Does Argument from Design make God's existence LESS likely?

Great Debates
1

I was thinking about the argument from design, which was originally devised as a proof of God’s existence. The argument was formulated by a Mr. Paley.

The argument goes like this: Suppose you found a watch on the beach. You would naturally assume that it had to be created by an intelligent being, since it is very intricate. It would be very imporbably that nature created this watch through random processes – it must be the result of a planning creator. So human beings, intricate and complex beings with many complex parts, must be the result of a creative intelligence (God).

Then I thought to myself: We have an explanation (evolution) to explain how man could come into being without the aid of an intelligent designer. So the argument from design falters.

But then I thought: God, if he is responsible for creation of the entire universe, must be incredibly complex and intricate. So by the logic of the argument from design, God himself must be the product of a creative intelligence that created and designed HIM. But that is ruled out by the very concept of God, since God is supposed to be the ultimate explanation of everything. There can be no proccess or being that created God, since then God would not be theultimate explanation of the universe. Something would be prior to an more fundamental than God, but this flies in the face of our concept of God as the ultimate creator.

So I think the argument from design actually says that it is very improbably that God exists, since it is very unlikely that such a complex being such as God could come from nowhere. God himself needs to be explained.

I am asking y’all (1) whether my conclusion follows from the argument from design, and (2) whether the argument from design has any merit, or is it a flawed argument.

2

With all due respect, the existence or non-existence of the “generic” God is not a matter decidable to rational debate. Without a specific definition, it the word “God” itself has insufficient meaning to even enter the realm of debate.

With most specific definitions, we are unable to gather enough information to rule out alternative explanations. Even if, for instance, persuasive evidence of actual intelligent design, it seems difficult, I think, to prefer an omnipotent, supernatural diety to technologically superior but entirely natural beings.

And Paley’s analogy is vastly flawed, as are most the arguments I have seen for “Intelligent Design”; reasoning by analogy rarely produces rigorous results. We have not found life in apparent isolation, as in Paley’s watch. Rather, we have evidence of billions of years of the development and evolution of a staggering variety of life forms.

To address your OP directly, it is almost always assumed that God is a supernatural being; the ordinary rules of the physical universe (indeed often of logic itself) do not apply. This is the key point: Theists attempt to prove that some supernatural entity is required to explain the universe; entirely natural explanations cannot suffice.

3

God, however, is usually said to be eternal, having neither beginning nor end. Your argument is really a variant of “If God created the universe, who created God?” As he is usually defined, God transcends the rules, and is thus immune (in the eyes of those who hold such definitions true anyway) from the logic of design or origin.

4

Your argument is flawless as the incomplete logical unit it is. While internally coherent, you obviated an important aspect in your explanation, Darwin’s theory dictates the evolutionary path followed by biological beings. Clocks and other non-biological entities can’t be explained by evolution.

Unless, of course, you embrace a technicality and assert that since they were developed by a product of evolution, such as rational beings, then they are a direct manifestation of the evolution of intelligence and hence and indirect extension of the fundamental evolutionary precepts. Summarizing, they are not created as a result of a series of mutations like living beings are, but as a consequence of those mutations–the actions carried out by biological beings.

In reference to the implausibility of God being created by another omnipotent Being, that is of course an axiomatic statement, correct as far as the dogma on which it is based holds true. There is, evidently, not a way to verify its validity so anything we say is totally speculative and lacking in value. I, for my part, foresee only three plausible scenarios:

There is only one god, eternal in Nature, who has existed forever and in a moment of solitude created the universe and let it evolve to the point where there exist rational beings capable of questioning their origins.

There is a concatenation of “Gods”, much ala Greek mythology. The initial God either has existed forever or came to be at a particular juncture in time–if there was time prior to His existence, which doesn’t seem reasonable. In any case, if we abide by our current conceptualization of God, only the primordial God could de regarded as such, the other being minor Gods as far the creation of our universe concerns.

There is no God, the universe is an orphan creature which suddenly bolted into existence. It could have existed forever or emanated out of nothingness at a particular moment.

Anyhow, there is no way, at this stage of our intellectual and cognitive development, that we could answer these inquisitions regarding the origins of the human species, the universe in which it blossomed into life and the Creator responsible for its existence. As a comment though, I don’t believe we should constrain our minds with the arguments provided by catholic dogma. There are other reasonable and equally valid explanations, no need to abide by catholic paradigms as a means of justifying our existence.

I do think, however, that your argument is a very innovative way to arrive at the same explanation: we don’t have any clue as to whether God exists or not

5

Aha! A loophole! God thought of everything!

6

One problem. I don’t see that God requires our belief in his existience to exist himself.

7

I do realize that this is an entirely different debate, but I very literally believe just that: God’s existence is dependent upon our belief. If you believe in God, you live in a universe in which there is a god. If you don’t, there isn’t one. God is such a personal thing that I believe this is literally true.

8

If God tripped on a fallen tree in a forest, and nobody were around to hear him say, “Darn, my toe!” does God exist?

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9

No. If nobody’s around, he doesn’t exist.

[please understand the implied IMHO in all of my posts to this thread]

10

In order to show that a thing (a watch, in the classic example) is designed, it is compared to it’s surroundings. It is thought that the watch will obviously be seen as a designed object. But see that, one has to first compare it to it’s surroundings. But if those surroundings allow us to tell what is designed, it must be because they are NOT designed themselves. Otherwise, how could any contrast be made? But if that’s the case, then the surroundings (i.e. Nature, the universe, whatever) are assumed by the argument to NOT be designed. In other words, it’s more like an argument against a “designer” of Nature!

I’m almost certain that http://www.infidels.org has some interesting information on this.

11

Speaking as a Jew who does believe in God, I’ll respond to the most recent few posters by saying that just as I believe that God exists now, I also believe that He existed prior to the rise of human beings, and that He continues to exist regardless of whether anyone believes in Him.

But that does not necessarily imply that the Argument By Design (which is thousands of years old, by the way) is bulletproof. But I’ll try and defend it anyway.

I have two possible answers:

One idea is that your argument is valid, in which cases I refer you to the second of Quasar’s theories (“concatenation”). In this scenario, God is the Head Boss that all the other gods have to answer to. Given that they are subservient to the Top Gun, we pretty much ignore the little gods and it is really the God Number One that we’ve been talking about all along.

Second: You’re going to complain that the above was circular reasoning. It doesn’t really answer the idea that God is complex and so He must have gotten created Himself, once upon a time. That could be part of why Judaism explicitly believes in a God Who is not complex.

In the Jewish prayer “Shema”, we say that “God is One”. This does not only mean that there is one God and that there is only one God. It also means that He is entirely uniform, undifferentiated and noncomplex, through and through. My understanding of that, is that if there would be any kind of complexity to His nature, then He would be somewhat different over here than He is over there, in which case this part is lacking something and that part is lacking something else, which means that He is not perfect, which is an unacceptable conclusion. Therefore, He must be non-complex.

Now, as to how a non-complex being could create such a complex world, I don’t pretend to understand that part. But you’ll remember, I admitted at the start, that the argument is not bulletproof.

But remember that just because its not bulletproof, that doesn’t mean it has to be wrong.

more info available at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/06-Jewish-Thought/section-2.html

12

You are making a valid point, but I’ve always understood it differently. It’s not neccesarily that the watch is more complex than its surroundings, but that the watch – in and of itself – is an amazingly intricate piece of work, with many distinct parts which work in conjunction with each other fantastically well. This is then compared to the “balance of nature” and how the many parts of the natural world match each other like clockwork.

13

Rather than saying the “intelligent design” theory supports the existence of “God” when definitions of “God” vary, let’s say it supports the idea that there is a creative & intelligent consciousness with sufficient ability to create these irreducibly complex forms. That’s more precise, and more readily debated. And no, such a consciousness need not be complex, although “intelligent design” advocates tend to assume it is irreducible.

14

This whole thread is predicated upon the notion that God’s extistence can be proved logically, which I reject wholly.

In the first place, if there’s a God, then he’s above and beyond logic: he created logic.

In the second place, the argument from design is a fallacy. It’s exactly the same thing as saying “I don’t know where I came from, therefore I came from god.” Looking at an object and deeming it complex does not ipso facto prove the existence of a designer. The conclusion that there must be a designer is a leap of faith, not a logical conclusion.

15

Gõdel pops up yet again, yes? Logical systems are all well and good until you turn them upon themselves?

And before any mathematicians pounce on me, yes, I’m aware that this is a loose and non-rigorous summation of what Gõdel was talking about. The existence of God is of course a metaphysical subject that doesn’t lend itself to rigorous analysis, St. Thomas Aquinas’s efforts notwithstanding; I just thought the echo of a mathematical construct was interesting.

Please, carry on.

16

Woops, my browser turned the umlaut O into some other one in the posting process. Note that the misspelling of Go(…)del above is inadvertent.

:rolleyes:

Carry on again…

17

I don’t believe that an argument for design implies that God does not exist. Other posters have summed up my feeling nicely in that God cannot be understood or explained what what we currently perceive as “reason” or “logic” so “Where did God come from?” cannot be rationally answered. God simply is.

The argument runs similarly if you choose not believe in God and creationism. The question then merely shifts to “Where did the universe come from?” (for those answering “The Big Bang,” “Where did the singularity that became the universe come from?”) The universe just is.

Until we can comprehend our surroundings by utilizing “a higher level of reasoning” (whatever that may mean), I think that the ultimate answer to every question must not be 42, but rather “That’s just the way things are.”

18

How could God possibly have created logic? Before He created logic, could He have created a rock so heavy that He couldn’t lift it? Could he render a sentence simultaneously true and false? Could he add two and two and get five?

19

I dunno… I’ve often pondered the idea that we refer to “division by zero” as “undefined”. I’ve wondered if that label is a cop-out, that we call it “undefined” simply because we can’t fathom the concept. I wonder, perhaps if God had chosen to do so, perhaps He indeed could have created a universe where you could divide by zero, or where two and two did make five… Just wondering…

20

Then couldn’t He have created a world with free will and no evil? Oh dear, there goes the “free will” argument explaining why a wholly good God made a universe with evil in it… :wink: