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posted 23. January 2002 23:04
Intelligent design, Aesthetics and Design Arguments
by Peter S. Williams
peterswilliams@trinity73.freeserve.co.uk
ABSTRACT—Intelligent design theory encourages us to reclaim the concept of objective beauty, because it makes ultimate reality personal rather than the impersonal. However, the resurrection of objective beauty is logically independent of intelligent design, being defensible on philosophical grounds, and has something valuable to contribute to the research program of intelligent design theory. I delineate four categories of aesthetic design argument. While some of these arguments do not depend upon an objective understanding of beauty, others do. The detection of design in nature establishes the existence (at least at one time) of one or more designing intelligences; intelligences independent of any material systems such as those that cannot be explained without reference to design, and therefore, in all probability, independent of material reality per se. A consideration of the aesthetic dimension of reality not only reinforces the conclusions of intelligent design; it also brings us closer to the God of theism than intelligent design theory ever can.
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-23 January 2002
[ 02 May 2002, 12:52: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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