B.H. Carroll’s Pastoral Theology
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 58, No. 2 – Spring 2016
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
Being as Communion is a work of speculative philosophy that focuses on ontology. Dembski endeavors to articulate a metaphysical vision that contrasts directly with materialistic metaphysics, which he deems as unsatisfactory due to its atomistic, reductive, and mechanic nature. Dembski states that being is to be understood as the exchange of information.
At the outset, Dembski asserts that materialism implies cosmic determination and destroys any chance for human freedom. Since free will is the power to make a decision that rules out a possibility, it is, in other words, the ability to say no. Dembski argues information itself is what is necessary to eliminate a possibility. The elimination of possibilities is what allows the actual world to be known from among all possible worlds. Human beings naturally look at various possibilities and ascertain meaning of the actual world based upon the relationship of possibilities to each another.
Dembski states that it is possible for information to be produced by (a) design or (b) nature, and these two possibilities are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Dembski believes that material is an abstraction drawn from information. Matter lacking information is an incoherent concept as the information provides the pattern from which to empirically observe and characterize matter. No doubt a materialist will refuse to acknowledge that matter, as presently understood, is a myth. Information is always embodied and may be subject to being transposed as happened to Jesus’ body after His resurrection. Einstein developed the formula E=mc2, relating energy to matter. Since information is primary to matter and matter can be converted to energy, energy likewise logically follows information. The world exhibits contingency as seen from empirical observations (science) that deny certain possibilities. Determinism is required to conceive of chance as ignorance; however, chance is best understood as something that derives from intelligence (information). Information may be conserved, but may never grow without an intelligent input. Thus, natural selection cannot create information; it can only redistribute it. Dembski argues that the most logical way information is placed into nature is by intelligence, which he argues is the Christian God of the Bible. He calls this metaphysical understanding of the world informational realism, whereby information is exchanged through freedom expressed via (a) necessity, (b) chance, and (c) design within constraint.
Dembski’s proposal makes information, not material, the proper object of metaphysical study. Since the Enlightenment, the world has steadily moved toward a position defending the ontology of materialism. Materialism fails to give valid credence to the possibility of a transcendent God who created and ordered the universe and is concerned with the affairs of men. The thesis put forth by Dembski seeks to challenge the prevailing understanding and argue that it is reasonable to consider something else as fundamentally basic in the universe. If Dembski is correct, his thesis would allow for and build support for the Christian God of the Bible as the ultimate source of information and intelligence.
Based upon Scripture, for Dembski, Christian theism maintains that nature contains teleological laws that are woven into it by its Creator and Sustainer (Gen 1:1; Ps 19:1–6; 146:6; Isa 42:5; Acts 14:17; 17:24–29; Col 1:15–20). God’s handiwork of creation both manifests His glory and “speaks” demonstrating “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, [which] have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20). This reality places all mankind before a just and Holy God without excuse regarding their sin.
Dembski’s idea was stimulated by previous philosophers, including John A. Wheeler and Paul C. W. Davies. Dembski is successful in completing his trilogy (The Design Inference [Cambridge University Press, 1998], No Free Lunch [Rowman & Littlefield, 2002]) and providing an articulation of the conceivability of metaphysics of information as the fundamental structure of reality, and that this information exists in relationships with respect to other information.
This work is appropriate for philosophers and theologians interested in metaphysics. Secondarily, it would be beneficial for people that are interested in the arguments for intelligent design in contrast to evolutionary materialism.
Christian philosophers should ensure that they are articulating a Christian worldview that allows for realism and discounts materialism as the fundamental reality of the cosmos. Dembski provides a speculative philosophy that pushes against this materialism and provides a thoughtful way for Christian philosophers to continue the dialog that leaves open a cosmos that God created.
