2. Design Argument

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  • Created by: k59533
  • Created on: 02-01-23 11:18

Does the Design argument prove the existence of God?

Advantages

  • William Paley - watch analogy: complex with specific purpose and doesn't work unless all parts function, this implies a designer.
  • Thomas Aquinas - archer and arrow analogy: the world needs direction and to be moved in order to have design.
  • Tennant - Anthropic principle (sense in world, life on Earth, humans are culmination of evolution)
  • Alistair McGrath - oil painting, objects more than sum of parts, Dawkins' worldview lacking transcendence
  • Michael Behe - evolution doesn't solve root question of how and why the universe exists.
  • Swinburne - regularities of co-presence (biological structures) & succession (laws  of nature), cumulative evidence shows God as probable hypothesis
  • Ibn Rushd - Prime Mover causing constant movement of time/space

Disadvantages

  • David Hume - cosmic accident also possible
  • David Hume - analogy is mechnical vs organic, like effects (order) not like causes (conscious design), bad design e.g. natural disasters
  • Many watchmakers so many gods, and bad watchmakers so bad gods - analogy is absurd.
  • Dawkins - blind watchmaker is evolution ('watertight') not intelligent design
  • Darwin - natural selection rather than environment being designed for beings - questions story of Adam and Eve
  • Michio Kaku - Deism - logically accepts God ('Mathematician') but rejects organised religion & revelation - we don't know God's characteristics
  • Many Worlds hypothesis - unevidenced - world not special as inevitable from multiple repetitions

Evaluation

The existence of God is the best explanation for design according to Ockham's Razor. It is hard to prove indefinitely (brute fact) as order is empirical but design and some elements of purpose are only probable. Swinburne claims that God is the most probable hypothesis, this is better evidenced than Many Worlds and is the only explanation offered. Hume and Dawkins' explanations don't offer a teleological conclusion for the cause of the universe - they rely on the Big Bang which itself could be designed or brought to movement.

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