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2.6: Argument from Design (Noah Levin)

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    30054
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    13 Argument from Design
    Noah Levin22

    The differences between the concept of a Teleological Argument and an Argument from Design is subtle. Indeed, William Paley’s “Watchmaker Argument” is an example of both. Paley argues that the complexity of the world we live in shows that there is a purpose to existence, and these are not just examples of God’s existence, but these things can only exist if God does, and God’s “plan for the universe” instills a meaning in everything. Paley’s argument is a grand analogy, but it can be broken down into two distinct forms of argument. Both teleological arguments and arguments from design consider the complexity of the world and attempt to use this as evidence to illustrate that the existence of God is the most rational conclusion. A teleological argument, however, focuses on the telos, the “purpose,” of objects. The assumption is that things (particularly living things) have an “end” they are made for; there is some function or purpose that they are meant to carry out, similar to objects crafted by us. This purpose itself is then what points to the existence of God. To generate this argument, as Paley does, you have to look at the complexity of the natural world and how it is designed. But things can show evidence of design without a purpose (or the purpose can be unclear), so rather than focus on things being made for a purpose, the evidence for God is to be found in the intricacies and designs themselves. This is how the argument from design varies from the teleological argument: we need not necessarily say that things were created for a purpose, we only need to look at the complexity of the design to understand that a maker (God) exists. This is the exact thesis of this chapter. To phrase it more directly and simply: the elegant design of the universe presents us with sufficient evidence for us to rationally conclude that a designer exists. I will focus particularly on the laws of physics and peculiarities in biological life as evidence to illustrate this.

    David Hume, the 18th century philosopher and historian, constantly and consistently argued that we ought to only ever believe anything when we have sufficient evidence that stands up to rational scrutiny and is consistent with everything else we know about the world. Two things gnawed at him that gave him pause to completely reject the existence of God: the peculiar fact that the universe actually exists in the first place; and the delicate, balanced elegance of the universe is quite interesting. In other words, the question that drives the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, and the argument from design is a good one with no clear answer: Where do we come from? (And why?) Perhaps there is no answer or explanation, but we have a duty to try to answer the question before we say there is no answer.

    An argument from design then is perhaps the strongest argument to illustrate the existence of a higher power. The evidence we can use for it is right in front of us, whereas a teleological argument requires the positing of ends and purposes for existence, a cosmological argument requires extrapolation back to the beginning of the universe (or about the existence of anything at all, like the Kalaam cosmological argument), and an ontological argument is a logical move about God’s traits, not a scientifically-minded examination into the universe that reveals the need for God’s existence. I will thus not argue that an argument from design “proves” God exists, as that is not what it seems to do. In its strongest light, it functions as a form of scientific argument where God is the best explanation for certain observations. God is the only rational explanation left that we have for why life exists as it does, as all other reasonable explanations have been exhausted and fail to explain our existence.

    The first form of the Argument from Design I will discuss is often referred to as the Fine-Tuning Argument, most famously advanced in recent years by Richard Swinburne.23 The general way that this argument works is rather simple. It starts with the statement that the physical constants that dictated both the origins and current structure of the universe are so finely tuned that they function in a way that makes life possible and if any of them were slightly different in any way, then life as we know it could not exist. The next step in the argument simply asks us to compare two options: what is the likelihood the universe got this way by chance and in the absence of God and what is the likelihood the universe got this way if God exists? An extremely low probability is determined for the likelihood of the universe existing without a God and the likelihood of the universe existing as it does if God exists is much, much higher. The exact numbers and methods behind the calculations can vary, but the argument is the same: if God exists, the fine-tuning of the universe is much more likely to be explained than if God does not. All the other reasons for believing that God exists, coupled with religious creation stories, give us a different set of reasons to believe that God might exist and created the universe as well. Thus, with the combined force of the traditional reasons for belief along with God being (by far) the mostly likely explanation for this fine-tuned universe, the most rational conclusion to draw from the finely tuned universe is that God exists.

    While this argument has force, it assigns probabilities and percentages o things of which we have an incomplete understanding. Could these constants have been different? We can theorize what a universe might be like if they were, but since we can’t observe a universe where they are, we can’t say that it’s even possible for them to be different. We are also dealing with aspects of existence we have little access to: we can theorize about the origins of the universe, but we can never observe it. The science behind cosmogony (the study of the origins of the universe) is still developing and the facts we might infer about a universal designer are inherently from our own perspective. As Blaise Pascal is quick to point out in his works on theism, we might be inherently incapable of understanding God. Even if we are on the right track and capable of making an argument along these lines, the resulting calculations are based on speculations about many probabilities that we don’t fully understand. The form of this argument is, however, quite interesting and shows potential: examine the probabilities of something happening in the absence of God and see if it is possible to exist. If we have a richer understanding of the science and probabilities that we are using, then we might be able to come to a better calculation that shows the most rational conclusion is that the God exists. The next argument attempts to do just that.

    The second form of the Argument from Design that I want to focus on I will call the Biological Design Argument (BDA). This form of the argument has a great advantage over fine-tuning arguments in that we do not to extrapolate to billions of years ago (or earlier) to prove God’s existence. Evidence that God must exist is literally contained within ourselves. The BDA can be presented in many ways, but for it to function as a testable, scientific hypothesis it needs to phrased properly. It is easy enough to say, similar to Paley, that if we just look at the wonder of the world, we will see evidence of purpose and design. But this feeling (or some might say wanting) is not scientifically testable and can provide minimal evidence toward a conclusion. The strong argument that can be pulled from this sentiment is subtle, and takes the form of finding an evolutionary gap in the scientific explanation for how life came about. Many contemporary arguments have focused on particular structures (the eye and the bacterial flagellum, for example) and attempt to illustrate how evolutionary theories fail to explain how such mechanisms could come about through fully natural processes. (A version of the argument argues that life in general is unlikely without a designer, and this argument is identical to the fine-tuning argument where you replace the design of the universe with the design of the conditions necessary for life.) Since there is no scientific explanation for this evolutionary gap, the best explanation is that God designed life, which is why we will not be able to “fill” that gap in and explain how it occurred. So, to put the argument in a more formal format,

    1. Evolutionary theory has come to a point where there are not full explanations for how life came about. For example, the timeline in which homo sapiens is said to have developed is a lot shorter than evolutionary theory predicts. Structures like the human brain also remain a mystery. There are “gaps” in our explanation for how life came about.
    2. There are two explanations for the difficulties in explaining the gaps in (1): (a) these structures came about according to an evolutionary theory that has not been fully understood yet or (b) it was designed by a being with sufficient power and knowledge to design such things.
    3. (2a) would only be true if evolutionary and biological sciences are drastically wrong with the ways they predict evolution occurs.
    4. Therefore, (2b) the explanation for the gaps is that God had a direct hand in the development of life.

    But on the other side of this argument still stands a simple and direct objection: (2a) seems more believable than (2b). Biological and evolutionary sciences are, after all, still in relative infancy. But they would have to be drastically wrong to be as far away from explaining so many gaps that is would be insulting to the scientific community to say that have been misguided for so long. Similar to the fine-tuning argument, perhaps the history of religious beliefs can bolster up the viewpoint that a higher power was involved in the creation of life. We can add,

    1. There are religious traditions and beliefs that support the idea of (2b).
    2. Therefore, there are gaps in evolutionary theory that are best explained by the existence of a being powerful enough to create life, and with support from religious viewpoints, there are strong reasons to claim that this being is God.

    Basically, the existence of God is a reasonable explanation to fill in the evolutionary gaps that we find. Indeed, God’s existence can be quite powerful at explaining and filling in many of gaps in our knowledge, and is consistent with the beliefs that many already hold.

    What I have called the “Biological Design Argument” is often referred to as the argument from Intelligent Design (ID). There is nothing that has been said here that necessitates that the designer is intelligent, purposeful, or even meaningful in the designs that we observe. If this were true, then the Teleological Argument would also be proved and we would quite easily know the purposes of existence. However, showing that there is a concerted intelligence in the apparent design is another step. Regardless, if there is no explanation using scientific understandings and laws that fully explain how we have come to exist as we are, then the BDA has done its work. The complexities of our existence can also, at the very least, argue that the BDA shows there is an order or design to the natural laws that shape us. In this way, a version of the BDA can collapse into a version of the fine-tuning argument. But the initial evidence still begins with observations we can make here and now, and the potential for illustrating the likely existence of God through scientific investigations is powerful.

    As our knowledge currently stands, there are holes in our understanding and explanation of the universe using scientific methods and understandings. It is a mystery how the universe came to exist as perfectly as it does, and it is also a mystery of how we have developed as we have. There is, however, already an answer to how these things have happened, and it has been around for a long time: God. The history of religions and examinations into God should give us reasons to accept the plausibility that it was God, and not random processes, that can explain how everything came to be.

    For Review and Discussion

    1. Explain the fine-tuning argument in your own words. What evidence does it use to get to its conclusion? Do you find it compelling?

    2. Explain the biological design argument in your own words. What evidence does it use to get to its conclusion? Do you find it compelling?

    3. What responses can you find to these arguments? Are they stronger than the arguments in favor of design arguments?


    This page titled 2.6: Argument from Design (Noah Levin) is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Noah Levin (NGE Far Press) .

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