The Existence of God IIIb: The Teleological Argument - Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part 1

In my previous post, I started discussion of the Teleological Argument with Dawkins's "Ultimate Boeing 747 Challenge," which I thought the Teleological Argument could withstand. I will now discuss Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, perhaps one of the most thorough discussions of the Teleological Argument, even though it was written about 100 years before Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species.


Cleanthes, one of the characters, begins the discussion:

Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it:
you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an
infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a
degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these
various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other
with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever
contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature,
resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance;
of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the
effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy,
that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar
to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to
the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori,
and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and
his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

Demea, the character who represents traditional religious thought, vigorously protests this argument:

What! No demonstration of the Being of God! No abstract arguments! No
proofs a priori! Are these, which have hitherto been so much insisted on by
philosophers, all fallacy, all sophism? Can we reach no further in this subject
than experience and probability?

This is an important thing to note. Only with an a priori argument could we possibly prove absolutely that God exists and has certain attributes. With an a posteriori argument, it is a matter of weighing all evidence, to see whether the evidence supports a claim in either direction. Thus one is reduced to saying that such-and-such a belief is only probably true.

Philo, the chracter who most probably represents Hume's own opinions, builds on this:

What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is not so much
that all religious arguments are by Cleanthes reduced to experience, as that
they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable of that inferior
kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth has solidity,
we have observed a thousand and a thousand times; and when any new instance of
this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference.
The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar
event; and a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after. But wherever
you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish
proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy,
which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced
the circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it takes
place in Titius and Maevius. But from its circulation in frogs and fishes, it is
only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that it takes place in
men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much weaker, when we infer
the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our experience that the blood
circulates in animals; and those, who hastily followed that imperfect analogy,
are found, by more accurate experiments, to have been mistaken.

Thus it is not clear how strong the evidence is of a designer.

Cleanthes responds:

But is the whole adjustment of means to ends in a house and in the universe
so slight a resemblance? The economy of final causes? The order, proportion, and
arrangement of every part?

Philo replies:

Were a man to abstract from every thing which he knows or has seen, he
would be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to determine what kind
of scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to one state or
situation of things above another. For as nothing which he clearly conceives
could be esteemed impossible or implying a contradiction, every chimera of his
fancy would be upon an equal footing; nor could he assign any just reason why he
adheres to one idea or system, and rejects the others which are equally
possible.

Thus, it is not clear that one could dervie what led to the current situation, without actually seeing what led to it. Nevertheless, one could respond that the analogy is strong enough to merit this. Philo realizes this, so he tries to poke holes in Cleanthes's argument:

And if thought, as we may well suppose, be confined merely to this narrow
corner, and has even there so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety
can we assign it for the original cause of all things? The narrow views of a
peasant, who makes his domestic economy the rule for the government of kingdoms,
is in comparison a pardonable sophism.

Nature, we find, even from our limited experience, possesses an infinite number of springs and principles, which incessantly discover themselves on every change of her position and situation. And what new and unknown principles would actuate her in so new and unknown a situation as that of the formation of a universe, we cannot, without the utmost temerity, pretend to determine. A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do we then pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?

Philo so far makes two points: that the Teleological Argument is a vast generalization; and that it is an argument from ignorance, given how little was known of nature at the time the dialogue was written. Nevertheless, even if an argument is based on generalizations and arguments from ignorance, if it is the best response, then it should be the one held until evidence shows to the contrary. This is basically how Cleanthes responds:

but that it is by no means necessary, that Theists should prove the
similarity of the works of Nature to those of Art; because this similarity is
self-evident and undeniable? The same matter, a like form; what more is
requisite to shew an analogy between their causes, and to ascertain the origin
of all things from a divine purpose and intention?

Philo responds essentially with Dawkins's argument, which I dealt with in the previous post:

If Reason (I mean abstract reason, derived from enquiries a priori)
be not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect, this
sentence at least it will venture to pronounce, That a mental world, or universe
of ideas, requires a cause as much, as does a material world, or universe of
objects; and, if similar in its arrangement, must require a similar cause. For
what is there in this subject, which should occasion a different conclusion or
inference? In an abstract view, they are entirely alike; and no difficulty
attends the one supposition, which is not common to both of them.

Cleanthes responds that nevertheless, there seems to be a cause:

The order and arrangement of nature, the curious adjustment of final causes, the
plain use and intention of every part and organ; all these bespeak in the
clearest language an intelligent cause or author. The heavens and the earth join
in the same testimony: the whole chorus of Nature raises one hymn to the praises
of its Creator. You alone, or almost alone, disturb this general harmony. You
start abstruse doubts, cavils, and objections: you ask me, what is the cause of
this cause? I know not; I care not; that concerns not me. I have found a Deity;
and here I stop my enquiry.

Philo replies that if so, it does not help to push the argument off a step:

If I am still to remain in utter ignorance of causes, and can absolutely give an
explication of nothing, I shall never esteem it any advantage to shove off for a
moment a difficulty, which, you acknowledge, must immediately, in its full
force, recur upon me.

This post has already gone on for a while, so I will continue the analysis of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in another post.