Thomas Aquinas Continued

In my last post I was talking about St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic thinking related to him. Aquinas has had influence in many ways, but is ignored in others. I compared two specific areas: the treatment of Catholic women by the Church because of Thomas’ opinion of them, and the misuse of his name for worldviews other than his belief in direct supernatural Creationism. But I made my point about women in the last post and now I want to say something about Creationism.

In Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 91, Article 2 (New Advent website HERE), Thomas stated:

The first formation of the human body could not be by the instrumentality of any created power, but was immediately from God.

The definition of “immediately” is HERE . It means instantly and directly. Thomas again talked about direct creation by God when he discussed the creation of woman from the rib of a man in Part I, Question 92, Article 4 which can be seen HERE.

But, a 2009 Vatican-sponsored conference on evolution excluded Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates.  The organizers said we weren't scientific enough, although they are the ones ignoring science as well as the words of Thomas Aquinas.  The science is revealing biological systems way too complex to be answered by chance genetic mutations even when natural selection is factored in.

The human condition is to have all kinds of ideas bombard us from inside our heads and out. Some of these take hold and we are convinced they are true. Sometimes the ideas are right and sometimes not. As our science research discovers more and more, we are overwhelmed with facts and opinions about them. As our communications improve, we discover new religions and cultures. How do we sort it all out? It takes time and effort and discernment.

Of course, people have argued about things for a long time and for philosophers, argument is a living. But all the worldviews can be hard to learn and follow, and facts can be lost or mangled in our minds after time. Concerning the relationships between philosophy, theology, Creationism, and Intelligent Design Theory (ID), a good series of posts is by Discovery Institute's Jay Richards, "Catholics and Intelligent Design," Evolution News, April-May 2011. Even if you don’t agree with him, he is very good at explaining the situation. The fourth post has links to all previous so I will give that one link HERE. He of course emphasizes ID compared to Creationism, but much of the biology of Creationism is linked to the ID scientific theory.

The arguments in Aquinas’ day (13^th century) didn’t concern materialistic evolution but whether man was made by angels, as St. Augustine had said, or according to Aristotle’s philosophy with which Aquinas was wrangling. The Greek elements of Fire and Air seemed a more noble make-up for man than Earth and Water, the ingredients of the “Slime” which was closer to the Biblical account of God’s action. Aquinas takes his stand with the answer (also Question 91):

On the contrary, It is written (Gen 2:7): God made man of the slime of the earth.

Some of the totality of Thomas Aquinas’ thought, and it is a lot, still resonates to this day. He had a lot of detractors in his lifetime, and we can wonder if Thomas sometimes got discouraged and felt he was wasting his time.  As a matter of fact, he had a mystical experience at the end of his life, put down the pen and never wrote again.  He said then, as quoted by Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (1993), 9, “All that I have written seems like straw to me” (Wikipedia quote HERE).  And yet before that he used his gifts at a time when many were probably confused by the different interpretations and theories floating around in that day. He probably helped many get back to the faith or remain more solidly in it.

I’ve lately been reading Paul’s letters in the Bible and one of the things he says is:

Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness….(2 Timothy 2:23-25 NABRE).

I wonder sometimes if it is worth arguing about materialistic evolution. Since science changes so much, how long will these details be relevant? But in this day when scientism (belief that science is everything) is taking over like wildfire, I think science is a good approach for conversation. It is in this way people can think about whether biological life and diversity is beyond what can possibly be formed from the other currently known forces of nature. Though biology is complex, it can be appreciated on a certain level by everyone. Like it does with so many things, the Internet grants access to biologic wonder. With video searches, people can view muscle molecules contracting, DNA being copied, and a multitude of other biological functions. Then they can ask the harder questions: could these have formed in even billions of years? Was that time enough to randomly build a house or even make a brick? Did a computer chip form out of the primordial soup? Why then does the concept of billions of years answer the question of how and why we are here?

 

Ironically because science changes so much is one reason individuals need a more solid foundation in their lives. The researcher gets old like everyone else. My suspicion is that the Theory of Evolution has led many scientists to the sad conclusion that they consist of only atoms. But their inner feelings of fear and love must be inescapable. The unchanging and absolutely necessary foundation, hard as it is to believe for the hard-driving atheistic evolutionist, is Jesus Christ.

The overriding priority of Catholics is to evangelize the Good News of the Gospels, and we must find a way to work together to carry out our commission. Sometimes I get very discouraged and heartsick about our problems in the Church, particularly the child abuse scandal. Yet I believe our new Pope is trying to reform the Church as others accomplished in previous dark times. He talks about hope which is uplifting to me.  We know our Lord Jesus has conquered evil. Thomas Aquinas would have agreed:

Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth (Psalms 124:8 NABRE).

St. Thomas Aquinas

If a Catholic has the unusual combination of interests in women’s dignity and the sister subjects of Creationism and Intelligent Design Theory, she or he would probably view the uproar caused by an op-ed column about Catholics by Jamie Stiehm, "The Catholic Supreme Court's War on Women," US New and World Report, Jan. 7, 2014, with a corner of one eye on St. Thomas Aquinas. Stiehm, was outright hostile toward the decision of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  These nuns did not want to sign over the right for an insurance company to pay for contraceptives and abortion for their employees. The problem has been festering ever since Obamacare made its move to include this cost in insurance coverage. The law is for the insurance to pay for contraception, not about whether the employer can force its employees to use or not use contraception. Many Catholics are responding in great anger and indignation to this column, both in comments at the site and at various blogs like the one linked above. The Little Sisters apparently felt that in agreeing to the payment of contraception and abortion even by another party they would still be violating their religious conscience about it.

Unfortunately, the arguments about contraception and abortion are caught up in each other and distinction of types of contraception beyond “natural” and “unnatural” are not made with Catholic leadership. Chemical contraceptives taken internally can cause death of a fertilized egg. However, man-made barriers can keep the sperm from reaching the egg and avoid embryonic death, but they are still deemed wrong by the Church. The reasoning stems from the Natural Law, derived in great part from Thomas Aquinas, the greatly venerated 13th century Doctor of the Church. The thoughts of Aquinas are carried down to this day within Catholic theology and philosophy.

We probably all know by now that the Catholic teaching is that every sexual act, which is allowed only for married persons, should be done with procreation in mind. A recent survey put out to the bishops by the Vatican concerning the deterioration of the traditional family refers to this Natural Law. The questions of the survey are listed in the bottom half a post in Vatican News and Natural Law is mentioned in Question 2 where the bishops are asked if Natural Law is still accepted (2019 Update: this link is no longer accessible). Paul VI, in Humanae Vitae, (Sec. 16) expressed a very limited exception of consideration for the burdens of giving birth continually, but they were only to be interrupted by natural means. These developed into what is known now as Natural Family Planning (NFP). NFP makes use of biological factors to prevent pregnancy and probably works if there is absolutely no human weakness between partners. In my experience of encountering couples who teach it, I’ve found they have had between 6 to 12 children.

Many women active in their field, say medical doctors, do not have time to properly care for 6 to 12 children unless they have superwoman levels of energy (some do but many do not). The Church does not seem to think that God would personally call a married woman to be a doctor instead of a mother. Perhaps this is because of St. Thomas Aquinas.  In Part I, Question 92, Article 1 of Summa Theologica seen at the New Advent website HERE, Thomas gave his opinion of women’s roles.  (His Summa is set up by first posing questions made by others and then he answers them below). The question, bad enough, was whether women should have been made in the production of things. His answer:

It was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a ‘helper’ to man; not, indeed as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation.  

By generation he means reproduction.  He goes on to describe sex between man and woman, then says:

But man is yet further ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation.

In other words, Aquinas said women can’t think. But unlike Thomas I assert that all women are intelligent and should be treated as such. Perhaps the existence of female Nobel Prize winners will assure that women have intellect. I am not saying that intelligent married women shouldn’t be mothers.  I am not saying all married career women are in their careers because they believe God called them there.  I am saying that when intelligent married women discern they are called by God to serve Him in specific ways other than motherhood, no one should tell them they must be mothers instead. 

Now what does the Church’s gender problem have to do with Creationism? Let’s go back to Thomas Aquinas. It is a curious thing that his teachings are ignored when so-called experts have other agendas. His name is used to press the idea that science will one day have no gaps, since God supposedly created an ordered world that man will thoroughly understand. This order in the world has taken, as a prominent example, the form of totally materialistic, naturalistic evolution. Evidence of this mindset is found from the exclusion of creationists and intelligent design advocates from a Vatican-endorsed conference concerning evolution.

Though the conference was back in 2009, the Thomists keep the worldview running. Consider a statement from Mark Shea at the National Catholic Register.  I link to a pertinent column HERE and will not quote the whole thing.  But very succinctly, he talks about why Thomists don’t agree with the Argument from Design.  He says there are several problems with this approach: 

The first is this: St. Thomas himself never says “We can’t explain X, so God did it”…

In fact, Aquinas addresses in Article 4 the creation of man and woman in the very same question at the very same link I gave before. Thomas Aquinas says:

Now the matter whence man is naturally begotten is the human semen of man or woman.  Wherefore from any other matter an individual of the human species cannot naturally be generated.  Now God alone, the Author of nature, can produce an effect into existence outside the ordinary course of nature.  Therefore God alone could produce either a man from the slime of the earth, or a woman from the rib of man.

In the next statement, Reply to Objection 1, Aquinas says:

This argument is verified when an individual is begotten, by natural generation, from that which is like it in the same species.

The points here are many, but for now I will emphasize this one:  if the bishops are nervous about whether women can discern wisely, they would be better off teaching discernment than dictating to half a billion people exactly what they should do. How do they know each heart better than God does? The answer is, they don't. When the Church leadership trusts women to discern God's personal calling instead of assuming Thomas Aquinas' opinion of women, a New Evangelization may truly start to take hold.

Bilingual DNA

The University of Washington's Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos has been a leader in the ENCODE Research, which is an extension of the Human Genome Project.  They continue to study human genes and DNA, the molecule on which the genes reside. The DNA contains coding and is copied in order that the proteins that do the work of our cells are produced.  But it takes a lot of inner cell regulation to get things just right.  Now that they know the genes, the researchers are trying to understand the regulation.  They are making surprising discoveries, reported by Stephanie Seiler, "Sceintists discover double meaning in genetic code," UW News, Dec. 12, 2013: 

Scientists have discovered a second code hiding within DNA. This second code contains information that changes how scientists read the instructions contained in DNA and interpret mutations to make sense of health and disease.

She goes on to say:

Since the genetic code was deciphered in the 1960s, scientists have assumed that it was used exclusively to write information about proteins. UW scientists were stunned to discover that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden for so long.

The paper is Stergachis et al., "Exonic transcription factor binding directs codon choice and affects protein evolution," Science 342, 6164 (Dec. 13, 2013): 1367-1372.  It is open access now at NCBI PMC, but it is written for those who understand the jargon. I will try to explain it to some degree and Casey Luskin at Evolution News explains aspects of it which you can read HERE.

DNA contains 4 different types of “bases” which are molecules that form a code (see first image, Double Helix, from NHGRI Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms). Two bases form each "step" of the DNA "ladder." Then groups of three bases, called “codons,” line up in precise order to give instruction to other mechanisms for the production of proteins.  We think of the codons as a language because their sequence affects the outcome beyond strictly chemical interactions.

The bases have an “end” for connecting to the side of the ladder and an “end” for producing the code. When DNA is copied, the middle splits open the long way and another molecule comes along to copy it.  This is done in the middle of the cell called the “nucleus.” Then the copy leaves the nucleus and is processed in the outer cell compartment to make the proteins. The protein production takes several intermediate steps, and the codon code is read to put together the protein.

DNA codes for proteins that carry on the functions of biological life.  Among these proteins are “transcription factors” (TF) that regulate gene production by binding to other parts of the DNA. The second picture is of gene regulation and the abstract for its article is Wasserman and Sandelin, "Applied bioinformatics for the identification of regulatory elements," Nature Reviews Genetics, 5 (April 1, 2004): 276-287. You can see there are several elements involved in the regulation, both close and far from the gene (the black line is the DNA). There is often a feed-back system so that when the gene product is available, the chemical interactions lead to repression of further copying of the gene.  When the product decreases, the gene once again is activated. When the mechanism was first discovered, it seemed the transcription factors attached to DNA close to but a little bit apart from the actual gene.  It has been known for a few years that they can attach both to gene and non-gene areas and both near and far from the gene. But now the scientists have discovered an even more surprising situation.

The amazing part that was just announced is that the regulatory protein uses the same type of 3-base-per-codon language used in protein production. So, a protein can come back into the nucleus and combine with the DNA for a regulatory role using a set of 3 codon “letters” for a different function.

Though much more research is needed, it will likely be necessary to understand the interplay of these molecules in order to cure certain diseases.  Over 85% of genes are already shown to have these regulatory codons, and the study has not covered all types of cells.

This discovery is BIG. The research shows that DNA has even more complexity than we imagined, and it greatly limits the possibility that all the functions of DNA simply came about from random molecular mutations. Because of the different language, current evaluations of natural selection are even less convincing than they were before. It shows the regulatory job of DNA is at least as precise as the production of proteins.  As researchers discover more activities for the genes, they find there are fewer changes the sequences can make without wrecking the whole system. That means even less chance for totally materialistic evolution.

Courage for the Gaps

In my previous two posts I talked about some of the ways we look at nature, whether it seems simple or complex, and how we can consider everything Created by God.  In “Salt and Earth” I discussed how simple things are well designed.  In “GAPS” I showed how low probability, complex things should be considered designed.  In other words, we believe design instead of proving it.

But there is still knowledge to be gained by realizing that the complexity of biology is not answered by the physical laws as we know them right now.  For example, random chemical reactions do not explain the genetic codes within our DNA.  That can alert us to God’s intervention and perhaps help others to notice it too.

People worry that believers foil scientific inquiry.  But Christians recognize an atom as an atom and understand electromagnetic radiation as well as unbelievers.  In fact, it was a brilliant Christian, James Clerk Maxwell, who wrote the equations to explain electromagnetism in the first place.  There is nothing to keep Christians from researching diseases and genetics except the appropriate ethical considerations.

What Christians shouldn’t accept are vague stories of molecular evolution not backed by facts.  It’s just as logical to think the totally materialistic evolution story won’t ever sufficiently explain biological complexity as to think it will.

That’s because the complexity of biological life goes against the physical laws such as thermodynamics.  Though some would claim the order in living cells comes from the sun’s energy, it does not come directly from that any more than cars are directly made by electric current through wires.  A lot has to happen in between.

Some are afraid that if we say “God directly made the cell” someone will come along and prove that a natural force suffices. There may be those who are afraid they will be mocked as ignorant, but I think many are concerned about letting God down if we are wrong. I don’t think He will be displeased if we indeed believe He intervened supernaturally within His Creation to create life.  He knows we hold to faith as well as reason, and this conclusion works for both.

I pray all of you may have a blessed Christmas and very happy New Year. If you have time, please hear and contemplate this Christmas song, Manger Throne, by Third Day with Derri Daugherty and Julie Miller.

GAPS

Last year I wrote a post about a hypothesis of mine.  I went back and re-wrote the post about 4 or 5 times and still wasn’t satisfied.  So I will start over and try to explain it here in better form. 

The name of my hypothesis:  Gain Application Probability Supposition (GAPS).

If you have a fair coin and toss it, you have an equal chance for it to land heads or tails.  If you are in a situation where you toss a coin for a type of prize, such as for choice of starting position at the beginning of a football game, the result comes with a certain gain or loss.  When you win and associate the outcome with gain, you have Gain Application Probability (GAP).

If you are going to toss a coin one time and I tell you I will give you a prize, say $100, if you get heads, you will perceive the difference in the outcome even though heads and tails are of equal chance. (This example isn’t gambling because you don't lose your own money if you don’t win the prize.)

If I give you a prize for one toss of a dice if it comes out as a 5 and no other number, you will feel a difference if the 5 comes up.  But before you tossed, you only had one chance in six to get that prize, whereas with the coin it was one in two.

If I say I will give you $100 if you draw an Ace of Diamonds off the top of a regular, fairly shuffled deck of cards, you know that your chances of the prize are getting smaller (1 in 52) from the coin and dice tosses.  Which situation would you choose to take the chance for the prize?

Some regard the probabilities in dealt card hands no different if you have a good hand or bad.  But if you have cards that can win in a game (if played well), you may win a pot of money.  So I would call the good hand a gain.

Then there are situations based on probability where you lose. If your football team loses the toss, you have a Loss Application Probability, or LAP.  And there are many probability outcomes that don’t affect us much one way or the other, such when we toss coins just to see what comes up.  I call these Neutral Application Probabilities (NAP).

And, I suppose, zero times GAP is ZAP.

Now say I offered to let you choose between two possibilities.  I will give you a prize of $1,000 if you pick the Ace of Diamonds off the top of a fairly shuffled deck of cards or $100 if you get heads from a fairly tossed coin.  You might think about that for a while. With the cards the prize is bigger, but the chance of winning is smaller. According to my theory, the GAP increases when the gain of an event is larger and the probability is smaller.

Scientists have discovered that the proportion of biologically functional proteins is extremely tiny, as reported by Douglas Axe, "The case against a Darwinian origin of protein folds," BIO-Complexity (2010).  Proteins are the molecules (made of atoms) which do the work in all living cells, from single-celled bacteria to trillions-celled humans.  Proteins consist of smaller molecules called “amino acids” which as sub-units attach to each other to make long strings.  The twenty different kinds of biological amino acids have to line up in close to exact sequence so they can form into folds.  They have cross-connections that hold the protein together and the resulting shape and position of charges can perform specialized activities.  There is little leeway in the combinations.  Think if you had a list of business deliveries with addresses and phone numbers.  How many random changes to that list would make it impossible to complete all the deliveries in the required time?

The average protein consists of about 300 amino acids, but often has many more. There can be over 1000 in one specific protein.  In evolution theory (neo-Darwinism), random mutations of the DNA molecule during reproduction are supposed to provide the changes in proteins, since it is from DNA code that they are made.  Even natural selection (survival of the fittest), which is the other part of neo-Darwinism, depends on these DNA changes to provide the improved proteins so the organism has something to give it an advantage for reproduction and thereby be selected for the next generation.  Therefore we can say that totally materialistic evolution is theorized to happen entirely by chance.  The probability for proteins in general is estimated by Axe to be 1 in 10^77, which is a 1 with 77 zeroes after it (10 to the power of 77).  Compare this to the number of atoms in our galaxy: 10^65.  Though this probability is so minuscule, the gain for us is great.  Without functional proteins, we would not have life at all.  And humans have thousands and thousands of proteins. 

In my experience, people have trouble comprehending really big or small numbers.  My husband worked out a probability problem for me a while ago.  He used an example with one million monkeys with one million typewriters with the target sentence: “It was a dark and stormy night.”  They would be typing continuously (24/7/365), 60 words per minute, with 5 letters per word.  The probability for each unit was 1 in 28 (26 letters, a space and a period).  He didn’t worry about a capital for the first letter.  How much time do you think the monkeys would need to type out that exact sentence by chance?  On average, it takes them about 7 thousand trillion trillion trillion years.

A trillion (10^12) is a thousand times a billion (10^9) and the number above is trillions of times more than a trillion.  Yet we have been told by experts that 3 billion years are long enough to form humans by random movement of molecules, starting with small organisms which changed in kind through reproduction.  Though our Earth contains a great number of atoms to work with, there are still limits.  It would take a very long time indeed for random combinations to form the specialized molecules necessary for life and the ever-increasing complexity of evolution. 

By now you may have realized that my hypothesis “GAPS” is a play on the common criticism concerning Creationists.  Many say Christians don’t really want to think about science, but resort to “God of the Gaps.”  In other words, if Creationists can’t figure something out we say, “God did it.”  It is true that we believe God made life.  Then when we learn the emerging facts about biology, our reason combines with our faith.  We use judgment to conclude that the presence and diversity of living beings is not by chance but by God’s direct formation in some way. 

In our culture, many people think science either does or will explain everything. Critics often insist that if we say God made Creation then we must give exact details of how He did it, preferably in a scientific formula. But they are putting the demands in their own terms.  The supernatural realm is different from this one, and God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than we can imagine above our thoughts (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9 NABRE).

As for the GAP of biological life, it is immeasurable because the gain is priceless.

Salt and Earth

From the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has urged us to give up materialistic ways and go out into the streets to the poor, both to evangelize and help them.  In his way of living and in many of his sayings, he promotes simplicity.

The Pope has also approved Vatican websites and tweets on Twitter.  He therefore assumes that those who are following his daily routine and pronouncements come equipped with computers and smart phones.

This is not to criticize, since I think it is wonderful he communicates with his flock.  But there is a little bit of irony here.  With daily scientific advances, the world is becoming more complicated.  It’s fairly widely believed that the best way to help people out of poverty is education.  Though one might live in a smaller house and drive an older car, to be educated is to live with complexity.

In the Intelligent Design (ID) movement, advocates are trying to determine how to detect design in biology.  One of their basic concepts is to equate design with complexity.  They take the example of computer programming and state that the only way this programming has come about is by intelligence.  They go on to theorize that the resemblance of DNA to programming points to the conclusion that DNA was designed by intelligence.

In order to prove their point, they use computer programming examples.  They compare simple strings of repetitive letters or numbers, such as 1010101010, with simpler computer instructions to create them (repeat “10” 5 times), as opposed to a long line of random-looking letters, such as YXOL248JMN (print “YXOL248JMN”).  They go on to say that the complexity is not enough to prove design—it must also be specified, which fits patterns or is predicted ahead of time.  But part of this specified complexity is complexity itself, so the concept is worth examining.

There are lots of critics to ID and I don’t want to get into all the in’s and out’s of this argument.  But I’d like to use an example of simple repetitive units as something they might therefore regard as un-designed: that is salt.

Solid salt, called NaCl for sodium chloride, is a repeat of sodium and chlorine atoms in a 3-D lattice.  Therefore salt seems made of simple repetitive units that on the whole can be considered un-designed.  But these units are necessary for life. Without the sodium and chloride ions, there could be no cell function.  Among other things, these electrically charged ions are pumped in and out constantly with other nutrients (digestion), they keep the cell from popping or collapsing (osmosis), they help the nerves to fire (membrane electrical potentials).  Does salt become complex because it is involved in biology?

Salt is easily dissolved, it is easily distributed when solid and makes food taste good.  Most of us are able to get what we need through our food and the shaker on our kitchen table.  I think it is marvelously designed.

To use computer programming to compare simplicity and complexity is a little strained.  The presence of repeating numbers or letters on a screen still takes a computer, a programmer and syntax.  Finding patterns in the repeating symbols might even take more time and effort than to type the random string.  Whether the specific command is a little shorter or longer is almost mute.

This is another reason why faith undergirds knowledge.  We can have visions of proof of biology, but what about minerals and planets?  If we didn’t have these, we wouldn’t have life either.  All of it is designed, and all of it is unimaginably, for us, complex.

Christ said to us, “You are the salt of the Earth. But if salt loses its flavor, with what can it be seasoned?” (Matthew 5:13 NABRE).  If we forget God in the midst of our theories, we lose the main truth.  This is both simple and complex, perhaps a paradox.  The uneducated can believe in God and know where things came from as well as those who are considered our most erudite.

Later, St. Paul also used salt in an analogy: “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you should respond to each one.” (Colossians 4:5-6 NABRE). 

Salt is marvelous, simple yet complex.  It makes you think, doesn’t it?

No Matter What They Say

There have to be people out there who are beginning to realize that biological life is too complex to have come about by random physics and chemistry, no matter what evolutionists say. Many critics of the Intelligent Design Movement (ID) insist the ID advocates are Creationists who are trying to hide their real identity.  The IDists say they are simply scientists who are evaluating the telltale signs of design in biology.  The critics ask who the designer is and the IDists say the Designer has intelligence but “could be anyone” or “could be anything.” They give a characteristic of their theoretical designer, but not an identity.

But I’m happy to answer Who the Designer is.

I believe that God made Creation and He has revealed Himself through the Bible.  He has also made Himself known through nature itself.  There are Scripture verses often quoted by those who link science with religion.  One of them goes: "Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made..." (Romans 1:20 NABRE).

Design does not have to be proven in the scientific way in order for people to see and appreciate it. The far more puzzling question is why people aren’t seeing it. How can they even pretend these biological systems are not designed?

Perhaps it is because they are told they are not designed. But more and more information is coming out that contradicts what evolutionists and most scientists are saying.  At some point we have to judge for ourselves, just as a jury has to evaluate whether someone is being truthful or lying about a certain event. Juries evaluate motives, and we are called upon in the case of evolution theory to analyze agendas.  Though many deny it, biological evolution is tied to questions of value of life. 

Besides being Creator, God interacts with people personally. But you may have no idea how to connect with Him.  I’d like you to be aware of these 5 ways to develop spirituality.  Start with any and try to work up to all of them.

1. Worship, preferably within a Christian Church.
2. Read the Bible, starting with the New Testament (Book of Matthew, and be sure to read the Book of John).
3. Pray, even if you don’t know what you are doing.  God does and will hear you. 
4. Make quiet time for yourself at regular intervals. 
5. Speak to members of the Christian community, including the pastor, about your thoughts and questions.  If you are not comfortable in the first conversation, please try again.

Maintain this effort even if you don’t detect any change at first. Persistence pays. If you have resisted belief in God, it may be difficult.  But I hope as you read the Bible and do the other spiritual exercises you will sense a difference in your thoughts and your life.

I believe God exists and that biological life and the world around us are evidence of such.  It can be most fulfilling to learn more, in different ways, of both the Creation and the Creator.

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My husband had surgeries in August and the beginning of Sept. to help in his fight against the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.  By God's grace, he is recovering well from the surgery. 

I want to thank our church family at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Muskegon for their emotional and spiritual support and the wonderful staff at Mercy Health St. Mary’s and Hauenstein Neurosciences in Grand Rapids.  You are all very, very special.  Often people are asked why Catholics stay in the Church with all the bad going on in it.  Of course we believe in Jesus Christ and His real presence in the Eucharist. Beyond that there are good works Catholics say they would not want to abandon.  You are all proof of the good.