Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 21:2 (Fall 2024)
Article: How To Debate Intelligent Design: The Example Of Michael Ruse
Author: William A. Dembski

How To Debate Intelligent Design: The Example Of Michael Ruse1

William A. Dembski

Bill Dembski is a founding senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

In the spring of 2004, I received an email from Robert B. Stewart, or Bob as he signed his name. He informed me that a new forum had been created at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary—the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum—for the purpose of bringing together annually two key thinkers on some controversy significant to the Christian faith. The inaugural Greer-Heard forum, set for March 2005, was to feature John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright to debate the veracity of the New Testament—Crossan taking the skeptical side, Wright the traditional side. Bob inquired about my availability for the second such forum, whose focus was to be on intelligent design. Bob’s proposed interlocutor for me was Richard Dawkins. I indicated my readiness to take part in such a debate. As it is, Dawkins said no, but in his place Bob managed to enlist Michael Ruse. I’m glad it was Michael.

Michael passed away just a few days ago (he died on November 1, 2024; I’m submitting this article November 5, 2024). With his passing, I feel more at liberty to write about his life and also our time at the Greer-Heard forum. It is to Bob’s credit that this forum between Michael and me happened at all. It was scheduled for early in 2006 to take place at Bob’s home institution, the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS). But intervening between the first Greer-Heard forum (featuring Crossan and Wright) and the one to take place between Michael and me was Hurricane Katrina. Anyone who remembers how furiously that hurricane pounded New Orleans in late August of 2005 will realize that holding the next Greer-Heard forum at NOBTS would have been unlikely at best, if not practically impossible. The entire

JBTM 21:2 (Fall 2024) 218

forum therefore needed to be transported elsewhere. Bob and his fellow faculty and staff at NOBTS thus moved the forum to a church in Georgia. They pulled off a logistical miracle, and I’m grateful to this day that they did.2

In the almost twenty years since the Greer-Heard forum between Michael and me, more has happened to advance intelligent design than to hinder it. Two steps forward, one step back. The Dover v. Kitzmiller trial had just been decided in December of 2005, ruling against intelligent design. So the forum between Michael and me occurred in the wake of that ruling. That said, Michael did not gloat at the forum about the hit that intelligent design took at that trial. We focused on the issues of intellectual merit regarding Dar...