Friday, September 29, 2006

Intelligent Design and Omniscience

First of all, I'd like to thank Beepbeepitsme for posting my first comment on his blog. Although he thinks he puts forth convincing retorts to my claims, the Word of God is “sharper than any two-edged sword,” (Hebrews 4:12) (and his arguments are no two-edged swords--in fact, he's only replied to the first line of my comment so far). As well, “The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes." (Proverbs 21:1) And when I can't be the harvester, I'll be content with being the sower.

His latest attack on Christianity is that God can't be an intelligent designer, because "intelligence" and "omniscience" are not compatible attributes, because intelligence means--as one definition--the ability to acquire knowledge, and if God is omniscient, then He wouldn't be acquiring knowledge, and therefore He couldn't be intelligent, and therefore He couldn't be an intelligent designer. Yep, I'm being honest. That's his reasoning.

Again, I make a call for you to visit his site and read it for yourself, and if you think of something different than my argument--defend the faith! Advance the kingdom! Make a comment of your own!

By the way: I'm going to make a second comment on the "Jesus is Imaginary" post--even though I don't really have to since he didn't give a satisfactory rebuttal to my first comment. But anyways, just a heads up. It will also be posted on my blog, of course. It could be posted as soon as later tonight, or as late as tomorrow afternoon.

Another side-note: I saw that some of my readers went to that guy’s site and put up a stand. Good job! Jesus talks about the workers being few (Matthew 9:37), and it seems that many “workers” aren’t really “working.” This is what it's about!
Don’t be discouraged by what seems like a good and/or confident reply from the other side. Remember, the devil knows Scripture , (Mark 1) and He knows how to twist it even better, being the “father of lies.” (John 8:44) He also knows history—or at least is good at pretending he does. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t let an unbeliever tell you that he knows more about Scripture (“I don’t remember seeing that in the Bible.”) than you do. He can’t possibly understand Scripture fully, or else he’d believe, since “All Scripture is God-breathed.” (2 Timothy 3:16) I'm not accusing atheists of
being demons, but we know that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual force of wickedness in the heavenly places
." (Ephesians 6:12)


Definition of intelligent:
Having intelligence; Having a high degree of intelligence.

Definition of intelligence:

The capacity to acquire AND APPLY knowledge; SUPERIOR MENTAL CAPACITY.

Definition of omniscient:

Knowing everything; Having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight; Possessed of universal or complete knowledge.


God, as omniscient, does not need to acquire knowledge. He COULD (as in, He has the capacity)--but He has no need and will never have the need , for He is the source of all knowledge. There's no knowledge for Him to gain. He does, however, apply His knowledge. And He does have infinitely superior mental powers, and an unapproachably high degree of intelligence(knowledge).

The Bible neither uses the term "Intelligent Designer" nor "Omniscient." They both are clearly implied. Henceforth, however, you cannot use just any piece of the English definition of intelligence to make a case. That is intellectually insufficient and dishonest.

One last note: an "intelligent designer" does design things. But you, my fellow bloggers, cannot even comprehend how the term "intelligent designer" applies to God. He designed from nothing. ("In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep."--Genesis 1:1-2) No one besides He can do that.


End-notes (not in my comment): The idea of God having the capacity to learn more sounds ridiculous when you say He does, and ridiculous when you say He doesn't. But the bottom line is that God is not incapable of learning because He's not smart enough or He's not powerful enough. God does not learn because there is nothing for Him to learn.

~ Kingdom Advancer

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