The Intelligent Designer Movement

by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D. *

At a conference last year, a Christian schoolteacher asked an ICR speaker if he was part of the Intelligent Design Movement. "No," he stated. "I belong to the Intelligent Designer Movement."

The teacher asked, "What's the difference?"

"Jesus!" the ICR speaker replied. "We know who the Intelligent Designer is, and we know about Him through His book."

Of course, anyone with an open Bible knows who the Intelligent Designer is, because the Bible states clearly that it was God the Son who created everything: "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" (John 1:10).

Obviously the "He" whom John writes about is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnate, Jesus. He is rightly acknowledged by Christians as the Savior who resolved the sin crisis for all who rightly believe in Him. However, if He hadn't created each of us in the first place, we would have no life at all, in time or in eternity. So Christ solved our initial greatest need: to be created in the first place!

The person of Jesus Christ is the pivotal difference between the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM) and biblical creationism. IDM analyzes and describes the natural creation in a way that implies credit to an anonymous "someone." But a biblical creationist is quick to actually identify nature's Designer as the God of the Bible. When He came to earth as a baby, His own creation, for the most part, refused to welcome Him--there was no room for Him in the inn.

Today, although some individual adherents acknowledge Him, there is little room for Jesus in the Intelligent Design Movement as a whole, and there is certainly no room for His absolutely true and inspired book, the Holy Bible. Yet that same Bible is mankind's only absolutely authoritative source of information about God, about ourselves, about creation, Adam and Eve, the promise of redemption, the Flood, God's laws for living, heaven, and hell.

What difference does all this make to doing scientific research and providing scientific education? If our scientific study of creation (or our teaching about that creation) only focuses on creation's "intelligent design," without identifying who designed it, we are guilty of appreciating and glorifying the creation itself more than the Creator, which Paul rightly faults in Romans 1:25. Surely it is wrong to fail to give credit where credit is due.

Over the centuries, many have been quick to fault the Jews for failing to recognize and acclaim Christ as their Messiah, whom God promised repeatedly throughout the ages before Christ. But consider what the apostle John wrote about the welcome Jesus did not receive: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John 1:11).

Obviously John's indictment applies to the Jews of the first century AD, yet John's indictment also generally applies to the theistic (and non-theistic) evolutionists of today, because an intellectual failure to own up to Christ the Lord as our personal Creator is also a moral failure to accept and endorse Him for who He really is. This is not just an "academic issue," it is a truth issue that involves moral rightness (or moral failure).

If we truly believe that Christ is the Creator (the "Intelligent Designer") that the Holy Bible says He is, what excuse is there for not proudly proclaiming His creatorship to others? Are we ashamed to profess Him before men? Are we less confident of Genesis' accuracy than Jesus was?¹ Are we ingrates, unwilling to publicly own Him as our Maker? Or are we like the few who heartily received Him for who He really was and is--Christ the Intelligent Designer and Redeemer, who came to earth so that those who believe in Him can have life eternal.²

References

1. For example, see Matthew 19:4-6, where Jesus relies on Genesis 1:27 and 2:24.
2. John 1:12; John 3:16.

* Dr. Johnson is Special Counsel at the Institute for Creation Research.

Cite this article: Johnson, J. J. S. 2010. The Intelligent Designer Movement. Acts & Facts. 39 (2): 19.