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T H E D E S I G N A R G U M E N T
for the existence of God
****************************
Design arguments are A POSTERIORI and INDUCTIVE - they seek to move from facts about
the world to God and can only establish a level of probability never a philosophical proof. Early
forms of the argument were put forward by Socrates and Plato (cf the Phaedo). There are
various types of argument.
1.
2.
3.
TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS - Arguments from a general pattern of order in the
Universe- arguments qua regularity
TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS - Arguments which seek to show that the universe has
direction and a goal -qua purpose
THE ARGUMENT FROM BEAUTY
Old forms of teleological argument tend to rely on arguments qua purpose and modern
teleological arguments tend to rely on arguments qua regularity. Older forms often rely on
analogy, such as those given by Aquinas and Paley.
EARLY TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS - qua purpose
------------------------------------------St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-75)
Aquinas’ fifth Way is a form of the teleological argument:
‘Goal directed behaviour is observed in all bodies obeying natural laws, even when they lack
awareness...But nothing lacking awareness can tend to a goal except it be directed by someone
with awareness and understanding; the arrow, for example, requires an archer. Everything in
nature, therefore is directed to its goal by someone with understanding, and this we call God.’
Aquinas is arguing that the world is like an arrow shot from an archer’s bow. It has direction and
purpose behind it and it is moving towards a goal. Every thing in nature operates in what appears
to be a purposeful manner with a sense of direction. An acorn has the goal of becoming an oak
tree and will behave in such a way as to fulfil this purpose. It has no intelligence of its own and
must therefore have been designed to behave like this by an intelligent designer. This is God.
Aquinas maintains that every inanimate thing is being directed towards some purpose or goal (he
drew this idea from Aristotle) and from this he comes to the conclusion that God is responsible.
The plausibility of this takes us back to the basic problem of the Cosmological argument: Is God
or the brute fact of the universe the better ultimate explanation? Also, the whole idea of
purpose is highly debatable and is certainly a premise that many opponents of the argument
would reject.
William Paley.(1743-1805)
William Paley argues in a similar way but uses the analogy of a watch. If you were walking across
a heath and found a watch you would notice how:
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’its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose’.
The purpose of telling the time. You would conclude that the watch was designed by an
intelligent mind. Even if the watch was broken or damaged you would still conclude that it had
been designed by and intelligent mind. Even if you could not understand all of its working parts
and how they functioned together you would still conclude that it had been designed by an
intelligent mind. There could be no naturalistic explanation for the watch. Just as the existence
of a watch implies a watchmaker, so the existence of the world implies an even greater designer
- God. Notice that we do not need to know the purpose of the watch or the universe in order to
infer a designer - simply that the design implies a designer with a purpose. This is the argument
qua purpose.
There have been two major sources of criticism of these arguments - the first by David Hume
and the second stemming from the work of DARWIN.
David Hume
Note that Hume's points were put forward 22 years BEFORE Paley's - they were not after
Paley. It is a mistake, therefore, to say that Hume was replying to Paley - it is perhaps an
indication of the gap between philosophy and theology that Paley does not seem to be aware of
Hume’s earlier work.
David Hume's DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION is one of the greatest works
on Philosophy of Religion ever written. It is really worth reading Hume in the original. He uses
three main characters:
•
CLEANTHES - who believes in Natural Theology and argues a posteriori to God,
•
•
PHILO
- Who is their critic and who puts forward Hume's own views.
DEMEA - Who puts forward arguments starting from a faith position and who is not
directly relevant to the design argument.
Cleanthes first puts forward a version of the Teleological argument:
‘Look around the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing
but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines.’
-
All design necessarily implies a designer,
A great design necessarily implies Greatness in the designer
There is clearly great design in the world which is like a great machine, therefore
There must be a great designer of the world.
Notice how similar this is to Paley’s approach. Central to Cleanthes’ whole approach is that LIKE
EFFECTS HAVE LIKE CAUSES - he explicitly recognizes that his argument is based on analogy.
He concludes that the Universe is like a great machine so the implication is that the creator of
the world must be like the creator of a machine only far greater. Hume's criticisms aim to
destroy the argument of Cleanthes by mockery.
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Philo then replies with two arguments:
Philo’s First Argument
Like effects imply like causes - so we end of with a caricature of God, a God who is just a
super-human designer, perhaps with the same kind of flaws and imperfections.
If like effects produce like causes, then the logic is that God must be rather like a superhuman
figure - the result is an anthropomorphic God. Possibly, Philo says, there are many Gods,
possibly they are male and female, possibly they are born and die, possibly they are imperfect.
Hume is not denying the design argument works - at least not explicitly. What he is
saying in Philo’s first argument is that if it works it comes up with a limited,
anthropomorphic and imperfect God and the theistic reader, for whom this is unacceptable,
must therefore conclude that the design argument is a total failure. At best we come up with a
limited God - possibly this universe was the first rude attempt of a TRAINEE GOD who then
left it, possibly it is the creation of a SENILE GOD:
•
If we look at the imperfections in the world, particularly the extent to which nature is ‘red
in tooth and claw’ and the incidence of natural disasters, earthquakes, tidal waves, disease
and the like, this surely points to malevolence or inadequacy on the part of God?
•
If we saw a badly designed house we would have grave reservations about the architect the same applies to God. Many carpenters collaborate together to build a ship, why should
there not be many Gods?
•
The first argument maintains that the closer the analogy between design within the world
and design of the universe as a whole, the more the picture emerges of a God who is
dissimilar to the God of Classical Theism.
This criticism effectively exposes the weakness of arguments based on analogy. The closer the
analogy works the less palatable the picture of God: if the analogy does not work then the
argument fails anyway. Hume (through Philo) further attacks the analogical basis of the
argument by criticising the inadequacy of the analogy: the world is not like a machine. It is more
like a vegetable and therefore the creator of the world is probably more like a vegetable than
the creator of a machine with an intelligent mind!
Hume argues that our concepts of design are so limited that we cannot apply them to the
creation of the world. The fact that a machine needs a designer is part of our experience of
being in the world, but we have no experience of making worlds,
‘Have worlds ever been formed under your eye?’
Hume is here attacking the inductive logic once more. The leap from an observation in this world
does not justify a metaphysical conclusion about the creation of the world, of this we have no
experience. How could a goldfish in a pond conclude anything about the process of pond making?
It has no knowledge of pond making; whether the pond is a natural formation or the work of a
clever gardener could not be known by the fish unless it had experience of pond making. Hume
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argues that without experience of the making of a world we cannot know whether it was
designed or simply emerged. There is a leap in logic from seeing order in the world to concluding
that the order is the result of intelligent design...we just cannot tell.
‘...we have no data to establish any system of cosmogony. Our experience, so imperfect in itself and
so limited both in extent and duration, can afford us no probable conjecture concerning the whole of
things.’
Hume is pointing to the fact that in an inductive argument the conclusion is not logically necessary.
There is a leap in logic between the premises and the conclusion which means that to deny the
conclusion does not render the objector irrational.
Some early supporters of the teleological argument suggested that the incredible design of human
beings and animals for their own needs required a designer. The human eye was used by Paley as an
example of this claimed intricate design, as was the lacteal systems in mammals and the ‘design’ of a
bird’s wing. This sort of evidence was brought forward in support of the first premise of the
argument that the world showed evidence of design qua purpose. A pig is designed with many teats
because it brings many offspring into the world, it is so designed for the purpose of feeding its
young.
Hume objected to this premise and countered the evidence brought forward in support of it by
claiming that animal adaptation cannot be used to prove that animals are designed by an intelligent
mind for their own distinct purpose. If they were not suited to their environment they would not
survive. It is not legitimate to use what could not be otherwise as evidence of intelligent planning.
‘I would fain ask how an animal could subsist unless its parts were so adjusted?’
In other words it is not surprising that the human body is perfectly adjusted, if you had no lungs you
could not breathe and you would die. Things are the way they are and if things were different then
everything would be different. The way things are does not imply design or a designer.
Philo’s second argument
It is possible that the Universe resulted from chance
Philo's second argument can be summarized as follows:
1. The world is ordered.
2. This order either resulted from Design OR from Chance.
3. It is entirely plausible that the world arose from chance, for:
i) Matter and energy may well be everlasting. We know now, from Einstein, that the stock of
matter and energy is constant - matter and energy are continually changing, but the total stock
may remain the same.
ii) If matter and energy are everlasting, then in an infinite number of combinations, every one will
be realised (Aquinas implied this in his Third Way)
iii) Once order has occurred, it will tend to perpetuate itself.
Philo strengthens his argument by another point:
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Animal adaptation cannot be used to prove a designer of animals since if they did not adapt to
their environment they would not survive. It is not legitimate to use what could not be otherwise
as evidence of intelligent planning. Philo does admit, however, that it is difficult to explain extra
organs not needed for survival such as two eyes or two ears.
Philo’s second argument was to be supported by the later work of Charles Darwin.
Philo provides a challenge to the major premise of these early teleological arguments, that there is
evidence of purposive design in the world. Hume says there isn’t necessarily any such sign.
PHILO'S CONCLUSION IS THAT WE SHOULD SUSPEND JUDGEMENT ON THE QUESTION
OF WHETHER THERE IS A GOD - there is, he claims, no firm evidence for or against.
Hume’s arguments were supported by the work of Charles Darwin and have effectively destroyed the
traditional formulations of the teleological argument, qua purpose. They also remain as forceful
objections to modern formulations of the teleological argument although they have been challenged
by modern supporters of the Teleological argument, such as Richard Swinburne.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Even if the teleological argument succeeds, there are real questions as to the sort of God one
arrives at. John Stuart Mill (‘Three Essays on Religion’) raised this problem - maintaining that given
the apparent imperfections in the Universe and the amount of natural evils that occur, the most
plausible hypothesis was either to deny the Designer's goodness OR to deny the Designer’s
omnipotence. Mill chose to maintain God's goodness and hence concluded that God must be limited what or who by he could not tell. Mill’s book, like that of Hume, is very well worth reading. Mill is
willing to accept there is a designer, but it is the attributes of the Designer he challenges. An
imperfect universe implies limitation of the designer and hence Mill arrives at a limited God.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Immanuel Kant maintained that the teleological argument was inconclusive. His main reasons for this were:
1.
The teleological argument is inductive and is based on experience of design and order within the
universe,
2. Experience can never provide us with the idea of an absolutely perfect and necessary being. This
idea puts God into a category of God’s own and one cannot arrive at this unique category from
observations drawn from the spatial temporal universe to which God is held not to belong.
EITHER:
a) God is the highest in a chain of beings, and in this case something higher can be postulated, OR
b) God is separated from this chain and in this case the argument is massively weakened as it can
no longer be based on experience.
Kant makes two main criticisms of the Design argument. Firstly he insists that we cannot claim
‘Apodeictic certainty’ for the conclusion of the argument. He is here objecting to the inductive
nature of the argument. Apodeictic certainty is the degree of certainty that is final and absolute,
the kind of certainty that attends mathematical proof. Secondly Kant points out that the conclusion
of the argument is indeterminate with regard to God. It does not demonstrate God’s infinity. These
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are reasonable reservations: Apodeictic certainty is not available in science and even less so in
metaphysics. The design argument is an inductive argument and will not give a philosophical proof.
The design argument does not demonstrate God’s infinity: Hume previously pointed out these
weaknesses. For Kant the design argument could never demonstrate the existence of God because it
was based on information filtered by the human mind, and may be mistaken. Our minds may be
imposing a picture of order and regularity onto the world outside of the mind.
Charles Darwin
In the mid nineteenth century, the interpretation of creation given by Genesis was the first area to
be hit by Darwin's work, particularly the idea that God created all animal species with their own
nature (Aquinas's position derived from Aristotle) or the Genesis account of a sudden, individual
creation of each species in its present form directly by God.
Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at a meeting of the British Association in 1860 said that:
'The principle of natural selection... is absolutely incompatible with the word of God.'
Darwin's theory obviously rejected literal interpretations of the Bible. DARWIN's theory could be
used to strengthen Philo's argument as the theory of natural selection now provided a mechanism
which would explain two eyes and two ears as being better suited for survival than one - they
increase the field of hearing and of vision and also provide perspective.
Darwin considers that natural selection explains variation. As he puts it:
'...not only are the various domestic races, but the most distinct genera and orders within the
same great class - for instances mammals, birds, reptiles and fishes - are all the descendants of one
common progenitor and we must admit that the whole vast amount of difference between these
forms has primarily arisen simply from variability'. (Darwin. Variation of animals and Plants under
domestication)
Thus Darwin was seen to attack the first premise of the teleological argument that the world had
signs of design by suggesting that the apparent design was the result of a long process of natural
selection. Only those animals which adapted to their environment successfully survived. The world is
as it is by pure chance.
Richard Dawkins is the leading modern Darwinian who has poured scorn on the design argument and
his arguments are dealt with below.
MODERN FORMULATIONS; QUA REGULARITY
The biting criticisms against the use of analogy disappear against modern formulations of the
Teleological argument. The obvious weakness of using analogy, high-lighted by Hume, meant that
there was no future in this as a starting point. Modern formulations of the teleological argument do
not rely on analogy - instead they rely on what is known as the ‘fine tuning’ of the universe or
‘anthropic coincidences’:
I.The Universe is finely tuned FOR THE CREATION OF LIFE and demonstrates regularity in its
laws of physics, without which life would not be possible.
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II.This cannot be the result of chance because there are too many coincidences for chance to
explain it.
III.Therefore there must be a designer of the Universe and this is God.
These arguments, qua regularity, depend on evidence that the world is finely tuned, and
maintain that chance does not sufficiently explain this fine tuning. They are all post-Darwin and
challenge the assumption that the work of Darwin rules out the Teleological argument. (N.B. If
these arguments are successful they lead back to arguments qua purpose; if the world is
designed, for what purpose was it designed?)
The existence of fine tuning was first ‘discovered’ in
the early 1970's by cosmologist Brandon Carter. An
anthropic coincidence consists of a feature of the laws
of nature, the fundamental constituents of matter, or
the initial condition of the universe that had to take a
value within some interval in order for life to exist at
all. Categories of coincidences
I.Features of the fundamental laws of nature.
II.Characteristics of the fundamental particles of
matter.(e.g. Self-replicating life seems to depend
on the co-existence of lighter and heavier
elements such as hydrogen, carbon and oxygen.)
III.The rate of expansion of matter emerging from the big bang.(The speed at which bits of
matter flew apart from other bits of matter soon after the big bang seems to be an example of
fine tuning. Too rapid a rate of expansion would have overpowered the gravitational attraction
of the various bits of matter to each other and no gases could have been formed, let alone the
galaxies that the gases later became. Too slow a rate of expansion would have caused too much
gravitational attraction and the universe would have collapsed back into itself billions of years
ago. The expansion rate lies perilously close to the borderline between collapse into a total
crunch and total dispersal of matter.)
IV.Features of the solar system and of the earth.(Life seems to depend on the formation of
stars and planetary systems, since no life could exist independently in space. Only if a star can
form and later become a supernova can any of the heavier elements form.)
If any of these features of the universe had been outside a narrow interval of values, then the
existence of any sort of life would have been impossible. The degree of ‘fine-tuning’ can be
quantified precisely, for example if the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational
force were changed by one part in 10 to 40 th power, star formation would have been impossible. The
ratio of the total number of electrons to the total number of protons could not vary by more than
one in 10 to the 37th power, without disastrous implications for galaxy and star formation.
There are three possible explanations for this apparent fine-tuning of the universe:
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1. God
2. Chance
3. The Many Worlds Hypothesis.
Theists, such as John Leslie and Richard Swinburne argue against chance and the many worlds
hypothesis. Against the argument that the world is as it is as a result of chance Richard Swinburne,
uses the following story:
‘Suppose that a madman kidnaps a victim and shuts him in a room with a card-shuffling
machine. The machine shuffles ten packs of cards simultaneously and then draws a card
from each pack and exhibits all the ten cards. The kidnapper tells the victim that he will
set the machine to work and it will show its first draw - unless the draw consists of an ace
of hearts from each pack, the machine will automatically set off an explosion which will kill
the victim so he will not see the cards the machine drew. The machine starts and to the
relief of the victim he sees ten Aces of hearts. The victim thinks that this extraordinary
fact needs an explanation in terms of the machine having been rigged in some way. The
kidnapper now reappears and casts doubt on the suggestion. 'IT IS HARDLY SURPRISING'
he says 'THAT THE MACHINE DRAWS ONLY ACES OF HEARTS. YOU COULD NOT
POSSIBLY SEE ANYTHING ELSE FOR YOU WOULD NOT BE HERE TO SEE ANYTHING
AT ALL IF ANY OTHER CARD HAD BEEN DRAWN.' But, Swinburne says, the victim is
right and the kidnapper wrong. There IS something extraordinary about 10 aces of hearts
being drawn - the fact that this is a necessary condition of anything being seen is not the
point. The Teleologist's basic point that the existence of order is extraordinary is still
valid.
John Lesley illustrates the same point by means of the Firing Squad analogy. A man is
condemned to death by firing squad. The squad are all good shots and never miss a target. They
shoot at the man but all miss. When asked to explain this extraordinary coincidence the man
replies that it is not at all surprising because he wouldn’t be here to answer the question if he
had been shot. This is the same kind of argument used by those like Bertrand Russell who want
to argue that the world is a ‘Brute fact’ and requires no explanation. These two illustrations are
trying to indicate that this is not a good enough response to the evidence for anthropic
coincidences.
Fred Hoyle supports this view:
‘A component has evidently been missing from cosmological studies. The origin of the
Universe, like the solution of the rubik cube, requires an intelligence’ 1 ‘.... properties seem
to run through the fabric of the natural world like a thread of happy accidents. But there
are so many of these odd coincidences essential to life that some explanation seems
required to account for them’ 2
1
‘Fred Hoyle The Intelligent Universe. P. 189
2
Ibid. P. 220
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The idea that chance is a valid explanation for the regularity of the Universe, and that chance is
a good explanation for the infinitely small window of opportunity within which the universe
exists and permits life is undermined by the degree of probability against it.
I.
David Hume’s objection against the inductive nature of the argument does however still
stand. We can only conclude that this egg was probably laid by a chicken on the basis of
many observations of eggs being laid in the past. Since we can never observe the making of
a universe we are in no position to comment on what sort of thing caused it. Swinburne
would argue that it is God because God is the more probable hypothesis. He claims that God
would have reason to create a universe with finite creatures who have the chance to grow
to knowledge of him and he has reason to make an orderly universe that human beings could
learn from. So Swinburne concludes3:
II.
A priori it is very improbable that a universe could just happen to exist, and
III. By virtue of God's postulated character, this is the sort of universe he would have good
reason to make.
Swinburne therefore maintains that whilst the Teleological argument by itself does not make
it probable that God exists, the argument does serve to increase the probability of God's
existence.
Swinburne's argument may be unpersuasive - unless one believes in God already. In other words
the inductive nature of the argument means that the conclusion is not logically necessary and
even if an atheist is prepared to acknowledge the anthropic coincidences as remarkable the
conclusion that God is the designer of the world is not compelling. There may be another
explanation.
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins in 'The Blind Watchmaker' follows Hume and describes approaches like Swinburne's
as 'Arguments from personal incredulity'. He effectively says that the fact that a Professor of
Philosophy of Religion sitting in his study at Oxford and never having studied biology cannot off the
top of his head think of a reason for polar bears, does not entitle him to say that God is the best
explanation. Dawkins’ view is that the hypothesis of God is entirely superfluous and that order is due
to natural selection alone - a blind, unconscious, automatic process which is completely without
purpose - hence the title of his book:
'Evolution has no long term goal. There is no long distance target, no final perfection to serve as a
criterion for selection... The criterion for selection is always short term, either simply survival or,
more generally, reproductive success... The 'watchmaker' that is cumulative natural selection is blind
to the future and has no long term goal.' (p. 58)
3
Richard Swinburne ‘The Existence of God’ p. 142
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Richard Dawkins in ‘Out of Eden’4 says: “We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil,
neither cruel nor callous – but simply callous: Indifferent to all suffering, lacking all ideas of
purpose.”
He quotes Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who, in a seminar at Windsor Castle addressed by Dr.
Peter Atkins said “You scientists are very good at answering ‘how’ questions. But you must admit that
you are powerless when it comes to the ‘why’ questions.” Dawkins rejects this - there is no why,
except that anything that happens can be explained in evolutionary terms. There simply is no wider
meaning or purpose. Theologians claim that there must be an answer to the mystery of, for instance,
innocent suffering, but for Dawkins it is not a mystery at all – there is no meaning and, therefore, no
answer to the question. However what science and evolution CAN explain is the mechanisms which
bring about states of affairs - for instance a female digger wasp lays her larvae in the live body of a
caterpillar, grass hopper or bee and ensures that its tendrils go into the nerve endings of the prey
to keep it alive while it is eaten from within. To the person who recoils with horror at how a good
God could allow this, Dawkins says that the question is nonsense. There is no reason – it is just an
effective way of the female wasp passing on her genes.
“Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the
outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote
control. They are in you and me; they create us, body and mind, and their preservation is the
ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, these replicators. Now they go
by the name of genes and we are their survival machines.’” 5
Dawkins understands human beings strictly in terms of biology - we have about 5 billion cells
each containing 46 chromosomes and 23 base pairs. Each chromosome contains tens of
thousands of genes. Dawkins describes DNA as follows:
‘It is raining DNA outside. On the banks of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a
large willow tree and it is pumping downy seeds into the air.... not just any DNA but DNA whose
coded characteristics spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a
new generation of downy seeds. These fluffy specks are literally, spreading instructions for
making themselves. They are there because their ancestors succeeded in doing the same. It’s
raining instructions out there. It’s raining programmes; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff spreading
algorithms. This is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be plainer if it were raining
floppy discs.’6
Peter Williams agrees that there is a strong analogy between DNA and a computer disc but he
maintains that as we know that computer programmes come from minds, we should similarly
assume that DNA comes from a mind - the mind of God.7 Similarly he says that scientists look
for extra-terrestrial intelligence by looking for coded signals which are ordered and non-random
4
Richard Dawkins ‘Out of Eden’ p. 95 - 7
5
Dawkins ‘The Selfish Gene, 1989 p. 19/20
6
Dawkins ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ 1986 p. 111
7
See Peter Williams ‘The Case for God’ Monarch. 1999 p. 222
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from space. DNA is a coded signal of incredible sophistication and complexity and it, too, points
to an intelligence which was its originator.8 Williams quotes:
‘DNA exhibits too much “design work”... to be the product of mere chance yet.... no known
physical laws.. Produce the right kind of ordered structure; one with high information content.’ 9
Williams maintains that a supernatural origin is required not for the DNA itself but for the
processes which bring the DNA about. This is precisely what Dawkins rejects as he considers
that Darwin’s principle of the ‘survival of the fittest’ can explain increasing complexity. Dawkins
and Williams agree in much - they both accept evolution but where they differ is that Williams
insists that there must be an intelligence that brings the processes that cause evolution about:
‘To say that Darwinian evolution cannot explain everything in nature is not to say that evolution,
random mutation, and natural selection do not occur; they have been observed (at least in the
case of microevolution) many different times ... I believe the evidence strongly supports
common descent. But the root question remains unanswered; what has caused complex systems
to form?’10
Science falls silent when asked for an explanation for the ultimate nature of the natural laws
that give rise to order and that generate the processes that bring DNA about. As Behe says:
‘”If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the
question of how molecular machines - the basis of life - developed, you find an eerie and
complete silence.’”’ For example, the Journal of Molecular Evolution was established in 1971, and
is dedicated to explaining how life came to be at the molecular level. None of the papers
published in JME has ever proposed a possible route for a single complex biochemical system to
arise in a gradual step-by-step Darwinian process.’11
Critics of this very reasonable argument hope for some naturalistic explanation to emerge for
the existence of the mechanisms which are necessary to generate DNA - but whether this will
emerge is still debatable. This brings the debate back to the key assumption of the Cosmological
argument - whether God or the brute fact of the Universe and given, ultimate physical laws is
the better ultimate explanation and it is on this issue that theist and atheist differ.
Dawkins claims that our coming to self-consciousness through the activity of these genes so
that we can understand ourselves is wonderful. The spotlight of consciousness shines not just on
the here and now (as it does with animals such as dogs and cats who are aware of the here and
now) but in the case of humans consciousness enables us to place ourselves in a broader setting.
8
Op. Cit. P. 112
9
Op. Cit Williams p. 112 quoting Nancy Pearcy ‘The Message in the Message’
10
Michael Behe ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ p. 175-6
11
Michael Behe o. cit p. 5 quoted in Williams op. Cit p.234
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‘The spotlight passes but, exhilaratingly, before doing so it gives us time to comprehend
something of this place in which we fleetingly find ourselves and the reason that we do so. We
are alone among animals in being able to say before we die: Yes, this is why it was worth coming
to life in the first place…’12
On this basis, we can come to understand the truth about ourselves and for Dawkins this
consciousness that has arisen in us is a thing of wonder. It has no purpose but we can
understand why we are here and this is something at which we may wonder and about which
poets can muse. Indeed Dawkins thinks there are close links between science and poetry - both
can express wonder and awe at the beauty of the Universe which we are beginning to
understand. Dawkins waxes lyrical about the wonder of being able to comprehend something of
the incredible Universe in which we live:
“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a
sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, beautiful with life. Within decades we must close our
eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at
understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up on it.” 13
Some biologists such as Stephen Rose, Richard Lewontin and Jay Gould reject Dawkins’ view they maintain that whole organisms and species have a clear priority over our genes. However in
a book published at the end of 1996, Matt Ridley (‘The Origins of Virtue’) considers that
Dawkins’ opponents have misunderstood the idea of the Selfish Gene and he attempts to make
the position clearer. Ridley maintains that whilst human genes are undoubtedly selfish, humans
have developed so that we have the ability to over-ride our nature and to act virtuously.
Effectively Ridley is saying that although we are, in essence, depraved due to our essential
biological and genetic nature, we have evolved to the point where we can overcome this nature.
Ridley says:
‘The first thing we should do to create a good society... is to conceal the truth about
humankind’s propensity for self-interest, the better to delude our fellows into thinking that
they are noble savages inside.’
John Cornwall, in a review of Ridley’s book in ‘The Sunday Times’ of November 3, 1996, says that, for
Ridley:
‘Selfishness is underpinned by science at the level of the molecules; whilst virtue is founded on
make-believe.... But Ridley overlooks the strength of the central Judeo-Christian paradox; that each
individual is simultaneously fallen and exalted, each individual capable of vice and yet authentically
endowed with dignity.’
Certainly the idea of humans being fundamentally evil yet being able to overcome this could fit well
into traditional Christianity.
12
Dawkins ‘’Unweaving the Rainbow’, 1998 p. 312/3'
13
Dawkins ‘Unweaving the ranbow’ 1998. P.6.
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Richard Dawkins’ approach has been amplified by a former pupil of his - Daniel Dennett. Dennett, in
a book entitled ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea - Evolution and the Meaning of Life’ strongly affirms the
power of evolution as an explanatory tool. He says:
"To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the life on this planet was produced by
the process of evolution is ..... inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have
learned to read and write."
Dawkins claims that all human emotional, thinking and other activities can be explained in mechanistic
terms. He rejects any attempt to ‘cordon off’ consciousness as an area which science will not be able
to explain. He argues that those studying the mind make no distinction between what he terms ‘easy
problems’ and ‘hard problems’. Easy problems are those concerning the mechanics or nerve and brain
cells whilst hard problems are to do with what philosophers term ‘qualia’ - the way things look or
smell or feel to us. Dennett maintains that:
"Once all the Easy Problems are solved, consciousness is explained"
In other words he says that the seemingly Hard Problems are solvable by solving the Easy Problems.
Dennett is scathing about what he terms ‘skyhook explanations’ such as those provided by religion
which rely on what he regards as imaginary supports to describe the way things are. Instead he
favours concrete, mechanistic explanations:
"The traditional idea of a sacrosanct pearl of genius that is outside the realm of the mechanistic and
is the source of creativity is just a hopeless idea, a fantasy"... "I know that some people find this
notion offensive, but that is too bad for them. My job is to cajole them out of their squeamishness."
However Dennett insists that this is not a bleak view of what it is to be human as some critics have
suggested. He strongly affirms human creativity and human freedom but maintains that these are
brought about by the mechanistic processes of evolution:
"Look how creative it (evolution) is!... It has created every life form of the planet, If it can make a
skylark, then it can make Keats’ poem ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. The skylark is at least as wonderful as
Ode to a Nightingale and the processes that have produced the skylark are, in the end, mechanical,
algorithmic."
Freewill has, claims Dennett, evolved in much the same way as language has evolved. In his book
‘Consciousness explained’ he claims that many people are frightened of seeing human beings in this
way, but this fear needs to be faced and understood. Dennett says:
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"I want to say to them ‘You are absolutely right.... Human freedom is the most important
thing there is. But the way to protect it, to understand what it is and preserve it, is not to
try to dig a moat round it and protect it from science, but to see how it evolves and see how
it is perceived in a computational way.
Dennett acknowledges that religion provides comfort for people, but he considers that the trouble
with this comfort is that it is based on misrepresentation.
There have been replies to Dawkins’ approach and to others who dismiss God, not least from Arthur
Peacocke (a physical biologist and a theologian writing in 'Science and the theology of creation'). He
claims that even if a complete explanation, a unified theory, could be found, this does not rule out
God. There is still a need to explain '..how our universe came into being..' and '..why there is only one
set of physical laws..'. God is still possible as some sort of ground of being. John Polkinghorne
maintains that God chose to create a universe governed by chance and law:
The universe that we actually perceive with its balanced and fruitful interplay of chance and
necessity, novelty and regularity, is a world that one might expect as the work of a creator both
loving and faithful, for it incorporates the two gifts of freedom and reliability'. (One World - the
interaction of science and religion. p. 92)
Stephen Hawkins
In 'A brief history of Time', Stephen Hawkins recounts a story about a woman who interrupts a
lecture on the universe to claim that she knows better. She maintains that the world is a flat plate
resting on the back of a giant turtle. When asked by the lecturer what the turtle rests on she
replies 'It's turtles all the way down!'. This gives expression to the fundamental problem
underlying Cosmological and Design arguments for the existence of God - namely where does the
regress of explanation end? John Wheeler says there can be 'No tower of turtles'. Can there be a
'superturtle' that stands at the base of the tower, itself unsupported? The theist, of course, will
say that the base of the tower is God whilst the atheist scientist may say it is some grand 'theory
of everything' but the problem is the same in both cases: what basis is there for an end to the
regress? Paul Davies suggests that an alternative may be a closed loop. However even THIS does not
provide a final explanation as one can still ask, as Davies puts it:
'Why THAT loop?' or even 'Why does ANY loop exist at all?' Even a closed loop of
mutually-supportive turtles invites the question 'Why turtles?'" Science can explain a great deal
(and most modern theists would accept Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution although
there are still a minority who insist on direct creation of human beings by God based on the Genesis
stories) however the scientific explanations operate WITHIN the universe – they do not answer the
question why there should be any universe at all.
THE MANY WORLDS HYPOTHESIS
This theory seeks to demonstrate that there is nothing remarkable about the existence of life on
earth and the regularity of the laws of the universe. This argument therefore seeks to undermine
the second premise of modern teleological arguments. This world, it is argued, is no great
coincidence. Our universe may be one of many millions of universes. Within these universes there
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would be the opportunity for all different combinations of laws and cosmic constants to be
actualised somewhere. It is not surprising therefore that the combination that we see here in our
universe happened. It had to happen somewhere, so why not here?
The objection to this is that it fails the test of Ockham’s Razor by postulating many worlds to
explain one. There can, by definition be no knowledge of universes outside of our own and so there is
no evidence for it. The hypothesis seems to many to rest on speculation and seems fanciful. John
Lesley, in Chapter 4 of ‘Universes’, argues that even if we accept the many worlds hypothesis the
many-worlds itself is not logically inconsistent with theism and the existence of many worlds with all
possible forms may in fact require a theistic explanation! Who or what created the many worlds?
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Even if the teleological argument succeeds, there are real questions as to the sort of God one
arrives at. John Stuart Mill (‘Three Essays on Religion’) raised this problem, maintaining that given
the apparent imperfections in the Universe and the amount of natural evils that occur, the most
plausible hypothesis was either to deny the Designer's goodness OR to deny the Designer’s
omnipotence. Mill chose to maintain God's goodness and hence concluded that God must be limited what or who by he could not tell.
If we are to argue seriously from design in the world to God, then evil, animal suffering and
disease all need to be taken into account as part of the factors that have to be explained in our
account of the designer. The issue is whether the world, as we know it, really is such as to POINT
TO AN ALL-POWERFUL AND WHOLLY GOOD CREATOR. Does not evil and suffering either show
lack of purpose or, at least, a God who is limited? It is important to recognise that there is a
difference between
(a) The Design argument which asks whether one can arrive at God, and if so what sort of God,
from the facts in the Universe, and
(b) The problem of evil which asks whether, given belief in an all powerful and wholly good God, this
belief can be reconciled with the evil in the world.
The Design argument also suffers from the same problem Martin Lee has discussed regarding the
Cosmological argument, namely that if the world is designed, then who or what created the designer?
Leibniz' Principle of Sufficient reason is not established and there seems no good ground for holding
God to be an uncaused cause on the basis of the teleological argument alone.
F.R. TENNANT AND THE ARGUMENT FROM BEAUTY.
--------------------------------------------Beauty is held to have no survival value nor has human appreciation of beauty any apparent real
value in helping humans to live together or to be more effective in the environment within which
they find themselves. What is the survival advantage of seeing the beauty in a snowflake; the
beauty of a spring morning or a piece of music? The facility to appreciate beauty, therefore, may be
held to be a pointer towards God implanted in human beings to make them indirectly aware of His
presence.
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F. R. Tennant (Philosophical Theology, Vol 2, pp. 89 - 93, 1930) put forward this argument as part of
a five strand argument for the existence of God. He maintained that cumulatively the following
arguments pointed to a Creator God:
1.
The universe could have been chaotic and it is not. It is comprehensible.
2.
Evolution is to be noted not for the changes which have undoubtedly happened along the way
but for the direction and the progress of change.
3.
The absolute suitability of the world to produce and sustain life (the ‘Anthropic Principle’ was
a phrase first coined by Tennant)
4.
The existence of aesthetic worth and beauty
5.
Humanity has an appreciation of moral worth.
Point four maintains that the universe is not just beautiful in places - it is saturated with beauty
from the microscopic to the macroscopic level. Swinburne endorses this argument and holds that
there is, a priori, no particular reason to expect a beautiful rather than an ugly world. He maintains
that God has some reason to make a beautiful world and some reason to leave some ugliness within
the world which human beings can strive to overcome. Swinburne claims, therefore, that the
presence of beauty makes the existence of God more probable than not.
The Christian Franciscan tradition, in particular, draws on the importance of beauty. St. Francis was
aware of the beauty in all that he saw. The major part of his Canticle to ‘Brother Sun and Sister
Moon’ was composed by Francis towards the end of his life, at a time when he had been suffering
from both physical illness and emotional anxiety about the future of his Order. Yet, as he reflected
on his own relationship with God, he was overwhelmed by the persistence of God’s goodness and this
led him to see and experience the reflections of God’s goodness in all created elements.
In the Canticle Francis addresses the created world as Brother, Sister, Mother:
Praise be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth who sustains and governs us, and who
produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
These attributes are not merely poetical personifications but expressions of spiritual relationship.
He was able to enter into such a relationship since he respected all created things for the
sacredness of the reflections they bore. His conviction that the Creator God is at the same time
the Highest Good enabled him to perceive the world as a sacred reality since it is a reflection of
God’s goodness. The Praises of the Canticle witness to one who was able, even in the midst of
affliction, to discern and feel the creative presence of Divine Love in all around him.
Bonaventure was well aware of Francis’ experience of the religious significance of creation. In his
Life of St Francis he writes:
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"Francis sought occasion to love God in everything. He delighted in all the works of God’s hands and
from the vision of joy on earth his mind soared aloft to the life-giving cause of it all. In everything
beautiful, he saw Him who is beauty itself; and he followed his Beloved everywhere by his likeness
imprinted on creation; of all creation he made a ladder by which he might mount up and embrace Him
who is all-desirable."
Bonaventure reflected upon this experience of St Francis and used it as the inspiration behind his
theology of creation.
One problem is whether human apprehension of beauty is a matter of cultural conditioning - in other
words is beauty 'present' in the universe independently or one being aware of it or is it only that
human beings see things as beautiful. To put it another way, are you a realist about beauty?
CONCLUSION
*+*+*+*+*+*+
There are no final answers to be found in philosophy although philosophy and science are beginning to
share mutual concerns and are perplexed by similar problems. Paul Davies puts it like this:
'The central theme... is that, through science, we human beings are able to grasp at least
some of nature's secrets. We have cracked part of the cosmic code. Why this should be, just
why Homo Sapiens should carry the spark of rationality that provides the key to the universe,
is a deep enigma. We, who are children of the universe - animated stardust - can nevertheless
reflect on the nature of that same universe, even to the extent of glimpsing the rules on
which it runs. How we have become linked into this cosmic dimension is a mystery. Yet the
linkage cannot be denied.' (The Mind of God. p. 232)
Science and Theology both end in unexplained mysteries and both, at their best, should be willing to
pursue an open minded search into the unknown.
Dr. PETER VARDY
Heythrop College
University of London
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