AO1: Paley’s design qua purpose (watch)
- Imagine walking on a heath and seeing a rock. The rock seems like it could have existed forever. Nothing about it suggests otherwise.
- However Paley claims we would think differently if we found a watch, because it has complexity enabling purpose.
- Its purpose depends on the exact individually intricate structure of its parts and their precise arrangement in relation to each other.
- Complexity by itself is not enough, since it can occur by chance. E.g. if we come across sand on a beach, it forms a complex pattern but does not indicate design.
- However if we came across a sand castle, that complex arrangement of the sand serves a purpose. It’s so unlikely to occur by chance that it’s more reasonable to infer design.
- So we can infer design when a thing has the property of purpose enabled by complexity.
- This property we observe in the watch, we also observe in nature.
- E.g. the human eye, wings of a bird and fins of a fish are made of individually complex parts precisely arranged to enable the purpose of sight.
- So, nature must have a designer.
- Nature is much grander and greater than any human design, so the designer of the nature must be greater and more powerful than any human designer.
- Furthermore, a designer is a mind which is distinct from what is designed.
- So, a mind which designed the world and is distinct from it exists.
- This argument is typically interpreted as inductive and a posteriori, because its premises involve observations of the world which are used as evidence for the conclusion that God exists.
AO1: The status as a proof of the design argument
- Design arguments are a posteriori, meaning based on experience.
- E.g., Paley’s argument is based on our observation of purpose enabled complexity in the world.
- Design arguments are typically inductive, meaning their premises could be true yet their conclusion false.
- The truth of their premises provides evidence which supports the conclusion, but does not logically guarantee it.
- Such arguments are typically made by empiricists, the epistemological theory that knowledge is gained from the evidence of experience.
- Inductive proofs are therefore not logically certain.
- If successful, they give us what we currently have most reason to believe based on the available evidence.
- But, they cannot prove their conclusion for certain.
- This is because they are ‘defeasible’, meaning in principle further evidence could be discovered which would either make them false, or just change the overall weight or balance of evidence towards a different conclusion.
- So, such arguments can be contested by attacking the truth of the premises, or by denying that the conclusion follows from them.
- Design arguments often employ analogical reasoning, which is a form of inductive reasoning.
- Where we cannot directly experience the cause of X, we can use the evidence of its likeness toY whose cause we can observe, to draw a probabilistic inference about the nature of the cause of X.
- A posteriori inductive arguments were used by Aquinas for theological reasons as part of his natural theology.
- They cannot, and are not intended, to prove the Christian God in particular.
- Their aim is to show that the evidence suggests there is a designer.
- This is meant to support faith in the Christian God, since evidence for a generic God also increases the probability of a specific God.
AO2: The validity of analogy
- Swinburne supports design arguments by arguing analogical argumentation is scientifically valid.
- Imagine a scientist doesn’t know the cause of X, but they know X is similar to Y, which they do know the cause of.
- It is rational to hypothesise that the cause of X is similar (analogous to) the cause of Y.
- Design arguments employ exactly the same form of inductive reasoning:
- Things in nature are like things humans create (Paley’s watch) or direct (Aquinas’ arrow).
- So, the cause of those natural things is analogous, i.e., an intelligent mind.
Counter:
- Hume objects that like effects do not imply like causes.
- E.g. Dry ice and fire are not alike as causes, but their effect (smoke) is alike.
- So,things in nature being like a watch or an arrow doesn’t prove their causes are alike (i.e., an intelligent mind).
- Hume further argues it doesn’t even provide probabilistic evidence, as Swinburne claimed.
- He attacks the analogy between artefacts and natural beings as weak, because of their significant disanalogies.
- Artefacts are mechanical, mathematically precisely constructed.
- Whereas the universe is more like an organic thing, more messy, less precise.
- So, the analogy between watches and eyes, or between arrows and the behaviour of birds/flowers is weak.
Evaluation:
- However, Hume’s critique of analogy doesn’t work against versions of the design argument which avoid analogical reasoning in favor of standard inductive probability and/or abductive inference to the best explanation.
- Paley is often interpreted as taking one of those forms today.
- On this reading, design arguments identify a property which is so unlikely to have come about by chance that design is a better explanation.
- The universe is like the watch (or the arrow), but that’s not what makes it designed.
- It’s designed because it has the property of complexity and purpose, or goal-directedness (or fine-tuning etc).
- The watch & arrows are just illustrations of how we infer design from that property.
- So, Hume’s critique of analogy fails.
AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
- Hume argues that even if the design argument succeeded, it cannot prove the Christian God in particular.
- Just as possible is a committee of Gods (polytheism), a junior God, or even a God who then died.
- There is no basis for preferring the Christian God as an explanation of the design in the universe, compared to those other options.
- So, the design argument could be inductively cogent, meaning its premises are well-supported and it provides strong probabilistic support for its conclusion.
- And yet, it would still be limited in scope, as it cannot justify belief in any particular God.
Counter:
- Swinburne counters Hume, using the abductive reasoning of Ockham’s razor, since one God is simpler than multiple.
- However the main problem for Hume is that Aquinas, Paley and Swinburne aren’t trying to prove the Christian God in particular.
- They know the design argument is limited to proving some generic designer.
- They all broadly follow the approach laid out by Aquinas’ Natural theology.
- This involves inductive a posteriori argument aimed at supporting faith.
- Belief in a particular God is still made more reasonable by an argument that only shows there is some kind of God.
Evaluation
- So, sophisticated proponents of design arguments are appropriately careful about the scope of their conclusion.
- Hume overreached with this critique and risks committing a straw man fallacy.
- As Aquinas says in the end of all his 5 ways, ‘that thing we call God’.
- This indicates awareness that the argument doesn’t prove exactly what that designer is.
- That’s where the proper role of faith comes in, that the designer he’s found evidence for is the Christian God.
- This minimal support for faith through evidence of some higher power is the sole purpose of the argument.
- Hume incorrectly assumed it aimed to do more.
AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
- Hume’s epicurean hypothesis claims an eternal universe made of atoms is guaranteed to sometimes assemble into orderliness by chance.
- In infinite time, every possibility becomes certain to occur at some point.
- Hume’s not claiming this is true, just that it is possible.
- It’s an abductive counter-example which breaks the necessity of inferring from order to God.
- Of course, the current evidence for the big bang suggests the universe isn’t eternal.
- Nonetheless, we can use the multiverse in the same way.
- Rather than infinite time, it involves infinite space (universes).
- Some versions claim all metaphysically possible permutations of beings (spatial order) and physical laws (temporal order) exist.
- This attacks all possible versions of the design argument.
- Whatever they could point to (organisms, natural laws or fine-tuning) can be explained by the hypothesis that every possible state or thing exists somewhere in the multiverse.
Counter
- Defenders of fine-tuning argue that the multiverse relies on very speculative physics, has no evidence for it, and seems potentially unfalsifiable.
- Swinburne argues a scientific explanation is impossible, since science can only discover which laws exist, not explain why there are such laws.
Evaluation
- However, the multiverse hypothesis is taken seriously by physicists.
- It’s not incoherent, so Swinburne can’t dismiss scientific explanation as impossible.
- Regarding its lack of evidence, we can follow Hume’s method and deploy it as an abductive counter-example which breaks the inference to God.
- This treats the multiverse as a competing hypothesis to God.
- Both are equal in explanatory power regarding the world.
- This is not a stalemate, since it shows design is not the only reasonable explanation of our universe.
- So, the teleological argument loses its persuasive force.
- It cannot give us a reason to believe that a God is the explanation of the way the universe is.
AO1: Strength & weakness of design arguments
- The validity of analogy
- Strength: Analogical reasoning is valid as it’s used by scientists all the time, e.g., to understand an unknown disease from the analogy of its symptoms to a known one.
- Weakness: Analogical reasoning in design arguments is weak, as similarities in effects do not always imply similar causes.
- Darwinian evolution
- Weakness: Darwinian evolution explains the appearance of design in organisms through natural selection, making a designer unnecessary.
- Strength: Modern developments like fine-tuning shift the focus from animal biology to the order and purpose in the laws of the universe, which evolution cannot explain away.
- Whether God is the only explanation
- Weakness: The design argument cannot establish the Christian God, as multiple or limited designers remain equally possible explanations.
- Strength: Natural theology underpins the design argument, which intentionally limits its conclusion to a generic designer, making belief in God more reasonable without overreaching its evidence.