on my way out to a friend's funeral, then a thousand other things for the next few days...
Thine in the light
lor

PS Happy Christmas!

Martin makes the following remark:

“We are a religious people who believe in God’s active agency in our lives: isn’t that pretty much the Intelligent Design argument?”

And Barbara replies in part: Yes, but it’s an argument that cannot be submitted to any sort of scientific study or measurement.

First, to Martin I would say, yes, I have wondered about this apparent conflict. I believe in God and I accept the concept of evolution. Like you, I view the idea of teaching ID in public school as a thinly veiled mechanism for preaching religion to our kids.

Second, Barbara's initial response to your post stirs something in me that I read a few years ago, regarding George Fox and how the rise of Quakerism coincided with the early rise of the scientific revolution and the growing interest in the scientific method, going from observation to hypothesis to theory to testing.

In this light (so to speak), it's possible to understand that Fox was using a form of scientific study to learn about how God "showed up" in one's life: the more Fox listened inwardly for the Spirit, the more he came to understand the Spirit's guidance for himn. The more Fox followed the leadings of the Spirit, the more fruits of the Spirit Fox discovered and experienced.

But even so: the testing and evidence of God's presence and accessibility in our life, like the testing and evidence of the power of prayer, must not be equated with having the right to teach religion dressed up as science.

That's my two cents, anyway.

Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up

I am quoting from Robert Griswold's Creeds and Quakers (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #377). "My fundamental assertion in this pamphlet is that "faith" is vital to the formation of the spiritual life of Friends, while "belief" is a dangerous threat." He defines belief as "a conclusion reached after some thought and held with enough confidence to be a guide for action." He defines a creed as "a belief that has been given a more formal (and often written) structure or it may be a collection of a series of beliefs." He describes faith as "the spiritual apprehension of divine truth or intangible realities."

And here is George Fox as quoted in this pamphlet: "And so we ceased from the teachings of men, and their words, and their worships, and their temples, and all their baptisms and churches; and we ceased from our own words, and professions, and practices in religion, in times before zealously performed by us, through divers forms, and we became fools for Christ's sake, that we might become truly wise. And the written word brings no soul to Christ the life, but who comes to the life that the written words speak of . . ."

It is not so simple that proponents of Intelligent Design believe in God's continuing action in the world. It is that they want to define what that action is and what it is not. For instance, they are saying that God's action cannot be evolution. As far as I can tell, the considerable energy devoted to preventing the teaching of evolution in the science class room has been because it renders certain Christian beliefs, including in the literal truth of the Bible, more difficult to maintain. And one of the essential Quaker insights has been that "using the declaration of belief to define Christianity is problematic." (Creeds and Quakers)

Intelligent Design seems to have developed from a fear that evolution threatens beliefs that are necessary to be a good Christian, to be saved. It is about defending Christian creeds, which Quakers have always rejected. These Christian creeds say that what is important about Chrisitianity is what a person believes about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Heaven, Hell, the Bible. When you hold, as Quakers do, that we apprehend spiritual truths directly from God and that our beliefs do not define us, God, the Holy Spirit or Christ, that our experiences do, then the question of evolution versus creationism versus ID is rendered academic, not spiritual. "And the written word brings no soul to Christ the life . . ."

Quoting Bruce Birchard, talk at Intermountain Yearly Meeting, June 2003, " . . . a statement of belief that is not grounded in experience is a mere 'professing.' Such statements lack power if they are not grounded in our own spiritual experience."

Which is why, it seems to me, Quakers have not had a great deal to say about what happens after death or how the world may or may not have been created as these things are not generally directly experienced and opinions and statements on these topics become mere professions. I think it is significant and not coincidental that the judge in the Dover case found that the proponents of ID *lied* about their real intent and purposes. My experience is that lying is symptomatic of not living a life in the Spirit.

"Judge Jones rebuked advocates of intelligent design, saying they repeatedly lied about their true intentions. He noted many of them had said publicly that their intent was to introduce into the schools a biblical account of creation. Judge Jones properly wondered how people who claim to have such strong religious convictions could lie, thus violating prohibitions in the book they proclaim as their source of truth and standard for living."

Here is an interesting website on Intelligent Design (anti-ID, but includes their writings and arguments in their own words.): http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html

Isabel Penraeth

Lor,

There are certainly liberal Friends who don't believe in God.
If you have really "never met a Friend who denied the concept of God," I encourage you to visit my meeting, where there are perhaps a dozen people (possibly more) who consider themselves non-theists. Or you could visit Nontheistfriends.org

Love,

Jeff
(Member of Friends Meeting @ Cambridge, NEYM)

As a sort of combining of the two directions the discussion has taken, it seems interesting to me that we pretty much all agree that religion should be kept out of the science room, but is it not equally awkward for atheists and non-theists to want their views to be represented in churches and meetinghouses.

It is interesting to me that the only two non-creedal religions that I know of (Quakers and Unitarian Universalism) are the only two religions who have had to deal with this issue.

JEFF!!! I missed thy post, just found it. I've known greatly non-verbal Friends on the nature of God who would not even use the word God to describe what they believe... but that there is a non-thiestFriends site rather amazes me. I'll check it out and get back to thee. Maybe non-theist Friends tend not to speak to me, as Richard says, for my reputation as a "Jesus freak... " hmmm. Well, I will go to the site and get back to thee.
much love
lor

Hi everyone,
Some good discussion, I especially found Barbara and Quaker Jane's disentagling of the situation to be helpful. I would love to learn more about the Quaker who actually was on the Dover Board of Education pushing Intelligent Design...

I mentioned the not-buying-God part because I didn't want to conversation to necessarily go into God and non-theism. But it did and that's fine. My take is that non-theism as a Quaker movement is an elaborate set up for disappointment: if you join a religious society then you shouldn't be surprised when the group re-affirms that it is religious. Meetings without good boundaries will hedge when confronted with this and grow into a not-much-of-anything social group that takes on the tone of whatever subculture is dominant. We're talking non-theism but I suspect we could just as easily be talking about those Quaker churches that have recently been adding sacraments: why join a tradition and then complain about its core values and practices?

That said, the non-theists I've met online and in person have been some very deep and faithful Friends. I've found them to have a deep respect for our testimony of integrity: if one hasn't consciously experienced the movement of God in their soul, then they should not preach about God. Non-theism as a personal testimony can be a witness of sorts, even in a religious society, as it reminds us that our spiritual statements should be rooted in our experiential knowledge of God. I guess the problem is comes when one expects that this should be a corporate Quaker stance.

Martin originally wrote: "If God guides us as individuals and a Society of Friends into the mystery of a direct, Christ-centered contact, then it’s not much of a stretch to suppose God at least occasionally tips the scales on the evolutionary front as well.
... We are a religious people who believe in God’s active agency in our lives..."

My experience of God is more verb-like than noun-like. When I move from noun to verb, adverb and adjective, my experiences of "God" fit with "guides, mysterious, stretches, tips, evolves, active, direct, Christ-like (using words from Martin's quote). Perhaps this all sounds like semantics, but it works for me. There isn't an "Lincoln statue" God that loves me... but the "flow of love" in the unfolding universe, in relationships, in the stillness of worship ... all experiences of "god's manifesting". We are the unconditional manifesting energy expressing itself inside the conditions of our individual lives. So is everything (and no-thing) else. So it seems to me to be both initiating and evolving, intervening and distant. The closer we get to paradox, I think the closer we are to truth. If we can get from 'either/or'...to 'both/and'...perhaps it is really 'neither/nor.' Science is God describing 'her' the time/space existence. As science explores the additional dimensions of life, science will be God describing Holy Spirit. Unconditional, the mystery will never be fully known but we can have fun exploring with spiritual and scientific inquiry. I don't think there is an objective or spiritual Truth to know, but I can attest to a heck of a lot of exchange between what I think of as 'myself' and other dimensions and activities of Spirit.

Enough...I must get back into real time and pray...

Martin writes:

"My take is that non-theism as a Quaker movement is an elaborate set up for disappointment."

I agree. As one of those involved in establishing www.nontheistfriends.org, I am glad to report that there is no such movement. I do think there is something interesting going on in our neck of the woods, which might give some theist Quakers something to chew on in their understanding of God. Our conversations as a Friendly affinity group are about visible integration, not segregation; about finding our place within Quakerism, not moving Quakerism in our direction.

On the subject at hand: it is intellectually legitimate to speculate, in a non-scientific manner, as to whether an entity or being we have named God created the universe. If this was all the intelligent design movement were about, there would be no problem. Even so it it should not be taught in science class, but in classes dealing with religion, philosophy, theology. And, contrary to the common understanding, teaching *about* religion in public schools is constitutionally right as rain--it is establishing or promoting religion which is not.

Unfortunately, the intelligent design movement is intended as the thin edge of the wedge for teaching literal Biblical creationism, which is intellectually indefensible.