ELCA EmblemThe Lutheran is the magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.


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October 2006 issue
Cover story
Story by
Allen R. Utke
'ID remains a legitimate gray area between random evolution and God'

Editor's note: This article is a response to Mark Hollabaugh's article.

In 1859, Charles Darwin advanced the provocative idea that all life on Earth evolves. Since its inception, that theory has usually been interpreted atheistically, with biological evolution viewed as simply being a natural, random process in a purposeless, random universe. And thus, in the West, a complex, polarized controversy erupted early on, between atheistic evolutionists and conservative biblical creationists who believe in a divine, purposive, unchanging creation.

Both sides in the controversy have long, loudly and often arrogantly proclaimed that one must choose, in a black-and-white way, not only between evolution or God but also reason or faith and science or religion. The ensuing din has largely drowned out the voices of less numerous, and less visible, theistic evolutionists, who maintain there is actually a gray area in the controversy that has gone largely unexplored and unexpressed.

In the last decade or so, a small but vocal group of scientists and scholars has claimed that biological evolution is far too complex to have occurred without at least some directive input in the form of theistic “intelligent design.”

However, the ID concept has polarized and inflamed the evolution controversy even further. Some creationists have used ID as a wedge to attack the validity and teaching of the theory of evolution. And, in turn, most evolutionists have countered that ID is actually unscientific, thinly veiled creationism.

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