By Timothy Johnson

Ben Stein’s recent movie release, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” is the latest popular expose of the classic conflict between science and religion. It explores the way in which the simple consideration of “intelligent design” – that the design seen in nature may imply something more than just chance development of the world from the beginning – is dismissed out of hand by academics as narrow, anti-intellectual hokum.

The halls of science are dominated by men and women who question anything supernatural that cannot be directly observed under laboratory conditions. Those with a hypothesis that embraces intelligent design buck the tide of conventional wisdom. Darwinian theory has become so much the dogma of the scientific community that anything that counters those presuppositions is immediately suspect.

Of course, the truth remains that neither Darwinian findings on origins nor intelligent design can be proven under laboratory conditions. There is no way to really test either system of thought scientifically. Conclusions can only be approximated and held to based on inconclusive evidence.

The irony is that both Darwinism and intelligent design are faith statements. In both cases people assess evidence available, weigh the pros and cons, judge how compelling the positions are ... and then they decide what they are going to believe and commit themselves to. No matter what position a person takes on this or any other question in life, there is a leap of faith involved. None of us possess complete understanding or even the entire range of data on any subject. In the end, we make judgments based on the information available to us ... acting in faith that we are correct.

Hard-boiled scientists may contend that they are totally objective and do not exercise faith ... it is only the facts. But that attitude is proven faulty in many cases in which further study determines that previously held dogma is no longer tenable. For instance, these days we are encouraged to eat eggs because of their benefits whereas we were seriously warned against them just a few years ago. Recent research has rejected previously limited understanding. Big science would do well to hold its positions a bit more lightly, realizing that today’s accepted line of thought could be replaced by another as evidence and thinking evolves.

Faith, on the other hand, is not some kind of no-mind, ethereal, other-worldly exercise. It fully engages the mind, but also recognizes the reality of that which is beyond immediate observation or measurement. When one closely examines the wonders of nature in the springtime in Minnesota, doesn’t it send a mind to wonder just how all of this can work without a designer behind it all? When I see the trees beginning to bud after the rigors of a cold winter, it makes me wonder. When I see a lawn pulverized by the weight of heavy snow banks rebound into lush greenness, it makes me wonder. When I see the predictable lengthening of the days with greater doses of sunshine and warmth following the same general pattern of last year and the year before that and the year before that, it makes me wonder.

Obviously, the designer cannot be called into a courtroom, a congressional hearing, a laboratory or scientific conference to weigh in on these issues. The way in which the hand of God has been exercised in bringing the creation into existence is a mystery that none of us can describe or define. But as the image of the turtle on a fencepost reminds us, the evidence suggests (and many of us would say, proves) that some intelligence has been at work to make things the way they are.

In any case, there is a just call from people of all persuasions and beliefs for reasonable tolerance on these issues. For academia to disregard the opinions of serious-minded people, even many scientists, who are committed believers in the supernatural is demeaning. People of faith simply are willing to admit more kinds of evidence in making their judgments than those who are anti-supernatural.

Admitting that sane people believe in intelligent design is not a no-mind concession on the part of big science. It is a common-sense recognition that people of good will have a variety of perspectives on these issues and are deserving of respect and not ridicule. In an age that is supposed to be marked by tolerance on all sides it is not an unreasonable expectation.

 The Rev. Timothy A. Johnson shares this space with the Revs. Tim Power and Rod Anderson as well as spiritual writers Dr. Bernard E. Johnson and Lauren Carlson-Vohs. “Spiritually Speaking” appears weekly.