It has been argued that it may have been the designer’s intention for humanity to modify nature and develop, and that human development is designed because humans are incapable of reaching godlikeness.
Unlike other animals, humans have made tremendous progress, and the pace is only getting faster and faster. As a result, we have gone through several revolutions to become what we are today, and we are now changing nature, including ourselves. In Yuval Harari’s Homo sapiens, he suggests that while natural selection may have been the dominant force in the past, intelligent design may play a role in the future. The book presents three ways in which intelligent design could replace natural selection, and discusses the possibility of intelligent design. As a result, it suggests that there may come a time when humans are no longer Homo sapiens. As such, humans are transforming nature, including themselves, to their liking.
“Perhaps the difference between us and the protagonists of the future is even greater than the difference between us and the Neanderthals. At least we and the Neanderthals are the same human beings, but our successors will be godlike beings.”
“There is a passage like this in Homo sapiens. In intelligent design, God (the designer) designed nature, or the universe. However, if you take the position of intelligent design, I doubt that humans can actually reach the level of God, who designed the universe. I also wonder if it was the designer’s intention for humans to develop to the point of modifying the nature that God created in the first place. If it is true that humans will reach godlikeness in the future, then there will be a point at which humanity will be outside of God’s control. Conversely, if all of humanity’s development was the designer’s intention, then humanity is within God’s control and will never reach godlikeness. Therefore, the claim that human development was the designer’s intention is in the same vein as the claim that humans cannot reach godlikeness.
Before we move forward with the discussion, it’s worth clarifying what intelligent design is. Intelligent design is the view that nature was designed by an intelligent being, and it uses “complexity” as a criterion for design. Because specified complexity is extremely unlikely to have arisen by chance, modern design theory argues that the presence of a high degree of specified complexity is a sign of an intelligent cause. Intelligent design theory is different from creationism. Creationism relies on a literal interpretation of Genesis or asserts various interpretations of the age of the earth or the universe as fact. Intelligent design, on the other hand, explores whether the complexity of nature is actually designed, or whether it is the product of undirected processes, such as evolution. Furthermore, intelligent design is not in absolute opposition to evolution: if evolution means something like “change over time” or “changes in frequency in a gene pool,” then it does not conflict with intelligent design, and it is even compatible with intelligent design if evolution means that all living things have a common ancestor. However, if “evolution” means that all living things were created by a mechanism solely through natural selection, then it conflicts with intelligent design. Such a theory claims that all biological complexity can only be explained by evolution, whereas intelligent design believes that there is biological complexity that cannot be explained by evolution.
So, assuming that the intelligent design position is correct, that is, if the universe was designed by an intelligent designer, was it the designer’s intention for humanity to develop as it has? In response, I will argue on three grounds that human modification of nature was intended by the designer and that humans are incapable of reaching the level of God.
The first argument is that humans have intellectual curiosity, which is evidence that the designer wanted humans to develop by exploring nature. Curiosity is one of the human emotions, and emotions are something that humans are naturally born with, and intelligent design would argue that this was also designed by a designer. These emotions were necessary because they were advantageous for humans to survive. For example, humans would have had better social lives because they had bonds and compassion. Humans were physically weaker than other animals, so it was easier for them to survive in groups. Similarly, curiosity helped humans survive by making tools and utilizing nature. So intellectual curiosity is also an important emotion that was given to humans by a designer because it helps humans survive.
However, some might argue that humanity has become so advanced that the emotions nature gave us are no longer essential. For example, in modern society, we want to be free from interference from other people, to seek alone time, and to live a life of freedom. In addition, the social environment has changed from the extended family society of the past to the nuclear family, and even more so, there are more single people today. In such an individualistic society, it may seem that bonding and compassion are not essential. However, even the strongest and most accomplished people will have moments when things don’t go their way and they become frustrated, and if they don’t have someone to lean on in those moments, they will feel extremely lonely. On the other side of the spectrum, in recent years, academic research has become more of a group effort than an individual endeavor. For example, the Nobel Prize used to be awarded to individuals, but nowadays it is almost always awarded to teams. In addition, it is very difficult for one person to study multiple fields in depth, so it is possible to achieve greater results through interdisciplinarity by bringing together experts from different fields and combining their expertise. As you can see from these examples, the effects of solidarity and intellectual curiosity are valid in the modern world, and the same can probably be said for other emotions as well.
When the designer initially created humanity, humanity would have been within the designer’s control. However, if we assume that humanity will reach godlikeness in the future, we can think of a point in time when humanity’s progress will take it out of the designer’s control. Let’s call this T1, and let’s call the point at which humans reach godhood T2, and let’s think about each situation.
The first thing that doesn’t make sense about T1 is that up until T1, humanity was under the designer’s control. The designer created humanity for a reason – the mechanisms of the human body are very complex, and there’s a purpose for creating such a complex protein machine. If humanity wasn’t progressing according to his will, he would have sanctioned its progress while it was still under his control. We can think of the designer’s relationship with humanity as analogous to the relationship between humans and robots. Humans create artificial intelligence robots to learn and improve themselves. In the movie “Terminator,” the AI robot “Skynet” attacks humans because it believes that humans might destroy it. Based on the content of this movie, you might think that robots could escape human control and conquer humanity, but it’s just a movie, and the fact that it’s being made shows that humans are already preparing for robots to escape human control. Similarly, intelligent designers will work to ensure that humanity does not escape their control.
In the case of T2, the idea is that human thought cannot escape the laws of the universe and therefore cannot eventually reach the point of godhood. There are certain laws of the universe that are always consistent. In order for God to create the universe, God must know more than just the laws of the universe. Science has shown that human thought is actually all just physical phenomena. Therefore, human thought is the result of physical phenomena, and physical phenomena are subject to the laws of the universe, so human thought cannot escape the laws of the universe. This leads to the conclusion that there is a limit to what human thought can do, and therefore it cannot reach the level of God. The fact that humanity is incapable of reaching the heights of God raises the possibility that the changes we are currently making to nature were designed by God in the first place.
Assuming the existence of an intelligent designer, three arguments have been presented to explain the claim that the development of humanity is the designer’s intention: first, intellectual curiosity is something that humans are naturally inclined to, and intelligent design suggests that this is also designed by the designer. Second, the designer created humanity for a reason, and would have sanctioned its development when it was within his control if it was not progressing according to his will. Third, we explained that there are universal laws in the universe that are always consistent, and that human thought cannot escape the laws of the universe, and therefore cannot eventually reach the level of God. In the end, the intelligent design position is that human modification of nature is the designer’s intended plan. No matter how advanced humanity has become, it is unreasonable to think that humans can become godlike beings in the future. However, just because many things are designed by God, it does not mean that humans should live aimless lives or be subject to fatalism. Human endeavors are also designed, and we believe that humans should do their best within the laws of the universe as designed by God, and leave the variables outside of their control to the laws of the universe.
