Transcript Strengths and Criticisms

Homework:
Reading Tyler
Cards updated – 2 key words and
1-2 quotations.
Lesson Aim
To learn about the key strengths.
To learn about the key weaknesses
with ref to D. Hume, J. S. Mill and R.
Dawkins.
Does the argument have value? Strengths

Firstly the argument has great appeal. The universe and all of it’s beauty
continue to amaze and perplex us. It seems quite right therefore that the
DA has continued to have attention paid to it in the contemporary period.
Consider the quotation from the great German philosopher and theologian
Immanuel Kant in ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’ : “This proof always
deserves to be mentioned with respect. It is the oldest, the clearest, and
the most accordant with the common reason of mankind”. (18th C).

The premises are easy to understand. Many recognise them as valid (even
if they are atheists). Even the great critic David Hume said: ‘A purpose, an
intention, a design, strikes everywhere the most careless, the most stupid
thinker’. Indeed it is an posteriori argument – draws upon experience and
it’s analogical form means that we can relate to is in some way. Poets and
hymn writers all praise the ‘craftsmanship of nature’.

Scientific explanations of the universe could be compatible with the DA:
- The anthropic principle suggests the DA need not reject the principles of
evolution. I
- Indeed the Big band and evolutionary theory can be seen as the means
by which the creator performs his work.
- Given the challenges posed by Darwin, Archbishop Temple (late 19th c)
claimed: “The doctrine of evolution leaves the argument for an intelligent
Creator and Governor of the earth stronger than it was before”.
Furthermore, Richard Swinburne stated– “ the very success of science in
showing us how deeply ordered the natural world is provides strong
grounds for believing that there is an even deeper cause of that order”.
Teleological Argumentcriticisms
David Hume (1711-1776)
Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion (1779).
Attacks 3 main areas:
1.







Attacks the Analogical Argument
TA rest on analogies (Paley ‘watch-analogy’). Commits an
illogical Leap – too unalike to withstand comparison.
Hume argued that it in fact implies a superhuman,
anthropomorphic concept of God, which is very limited and
inconsistent. The world is imperfect and flawed, and as such
could suggest an imperfect and flawed creator:
The design of the ‘wobbly’ Millennium Bridge across the
Thames is argued to suggest an incompetent design team.
The design of the world , with all its arbitrary suffering, is
argued to suggest an incompetent creator.
Surely, if order needs explaining so does the being
responsible??? Morally negative evidence – supposed to be a
posteriori and ignores suffering which world full of.
Hume suggests a better analogy would be to compare the
world with a vegetable – a carrot!!
Confusion does analogy refer to parts or universe as a whole?? Just
because parts appear purpose/order – how discern thing as a whole
has one?
Attack 2: Why assume order?



Hume was arguing that if a person can see order and purpose in the
universe, all that this can legitimately lead to is the conclusion that
there is order and purpose in the universe - we impose patterns of
order where none exist.
Ancient Greek philosophers like Democritus and Epicurus in their
Atomic Theory – the order we see is part of this randomness.
Modern Physics (chaos theory) confirms the world is chaotic and
unpredictable. In sharp contrast to Paley universe not a great
mechanical object acting in a law like and purposeful way.
Attack 3: Why postulate God at all?





There is nothing in the argument to suppose that there is only one
creator (monotheism)– if many builders collaborate to build a house,
why not many Gods? Argument 4 Polytheism.
Hume went on to support the idea of natural selection – he claimed
that is highly plausible that adaptations made by animals to survive
may be the result of random adaptations, rather than the agency of an
intelligent designer.
Furthermore, even if something has a purpose/order does not follow it
entails design and a designer – never mind a divine one at that!
To conclude that there is a God behind this presumed order would be,
in Mackie’s word, ‘gratuitous’. Hume argued that there is no need to
make that step from ordered universe to God (the problem of
induction demands not assume an association between designdesigner-God).
That point poses a crucial if not insuperable problem to the argument
from design.
Most philosophers agree that the design argument is fatally weakened
by Hume’s criticisms.
John Stuart Mill - Criticisms


Notes page 19-20 - The Problem of evil
and Suffering (Mill).
Richard Dawkins – ‘Blind Watchmaker’.
Finish home!!
J. S. Mill (1806- 1873)



In Nature and the Utility Religion (1874) Mill argues
that nature is ‘guilty’ of serious crimes for which she
goes unpunished. The various ‘atrocities’ through
which both humans and animals suffer would not go
unpunished if they were the result of Human agency.
‘Nearly all the things for which men are hanged or
imprisoned for doing to one another are nature’s
everyday performances’.
Mill therefore concludes that the world cannot be
ordered, and he rejects the idea that it is the result of
intelligent design