Chance or Dance: An Evaluation of Design

1. THE APPEARANCE OF DESIGN

Harry Lee Poe

DURING THE LAST DECADE of the twentieth century, scientists and theologians began to use the word design when speaking of the universe. People had used this word or at least this idea to speak of the universe for thousands of years in different parts of the world. Most scientists and theologians in the West, however, had discarded the idea of the design of the universe more than one hundred years earlier. Why, after all this time, has the idea of the design of the universe and everything in it once again come into the conversation of scientists and theologians?

The idea of design provides a way of coming to the idea of God from the back door. The idea of design suggests the existence of a designer. If the universe was actually designed, how did it come to be designed? More importantly for personal beings like people, if the universe was actually designed, who designed it?

It does not take a philosopher, scientist, or theologian to discuss the idea of design. People around the world do it every day. In fact, even when the academic community of scientists and theologians had discarded the idea of design, the overwhelming number of lay people in the West clung to it. The great philosophers of the last twenty-five hundred years, going back to Plato and Aristotle, developed elaborate logical arguments to prove the existence of God by appealing to the idea of design. The average person, however, discusses the same idea without the need for such a carefully thought-out argument.

Plato often used dialogues to present his philosophical arguments. He set the philosophical conversation in the context of a conversation between two people so that he could present both sides of a question and systematically answer the objections to his argument. When most people first encounter the design idea, they hear it in the form of a dialogue. I do not recall how old I was when I first heard the idea of design explained to me, but I clearly recall the terms of the explanation.

Momma, I asked. Where did the sky come from?

God made the sky, my mother replied.

Momma, I continued. Where did the sun come from?

God made the sun, my mother replied.

Momma, I persisted. Where did the trees come from?

God made the trees, my mother patiently answered. God made everything.

In its simplest and most common form, the idea of design is not an argument to prove the existence of God—it is an explanation of who God is. It assumes the existence of God and proceeds to explain how God relates to everything else. But people talk about the idea in more sophisticated terms in the everyday as well.

Before taking the path that would eventually lead me to write books that deal with theological themes, I had intended to pursue a career in law. In the early 1970s I served for a year as law clerk to Fletcher Mann, a brilliant trial lawyer in South Carolina. He was involved in what was then the largest antitrust suit ever tried in the United States. It involved a large number of textile mills primarily in the South and in Europe. In the midst of the suit, which dragged on for years with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, Mr. Mann turned to me and mused:

I remember the most peaceful, serene day I ever spent. It was an early fall day and I was with your parents at your grandmother’s mountain house. I was stretched out in that big Pawley Island rope hammock they had on the front porch. The sound of the river rushing over the rocks around three sides of the house was like music. From there I could look straight up the Jones Gap with those mountains in full color on both sides. The temperature was just perfect and the air smelled so sweet and fresh. I remember thinking, on a day like this, how can anyone doubt the existence of a great and good Supreme Being?

The discussion suggests that it is easy to believe in a great, good creator when everything looks beautiful. The discussion seems almost glib, because it ignores those days when the storms rage and everything lies in darkness. What happens to the discussion on those days? The problem of evil, pain, and suffering inevitably raises its head when scientists, theologians, and philosophers discuss the question of design. Notice the context in which Mr. Mann raised the question of design. Everything was not beautiful and sweet smelling. He was living out of a suitcase in Rock Hill, South Carolina, eating a steady diet of motel food, enduring an endless contest of wits with a stable full of high-priced lawyers from New York. The litigation had gone on for years and would go on for years more. It was in the midst of the strife and the darkness that he remembered an experience that became as real as in the moment it occurred.

Since the last paragraph was published in the first edition of this book, Mr. Mann has died. Before he died, however, he took great pleasure in giving copies of this book to his friends. He won the court case, but by the time the book was written, twenty-five years had passed. Both of Fletcher Mann’s legs had been amputated and he was waiting to die. Loss of limbs and the impending loss of his life had not diminished in the slightest his sense of awe in the face of the handiwork of God.

Mr. Mann did not raise the question of design to prove the existence of God to me. At that point, the question of design did not involve the theoretical idea of what kind of God exists. Instead, he was reliving the experience of having met the Designer on a balmy fall day in the mountains. It did not matter what might happen on any other day. The Designer penetrated his soul and gave him a peace that he could draw on for the rest of his life. He had experienced the personal implications of the existence of a Designer who relates personally to what he has designed. To that extent, what he had to say was not intended to persuade me or change me. On the other hand, on a lousy fall day in Rock Hill, it did persuade him and change him. The idea of design sometimes has a purely personal quality to it.

When scientists, philosophers, and theologians speak of design, they usually think in terms of a formal proof for the existence of God. They may digress and discuss the possibility of ever proving anything before settling on the idea that they mean the demonstration of a preponderance of evidence that would demonstrate the strongest possible probability that something may be so. The first time I ever heard such a formal proof for the existence of God, it did not come from a Christian theologian, philosopher, or scientist. In fact, it did not come from a Christian at all.

I first heard the design argument for the existence of God from Swami Chinmayananda. He had formerly had a successful law practice in India before his experience of enlightenment during a mountain retreat. The year was 1972; the place, the campus of the University of South Carolina. I chaired the Lectures Series Committee of the University Union, and my committee had agreed to help the Indian students by providing travel expenses to allow the Hindu teacher to visit Carolina and give a lecture. As chair of the committee, I was invited to eat with Swami Chinmayananda and the Indian students. He was a charming and engaging man who spoke with me for several hours. He agreed to give one public lecture for the student body but devoted the rest of his time to the students from