“The design argument shows the existence of God is probable.” Comment on this view
(9 marks)

“All the regularity in nature would be due to the action of a postulated God, making nature, as it were, performing a great symphony” (Swinburne, The Existence of God, 2005).

Richard Swinburne approached the argument from the angle of probability suggesting that the evidence of design and order in the universe increases the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne’s argument is based on the remarkable degree and extent of order and regularity in the universe. It is an appealing argument because one cannot deny the apparent evidence – DNA, laws of nature and the complex evolutionary process.

On the other hand we could simply accept it as a ‘brute fact’ (Bertrand Russell) and so it is essentially unexplainable. However, this is not ultimately a satisfactory and complete explanation for the apparent order; it does not provide what Leibniz called a ‘principle of sufficient reason’.

Like Tennant’s Anthropic Principle, Swinburne presents a cumulative argument observing that the universe is fit for human life and moral choices and he identifies seven features of the universe which he argues increases the probability of the universe being designed e.g. order, miracles and religious experience. However, one could object to some of Swinburne’s seven features, namely religious experience and miracles, because they are subject to the problem of verification.

Even Swinburne acknowledges that most general regularities in the universe can be explained by science and the famous antitheist Richard Dawkins argues that Big Bang theory and Darwinian Natural Selection explain the existence and nature of the universe. Dawkins convincingly argues that Natural Selection is the ‘blind watchmaker’ with no foresight or conscious plan as it’s all about the survival of the ‘selfish gene’. He strongly argues that there is no need to postulate the probability of a God behind all of this and puts the case that human beings view the world through ‘purpose coloured spectacles’ when in fact there is no divine purpose at all.

Swinburne would disagree by employing Ockham ’s razor, arguing that God is the simplest and therefore the best explanation for the evidence of design in the universe. He points not only to the order and purpose that it displays but to the providential nature of the universe: it contains everything necessary for human survival and development. Therefore, he concludes that there is a probability that God exists that is greater than the probability that he does not exist. Yet this raises the question of why it would not be possible for any creature to claim that the universe existed for its benefit if it was able to survive in it, even an earthworm! Furthermore, David Hume made a valid point when he pointed out that the apparent order in the universe could be the result chance (the Epicurean Hypothesis). On the other hand, Tennant would respond to this argument by saying that humans cannot, on psychological grounds, accept that it just came about by chance.

It is reasonable to ask why we have an ordered universe rather than a chaotic one. However, the very nature of inductive arguments means that they can only ever lead to a probable conclusion rather than a definite one. The argument only succeeds in proving that the universe is very probably ordered, but no more than that. It can only prove that to us there ‘appears’ to be design. If successful, it may prove the existence of a designing intelligence behind the universe, but this is not the same as the God of classical theism and so this is unsatisfactory. The strongest argument in my opinion is that scientific explanations of the universe are more probable than the existence of God.

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Bray 09