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Analysis Of David Hume's Argument From Design

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Argument from Design
The argument from design builds its foundation on the following premise. There is evidence of design, or purpose, in the natural world. Therefore, a creator created the natural world. Despite its nature that has lead this type of logic to be a default in several cultures, this argument is unsuccessful in proving a creator—which is its goal. Many of Hume’s objections to the argument may be brushed off by those who are blindly religious and take offense, but many, from the same pool of objections, are simply logical and commonsensical, while some are too rigid.
This a posteriori argument for design comes from the desire to make a second case for God. The first was the ontological argument, or cosmological argument, which attempts to use pure reason to …show more content…

This leads to the discussion of the four sources or order that Hume develops: intelligence, instinct, vegetation, and generation. He found that all things he observed in the natural world were driven by one of the four. A fundamental source is one of the four sources that drives all other sources. For example, if instinct were the fundamental source, the natural world would be a result of divine instinct.
Playing off of that, the argument from design relies on intelligence being fundamental. That means that for the teleological argument to even begin with a sure foot, intelligence must be the source of all other sources of order. An assumption like that renders the argument weak already.
Another weakness Hume points out through Philo is that this argument is incredibly human centric. The argument that indirectly tries to prove that man was made in God’s own image does the contrary. Humans of course would rather be called a product of intelligent design than a result of divine instinct. As far as determining his origin, man generally prefers intelligence to instinct, growth, or

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The conclusion, thus, is that Nature was created by intelligent design. This argument is the centerpiece of Paley’s “Argument from Design”, as he spends the previous two sections deliberately lining the specifics of a watch, the clear order a watch follows, and that there must be a creator for a watch. In this section, he puts forward an analogy that nature is like a watch in that both have specific orders and contrivances which thus mean that both were created by an intelligent

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Hambourger’s argument from design argues for the existence of god based on the perceived evidence of deliberate design in the world/universe. To further elaborate on the concepts he uses, Hambourger uses three main concepts; determinism, chance, and mere hap. Hambourger’s argument from design claims that though many things occur by chance, there are some things which we cannot simply accept to have happened by chance, and must therefore have some common explanation in the causal chain of events connecting the two events. For instance the universe is created by many states of affairs coming together. If some slight changes had occurred, the end result could have been vastly different than it currently is.

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The Teleological Argument In the Theological Argument, Premise one says that ‘The world, and every part of it, is like a machine, in that its parts are adjusted to each other, with means adapted to ends’. Paley explains how finding a mechanical watch on the ground is like understanding the world (Paley, 56). The watch displays

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When it comes to Hume’s theories, specifically the principles of ideas, we can evaluate them based on their identities. Out of the three associative principles, “causation is the strongest and the only one that takes us beyond our senses” (Morris and Charlotte). Causation establishes a link between the present and the past and this can be compared to the relation between the cause and effect. Hume tries to show the ways we associate ideas, and the reasons why it’s supposed to stay that way. He doesn’t focus on explaining why we do it this way, he automatically assumes that humans understand this concept.

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Natural Theology, written by Paley is an argument of the design of the universe. This paper argues that there is an intelligent designer who designed the universe. His argument is a posteriori and inductive because it is based on sense experience and conclusions were drawn from what our senses tell us. Paley’s argument is based on three fundamental observations: the complexity of the biological world, the regularity of the orbits of ‘heavenly bodies’ and of the seasons of the year and finally, the purpose of a designer seen in this complexity and purpose. To explain his argument, Paley compares the universe to a watch and uses analogies to explain his argument.

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First, Paley’s so-called design that attempt to reason to God's existence from demonstrating the order of the whole Universe and its regularities or laws of nature. The attempt to reason to God's existence from the orderliness indicated in living organisms, their complexity, and being well-suited for the tasks of reproduction and survival. Paley's Natural Theology gives elaborate details of a local design argument. Hume work through his three characters presented his criticisms, but Cleanthes showed strong arguments that were similar in a way to Paley’s to counter his Hume’s explanations. In my opinion, Hume accepts the point that design argument is more likely that the universe had been designed and there was an intelligent designer.

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Hume has failed to take a few things into account. The first of this would be concerning reasoning backing up your morality. As we all have grownup, we are often told to not do things such as do not smoke or do not steal etc and when we ask why not to, we are told simply because it is bad. For those people who remain in question about why smoking is bad and who are maybe standing on the fence between doing it and not doing it is where I feel reason comes into play. We are then shown facts that say “Smoking is bad because x…y…z…” which then solidify our reasoning and backs up our morality.

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Philosopher David Hume’s argument against William Paley’s addresses the most common criticism in why Paley is wrong. Hume’s points out two major flaws in Paley’s argument that there is a creator of the universe. The first argument is the lack of evidence, in which he states that the existence of such a creator can only be proved through the a pattern of observation, which there is no pattern for. This addresses how without any form of pattern through observation that it is difficult to make a correlation between the universe and its designer (Speaks). Secondly he argumes that there are limitations to the design argument that Paley does not address.

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The Teleological argument was created by William Paley, human artifacts are products of intelligent design for purpose. The universe resembles these human artifacts. Therefore, the universe is probably a product of intelligent design. But the universe is vastly more complex and gigantic that a human artifact. Therefore, there probably is a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who designed the universe (Pojman 32).

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Hume sought to show that just because individual parts may have a cause, it does not follow that the ‘whole’ has, or even needs, a cause. Further, the concept of a ‘whole’ is merely a human construct placed upon a collection of individual parts and does not actually exist in nature as itself. Hume also posits his skepticism in the form of a dialogue between three people – Philo, Demea, and Cleanthes. At one point, Demea illustrates the idea of causation in the form of an analogy where a house needs an architect in order to exist. Philo, often considered to espouse Hume’s own views, agrees to “infer[ring], by custom, the existence of [a house]”, but counters that we have no “parallel” by which to explain the origin of the universe, therefore this analogy cannot be used to explain how something so foreign to us came into existence.

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Since, Hume denies causation and metaphysic given that God-talk is a metaphysical notion it follows that, for him, the Kalam cosmological argument is flawed. Hume’s argument mentioned above suggests that there can be a beginning without a cause. As a counter argument, Anscombe would say that, Hume can “imagine” may be say a rabbit coming into being. This means to say that Hume who is imagining the rabbit coming into being is the cause of the rabbit’s coming into existence (50).

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There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction.

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In “An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, David Hume proposes several arguments against the truth of Christian religion. In the beginning, Hume specifies two main arguments, in order to defy the logical reasoning of Christian religion. Firstly, Hume questions the honesty of the apostle’s testimony. Therefore, he believes that testimony of apostle’s is a weaker evidence compared to our sense; and thus, every person should proportionate his/her belief based on the stronger evidence. Secondly, he argues that if miracles are logical, then the foundation of Christianity is based on miracles.

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Since the creation of the universe was a unique event, we cannot say anything about it. The existence of pain cast serious doubt on the existence of a benevolent Intelligence. In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion the three main characters Philo a skeptic who sees inconsistencies in every line of argument, Demea pose arguments for the two others to discuss and Cleanthes skeptic who is aware of the limitations of logic but do not believe in the mental picture; argue about the Argument from Design. Philo win the discussion arguing that the appearance of order in nature could simply derive from the nature of matter itself (Hume). In general Hume show a general idea that the Argument from Design is useless because it only shows that there is intelligent design in the universe; it does not validate any theology beyond deism.

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The design argument is an argument for the existence of God, and proving his existence is the major source of debate in the creation hypothesis. Rowe compared the universe to a pocket watch, with all parts arranged perfectly causing the other to move (Rowe, 2007, p. 57).   The design argument employs analogical reasoning to understand the way we are inter-connected to nature and the universe. In my opinion, the universe is similar to a machine, a teleological system, working in grand harmony for a purpose, .

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