Intelligent Design 1:IDOLATRY

When I come across a new idea, I spend some time with it. If I find that the idea seems to be fatally flawed, I usually do not call back for a second date. I had done this in a desultory way with Intelligent Design and was surprised to hear my daughter mention it in a phone call from D.C. I was surprised because I bury those flawed ideas far from the light of day, and it startles me to see their bony hands thrusting towards the sky once more.

Now I had to explain my opposition to ID to someone else, not merely to myself. An audience of oneself is a very good house to play to. I have always noticed that an audience composed of other people is a tough house.

About two months ago, there had been a court case in Kansas or Oz or one of those places, and the court had ruled that - in a nutshell - Intelligent Design was crypto-Creationism. I heard that on the morning news. I remember distinctly standing in front of my closet and looking at the television incredulously. (Looking at televisions incredulously has become my fashion over the last few years. I also listen to radios with disbelief and amazement. During the hearings about Justice Clarence Thomas, I almost ran my auto into a tree as I listened to the radio.)

I heard the report that the proponent of ID stated the Intelligent Designer need not necessarily be God. This appeared to be a dodge or ruse or scheme that provided an end-run around the imputation of Creationism. The court ruled against Intelligent Design, so its proponents in this particular case not only lost their court case, they had to deny God three times or more, and the rooster did not even crow. I asked myself, "If the Intelligent Designer is not God, then may I pray to the Designer ?" 
If the Intelligent Designer is not necessarily God, then it is possible that the Intelligent Designer is an entity other than God. Now we have an entity with traditionally God-like properties and characteristics, and this new entity may not be our traditional God. So now we have two gods. We could generate more, if it fit our needs and philosophy du jour. This denies the oneness of God. This is Idolatry.

A people obsessed with literature such as The DaVinci Code may not find this disturbing. I find it very disturbing. (Some societies become upset over depictions of religious figures. Other societies put their religious figures into popular novels. The distance in art between The DaVinci Code and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius is great, but morally they are close neighbors.) Whether we are speaking of Idolatry or Polytheism is a point to moot, but the outcome will be the same. I have read accounts that state that the Intelligent Design position allows for the possibility that Satan is the Intelligent Designer. Some people suggested that the angels are the designers, following God's plan, in which case God is the construction manager and the angels are subcontractors.

These suggestions, however, seem to be a subterfuge allowing Intelligent Design to fit into a traditional metaphysics while still maintaining the possible distinction between God and Designer. It strikes me as Monotheism with the option not to renew. We end by observing that: 1) in denying a Designer is necessarily God, the proponents of ID do not bear witness to God, contrary to the actions of the martyrs whose very name means "witness", 2) the essence of the Intelligent Design theory is to establish the validity of a possible Idolatry on a secure footing that appears "scientific". We may assume that any public figures who have embraced Intelligent Design theory must have been unaware of this aspect. We come to the question of who benefits from Idolatry? We shall talk about that later.
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