Complex specified information refers to patterns embodied in physical structures. But if the designer is not a physical structure, the designer, though capable of bringing about complex specified information, would not in turn exhibit complex specified information. . . . The designer responsible for the complex specified information in nature is, as best we can tell, not an event, object, or structure. . . . Who is the designer? . . . Design inferred from complex specified information in nature is compatible with Christian belief but does not entail it. This is as it should be. Nature is silent about the revelation of Christ in Scripture. At the same time, nothing prevents nature from independently testifying to the God revealed in the Scripture. . . . An information-theoretic design argument therefore removes us from the paths of atheistic materialism that lead away from God and takes us a modest distance toward an intelligence behind nature who, from the vantage of Christian theology, can be no other than God. In this way, information theory (ap)proves the existence of God. (W. A. Dembski)

. . . when natural systems exhibit intelligence by producing complex specified information, they have in fact not created it from scratch but merely shuffled around existing information. Nature is a matrix for expressing already existing information [e.g. acorn to an oak tree]. . . . the ultimate source of that information resides in an intelligence not reducible to nature. (W. A. Dembski)

The principal characteristic of intelligent agency is choice. “Intelligent” derives from two Latin words, the preposition inter, meaning between, and the verb lego, meaning to choose or select. Thus, according to its etymology, intelligence consists in choosing between. For an intelligent agent to act is therefore to choose from a range of competing possibilities. . . . Actualizing one among several competing possibilities, ruling out the rest, and specifying the one that was actualized encapsulates how we recognize intelligent agency, or equivalently, how we detect design, (W. A. Dembski)

Complex specified information . . . requires a dual ruling-out of possibilities, one by an intelligent agent who identifies a pattern [such as a linguistic neural code with structure, meaning and purpose] and one by physical processes that induce an event [such as spike trains of action potentials that transmit neural codes through neural synaptic networks to bring about specific actions]. Provided these coincide, the probability is small, and the pattern can be identified independently of the event, we say the event exhibits complex specified information. Complex specified information reliably detects design. (W. A.Dembski)

Ordinarily when we think of information, we think of meaningful statements that we communicate to each other. The vehicle of communication here is language, and the information is the meaning communicated by some utterance or linguistic expression. . . . For information to be generated . . . means identifying one possibility and ruling out the rest. The more possibilities get ruled out and, correspondingly, the more improbable the possibility that actually obtains, the greater the information generated. . . . To generate information is therefore to rule out possibilities. (w. A. Dembski)

Dr. Dembski points out in his article that the relation between matter and information can become controversial when they are mixed with design and nature. “. . . designing intelligences are not the only causal powers capable of structuring matter and thereby conferring information. Nature, too, is capable of structuring matter and conferring information. . . . Nature and design therefore represent two different ways of producing information. Nature produces information, as it were, internally. . . . design [consists] in capacities external to an object for bringing about its form with outside help. . . . nature [consists] in capacities internal to an object for transforming itself without outside help. . . . information is conferred on an object from outside the object and that the material constituting the object, apart from that outside information, does not have the power to assume the form it does. . . . Nature produces information not by imposing it from outside but by growing or developing informationally rich structures from within. . . . an information-theoretic design argument contends that the art of building certain information-rich structures in nature (like biological organisms) is not in the physical stuff that constitutes these structures but requires a designer.” (W. A. Dembski)

Matter is raw stuff that can take any number of shapes. Information is what gives shape to matter, fixing one shape to the exclusion of others. . . . Information (from the Latin verb informare) literally means to give form or shape to something. Unlike passive or inert matter, which needs to be acted upon, information is active. Information acts on matter to give it its form, shape, arrangement, or structure. . . . The relation between matter, with its potential to assume any possible shapes, and information, with its restriction of possibilities to a narrow range of shapes, is fundamental to our understanding of the world. (W. A. Dembski)

We need here to draw a clear distinction between creation and design. Creation is always about the source of being of the world. Design is about arrangements of preexisting materials that point to an intelligence. Creation and design are therefore quite different. . . . Creation asks for an ultimate resting place of explanation - the source of being of the world. Design, by contrast, inquires not into the ultimate source of matter and energy but into the cause of their present arrangements, particularly those entities, large and small, that exhibit signs of intelligence. (W. A. Dembski)

The design argument begins with features of the natural world that exhibit evidence of purpose and from there attempts to establish the existence and attributes of an intelligent cause responsible for those features. (W. A. Dembski)

In my books and my blogs on this website I have often referred to information, matter, design and intelligence. I have endeavored to explain both what the terms mean and how they relate, fundamentally to our Creator God. This is a challenging task. Dr. William A. Dembski has made significant contributions to intelligent design and how information and energy are related. In the next series of blogs I will post excerpts from his article, “An Information-Theoretic Proof of God’s Existence.” (https://billdembski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/) He identified the most troubling word in the title, “proof,” a word that derives etymologically from the Latin probare, which means to test and to approve or esteem as good that which has passed a test. It is in this sense that he describes how information theory approves God’s existence. By citing the writing and work of Dr. Dembski in this article I believe these terms will be clarified as few people can.