Dembski, William A., 1999- Intelligent Design

Contents

Foreword by Michael J. Behe

Preface

Part 1. Historical Backdrop

1. Recognizing the Divine Finger
   1. Homer Simpson’s Prayer
   2. Signs in Decision-Making
   3. Ordinary Versus Extraordinary Signs
   4. Moses and Pharaoh
   5. The Philistines and the Ark
   6. The Sign of the Resurrection
   7. In Defense of Premodernity
2. The Critique of Miracles
   1. Miracles as Evidence for Faith
   2. Spinoza’s Rejection of Miracles
   3. Schleiermacher’s Assimilation of Spinoza
   4. Unpacking Schleiermacher’s Naturalistic Critique
   5. Critiquing the Naturalistic Critique
   6. The Significance of the Naturalistic Critique
3. The Demise of British Natural Theology
   1. Pauli’s Sneer
   2. From Contrivance to Natural Law
   3. From Natural Law to Agnosticism
   4. Darwin and His Theory
   5. Design and Miracles
   6. The Presupposition of Positivism

Part 2. A Theory of Design

4. Naturalism & Its Cure
   1. Nature and Creation
   2. The Root of Idolatry
   3. Naturalism Within Western Culture
   4. The Cure: Intelligent Design
   5. Not Theistic Evolution
   6. The Importance of Definitions
   7. A New Generation of Scholars
5. Reinstating Design Within Science
   1. Design’s Departure from Science
   2. Why Reinstate Design?
   3. The Complexity-Specification Criterion
   4. Specification
   5. False Negatives and False Positives
   6. Why the Criterion Works
   7. Irreducible Complexity
   8. So What?
6. Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information
   1. Complex Specified Information
   2. Generating Information via Law
   3. Generating Information via Chance
   4. Generating Information via Law and Chance
   5. The Law of Conservation of Information
   6. Applying the Theory to Evolutionary Biology
   7. Reconceptualizing Evolutionary Biology

Part 3. Bridging Science & Theology

7. Science & Theology in Mutual Support
   1. Two Windows on Reality
   2. Epistemic Support
   3. Rational Compulsion
   4. Explanatory Power
   5. The Big Bang and Divine Creation
   6. Christ as the Completion of Science
8. The Act of Creation
   1. Creation as a Divine Gift
   2. Naturalism’s Challenge to Creation
   3. Computational Reductionism
   4. Our Empirical Selves Versus Our Actual Selves
   5. The Resurgence of Design
   6. The Creation of the World
   7. The Intelligibility of the World
   8. Creativity, Divine and Human

Appendix: Objections to Design

1. The God of the Gaps
2. Intentionality Versus Design
3. Scientific Creationism
4. But Is It Science?
5. Dysteleology
6. Just an Anthropic Coincidence
7. Applying the Math to Biology
8. David Hume’s Objections
9. Mundane Versus Transcendent Designers

Notes

Index