The Design Argument

Guy Williams

Wellington College

What type of argument?...

• a posteriori – it is based on our experience of the world around us.

• Inductive – the premises support but do not entail the conclusion – probabilistic.

• Synthetic – the argument is not true/false by the definition of its premises – it has to be tested.

Background• Also known as the teleological argument,

from the Greek telos (end/purpose). The argument is concerned with the purpose and order present in nature.

• The argument may be traced back to the ancient philosophers Plato and Cicero.

Plato: In the Timaeus, I argued that a god had ordered all the things of the universe.

CICERO

Thomas Aquinas (13th century)

• He formulated a design argument in the fifth of his Five Ways

• Aquinas focuses on goal-directed activity in nature. As an archer fires an arrow at a target, so too does nature strive for some goal. This cannot be accidental

• There must be an intelligence directing this activity, and this we call God.

Goal directed activity is a sign of intelligence!

William Paley• Wrote Natural Theology (1802),

setting out his watchmaker analogy. If we found a watch on a heath, we would assume that it has some designer. By analogy, we could say the same of nature.

• Nature displays purpose (e.g. birds have wings to fly) and regularity (e.g. planets orbit in regular motion). By analogy with a watch, this is suggestive of a designer.

Modern Versions• F.R. Tennant – the ‘weak anthropic principle’. The

conditions of the universe allow for life to develop, but this need not have been the case. God is probably responsible for this careful balance. (Book: Philosophical Theology).

• Richard Swinburne (Book: The Existence of God) – probabilistic argument. The chances of intelligent human life developing must have been very slim. God is the likely cause of this outcome.

• Also Swinburne – the aesthetic argument. There is such beauty and order in the universe that it cannot be regarded as accidental – it suggests intelligence and creativity, in other words, God.

Intelligent Design• A group of scientists and mathematicians at the

Discovery Institute have argued that Darwin was wrong about natural selection.

• The complexity of nature may be due to Intelligent Design.

• Michael Behe – organisms like the bacterial flagellum display ‘irreducible complexity’. They have too many component parts to be explained through natural selection.

Bacterial flagellum – very complicated.

Hume’s Criticisms• The universe is a ‘unique object’. We know of

the design of houses and watches through experience, but know nothing of universe design. The analogy is flawed.

• Multiplicity of possible causes - there may be order in the universe, but any number of things could have caused it.

• Principle of causality – our knowledge of a cause can only be proportionate to the effect it produces. From the evidence of the universe, we cannot prove an all-loving, all-knowing God.

Responses to Hume

• Swinburne – the universe may be unique, but we still know something of its origins: theoretical physics, astronomy, etc.

• Swinburne – the principle of causality simply is false. Often the cause of an object far exceeds what is evident in the object itself. A perfect God could have caused our universe.

Charles Darwin• A weakness of the argument is suggested by

Darwin’s theory of evolution, given in The Origin of Species (1859).

• Darwin argued that complex organisms result from natural selection, not design.

• Recently, Richard Dawkins has argued that Darwin’s theory fatally undermines the design argument.

Responses to Darwin/Dawkins

• Intelligent Design – the theory of evolution is wrong (note: this has little/no scientific support).

• God may have caused the process of evolution as a means of bringing order and purpose into the universe (James Sadowsky).

• Evolution depends on a careful balance of conditions, possibly caused by God (Tennant - anthropic principle).

General Strengths

• It is based on what we can observe, and it is difficult to deny that there is some order and complexity in the universe.

• The use of analogy (watchmaker, etc.) makes it straightforward and easy to follow.

• It can be compatible with the Big Bang and evolution – these could be part of the design process.

• The argument gives purpose to the universe – it suggests that things have a meaning.

General Weaknesses

• Just because things in the world have designers, it doesn’t follow that the world itself has a designer.

• We have to judge the designer by what is created. The presence of suffering suggests that the creator cannot be perfect (J.S. Mill).

• The Design Argument may suggest a designer, but this isn’t necessarily proof for the God of classical theism: all loving, powerful, wise, etc.