God, Creativity, and Evolution: The Argument from Design(ers)

How could something as vast, intricate, vivid, and beautiful as the natural world have come about except by the will and "hand" of a supernaturally powerful and intelligent Designer? The Answer - It could not have - lies at the root of one of the best known "proofs" of the existence of God. Certainly, the so-called 'Argument from Design' forms the basis of the modern Intelligent Design (previous Creationist) movement, which, although it accepts evolution, stands opposed to Darwin's theory of "blind" evolution - which is to say, to the idea that evolution occurs without overarching purpose, moral direction, or intervention from God.

Michael Benedikt's book God, Creativity, Evolution: The Argument from Design(ers) seeks to dissolve the disagreement by showing that "design" and "evolution" are one and the same process running at different scales and speeds and seen from different viewpoints. Design is evolution speeded up; evolution is design slowed down. Designing is what evolving looks like when seen from outside; evolving is what designing looks like when seen from the inside. This perspective is rooted in science (in particular the work of Nobelist Gerald Edelman) and in the experience of actual designers -- people like architects, industrial designers, artists, and composers. Although actual designers have been conspicuously silent when it comes to the debate between Intelligent Design and Evolution, perhaps for fear of raising theological-religious hackles and perhaps for lack of feeling qualified, their participation in the discussion is crucial.

The second half of the book is devoted to observations of the beliefs of such great artist-architects as Michelangelo Buonarotti, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn, with respect to divinity, nature, and design. (There are also references to Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe, and others.) All are shown to have had deep convictions easily traced to religious, deist, and/or process-theological roots, wherein the evolutionary workings of the world, broadly conceived, and the workings of the human mind in the act of design are seen and understood to be continuous, if not identical, and divine.

Can the spat between Intelligent Design and Evolution finally be dissipated? On some better understanding of the word, is it time for "divinity" once again to enter the discourse of architecture and of design generally? This book says yes to both questions.