Today’s DO is a bit different. While it’s on topic in the early verses of John 1, the quote below is by conservative scientist/writer George Gilder, who is not an evangelical Christian that I know of. Regardless, his observation shows that how God operates is how we humans, made in his likeness, also operate. It is a fascinating observation.

“I came to see that the computer offers an insuperable obstacle to Darwinian materialism.   In a computer, as information theory shows, the content is manifestly independent of its material substrate. No possible knowledge of the computer materials can yield any information whatsoever about the actual content of its computations. In the usual hierarchy of causation, they reflect the software or ‘source code’ used to program the device; and, like the design of the computer itself, the software is contrived by human intelligence.

“The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain information reflects [Claude E.] Shannon’s concept of entropy [released in 1948] and his measure of ‘news.’ Information is defined by its independence from physical determination: If it is determined, it is predictable and thus by definition not information. Yet Darwinian science seemed to be reducing all nature to material causes.

“As I pondered this materialist superstition, it became increasingly clear to me that in all the sciences I studied, information comes first, and regulates the flesh and the world, not the other way around. The pattern seemed to echo some familiar wisdom.   Could it be, I asked myself on day in astonishment, that the opening of St. John’s Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, is a central dogma of modern science?

“In raising this question I was not affirming a religious stance. At the time it first occurred to me, I was still a mostly secular intellectual. But after some 35 years of writing and study in science and technology, I can now affirm the principle empirically. Salient in virtually every technical field—from quantum theory and molecular biology to computer science and economics—is an increasing concern with the word.   It passes by many names: logos, logic, bits, bytes, mathematics, software, knowledge, syntax, semantics, code, plan, program, design, algorithm, as well as the ubiquitous ‘information.’   In every case, the information is independent of its physical embodiment or carrier.”

— George Gilder, The National Review (July 17, 2006, pp. 30-31), reprinted in The American Christian College Journal (9/06, pp.4-5)