Intelligent Design?

I loathe the term "intelligent design." In all reality it has got to be one of the poorest ways to describe creation that anyone could utter. Not to mention it's a term that singlehandedly belittles the Creator to the point of trying to attach to him our limited understanding of things around us.

Think about it. Calling God "intelligent" is the equivalent of calling the Grand Canyon a pothole. It's a description that completely underestimates actual reality. God is so much more than what any human notion could possibly even begin to describe. If you really want to know the complexity involved in trying to describe what God is, or what God resembles, read Ezekiel chapters 1 & 2. It is extraordinary to even think that God would have a mere mortal man attempt such a description in the first place and yet Ezekiel seems to pull it off quite well. I fully expect God to be just as Ezekiel attempted to explain Him...sort of, I think!

In the book of Isaiah God tells us in no uncertain terms "For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8-9. I don't look at this statement from God as being aloof or arrogant as much as I see Him putting truth, understanding, knowledge and wisdom in proper perspective. That is to say His perspective compared to our perspective. I mean really, can anyone imagine, in their finite minds, what it must be like to frame the heavens, to create the forces that would hold the universe together, or create the marvelous workings of the human body? In this light "intelligent" almost seems like an insult.

One of the most comical, and yet serious, passages of the Bible has to be when God finally has it up to here with Job and the Sunshine Boys and lets both barrels loose in what has to be the single best undressing of human logic and thought in the Bible in Job chapters 38, 39 & 40. Yikes! Every time I read this section of Job my mouth is literally on the floor! I try to imagine what it must have been like for Job. "I...I...I...well, I...I...umm, well I...I...er, umm...I..." You get the point.

Yet, even with all of this, God still promises us that when we seek Him with all of our heart, we will find Him. - Deuteronomy 4:13, Jeremiah 29:13. God is so good that He even encourages us to "reason" with Him! - Isaiah 1:18. He will even reveal Himself and His ways to us through His spirit. - 1 Corinthians 2:11-13.

If I can let me leave you with this thought. If God spoke the worlds into existence, how much actual designing took place? Paul puts it this way - that the things we see were not made of things that do appear.

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." - Hebrews 11:3