Intelligent Design

Definition and Meaning

Intelligent design (ID) is the claim that certain features of living things and the universe are better explained by an "intelligent cause" than by purposeless natural processes such as mutation and natural selection. Proponents point to two concepts as their principal grounds.

• Irreducible complexity: the claim that biological structures that cease to function if even a single part is missing are unlikely to have arisen through gradual, step-by-step evolution.
• Specified complexity: the claim that living things contain patterns of information that are unlikely to arise by chance.

Intelligent design does not identify the designer, regarding that question as lying outside the scope of science. In this respect it is distinct from creation science, which takes the biblical text as its starting point, and it is broadly treated as one strand of the creation–evolution debate.

Biblical and Historical Background

The idea that one can know the Maker by observing the order of all things connects with Romans 1:20 and Psalm 19:1. The design argument formulated in 1802 by the Englishman William Paley, with his analogy that a watch reveals the existence of a watchmaker, is regarded as the classic form of this idea.

The modern intelligent design movement was led in the 1990s in the United States by figures such as legal scholar Phillip E. Johnson, biochemist Michael Behe, and mathematician William Dembski. The Discovery Institute in Seattle served as its central institution. In 2005, in the so-called Dover trial (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District), a U.S. federal court ruled unconstitutional a school district policy requiring that intelligent design be introduced in public school science classes, holding that intelligent design is not science. The mainstream scientific community criticizes intelligent design as a claim that cannot be tested by experiment or observation. Proponents respond that intelligent design is an inference drawn from observational evidence, not a religious doctrine.

Reception in the Korean Church

In Korea, creation science became established first, centered on the Korea Association of Creation Research, founded in 1981. Intelligent design was introduced later through translations of related books and through academic gatherings. Attitudes toward it vary according to theological position.

• Creation science advocates: Mostly supporters of young-earth creationism, they welcome intelligent design as an ally in critiquing evolutionary theory. Some, however, point to its limitations: it does not identify the designer as God and does not address the question of the age of the earth.
• Theistic evolution advocates: This position holds that God created through the process of evolution. Its adherents criticize intelligent design as liable to become a "God of the gaps" argument, one that places God in the gaps science has not yet explained.
• Intelligent design proponents: Because intelligent design does not presuppose any particular religion, they regard it as well suited for dialogue with the scientific community in the public sphere beyond the church.

Korea's various denominations all confess God's creation. However, there are no widely known cases of a denomination formally adopting or rejecting intelligent design by resolution of its general assembly. Acceptance generally varies at the level of seminaries, individual scholars, and local congregations. The topic is frequently addressed in discussions of the relationship between science and faith.