Design and Evil: God’s intentions in the world.
What I want to do today is develop a parallel (and examine the contrasts) between
two arguments concerning God’s existence. The first is the argument from design; the
second is the argument from evil. The first begins with observations of complex,
purpose-achieving systems in the world; it then invokes a powerful principle, viz. that
such systems must (for reasons that vary from case to case) have been designed by some
intelligence. The upshot is obvious: Since many such systems were not designed by us
(and their design is clearly well beyond our present capacities), there must be a designer,
superior to us (at least in technology) who has produced these systems. A little
familiarity with the cosmological argument completes the story: Suppose that this
designer really is just a powerful, sophisticated alien species busily spreading life through
the cosmos. This species in turn will presumably have evolved on some planet, and life
on that planet will be equally in need of explanation by appeal to a superior designer. In
the end, only a self-explainer can complete the story, and metaphysical theology is off to
the races.
The argument from evil, on the other hand, begins from our (or a) description of
God, as omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent. As Hume put it, this
description seems to leave the existence of evil inexplicable: Is God unaware of evil?
Then she is ignorant. Is God unable to prevent evil? Then she is impotent. Is God
unwilling to prevent evil? Then she is malevolent. But an obvious observation comes in
here: there is evil. It seems, then, that no such perfect God can exist.
So there is an interesting contrast right at the outset. The contrast is in the
direction of the key inference—in the argument from design, we are asked to infer
characteristics of God from the argument’s conclusion, i.e. that she is the designer of life.
Here’s an example of such an inference: Richard Owen, a nineteenth century English
biologist, distinguished between what he called homologies (fundamental, multi-level
similarities between different species) and analogies (superficial similarities in function);
he interpreted the homologies linking various groups of animals and plants (which form
the basis for our taxonomical categories of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum,
kingdom) as grounded in God’s use of variations on certain basic blueprints in designing
the various living kinds. So studying biology, from this point of view, is reading the
mind, the intentions, of God. Natural theology, more generally, aimed at grounding some
aspects of religious belief in examination of the natural world (the ‘two books’ approach
to understanding God—a common feature of Christian views on science). God’s
existence, and benevolence, were argued at some length here. But there were
difficulties—it takes a certain sentimentalism about nature to extract a benevolent God
from what we observe out there. (This sentimentalism persists in notions like the widelyheld view that predators typically ‘cull’ the herd of weaker members, and in what I like to
call the ‘Disney’ view of nature.)
But in the argument from evil, we begin with assumptions (assumptions that are
characteristic of the monotheistic tradition in theology) about God’s intentions, and about
her knowledge and powers. The key inference draws on these assumptions to conclude
that no evil should be found in the world. Since, in fact, there’s quite a lot of (what we
regard as) evil, the argument concludes that there must be something wrong with our
assumptions: The God of traditional monotheism does not exist.
But there is also a strong parallel. Both arguments assume that God has the power
to realize her intentions in the world; both, that is, treat God as a person who has
purposes that are, or should be (at least in outline) discernable in the world. The
argument from design begins with descriptions of items in which some of God’s purposes
are said to be manifest, and infers the existence of a God with those purposes. The
argument from evil begins with a broad sort of purpose—the goal of creating a good
world—and concludes, since God must be omnipotent and omniscient, this purpose is
manifestly not achieved to the degree that it should be.
So the question I want to kick around today is this: Which argument do you find
more convincing, and why?
Readings: Paley, Hume on design; Dostoevsky, Johnson, Swinburne on Evil.
Contra the argument from evil:
1.
The appeal to free will (the fall).
2. The appeal to God’s superior knowledge of how
things will work out (Pangloss).
3. The appeal to skepticism about our appreciation of
what’s really good or bad.
4. The appeal to means/end issues. (This one is very
popular and totally hopeless.)
Contra the argument from design:
1. Do complex, apparently purposive things really need
a designer? (How could we show this is so, when in fact
we can’t point to a manifest designer in the case of so
many apparently purposive things?
2. God of the gaps. (Where our explanations run short,
invoke God. But this just labels our ignorance!)
3. Hume: The universe is just one thing, and not closely
analogous to the things that we design for various
purposes. We have no other examples (there’s no
inductive evidence for the claim that the universe in
general, or living things in particular, need a designer).
4. Natural selection: One kind of purpose (and one
only) can be ‘favoured’ by nature—the ‘purpose’ of
survival and reproduction. Any improvement in an
organism’s capacity to survive and reproduce is inherited
by its offspring and gradually spreads through the
population. NS doesn’t care how this works (mere
increase in fertility is enough, for example; consider also
nasty tricks like those of parasitic wasps and gall
midges). NS could not explain the existence of an
organism that served the reproductive/survival needs of
some other kind of organism, except when that turns out
to be an indirect means of assuring its own survival and
reproduction. (Schmoos are right out!)
The Argument From Evil:
1.
A perfect God is omniscient, omnipotent,
and perfectly benevolent.
2.
If God is omniscient, then God knows of
all evil.
3.
If God is omnipotent, God can prevent
any evil.
4.
If God is perfectly benevolent, God
wishes to prevent all evil.
5.
If God knows of, is able to prevent, and
wishes to prevent all evil, then there can
be no evil.
6.
There is evil.
7.
Therefore there is no perfect God.
The Argument from Design:
1. Living things (sometimes some other feature
of the world) are goal-directed systems: They
regularly achieve certain goals: specifically,
survival and reproduction. From this we can
infer (so they say) that they are aimed at, or
directed towards those goals.
2. But goal-directed systems are the result of
intelligent design. (Paley appeals to the
analogy of a watch found on the ground.)
Nothing in ‘matter’ or ‘nature’, they claim,
can account for the regular achievement of
goals. Only an intelligence can have
purposes (these can then be manifested in the
things the intelligence designs & produces to
achieve its purpose).
3. Therefore living things have been designed
by some intelligence (and we can infer some
of the purposes of that intelligence by
studying living things, and the universe more
generally): Natural theology is off to the
races.