Design Arguments

The basic design or teleological argument goes as follows:

1. Every design must have a designer.
2. There is evidence of design throughout the universe.
3. Therefore, this universal design must have a universal designer.
4. This universal designer is "God".

Inherent to this argument is an analogy: what we define as design as it is embodied in what we know are designed objects, pocketwatches for example, and natural elements of the universe. Warburton calls this a weak analogy because the similarities between a pocketwatch and say, the human eye, are very general. Both are complex "machines" that fulfill their intended purpose. Compare this to a stronger analogy: a cat is like a kitten, where similarities are much more precise. Being a weak analogy doesn't nullify the logic of the argument, but it does reduce its force, since conclusions drawn from vague analogies will be correspondingly vague. I agree with Warburton on this, which is why I prefer other versions of the design argument.

However, there are other objections to the basic argument I'd like to respond to before going on. First is the explanatory power of Darwinian evolution in relation to design. Granted that design appears in nature, evolution by natural selection (or survival of the fittest) explains this without God. Organisms appear "designed" because genes advantageous for the organism to flourish in its natural environment are passed on from previous generations via the mechanisms of natural selection.

Evolution has great significance for biological design, but what about cosmological design? What bearing does evolution have on the physical laws and constants in place since the beginning of the universe that allow natural selection on Earth to even take place? None. Thus the explanatory scope is limited and therefore has limited efficacy in reducing the force of the design argument in general.

Warburton's next objection is that God's omnipotence can not be discerned from universal design because of certain "design-flaws" observed in nature, such as the human eye's tendency toward short-sightedness or cataracts. This objection is deeply flawed for its unstated assumption: that we know what God would or wouldn't design the universe to be. Warburton assumes efficiency and neatness, or comfort and happiness would be God's only purposes in design. He imposes a very human presupposition on God. Warburton would first have to prove that God's purpose in design can even be known, then that that purpose is one of efficiency and neatness, or happiness and comfort. But he does not.

His last objection I agree with: that God's all-goodness and omniscience cannot be discerned by the design argument. Warburton cites the long-dicussed philosophical conundrum: the Problem of Evil, which makes reconciling God's goodness with the reality of human suffering difficult. I want to address this later but for now let it be that I agree the design argument is mute on the all-good and all-knowing attributes of God.

So what does the argument show? I'll return to this question after we examine what I think to be more favorable versions of the design argument I alluded to earlier.

The first is the Anthropic Principle, which states that the probability that the universe turned out to be conducive to human survival is so tiny, that we must conclude a divine designer. Indeed, science has shown us that initial conditions at key moments in the development of our universe (namely, the Big Bang and the origin of life) to be so narrowly and arbitrarily defined as to suggest a Designer who set all the "dials" to their appropriate numbers in order that we humans might be here today.

Warburton's only objection is a lottery analogy. If you won the lottery, and the initial probability that you'd win was extremelly tiny, but you played and won anyway, you wouldn't be justified in thinking something other than random chance was going on, since statistical improbabilities can still happen.

Granting improbabilities can happen by random chance, Warburton is however guilty here of his initial objection to the design argument: the weak analogy. As previously explained, science has shown numerous, independent factors that had to be just right in order to permit life (entropy and the gravitational constant for example). If you won the lottery, you might not be justified in suspecting anything other than chance, but what if you won three lotteries in one day, all equally improbable? You would begin to suspect a conspiracy. This would be a better analogy to the Anthropic Principle but Warburton does not use it because of its implications, namely that suspecting a Designer becomes more reasonable.

A variant of the Anthropic Principle is the argument from fine-tuning, which simply expands the scope of the Principle from the universe designed for human life to the universe designed first to be stable, then to permit any life (although in some versions of the Principle, these extentions are implicit). Fine-tuning is not design, but a dozen or so constants or parameters seemingly set arbitrarily so as to permit a stable and life-permiting universe. If you come across a stereo that is set to certain levels of volume, bass and treble so as to produce the best sound, you would be within reason to assume someone set them that way.

Two objections to this: chance and physical necessity. Some would say that the universe had to turn out stable and life-permitting, but this would require one to prove that it's impossible for a universe hostile to life to exist. Contemporary science cannot do that, and in fact, most research is proving the opposite: that it was more likely that the universe have collapsed after the Big Bang than otherwise. Scientists that ascribe blind chance to the fine-tuning of the universe are forced to concoct Multiverse theories so that if one had an infinite progression of universes with different values for those constants and parameters, we would eventually see a universe with life-permitting values... and lucky us! We just happen to be in one! There are a lot of problems with positing multiple universes, not the least of which is the complete lack of empirical evidence for such a claim. I'll discuss this subject more later but for now let it suffice to say science has repeatedly confirmed the standard model of the universe: that of the Big Bang, in which the universe had a beginning in the finite past, which will lead me into the next set of arguments.

So again, what do the design arguments prove? Not all of what theists believe God to be, but a good chunk. If we accept the Anthropic Principle and fine-tuning argument, we have an entity great and intelligent enough to set up a life-permitting universe with special attention to human beings. If we accept the broader design argument we have an intelligent designer great enough to account for all design in the universe.