Intelligent design and theodicy

This paper explores a seldom discussed difficulty for traditional theistswho wish to embrace the purported evidence employed in biochemical intelligentdesign arguments, and who also employ a commonly used element in theirtheodicies – namely, the claim that God would have reason to make a relativelyorderly and self-sufficient world with stable and simple natural laws. I begin byintroducing intelligent design arguments and the varieties of theodicy at issue, then Iargue that there is at least a strong prima facie tension between these theodicies andthe claim that God intelligently designed biochemical systems in humans and otherorganisms. Subsequently, I examine three strategies for resolving this tension, inincreasing order of plausibility. At the end of the paper, I raise and briefly discusssome wider issues for theists enamoured with theodicy approaches that emphasizenatural orderliness and the stability of laws of nature