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The Arguments to Design

Arguments for or to design are based on the belief that a supernatural, conscious and intelligent "Designer" must exist because the universe exhibits such careful planning, its whole design being beyond the possibilities of chance. It is thus an argument that posits design as that which underpins the universe.

The idea stems from ancient Greek philosophical thought, from an Aristotelian belief in an abstract, intelligent force or principle that informed all things but which did not affect them. The thought was taken up by Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Roman Catholic Dominican monk and theologian, whose theological ideas and proofs for the existence of God were to become the foundation of Roman Catholic theology in the late nineteenth century.

Arguments for a supernatural and supreme "Designer" are teleological in nature; that is to say, they accord purposeful design to the universe. Theists claim that the universe is so well designed and seems so carefully planned that there must be a supreme "Designer" of it, and that this "Designer" must be God. In contrast, the secular argument accepts that there is order in the universe rather than design, but claims that this is purely the result of a fairly ruthless natural selection process. This is a natural selection that takes place naturalistically, within nature, and not supernaturally in any way.

Most theists also accept such a process of natural selection, but claim that it is God that controls genetic mutations according to a divine plan. The main problem with this last view is that the "design" evident in the world is often harmful to existence. Yes, there is beauty in the world and wonder in the growth of a tiny seed to a mighty tree, but what of the fact that this orderly world exists because the strong have survived at the expense of the weak? And what about malignant viruses? Indeed, there is a remarkable degree of design and beauty in the cancer cell!

The obvious question here is, why would a supposedly good God design such a heinous illness, beautiful to behold, but deadly in its purpose? It is obvious that any "Designer" does not have to be a righteous or a good one. And how would natural disasters fit into this scheme of design? Then, too, in teleological arguments for the existence of God everything has a specific purpose in life. But was the nose really designed to hold a pair of spectacles on it, as the French philosopher Voltaire suggested? And were rabbits specifically designed with white tails so that they could be shot?

"I do not know how rabbits would view that application", said the famous humanist Bertrand Russell of such nonsense. The humanist discards teleological arguments for a process of natural selection. Natural selection means constant adaptation through the process of evolution. This means a process of ongoing change, not a once and for all design, and chance variations of cause and effect must occur in such an intricate process of adaptation and survival.

From a philosophical point of view, there is little justification in making the metaphysical leap from a degree of order in the world to a "Designer", and then to the belief that that "Designer" is the omnipotent, omniscient theistic God. And since much of life is subject to laws of cause and effect, it stands to reason that there will be much observable order in it, without having to postulate something supernatural. Causality necessitates order in life, but it has nothing to do with "design". The universe is orderly. Were it not, it would be impossible to function in it, no life could exist. But order is not synonymous with design, and there is no need to posit a divine being that creates order.

In the late eighteenth century a clergyman by the name of William Paley likened the world to a watch. Just as the watch must have a designer and maker, unlike a stone, so the intricately ordered world also must have a designer-maker. And if we compare a watch to the intricacies of the human being, or the intricate functioning of parts of the body like the eye, it seems sensible to suggest that they had a designer, and that that designer is God.

Again, however, there is no reason why a designer should be a theistic God. And if God is posited, it would have to be claimed that God would need to design all things -- those harmful to humanity as much as good for it, and the stone as much as the watch. There is a difference, too, between the natural aspects of the eye, and the human being, and the humanly engineered product of the watch: Paley does not compare like with like, and the analogy is not a good one. In any case, watches are rarely designed and made by the same person (and in today's world may have had multiple agents involved). Should there, then, be two or more causes? The major problem here, however, is that designers design and that is that; they do not maintain and adapt and support their design, and do not have to outlive it, so if this designer is God, then he does not, now, need to exist.

More modern forms of the teleological design arguments incorporate recent advances in scientific knowledge about the origins of life on this planet. Some physicists now believe that the chances of life arising require such impossible "fine-tuning" that it is remarkable that any life at all exists, and unlikely that any obtains elsewhere in the universe. This leads some theists to claim that there must be a designer, a divine being, who brings about the miracle of life and its ongoing evolution and progression.

But then, why the waste of a vast cosmos, when only one planet has life? It would be like owning a mansion and furnishing a square foot! Moreover, if we think about life itself, highly improbable things happen every day. The odds against certain things happening in the course of a day -- say, an aeroplane landing on the roof of my home, or on me as I walk my dog, are infinitely remote, and yet we know they could happen.

The improbabilities of some things occurring in life are considerable, but they do happen. Some of the new teleology is inclined to make the leap to a "Fine Tuner" because of a perceived necessity for a cause of a universe that has intelligent life in it -- intelligent life that is capable of observation and analysis of the rest of its finely-tuned environment. Such a premise is enhanced by the awe in which modern physics views the extraordinary physical laws -- at cosmic and sub-atomic levels -- that have brought about, and inform, our universe.

Nevertheless, an ultimate "Fine Tuner," "Designer," or "First Cause" always remains an unnecessary extension of logic. But the "fine-tuning" concept is interesting in another dimension because it suggests a certain harmony to life, a certain "interconnectedness" of the cause-effect processes of the universe and an interrelated orderliness to the patterns of the cosmos. Is it possible that the human being is sometimes capable of experiencing a fraction of this natural "interconnectedness" -- the "heightened" or spiritual experience of what seems to be the numinous, of what may seem to be supernatural?

Nature is an impersonal phenomenon and cannot react to us. But if we are in harmony with its impersonal laws, understanding the cause-effect processes that inform so much of it, then we are likely to benefit. But we do not need to have a divine "Cause" for such impersonal order.

Generally, then, the arguments for a supreme "Designer" are not sound, and to extend such arguments as far as a theistic, personal, omnipotent, and omniscient single God is equally unsound. Even if such a theory could be proved there is no reason why a designer is anything more than something that begins creation, setting up a system that is allowed to function independently, subject to its own impersonal laws.

In fact, since effects are often more complex than their original causes, and existence seems to reflect adaptation to more intricate ends, it would be quite conceivable that the end products of a so-called "Designer" are more complex than the "Designer" itself. And if such a "Designer" were ongoing, creation couldn't possibly be complete. The "Designer" would be creating over a ridiculous period of time, with some very cruel means, only to reach a stage now at which life still feeds on life, and the most powerful and useful survive at the expense of the weaker and the obsolete.

Human life, so important in the theistic scheme of things, would have come about after an interminably long time, and after many species had evolved and disappeared. What a long and risky business! This is a long way from the "creator" who created the world instantly by divine fiat in the Genesis account. The argument for a "Designer" would be more appropriately termed the argument for an Experimenter.

The whole issue of an argument to or from design is one that begs the question, for it assumes that there is design in the universe. There may well be, as we have seen, order in the universe, but no one would claim that order necessarily has to have an orderer. The processes of cause-effect can ensure the presence of order for purely natural reasons. But design? Now that certainly demands an agent of design.

The premise of such teleological arguments, therefore, falsely starts with an unproved theory -- that there is design in the world, and attempts to move from that premise to a conclusion that there must be a designer. The premise, however, has never been proved. The question, therefore, is begged.