THE
DESIGN
ARGUMENT
The Creation.
William Blake
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This Powerpoint presentation is
prepared by Dr. Peter Vardy,
Vice-Principal of Heythrop
College, University of London
for
Heythrop College,
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DIALOGUE
EDUCATIONAL
VIDEOS.
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Copyright reserved
University of London, is the
specialist theology and
Philosophy College of the
University. It offers
undergraduate and
postgraduate courses in
Theology, Philosophy,
Philosophy of Religion and
Ethics. www.heythrop.ac.uk
DESIGN ARGUMENTS
These are A POSTERIORI – they start from experience in the
world and attempt to argue to God
There are three types:
1) TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS
Arguments from a general pattern of order in the Universe.
Why are there scientific laws at all and where do they come
from?
2) FROM PROVIDENCE
Arguments from the claim that the needs of human and other
beings are provided for, and
3) ARGUMENTS FROM BEAUTY
Arguments from the existence of beauty in the world.
The first two are closely linked and are often not separated clearly
PALEY AND HUME
William Paley was Archdeacon of Carlisle:
Paley: Imagine crossing a heath. If you come across
a stone, you might consider it to be an accident
but if you come across a watch then this provides
clear evidence of contrivance or design even if
the purpose of the watch is not obvious.
Just as the design of the watch implies a designer, so
the design in the world implies a great designer –
which is God.
His argument was criticised by Hume 23
years BEFORE Paley put it forward.
This was a mark of the gap between philosophy and
theology at the time.
HUME’S THREE
CHARACTERS
Hume sets out his argument through three characters:
CLEANTHES – who uses Natural Theology (based on
reason) to argue from the world to God
DEMEA – who starts with a faith position, and
PHILO – who puts forward Hume’s own, sceptical,
position.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Cleanthes puts forward an argument very similar to that later to
be put forward by Paley:
Design implies a designer
The Universe is clearly designed.
There is great design in the Universe which is like a machine,
This implies there must be a Great Designer of the Universe.
PHILO’s FIRST REPLY
Central to Cleanthes’ argument is that like effects presuppose
like causes. This means that, if the argument succeeds, it points
to God being like a superman figure. This is because the closer
the analogy between design in the world and design of the
world, the closer the parallels between God and human beings.
Look at the evidence, says Philo. Perhaps this Universe is the
product of a trainee God, or a senile God because although
there is evidence of good design there also appears to be
evidence of poor design.
Perhaps there are many gods, male and female, who co-operate
together. After all many humans collaborate to produce a great
ship, so if there is a close analogy between design IN the
universe and design OF the universe as a whole, this would
point to anthropomorphic gods. Perhaps many gods collaborate
to produce the universe and the design is not very good.
If, on the other hand, it is said that there are only weak links
between design within the universe and design of the Universe
as a whole, this weakens the whole argument.
PHILO’S SECOND REPLY
1) The world is ordered
2) This order either results from design or chance
3) It is perfectly possible that order arose from chance,
as:
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
Matter and energy may well be everlasting (this anticipated
Einstein’s findings that the total stock of matter and energy
in the Universe may be constant),
If this is so, then in an infinite number of combinations all
possibilities will be realised.
Once order has occurred it will tend to perpetuate itself.This
assumption may be rejected as entropy implies that there
may be a tendency in the opposite direction
Animal adaptation cannot be used to prove design, as if
animals did not adapt they would not survive.
Philo’s conclusion is that we should suspend judgement
as to whether there is a God.
RICHARD SWINBURNE
Imagine 10 card shuffling machines. A madman kidnaps
someone and ties them to a chair. He sets the card shuffling
machines going and says that a box of explosives will blow up
unless every pack shows an ace of hearts.
When the victim survives, he will be convinced that the ‘dice
must have been loaded’ but the madman will reply that he
could not see anything else – as he would otherwise be dead.
Similarly the odds of human beings coming to be are so huge
that the probability is that there is an intelligence behind the
universe.
Fred Hoyle supports Swinburne’s conclusion:
‘A component has evidently been missing from Cosmological
Studies. The origin of the Universe, like the solution to the
Rubik cube, requires an intelligence. (‘The Intelligent
Universe’ p. 189) ‘…properties seem to run through 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.’
Swinburne’s conclusions
It is very unlikely that the Universe has just happened
to exist.
Given the character of God postulated by the main
monotheistic religions, this is just the sort of world
God would have reason to create
Whereas the Design argument does not prove the
existence of God, it does make it more probable than
not that God exists.
HOWEVER assessing probability is very difficult and
much depends on individual opinion so it is important
to assess Swinburne’s possible bias… Peter Vardy also
argues that he fails to take real account of the problem
of evil and negative factors in the Universe.
RICHARD DAWKINS
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The title of Dawkins’ book, ‘The Blind
Watchmaker’, refers to Paley’s argument
He claims that natural selection is ‘blind’, it has no aim,
no purpose. It is a ‘blind, unconscious automatic
process’ completely without purpose:
“Evolution has no long term goal. There is no
long term 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.”
DAWKINS Contd.
In ‘The Selfish Gene’ Dawkins claims that humans only
act so that their genes may survive. All we are is
mechanisms to pass on our genes in competition with
other species. We are simply the mechanisms used by
our genes to replicate themselves:
‘We are survival machines – robot vehicles
blindly programmed to preserve the selfish
molecules known as genes.’
Human beings have evolved to meet the conditions
available. There is no purpose and no meaning to our
existence – we are simply what has evolved and our
ability to understand our place in the Universe is
remarkable and fills Dawkins with awe.
Richard Dawkins and Peter Williams
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.’ Dawkins ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ 1986 p. 111
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.
Williams – Contd.
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. Williams quotes Behe:
As Michael 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.’
Critics of this 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.
DOES EVOLUTION EXPLAIN ENOUGH?
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Williams maintains that a supernatural origin is
required not for the DNA itself but for the
processes which bring the DNA 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?’ Michael Behe ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ p. 175-6
In other words, the principle of Natural
Selection does not rule out belief in God – the
question still remains as to where the whole
system comes from and this, it is claimed, science
cannot explain.
Dawkins’ awe and wonder - 1
Dawkins claims that our coming to selfconsciousness so that we can understand
ourselves is wonderful. Evolution can explain a
skylark and also a Shakespeare sonnet. He claims
that the spotlight of consciousness shines not
just on the here and now (as it does with animals)
but enables us to place ourselves in a broader
setting:
“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…” (Unweaving the Rainbow p. 312/3)
Dawkins’ awe and wonder - 2
In ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’ (1998) Dawkins
shows a clear sense of awe at the
Universe which we can, in our short life,
begin to understand:
“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?”
WHO ARE YOU?
Imagine that ten packs of cards are shuffled. The cards come up:
2H, JC, 5S, AH, 7D, 10D, KS, 4D, 6S, QC
The odds of these coming up are astronomical.
SWINBURNE effectively says: ‘What an incredible coincidence!
The odds of these numbers coming up are so huge there
must have been an intelligence organising this!’
DAWKINS replies ‘These are just the numbers that happen to
come up and isn’t it wonderful that we can understand the
processes through which this happens before we cease to be?’
(note this is very similar to Philo’s point).
YOU ARE THE CARDS. Which do you think is more
likely?? Peter Vardy claims that it is how you answer
this question which will determine whether you find it
probable or not that there is a God.
The Anthropic Argument
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PERHAPS, HOWEVER, THE TYPES
OF ARGUMENT LOOKED AT SO FAR
ARE INADEQUATE
PERHAPS A MORE PERSUASIVE
APPROACH IS NEEDED THAT IS
NOT A PROOF BUT A POSSIBLE
POINTER.
ONE THAT STARTS AT AN
ENTIRELY DIFFERENT POINT…..
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THE WIND ON
THE FIELDS
 TWO
DINGOS
SAYING
HELLO
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A CATERPILLAR
AND SOME
FLOWERS
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ACCIDENT OR
DESIGN?
The argument from Beauty
Beauty is held to have no survival value. What is the
survival advantage of seeing the beauty in a snowflake;
in a Spring morning or a piece of music?
The facility to appreciate beauty, may be held to
be a pointer towards God implanted in human beings
to make them indirectly aware of His presence.
F. R. Tennant argues that the universe is not just
beautiful in places - it is saturated with beauty from
the microscopic to the macroscopic level.
Swinburne holds that there is no reason to expect a
beautiful rather than an ugly world. 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. He claims that the
presence of beauty makes the existence of God
more probable than not.
THE FRANCISCAN TRADITION
St. Francis is recognized today as the patron saint
of ecology. In his Canticle Francis addresses
the created world as Brother, Sister, Mother:
‘Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister
Mother Earth who sustains and governs
us, and who produces varied fruits with
coloured flowers and herbs.’
Francis saw all these as expressions of spiritual
relationship. Francis found God in all things
since all things were created by God. According
to Paul Rout OFM, Francis is convinced that the
Creator God is at the same time the Highest
Good. This enabled Francis to perceive the
world as a sacred reality since it is a reflection
of God’s goodness.
Problems with the argument from beauty
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Beauty may be ‘in the eye of the beholder’. It
may be due to cultural conditioning and may not
exist as some sort of absolute.
If one is a non-realist about beauty, then this
makes it less likely that it is implanted by God.
HOWEVER The Franciscan tradition sees
God as ‘luring’ human beings towards God
– and it sees beauty as one of the
means which God uses. It could be that
God implants a faculty to recognise
beauty, but this faculty is differently
formed in different societies. Again,
theist and atheist will differ and there
seems no convincing proof…
GAIA
James LOVELOCK’S
GAIA HYPOTHESIS
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“According to the Gaia hypothesis, we are part of a
greater whole.. Our destiny is not dependent merely on
what we do for ourselves but also on what we do for
Gaia as a whole. If we endanger her, she will dispense
with us in the interests of a higher value – life itself.”
(Vaclav Havel, July 1994)
The word ‘Gaia’ is the name of the Greek goddess of the
Earth. The Gaia hypothesis rejects the anthropocentric
view centred on human beings – according the the Gaia
hypothesis, we are part of a greater whole.
THE GAIA HYPOTHESIS IS AN HYPOTHESIS – IT
MAY NOT BE VALID BUT IT IS CERTAINLY
WORTHY OF DEBATE.
ENTROPY
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The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that all energy will
eventually dissipate into heat universally distributed.
Lovelock maintained that a reduction or reversal of entropy
is a sure sign of life.
Life itself manipulated the atmosphere of earth and the
whole earth system so as to reduce entropy. Entropy does
indeed occur, but life can reverse it – and thus make more
life possible.
‘..the entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales
to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as
constituting a single, living entity, capable of
manipulating earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs
with faculties and powers far beyond those of its
constituent parts.’ (Gaia p. 9)
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WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?
Life first appeared on Earth 3.5 million years ago yet in
this time the Earth’s climate has changed very little. The
chemical composition of the seas and the atmosphere
runs quite against what we would expect.
Lovelock maintains that the atmosphere is a biological
construction – a living system engineered to maintain a
chosen environment. The whole is maintained at an
equilibrium from which even a tiny departure could
have disastrous consequences for life.
Instead of Nature being seen as a primitive force that
needs to be subdued, Gaia should be seen as a complex
entity involving biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil a living organism, maintaining and sustaining itself.
HUMANS ARE PART OF THE UNITY THAT IS GAIA
– NOT ITS MASTER.
The GAIA HYPOTHESIS AND
THE DESIGN ARGUMENT
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Peter Vardy has argued that Lovelock’s Gaia
hypothesis may have relevance to the Design argument.
It maintains that Gaia (the earth) ‘manages itself’,
‘engineers’ conditions necessary for life.
The processes by which it does this may be explored by
science but the religious question may still remain –
what causes a Universe where such processes exist?
They seem the very opposite of random processes and,
therefore, one could return to Paley and maintain that
an intelligence is required to put these processes in
place.
The Gaia hypothesis has not yet been proved, but it
could provide fertile ground for a debate between
scientists and theologians.