Philosophy, Reasoned Belief, and Faith

An Introduction

Paul Herrick

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780268202675
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Philosophie de la religion

This clear, readable introduction to philosophy presents a traditional theistic view of the existence of God.

There are many fine introductions to philosophy, but few are written for students of faith by a teacher who is sensitive to the intellectual challenges they face studying in an environment that is often hostile to religious belief. Many introductory texts present short, easy-to-refute synopses of the traditional arguments for God's existence, the soul, free will, and objective moral value rooted in God's nature, usually followed by strong objections stated as if they are the last word. This formula may make philosophy easier to digest, but it gives many students the impression that there are no longer any good reasons to accept the beliefs just mentioned.

Philosophy, Reasoned Belief, and Faith is written for philosophy instructors who want their students to take a deeper look at the classic theistic arguments and who believe that many traditional views can be rigorously defended against the strongest objections. The book is divided into four sections, focusing on philosophy of religion, an introduction to epistemology, philosophy of the human person, and philosophical ethics. The text challenges naturalism, the predominant outlook in the academic world today, while postmodernist relativism and skepticism are also examined and rejected. Students of faith—and students without faith—will deepen their worldviews by thoughtfully examining the philosophical arguments that are presented in this book. Philosophy, Reasoned Belief, and Faith will appeal to Christian teachers, analytic theists, home educators, and general readers interested in the classic arguments supporting a theistic worldview.

U N I T I I

Philosophy of Religion

FOUR

The Design Argument

NATURE’S CYCLES

On the first morning of summer in the year 430 BC, the sun is coming up and Socrates is sitting on a hill above Athens, Greece. Observing. Listening. Reflecting on the cycles of life. The sun continues to rise, revealing the flowers in bloom. On a nearby hill, a sheep gives birth. A small stream gently makes its way to the sea. As he has observed many times before he thinks again:, “Each thing within nature has its own unique role to play within the overall order of things.”

He reflects on the overall order: “The many parts are intertwined and balanced like the notes of a song. The universe is a system of interconnected parts functioning in harmony.” The universe certainly does have an underlying order. We make predictions based on that order every time we take a step, sit on a chair, drink a cup of water, or take a breath of air.

Socrates now looks at the city below. Athens is beginning to awake. Farmers are transporting their produce along roads leading into the city. People are gathering in the center of town, waiting for the marketplace to open. His thoughts continue: “Each part of Athens has its own unique role to play within the overall economy of the city-state. Roads lead into the city so that farmers and merchants can transport their goods into and out of town; the marketplace serves people buying and selling; public speeches are given at city hall. The whole wouldn’t function properly if each part within the whole did not serve its intended purpose.”

As Thales asked before him, Socrates wonders what holds it all together: “Like nature, Athens has an underlying order. Day by day the city, like the system of nature, goes through its cycles, intertwined parts balanced in an overall harmony.”

In a nearby grove of olive trees, a shepherd plays a flute. The melody causes Socrates to think: “Each note in the song contributes to the harmony and beauty of the whole. Each note is placed on purpose for the unique role it will play.”

The balance and harmony of the song reminds him of a recent experience. As he was standing in front of the Parthenon, he was deeply moved by its beauty: “Each column, each piece of marble, each statue, each of the temple’s architectural elements makes its own contribution to the overall harmony of the whole; the beauty of the structure emerges from the way in which the parts are arranged.”¹

While discussing the existence of God or a supreme being with friends in the marketplace the next day, Socrates summed up his reasoning with an argument that went about like this:

Nature, like a magnificent temple, a beautiful song, or a city plan, is a system of intertwined, balanced parts functioning in harmony. We know through observation the cause of the temple’s order: it was designed by an architect to reflect a purpose. Similarly, the orderly arrangement of Athens is due to the work of city planners. The harmony in a song is crafted by the composer. In each case, when we trace cause and effect, the ultimate cause of order is an intelligent designer existing prior to the order we observe. Since the deep order we see in nature is similar in form and since it is common sense that similar effects probably have similar causes, the cause of nature’s order—like the cause of the order displayed by a temple, city plan, or a song—is probably also an intelligent designer, although one great enough to have crafted the entire cosmos. The most reasonable conclusion to draw is therefore that the universe owes its deep order to a supreme mind, an intelligent designer.²

The word cosmos is significant here. To the ancient Greeks the word meant not simply the “universe” but “the universe understood as an orderly, harmonic, and beautiful system.” Our modern word cosmetics is derived from the same Greek root. It was the majestic order observable in every part of the universe that caught Socrates’s eye and pointed his thoughts to a divine, presiding intelligence existing above it all.

Upon hearing a philosophical argument, the first thing to do is to understand it. Recall that an inductive argument aims to show that its conclusion, although not completely certain, is so probable that it is the most reasonable conclusion to draw based on the premises. The placement of the word probable preceding the conclusion of Socrates’s argument indicates that it is inductive. Socrates’s claim is therefore that the conclusion, although not mathematically certain, is so likely that it is the most reasonable conclusion to draw. But there are different kinds of inductive argumentation. Logicians call Socrates’s argument an “analogical” induction because it starts with an analogy, or similarity, between two or more things. Let’s pause to clarify the structure of this common pattern of reasoning.

Boiled down to essentials, an analogical inductive argument follows this general format:

1. A and B have many properties, or characteristics, in common.

2. A has property x.

3. B is not known not to have property x.

4. Property x is related statistically or causally (by cause and effect) to the common properties.

5. Therefore, B very probably also has property x.

6. Therefore, the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that B has property x.

Of course, the larger the number of common properties related to x, and the closer the relation, the higher the probability that the conclusion is true.

Here is an example of analogical reasoning from medical science:

1. Monkey hearts are very similar to human hearts.

2. Vaccine X cures heart disease in monkeys.

3. Vaccine X is not known not to cure heart disease in humans.

4. Therefore, vaccine X will probably cure heart disease in humans.

5. Therefore, the most reasonable conclusion is that X will cure heart disease in humans.

This example is perhaps more familiar:

1. I’ve taken three of Professor Smith’s classes, and I learned a lot in each one.

2. Professor Smith has a new class scheduled for next quarter.

3. I have no reason to think his new class will be different in quality from his other classes.

4. Therefore, I will probably learn a lot if I take his new class.

5. Therefore, the most reasonable conclusion is that I will learn a lot if I take his new class.

Here is Socrates’s analogical inductive argument translated into textbook (step-by-step) form with comments:

1. The deep order we observe in the universe is similar in form to the deep order we observe in songs, buildings, city plans, and works of art, namely, many parts fit together to form a highly improbable, interrelated, functioning, intelligible system.

Comment: The orderly and functional nature of the cosmos is evident in the predictable events, natural cycles, and complex but stable systems that characterize the universe from the smallest to the largest scales. Thanks to the discoveries of the Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras (570–495 BC), the ancient Greeks were aware that orderly mathematical substructures exist even at levels of reality too abstract to observe, such as the mathematical order underlying the intervals of the musical scale.³

2. The root cause of the underlying order we observe in buildings, cities, songs, works of art, and such is always found to be an intelligent designer existing prior to the order observed.

Comment: The ultimate source of a building’s design plan is the chief architect; the composer is the source of a song’s melody; the artist is the cause of the painting’s order, and so forth.

3. The deep, functional, and intelligible order of the universe is not known not to be the result of intelligent design.

4. Therefore, the cause of nature’s deep order is probably also an intelligent designer, although this must be an intelligence great enough to have imposed order on the entire cosmos.

5. Therefore, the most reasonable conclusion is that the source of nature’s order is an intelligent designer. The order of the cosmos, in short, is the expression of a mind.

We noted that this is an analogical argument. We reason by analogy all the time. Suppose that Lucca gets sick and has a specific set of symptoms. The next day his brother Ben gets sick and shows the same symptoms. When the doctor discovers the cause of Lucca’s illness, she naturally concludes by analogy that Ben’s illness probably has the same cause.

Is analogical thinking the “fuel and fire” of all thought?

In their fascinating book, Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander argue that “analogy is the core of all thinking.” From an advertisement for the book on Amazon.com:

Why did two-year-old Camille proudly exclaim, “I undressed the banana!”? Why do people who hear a story often blurt out, “Exactly the same thing happened to me!” when it was a completely different event? How do we recognize an aggressive driver from a split-second glance in our rearview mirror? What in a friend’s remark triggers the offhand reply, “That’s just sour grapes”? What did Albert Einstein see that made him suspect that light consists of particles when a century of research had driven the final nail in the coffin of that long-dead idea? The answer to all these questions . . . is analogy-making—the meat and potatoes . . . the fuel and fire . . . of thought. Analogy-making, far from happening at rare intervals, occurs at all moments, defining thinking from . . . the most fleeting thoughts to the most creative scientific insights.⁴

Or a teenager prepares to buy his first car. He doesn’t have much money, but he wants it to be reliable. He reasons analogically: “Dad’s car is a Chevrolet, and it’s reliable. Mr. Cooper’s car is a Chevrolet, and it’s reliable. The car for sale down the street is also a Chevrolet, so it’s probably also reliable.” Analogical reasoning is part of our shared common sense. Applied to the order we observe in nature, this common reasoning points to the existence of an intelligent designer. So argued Socrates.

INTRODUCING THE DESIGN ARGUMENT

Socrates’s argument is known in philosophy as the “argument from design” (or the “design argument”). It is also called the “teleological argument” (Greek telos, “end” or “purpose at which something is aimed”) since it claims that the order of the universe appears purposeful or intentionally aimed. An argument from design is usually defined as a philosophical argument that begins with the deep order of nature and reasons from there to the conclusion that an intelligent designer existing above the universal order is its ultimate source.

In one form or another, a design argument can be found presented and defended in the writings of most of the pre-Socratic philosophers as well as in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Greek and Roman members of the Stoic school of philosophy, Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), and David Hume (1711–76). Versions of the design argument can also be found in the Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim philosophical traditions. Many of the founders of modern science presented and defended a design argument in their scientific treatises. In addition, the list of recent scholars East and West who have defended the argument is long and includes many of the most eminent philosophers and scientists of our time. In short, almost every major philosopher of the ancient, medieval, and modern periods has endorsed this argument. The argument from design is not only historically significant and mainstream, it is also very contemporary.

Some may object at this point: Why just one designer? Why not many? After all, it takes many architects to design a skyscraper, and sometimes two artists jointly compose a song. From ancient times, defenders of the design argument have replied that the highly integrated unity of the cosmos points to one supreme designer, not many.

Let’s consider this for a moment. Physicists have discovered that the behavior of matter and energy can be described using differential equations that fit together into a unified system of interconnected formulas. Furthermore, in Dreams of a Final Theory, the theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize recipient Steven Weinberg, one of the greatest physicists of our time, writes:

Think of the space of scientific theories as being filled with arrows, pointing toward each principle and away from the others by which it is explained. These arrows of explanation have already revealed a remarkable pattern: They do not form separate disconnected clumps, representing independent sciences, and they do not wander aimlessly—rather they are all connected and if followed backward (to deeper levels) they all seem to flow from a common starting point.⁵

Weinberg’s statement is worth pondering. All t...