Does Intelligent Design contradict The Bible?

Answer 1

Scientists were struggling to find a way to describe the events they were seeing inside of cells, which Darwinian Evolution could not because it didn't know about it. So in the 1980s, a biochemist named Charles Thaxton, coined the term "intelligent design" to explain the need for intelligence behind the elaborate information found inside DNA. "Just when it seemed that natural causes might suffice to account for all natural phenomenon," he notes, "there were breakthrough discoveries in both mathematics and Biology" ("A New Design Argument," Cosmic Pursuit, March 1,1998). Hence, scientists began to challenge the theory of evolution within their own field of biology rather than from a religious point of view.

That being established, the answer is 'not necessarily.' The scientific revolution occurring before our very eyes is poking holes in the idea of Evolution and siding more and more with Intelligent Design - bringing many into the religious theater. The USA is one of the most Christian countries by population and a recent 2005 poll found a majority think it a good idea to allow Intelligent Design into the classroom. Another poll of medical doctors found 65% of these believed that Intelligent Design should be allowed in schools along with evolution. Many school boards are now insisting upon its inclusion.

So it would seem to me that although Intelligent Design is not concerned with biblical teachings per se, it appears to be attempting to take the lead over Evolution as the 'design' model for all to know. If it will ever join with the biblical teachings is far too early to tell at this time - though changing God to 'Master Designer' may help escalate this notion.

Answer 2

Intelligent Design is a pseudo-scientific proposition that seeks to affirm that God created the universe. Many Intelligent Design proponents accept the reality of the great age of the earth and usually the process of evolution, but say that God guided nature in these processes. Others attempt to read the creation stories in The Bible literally, but look for ways to redefine the seven days, or otherwise harmonise the Bible with out modern understanding of the natural world.

Whether or not God guided evolution over a period of billions of years, this proposition contradicts the Bible, which is clear in stating that God created everything just as it is now, without change. Attempts to redefine the seven days do still contradict the Bible, as do most young-earth attempts to make modern sense of the stories. More importantly, they contradict scientific knowledge.

Perhaps the early Church Father, Origen should have the last say (On First Principles, 3.1.1):
"Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? And that the first day if we may so call it, was even without a heaven? And who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, 'planted a paradise eastward in Eden', and set in it a visible and palpable 'tree of life', of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life: and again that one could partake of 'good and evil' by masticating the fruit taken from the tree of that name? And when God is said to 'walk in the paradise in the cool of the day' and Adam to hide himself behind a tree, I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events."

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