The Design Argument Aquinas, Paley and Swinburne

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The Design Argument Aquinas, Paley and Swinburne

The Design Argument is a perennial favourite among examination candidates. David Kendall shows you how to achieve high grades in exam questions on this popular topic

AQA AS Unit D: Religion, Philosophy and Science

One of the most common questions on the Design Argument provides you with a real opportunity to collect marks.

Essentially the question requires you to give as much detail as possible about one or more of the three principal exponents of the Design Argument for the existence of God that AQA has selected, namely Aquinas, Paley and Swinburne. This provides you with two ‘classical’ arguments and one ‘modern’ and if you know the reasoning that each uses then you can easily achieve full marks on such a question. What I intend to do here is provide you with the information to help you do that.

A few pointers

Focus on the argument

The question will be looking for the argument the individual presents, and will typically read as follows:

Question

Explain the Design Argument as presented by Aquinas and Paley. (30 marks)

You will not be required to include any biographical detail or introductory remarks, as the examiner will only be giving credit for the correct elements of the arguments. If you were writing a book it would be different but you have about 24 minutes to fulfil this task, and to gain the maximum number of marks you need to put all that time into explaining each of the arguments.

Learn all three arguments

While you are unlikely to be asked for all three arguments in a part (a) question, you need to learn all three as you will not be able to predict which one(s) the examiner has decided to go for when it comes to your turn to sit the examination. I have seen questions combining two of them and I have seen questions which ask for one of the arguments and Hume’s criticisms.

Swinburne and the part (b) question

Swinburne’s argument can be used successfully in a part (b) question where you are being asked about the strengths and weaknesses of Design Arguments. One weakness of ‘classical’ approaches to Design Arguments is that evolutionary theory and modern cosmology have undermined their credibility. Another is encapsulated in Hume’s philosophical attack. Swinburne neatly sidesteps Hume and uses mathematics and scientific theory as part of his own approach to showing that God ‘probably’ is responsible for the design of the universe.

Key phrases

The following paragraphs give you sufficient information to be able to respond to a question about the arguments presented by any of the three theologians. I have also put certain key words and phrases in bold. My advice would be to make a list of all these words and phrases and learn that list. You may find other key points in the text which you could add to this list.

In this way you will have the basic information and will be able to rewrite an answer to a question about the Design Argument in your own words. I have introduced the characters in chronological order, which may be a sensible approach in an examination too.

Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas formulated a version of the classical Design Argument by portraying God as the director of the universe. He came to the conclusion that when we look at the universe we see regularity, order and purpose. Therefore his argument is a posteriori as it is formed by observing the universe using empirical knowledge. Aquinas suggested that ‘Natural Bodies’ like the water cycle and the orbiting planets, which had no intelligence of their own, seemed to act in a regular fashion to accomplish their end or purpose. This implied that they were directed by an intelligent being which we call God.

Using the analogy of the arrow he reinforced this idea by indicating that when we see an arrow flying through the air, we do not imagine that it has got there by its own devices, as we know it has no intelligence to do this. Consequently, whether we can see the person or not, we know that there is an archer who has caused this arrow to fly. The inanimate object needs something or somebody with intelligence to direct it towards its end or purpose. In the case of the orbiting planets this intelligent force is God.

Paley

William Paley used analogy (reasoning from parallel cases) in his Design Argument too. He suggested that if one found a watch, an inspection of it would immediately suggest that it was a complex mechanism with many different parts which all worked together for a purpose, that of telling the time. Our experience would suggest that mechanisms that have a purpose have been designed and therefore have a designer, in this case the watchmaker. Indeed it doesn’t matter whether the watch is imperfect, as the same truth applies. He suggested that the human eye is not dissimilar to the watch in that it is a complex mechanism formed of many different parts which all work together for a purpose, that of seeing.

These were clear signs of design and he attributed this to ‘God the designer’. He also argued that in a similar way the universe shows evidence of purposeful design, that of supporting life, and therefore must also have a designer. Due to the fact that the scale of the design is so much greater in the case of the universe than that of the watch, so the scale of the designer must also be that much greater. The only designer that matches these criteria is God.

Paley goes on to look at the regularity of the planets in their orbits and suggests that slight differences in their patterns would have led to cosmic chaos. He suggested that this could not be happening by chance and that an external agent must have imposed this regularity and order upon them and throughout the universe. He suggested that this could only be the work of God.

Swinburne

These two Design Arguments have been discredited somewhat by modern cosmology and evolutionary theory. However, Richard Swinburne has drawn together a number of arguments to present a revitalised Design Argument for the twenty-first century.

His argument from spatial order or regularities of co-presence picks up on the criticisms of previous arguments which had suggested that the order and purpose apparent in nature pointed to a designer god. The theory of evolution through natural selection, he agreed, could be responsible for this apparent design, but this process occurred only because the initial conditions were right. He argued that God would have chosen to create an orderly universe and the evidence before us suggests that he did.

This argument relies on an acceptance of the anthropic principle which states that, given that what we see in the universe now is as a result of the way it began, the way it began had to be ‘just right’ (the Goldilocks effect) or it would never have been this way. This scientific theory can be interpreted as implying that whatever God had in mind when he created the universe, and the Bible tells us that this was mankind, he had to make sure it all began in a most precise manner. The evidence, the fact that we are here, suggests that he did a good job.

Probability

Swinburne’s argument from temporal order or regularities of succession accepts the anthropic principle and that the universe is governed by laws. The universe could just as easily have been chaotic but that it is orderly suggests design rather than chance because the laws of nature could not have evolved — they had to be there from the start. All scientific discoveries, including evolutionary theory, describe these regular patterns. But science cannot explain why these things happen.

Swinburne considers that it is justifiable to consider this in terms of probability. Is it more or less probable that an ordered universe comes about by chance or by design? The analogy of the cardshuffling machine helps to explain what he means. The machine shuffles ten separate packs of cards and has to draw an ace of hearts as the first card from each, or it will explode and kill the victim. The chance of this happening is millions to one against, but it does, so the victim thinks the machine must be rigged. The kidnapper says that the fact that the victim is alive to see the cards being drawn is the only thing he could have seen, otherwise he would be dead.

Swinburne says that the appearance of all these aces is so extraordinary that it demands more of an explanation than just luck. For him it is not the fact that we perceive order rather than disorder, but rather that it is order that is there to perceive at all. This order makes it more probable that there is design and therefore a designer behind it. Swinburne says that this designer is probably what we call God.

Finally, using the philosophical tool called Ockham’s Razor he claims that the suggestion that God is the designer is the simplest possible way of resolving this issue and that therefore this answer is probably the right one.

To conclude

If you write an answer that includes the details I have given you here, then you will have provided a ‘thorough’ response, which is what the examiners are looking for in order to award marks from the top level descriptor (28–30 marks). This should set you up for a grade A at AS and a mark that will contribute significantly to your overall A-level result.

David Kendall is head of humanities at Bedford Modern School, where he teaches religious studies and philosophy.