The Argument from Design

The Argument William Paley In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ...

The Argument There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.

The Argument The watch has obvious fitness for its purpose. There are parts which must work together for it to function. We naturally realise that it required a designer – the watchmaker. The world has the same characteristics. Clearly we ought to conclude that it too has a designer – God.

The Argument Cleanthes (Hume) 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, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an acuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them.

The Argument Cleanthes (Hume) The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the production of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble, and that the Author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which He has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity and His similarity to human mind and intelligence.

The Argument a. The parts of machines of human contrivance fit together wonderfully for their purposes. b. They do so because they are designed to do so by a mind. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- c. If parts work together for an end that is probably because they have been designed to do so by a mind. d. The parts of the world fit together wonderfully for their purposes. e. Therefore they have probably been designed to do so by a mind.

The Objections Doing without Mind Vegetable reproduction Animal reproduction Instinct Inanimate Powers

The Objections Doing without God The God of Trial and Error Santa’s Elves God as Man

The Objections Philo This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant Deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance; it is the work only of some dependent inferior Deity; and it is the object of derision to his superiors; it is the production of old age and dotage in some super-annuated Deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him…