William A. Dembski
A mathematician and philosopher, William A. Dembski is Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth Texas. He is also a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle as well as the executive director of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design.
For more Dr. Dembski articles and information, including news and speaking schedule, visit his personal website Design Inference.
Biographical Information
A mathematician and philosopher, William A. Dembski is Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth. He is also a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle as well as the executive director of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Previously he was the Carl F. H. Henry Professor of Theology and Science at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, where he founded its Center for Theology and Science. Before that he was Associate Research Professor in the Conceptual Foundations of Science at Baylor University, where he also headed the first intelligent design think-tank at a major research university: The Michael Polanyi Center.
Dr. Dembski has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he also received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996. He has held National Science Foundation graduate and postdoctoral fellowships.
Dr. Dembski has published articles in mathematics, philosophy, and theology journals and is the author/editor of more than ten books. In The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge University Press, 1998), he examines the design argument in a post-Darwinian context and analyzes the connections linking chance, probability, and intelligent causation. The sequel to The Design Inference appeared with Rowman & Littlefield in 2002 and critiques Darwinian and other naturalistic accounts of evolution. It is titled No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence. Dr. Dembski has edited several influential anthologies, including Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI, 2004) and Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge University Press, 2004, co-edited with Michael Ruse). His newest book is a festschrift volume in honor of Phillip Johnson. It is titled Darwin’s Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement.
As interest in intelligent design has grown in the wider culture, Dr. Dembski has assumed the role of public intellectual. In addition to lecturing around the world at colleges and universities, he is frequently interviewed on the radio and television. His work has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, including three front page stories in the New York Times as well as the August 15, 2005 Time magazine cover story on intelligent design. He has appeared on the BBC, NPR (Diane Rehm, etc.), PBS (Inside the Law with Jack Ford; Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson), CSPAN2, CNN, Fox News, ABC Nightline, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
My Personal Story
I became a Christian in my late teens, having been raised in a non-Christian home. Through the witness of friends and family, I began to study the Bible and consider the claims of Christ. Although I understood intellectually what was required to become a Christian, my heart deeply resisted the truth of Christianity. I had been involved in what nowadays is called New Age spirituality, but at the time would have been characterized as eastern mysticism and occultism. These non-Christian alternatives had left me thoroughly unfulfilled, but even so I was not ready to abandon them or embrace Christianity. Deep down I was angry with whatever God there might be. God was perfect, and I was imperfect.
God was serenely watching as I made a mess of my life. How could God understand human struggle, perched as he was off in some never-never land? But upon reading the Gospels it struck me that God, by becoming human in Jesus Christ, had fully taken on the human condition and really did know what I was going through.
Suddenly the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus Christ) became incredibly meaningful to me. That realization was the turning point in my conversion to Christianity, and it has never left me. In Jesus, God really understands us, having suffered everything we suffer. But Jesus didn’t just feel our pain. Beyond Jesus’ passion and death is his resurrection, signifying his mastery over the forces of darkness that would destroy us. God in Jesus Christ does not merely feel our pain but saves us from it.
