LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 206

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because
they lack specificity.93
The information in DNA is expressed in terms of four nucleotide bases,
adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine (abbreviated A, T, C, G), which
represent a digital code analogous to the binary code of 0 and 1 used in a
computer’s machine language. Scientists discovered that these bases are not
arranged in repeating sequences, but are highly “aperiodic” (non-repeating)
like the sentences in a book. Further, when considering every possible
sequence of these bases, it became clear that most would produce a nonfunctional result, which would not support a viable system.94 Thus in living
systems,
The nucleotide base sequences in the coding regions of DNA are
highly specific relative to the independent functional requirements of protein function, protein synthesis, and cellular life.95
It is generally agreed that there are just four possible types of explanation
for this information: chance, necessity, a combination of chance and necessity, and design. Of these, chance has been roundly rejected because of the
staggering complexity of even the simplest possible living organism:
recent theoretical and experimental work on the so-called minimal complexity required to sustain the simplest possible living
organism suggests a lower bound of some 250 to 400 genes and
their corresponding proteins. The nucleotide sequence-space
corresponding to such a system of proteins exceeds 4,300,000.
The improbability corresponding to this measure of molecular
complexity again vastly exceeds … the “probabilistic resources”
of the entire universe.96
This is not surprising because in our experience chance has a very limited
ability to produce coherent information: we might be fortunate enough to
extract a short word out of the Scrabble bag, but even with a large number of
tries we cannot reasonably expect to produce one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

93

L. E. Orgel, The Origins of Life on Earth (New York: John Wiley, 1973), 189.

94
Pursuing a Darwinian paradigm, many scientists expected the human genome to be full of
non-coding “junk DNA,” non-functional souvenirs of our evolutionary history. However, this
assumption has been discredited by the discovery that the DNA is not “junk” but helps in such
important processes as regulating genes and cell division. See “Identification and analysis of
functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project,” Nature, 447
(14 June 2007), 799–816; “Exploring ‘Junk DNA’ in the Genome,” Science Daily, June 16, 2007,
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070615091210.htm.>; Jonathan Wells, The
Myth of Junk DNA (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2011).
95

Stephen C. Meyer, “DNA and the Origin of Life: Information, Specification, and Explanation,” in eds. John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer, Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2003), 236.
96

Ibid., 243.

Necessity (or “self-organization”) claims that laws alone suffice to
explain life, which would mean that some chemical law dictates the
sequences of nucleotide bases. This also is highly implausible because laws
are capable only of explaining repeating patterns (repeating events like
thermal expansion, or repeating structures like crystals). However, in order
for the sequences of nucleotide bases to serve as assembly instructions for
functional, living systems, it is essential that they are not repetitive. If the
nucleotide bases interacted by chemical necessity, “DNA would contain
sequences awash in repetition or redundancy—much like the arrangement
of atoms in crystals.”97
What about the idea that chance and necessity could be combined to
account for the information in living systems? What this really means is that
natural selection can be applied before life appears (there are chance variations, some of which are favored by the law of natural selection), but natural
selection can only operate on self-replicating, living systems—so this idea
assumes the very thing it has to explain. As Theodosius Dobzhansky said,
“prebiological natural selection is a contradiction in terms.”98
Since these appear to exhaust the naturalistic resources for explaining life,
it becomes reasonable to consider design. Yet the case for design is not simply
negative (natural causes appear to be inadequate), which might seem like a
“God of the gaps” argument from ignorance.99 Rather, it is also a fact of our
experience that various objects which exhibit specified complexity—such as
computers, scientific theories, and novels—are regularly produced by intelligent agents and not by unintelligent causes. If intelligent agents have the
known causal power to produce such artifacts, but unintelligent causes cannot do so, then if we see systems in nature that resemble these artifacts in their
specified complexity, it is reasonable to infer an intelligent cause. Of course, it
takes more argument (particularly philosophical argument) to make the case
that this designer is God.
It is interesting that even some atheist intellectuals find the complex
specified information in every living cell too much for undirected causes to
explain. Antony Flew renounced his lifelong atheism in large part because
“the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”100 Likewise,

97

Ibid., 253.

98
Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Discussion of G. Schramm’s Paper,” in The Origins of Prebiological
Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices, ed. S. W. Fox (New York: Academic Press, 1965), 310 "
99
The “God of the gaps” argument as referenced here and elsewhere in the document refers
to the logical fallacy that a “gap” in human understanding of some aspect of the natural world
can be posited as “proof” for the existence and activity of God.
100
Antony Flew and Gary Habermas, “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: An Exclusive
Interview with Former British Atheist Professor Antony Flew,” 5, available at: http://www.
biola.edu/antonyflew/flew-interview.pdf.

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atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel rejects the reductive materialism of neoDarwinism in part because of the complexity of all life:

typically speak of the image of God in the narrow sense of original righteousness, which was lost in the Fall. This original righteousness was a gift that
enabled our “knowledge of God, fear of God, and confidence in God.” 103 But
on account of the inherited sickness that is original sin, we “not only lack fear
and trust in God, but also do not even have the power or gifts to produce fear
and trust in God.”104 Since this has been lost, the image of God might seem
irrelevant to understanding fallen human beings. However, as Nathan Jastram argues at length, Scripture also speaks of the image of God in a broader
sense (humans are like God in various ways), and shows that in this sense, the
image of God still remains.105 For example, we learn that even after the fall, it
is wrong to slaughter other humans like animals because the former are made
in the image of God (Gen. 9:6).

[T]he coming into existence of the genetic code—an arbitrary
mapping of nucleotide sequences into amino acids, together
with mechanisms that can read the code and carry out its
instructions—seems particularly resistant to being revealed as
probable given physical law alone.101
On the other hand, Antony Flew only became a deist and, so far as we
know, never embraced Christianity. And Nagel still holds out for the idea of
“immanent teleology,” according to which what drives the cosmos toward
living, conscious, rational and moral beings are goal-directed processes fully
within nature. This shows that, without the significant addition of philosophical principles, scientific “design arguments” have a limited ability to make the
case for God. And even with those principles in place, a case for theism does
not disclose who that God is. Without the clarity of revelation, therefore, the
natural man is liable to shape the divine being in his own, idolatrous image.
Yet, by highlighting the role of information in structuring the cosmos and
its inhabitants, design is richly suggestive of a God that governs the universe
through His Word, and who is actively holding all things (cosmological
and biological) together. While this science needs to be supplemented by a
well-conceived theology of nature, it does provide materials congenial to a
worthwhile, and sometimes mutually reinforcing, dialogue between faith
and science.

7. Image of God theology and Christian anthropology
Reductive materialism attempted not only to replace a world charged
with the grandeur of God with a purposeless machine, but also, and in a
similar way, to redefine human beings. No longer are they conceived as
embodied, rational souls made in the image of God. Rather, in the tradition
of Julien Offray de la Mettrie (1709–1751), humans are thought to be no more
than organic machines. Similarly, for Richard Dawkins, a living creature is
simply “a survival machine for genes,” and that includes us: “Next time you
look in the mirror, just think: that is what you are too.”102
Just as the impact of reductive materialism on the cosmos requires a fresh,
Christocentric theology of creation, so its impact on human nature requires a
similar theological response. Perhaps the most valuable resource here is careful articulation of image of God theology. The implications of this doctrine are
sometimes neglected in Lutheran circles, because the Lutheran Confessions

101

Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 10.

102

What difference does it make to think that human beings are specially
made in the image of God and still retain important remnants of that image?
For one thing, it is clear that God provides us with special gifts so that we can
serve as stewards of the rest of the world. This includes the intellectual and
moral gifts required to practice science within God-pleasing boundaries, as
we cannot steward nature effectively if we do not know how it works and
what purpose it serves. If we unpack the various gifts presupposed by our
stewardship obligations, we find an amazing range of competencies that go
far beyond what is required merely to survive.
In order to carry out their obligations, stewards must persist as moral
agents over time and be aware of that fact, so that they can plan and implement solutions to stewardship problems. While many animals are aware
of items in their environment (such as food, predators, and mates), they do
not seem able to conceive of themselves as persisting over time. This surely
explains why they lack the sustained ability to transform the environment
for the sake of long-term goals (farming, construction of permanent housing,
transportation networks, etc.). It is also why none of these creatures appear
to do anything like human science. Scientists must conceive of themselves as
persisting over time. They can develop theoretical and technological solutions
to problems, design experiments, and test their theories. These projects take
time and presuppose that the investigator attempting to solve a problem is
the same as the one who previously recognized the problem. They are also
part of longer term projects, such as optimizing bandwidth for electronic
communication, improving average fuel economy, eliminating malaria, or
curing cancer.
Easy to overlook is that in order to be a steward of creation, one must
have a concept of the natural world as distinct from oneself. While aware of
103

“Apology of the Augsburg Confession,” Article II (Original Sin), KW, 114.

104

Ibid., 102.

105

Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What Is Really True (New York: The
Free Press, 2011), 74–75.

Nathan Jastram, “Man as Male and Female: Created in the Image of God.” Concordia
Theological Quarterly 68: 1 (January, 2004): 5–96.

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2016 Convention Workbook