Following on from the thoughts of similarities between a watch and the world, Hume questions whether it is a sound notion that similar effects result necessarily from similar causes. Suggesting we have now decided the universe must have come from intelligent thought and more than one designer, we would have to have experienced the origin of the world. Then similar effects may be the result of different causes. (???)
Other possible analogies *
Analogy makes God more human than divine *
Analogy leads to a non-moral God
Hume came up with some features in the world that are not questionable about being unpleasant. For example; wars, hunger and suffering.
Christians believe that God is holy good and all powerful, but Hume argues that if God were all good and all powerful (and saying that God does exist) then why is there evil in the world? Why did/does Got not change the world to be a better place for everyone? This argument then leads to thinking God is either:
18-01-2001. R.S. Mr Mort. Viki Nixon DFW13
- not all good, because he has chosen to have evil in the world, or
- not all powerful, because he was not able to change the world now it has evil, or,
- God is non-moral, and he may be all good and all powerful, but he does not want to change the world from what it is now.
Other explanations for apparent order *
Explain the Anthropic Argument.*
The Anthropic argument is one of the various types of design argument thought up by Swinburne. This involves analogy. It argues that nature provides for the needs of intelligent beings. This intelligence – God. Swinburne uses the argument of probability. He asks which is the most probable reason for the order of the universe, by random chance or the work of a designer? He believes God is the simplest answer.
The Anthropic argument argues that nature seems to plan in advance for the needs of animals and humans. It suggests mind or intelligence. Like the argument about analogy, it lends itself more to an inductive formulation than to a deductive one. This argued that given the findings of science, the most reasonable explanation for the character of the universe is God.
What are the differences between the argument to design and the argument from design?
The argument from design is formally given in these three ways:
- Objects in nature are analogous to non-made machines.
- Man-made machines are the result of intelligent design.
- Analogous effects will have analogous causes.
The argument consists of two steps:
- Showing the world exhibits ‘apparent design’ (the characteristics of complexity, regularity, order, purpose, for example).
- The inference from this apparent design, by analogy, is of an intelligent cause.
18-01-2001. R.S. Mr Mort. Viki Nixon DFW13
Philosophers of the argument from design include:
St. Thomas Aquinas: gave this as the fifth of his ‘Five Ways’. He believed that the universe required an intelligent being to bring this about, i.e. God.
David Hume: believed that the universe was like a machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines. All this small parts of machinery all require a designer, and therefore need a designer. Hume did not believe in god and said that as something such as a watch needs more than one designer, then the universe will need many more than one.
William Paley: answers the criticisms that Hume had made of the design argument. He uses the analogy of the watch, suggest you come across a watch, you see it clearly that it did not happen by chance. The result must be of an intelligent mind, such as the universe. Paley is trying to prove god to be the designer. His aim is making things clearer to those who believe in God already.
The argument to design is also referred to as the Anthropic argument (see above).
Hume’s criticisms are the main sector of this form of argument. The unsound analogy, God being non-moral, similar effects do not necessarily imply similar causes, etc.
Further arguments against the argument include:
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Darwinism, with its appeal for explanation, put pressure on the teleological argument.
- Beginning with ‘this world’ and concludes with concepts that we have no experience, e.g. uncaused etc.
- Whether statements of the argument are meaningful.
- Arguments that there is no need to think of things in the universe operating in the light of any kind of purpose.
- We have no reason to believe that the universe will continue to behave in an orderly way.
( * = left or unfinished because unsure of correct argument.)