Modern views on the Design Argument

Modern views on the Design Argument

The Design Argument is one of the most popular topics in the philosophy of religion specifications. Gordon Reid reviews some modern contributions

Gordon Reid

The Design Argument is both ancient and famous. It is based on the view that certain aspects of the universe are so perfectly adapted to fulfil their function that they display evidence of being deliberately designed by an intelligent, personal designer, which is most reasonably explained as God. Until recently, textbooks told us that the argument was the fifth of Aquinas’

Five Ways and always referred to Paley’s watch and the contribution of well-known scholars — Hume, Mill, Kant and others.

But today, there is a group of modern philosophers and scholars, whose views on the Design Argument are new and, perhaps, just as persuasive. Let us have a look at some of the best of modern scholarship and see if it is as convincing as that of the classic scholars of the past.

Swinburne

We will start with Richard Swinburne and his argument from probability. He uses the laws that govern natural selection and evolution to justify, rather than criticise, the Design Argument as a proof of the existence of God. In The Existence of God (2004) he maintains:

‘The very success of science in showing us how deeply orderly the natural world is, provides, strong grounds for believing that there is an even deeper cause of that order̕̕

■ order in the universe is a product of ‘regula rity of co-presence’ — this means everything works together in an orderly way

He argues that:

■ order in the universe also comes from ‘regularity of succession’ — this means that the orderly pattern of the universe is very simple

■ this leads to the ‘perspective of probability’, namely that the easiest and simplest explanation for the universe is that it has a cosmic designer

Swinburne makes a number of key observations about the universe — for example, its fittingness for human life and its scope for allowing human beings to share in God’s creative activity and to make significant choices. These features, he believes, are to be expected from a loving creator, God:

‘The simple hypothesis of theism leads us to expect all the phenomena that I have been describing with some reasonable degree of probability. God being omnipotent is able to produce a world orderly in these respects.̕̕

And he has a good reason to choose to do so: a world containing human persons is a good thing… . God being perfectly good, is generous. He wants to share. ’

Swinburne argues that God is the b explanation because of the providential nature of the universe — it contains within it everything that is necessary for survival and natural laws function within the universe. This kind of universe is the type that God would have reason to create. God had a choice about the kind of universe he could create — the universe cannot be the product of pure chance.

Aesthetic argument

F. R. Tennant also uses the notion that the universe possesses a natural beauty beyond that which is necessary to live, to suggest that there is a designer. He cites that the beauty of nature, art, music and culture point to an intelligent designer. In Philosophical Theology (1969) he observes:

̒ Nature is not just beautiful in places; it is saturated with beauty — on the telescopic and microscopic scale. Our scientific knowledge brings us no nearer to understanding the beauty of music. From an intelligibility point of view, beauty seems to be superfluous and to have little survival value.̕̕

MODERN SCHOLARS ALSO HAVE THEIR CRITICS, WHO CLAIM THAT INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS SIMPLY NOT SCIENTIFIC

He calls this the anthropic principle, suggesting that the reason and purpose of the universe’s existence is the support of human life, and also to enrich it. He writes: ’

‘As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming. ’

Fine tuning

Freeman Dyson takes this a stage further, arguing that scientific explanations of the universe are compatible with the Design Argument since evolution or a ‘big bang’ can be seen to be the means that the designer has employed. The order of the universe is beyond chance — evolution could then be part of God’s plan for the world. In Disturbing the Universe (1981) he wrote:

‘As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.̕

More recently, John Polkinghorne argues that beauty and ‘finely tuned fruitfulness’ of natural laws suggest that they did not just happen by chance. In Testing God: Killing the Creator (1995) he said:

‘ It seems to be natural to believe that the rational order and beauty is an expression of a divine mind, and the finely tuned fruitfulness is an expression of divine purpose. ’

Polkinghorne believes that the universe is fixed and unchanging, but rather that God continually interacts with creation as a conductor ‘conducting the improvised performance of the universe’. The very existence and nature of the physical universe is, he says, proof of a cosmic designer. God is the ‘total explanation’ for the design of the universe.

’ The intelligent design movement has gained considerable support in recent years, and is based on the principle that the universe is so complex that its origin can only be explained in terms of intelligent design.

William Dembski claimed in Intelligent Design (1999) that:

‘…intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable.̕

The theory rests on three key principles:

■ Irreducible complexity: Michael B ehe claimed that all the parts of a system (or universe) must be simultaneously in place for the system to work and could not have arisen through a process of gradual change such as evolution. The system must have been designed by an intelligent mind.

■ Specified complexity: this is the principle favoured by Dembski, who argues that design is implied whenever complexity arises. We infer intelligent design in events that are highly improbable or that show obvious design because they offer many complexities for performing a specified task (e.g. a car engine).

■ Evidence not theory: supporters of intelligent design argue that they use the world to offer evidence, not just theory, and that intelligent design is a better explanation of the biological evidence than that provided by the theory of evolution.

However, modern scholars also have their critics, who claim that intelligent design is simply not scientific. In the television programme The War on Science (BBC Two, 6 January 2006)

Richard Attenborough claimed that intelligent design is not science: ‘It is so fundamentally against every scientific principle you can think of, that to put it in the same bracket is to seriously confuse thinking.’

Similarly, in the 2005 US court case of Kitzmiller et al v Dover Area School District the court rejected all claims to intelligent design being a scientific theory, insisting that it was ‘nothing more than creationism in disguise’.

Scientific challenges

Perhaps the greatest modern criticism of the Design Argument is the big bang theory, proposed in 1948 by Gamow, Alpher and Herman. They interpreted the background radiation caused by photons moving randomly in space, without a discernible source, at a temperature of 2.7K, as evidence that space and time began less than a second after a gigantic explosion. The universe is still expanding from the point of the explosion and the residual radiation from it can still be traced.

The key question is whether this primal explosion can be explained without the need for God to cause it to happen. Scientists have been unable to account for the conditions before the big bang or what may have caused it to occur, which allows others to argue that God is the cause of the big bang. However, modern scholars such as Richard Dawkins argue that ‘If science doesn’t explain it, we should do better science’ and will not accept the involvement of God.

Finally, we come to the modern doctrine of ‘continuous creation’. Arthur Peacocke argues that God created the universe out of nothing, including its physical laws, but that he continues to act creatively with and through natural processes to bring about physical and biological complexity. He claims that chance events, such as genetic variations, do not count against God’s creative purposes. Rather, God is the source of both chance and physical laws and he continues to create physical, chemical and biological complexity. As a result, the world has continuity, but is also open-ended with the possibility of change.

Modern scholars offer many new and convincing views both for and against the Design Argument. Don’t be afraid to use them in your exam answers.

PEACOCKE ARGUES THAT GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE OUT OF NOTHING, INCLUDING ITS PHYSICAL LAWS, BUT THAT HE CONTINUES TO ACT CREATIVELY WITH AND THROUGH NATURAL PROCESSES TO BRING ABOUT PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY

Gordon Reid is a former head of religious studies at Alleyn’s School, London, and an editor of RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW.