Herman Reith says that the trouble with the design argument is that “the examples used and the interpretation given them prevents the argument from rising to the metaphysical level…above the order of the physical universe,” so that “it cannot conclude to anything more than the existence of some kind of intelligence and power” within that universe. … Christopher F.J. Martin … avers that “the Being whose existence is revealed to us by the argument from design is not God but the Great Architect of the Deists and Freemasons, an imposter disguised as God.”
…arguments like Paley’s … cannot in principle get us outside the natural order to a divine intellect of pure actuality but at most to an anthropomorphic demiurge.
– Edward Feser. On Aristotle, Aquinas, and Paley: A Reply to Marie George
I may be a bit different from the typical IDist in that I am a huge fan of Edward Feser. His criticism here of ID is that it cannot get you to God.
What’s more, the modern design argument cannot get you to God even in principle.:
But the problem is not just that Paley’s designer may be something other than God as classicasl theism understand Him. There is reason to think that Paley’s designer could not be God as classical theism understands Him.
…Paley’s procedure is to model his designer on human designers. By implication, his designer exercises the same faculty human designers do–he works out design problems, performs calculations, and so forth–but does so with massively greater facility. He is an essentially anthropomorphic designer. And as such it is hard to see how he could be as classical theism says God is — absolutley simple, immutable, eternal, and so forth.
– Edward Feser, Natural Theology Must Be Founded in Philosophy
So on the one hand we have some critics of ID claiming the problem with ID is that it’s not about God and on the other hand we have critics of ID claiming the problem with ID is that it is about God. Must be nice to be an ID critic!
For those of you who think that ID really is “about God” why not adopt the approach of Edward Feser?
I’m not a Feser fan. However, I do agree that Feser and other Thomists have a more sensible position than the ID proponents.
Deism, monism, pantheism. How to choose.
Hi Neil,
IF one is attempting an argument for the existence of God I could not agree more.
But ID as I understand it is not an argument for the existence of God.
You may not be a Feser fan but you should check out his Scholastic Metaphysics if you have not already done so.
Thought-provoking post, Mung. I hope you’ll do more like it. And I wish I had time to discuss this one. I genuinely apologize for not giving you the payoff you deserve.
No, just for a superhuman designer that almost certainly made the entire universe.
Glen Davidson
But as Feser points out, it’s still a probabilistic argument.
And while I suppose that at the cosmological level that may be true, but I still don’t see how that gets anyone to the God of classical theism. I’m pretty sure everyone by now knows that the universe is not eternally self-existent.
Given that I think metaphysics is a mistake, what would that do for me?
It might help you understand the arguments of those you disagree with and also help you avoid misrepresenting the arguments of those you disagree with simply because you don’t understand them.
My own journey was along the lines of, hey, this guy Feser is interesting, but I don’t really understand some of his arguments. Where is he coming from?
Maybe you think your own philosophy is your own invention from out of the void, as it were. Perhaps you even think it doesn’t involve metaphysics. Please tell us how you avoid metaphysics, or why you would even want to avoid metaphysics.
Put another way, how do you arrive at the conclusion that “metaphysics is a mistake” without engaging in metaphysics?
Thanks Tom. Hopefully I’ll have reason to stick around and no reason to leave. If that happens maybe you’ll be in a better position to expend some time discussing what interests you in anything I say. Do at least lurk if you can.
I look at what I see as the flawed assumptions that many philosophers make, and they seem to originate in metaphysics.
No need to be coy Neil, everyone is a philosopher. Take Hume as your starting point. How did his flawed assumptions originate in metaphysics?
Mung,
Sorry, I’m not going to play that game.
It’s ok Neil. Maybe you’re just not the heretic you imagine yourself to be.
The position of Feser and other Thomists is based on metaphysics.
Do at least try to be consistent, Neil.
It would help you understand why your belief that “Feser and other Thomists have a more sensible position than the ID proponents” is based upon their metaphysics.
So let’s try this again.
What flawed assumptions have Feser and the other Thomists made that originate in metaphysics?
Do. Tell.
So is that of ID proponents.
In his OP, Mung writes:
And just as we were getting on so well!
You mention the one thing I could give Ed Feser some credit for, his rejection of “Intelligent Design” as any kind of coherent philosophy.
Here is a TSZ thread where I see you joined in rather late and seem to have been ignored.
You wrote:
I thought I answered this in the OP. It all depends what you mean by “change”. Without Feser saying what changes and what change means, the statement is utterly vapid. Unsupported assertion seems essential to Feser’s writing.
I have this book and I agree with Dorothy Parker* that It is not a book to be lightly tossed aside. It should be thrown with great force. I have attempted to read it several times but find myself muttering variations on the theme of “how do you know that” at depressingly frequent intervals.
*or Sid Ziff!
When ID actually detects some design then perhaps it’ll matter who the designer is. Until then, not so much.
Why limit it to ID critics? Most of UD think the mechanism God used to Implement Design Was Jesus. Go take it up with them first perhaps.
I agree that ID doesn’t get you to god – but then, I’ve never argued that it does. Most of the big ID proponents agree that it doesn’t get you to god. I’m not sure any of them consider ID a “philosophy” in and of itself, but rather see it as something that adds weight to other philosophical positions. It adds inferential weight to the idea that god exists cumulatively with other arguments and evidence.
It is, rather, only anti-ID advocates who insist that ID is attempting to “get to god”.
As far as a classical theism being thwarted by a universe that begins and ends, that all depends entirely on what time is and how we experience it. The universe could have what appears from our perspective to be a beginning and end, but still exist as a timeless whole from another perspective. A movie on film, for example, might appear to have a beginning and end, but it continues to exist as a whole that can be experienced time and again.
The ID skeptic suspects the whole point of ID “philosophy” was to circumvent Church/State separation in the wake of Edwards v. Aguillard. So we only see that argument surfacing now after the abject failure of the ID movement in passing off ID as science. It no longer matters these days about maintaining the pretence.
Who do you mean when you say “Most of the big ID proponents”? It’s been a while since any formerly prominent ID proponent has said anything in public, let alone anything new.
I suppose weight can be negative. Anyway, you can’t add gravitas to an empty idea by waving a wand and incanting Pon•der•OH•sa.
Minor aside: the claim that the Argument from Design cannot generate as a conclusion that God (in the classical theistic sense) exists was also made by Hume (in his Dialogues on Natural Religion) and echoed by Kant (in his “On the Impossibility of the Physico-Theological Proof” in the Critique of Pure Reason). As Kant puts it:
Then again, it was never my position that the problem with ID theory is that it even attempted to justify the existence of God, since I know full well that it doesn’t. My position was simply that ID is not formulated with sufficient precision to be testable. It is, in the famous phrase, “not even wrong”.
It is true that in the ID movement, design theory is seen as implicitly aligned with theism, and that evolutionary theory is seen as implicitly aligned with atheism. But I think that both claims — that design theory is implicitly theistic and that evolutionary theory is implicitly atheistic — are entirely false. And as I’ve argued a few times here — though I’ve toned it down — my real criticism of the ID movement is that the ID movement, much like creationism, consists of treating evolutionary theory as a scapegoat for the social ills caused by industrial and post-industrial capitalism. So my criticisms of the ID movement are critical-theoretic objections to ID as an ideology, as distinct from my specifically epistemological objections to ID as a putative theory.
Good post, Mung. If you’re going for a “maximally great” God (and indeed some arguments are contingent on it) then both ID and theism fall over. For any maximally great being is there a line between thinking / doing / knowing? Would could possibly motivate a maximally great being? And how far is that being from the God of the bible who makes mistakes?
Quick thought in passing:
On one hand, God can’t be the intelligent designer of ID since God is pure subject and any operational definition of intelligence would presumably include an objective system capable of applying foresight as it interacts with an objective environment.
On the other hand, if intelligence is merely equivalent to foresight, I guess God could be a candidate since he knows the future as well as the past.
I’m quite sure I would classify myself as a panentheist, but I’m unsure where the ID argument ultimately takes us. Can it show us that the universe itself is intelligent, or that intelligence (foresight) as one characteristic of God must exist prior to humanity, or … ?
Nice post, Mung, thanks.
One of my objections to ID, in addition to the bad science and bad math, is the bad theology.
Or at least the extremely unsatisfactory theology. I agree that ID doesn’t lead to God. That’s why I keep posting my favorite quote from another Thomist, Herbert McCabe:
Nuff said.
Classical theism as presented by Feser denies that God is “maximally great” in the sense you’re probably using it. God isn’t the friendliest guy around, God isn’t the smartest person you’ve never met, etc., etc.
This relates to the univocalism Gregory is always accusing IDists of.
Mung,
Would it be fair to classify that God as ‘an incredibly powerful entity’?
It would depend. We can speak of God analogically, as long as we understand that is what we are doing. But to say that God is the “most powerful” entity is to put God on a par with the creation, which is a no-no. God does not exist as a member of a set of which He is just the best of the best. He exists outside that set and every member of it depends upon Him for their existence. The two are not in the same category.
Mung,
Superset?
It seems to me anyone can speak of what they like. I’m just curious as to the justification for “God”.
Again, no problem for you to assert this and believe it. But it almost seems you have reasons for this/these assertion(s).
“How do know this?” I hear myself asking.
And how do you know this?
Let me say I don’t want to dissuade you from your particular beliefs (I only get concerned when people want to insist that actions that oppress others are entitled by those beliefs) but I’m curious how one rationalizes the concept without any kind of supporting evidence, other than reported testimony. You made a comment to Aurelio but the responses seem to have disappeared.
Except, of course, with respect to his unambiguous rejection of IDism.
Hmm, might that possibly be because IDists make both claims themselves depending on their audience? Just maybe it happens like that, Mung?
To be an ‘ID critic’ is to be a normal human being, who either sees through the facade that the DI has erected (largely from a theistic perspective) or who simply never bought into it in the first place (probably because IDism is undeniably biased against atheism).
Would you possibly concede, Mung, that the argument that IDists commit univocalism, at least sometimes, is valid? Or are you that stubborn to concede nothing of the sort even though evidence against IDism is easy to produce? It’s not merely an ‘accusation’ if it reflects reality.
That the supposed ‘catch-22’ of IDism is actually a creature of the IDM’s own making takes the hot air out of the pity Mung is seeking for his ‘strictly scientific’ DI-supportive claims.
Yes. I see all this talk as a distraction from the main issue – ID claims to be able to detect design yet it has failed to demonstrate it’s ability to do so.
Until that happens ID is really just good ol fashioned religion where an article of faith is that the bac flag was designed, no actual proof required.
OMagain,
Agreed, except for that “ID claims to be able to detect Design”, not merely ‘design’, which everyone acknowledges already. The capitalisation makes it clear that in IDT we are dealing with extra-natural or super-natural claims.
IDT is not a ‘religion.’ But its architects were and are religious. That’s why David Berlinski is not an IDist; he is just an anti-Darwinist paid by the DI’s pockets.
While I don’t disagree, I think that they have also failed to detect “design” in any way other then “it looks designed to me”. I don’t dispute that “design” can be detected, I simply dispute their claims to be able to detect it with formal methods.
Detecting “design” first before “Design” seems to be a logical progression or order.
That they (IDists) have failed doesn’t mean that others haven’t succeeded. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly here and elsewhere, once one intends human-made things when discussing ‘design theory’, there is really no debate. We (meaning some people engaged professionally, industrially and/or academically) practice, study, observe, and even predict human designs quite commonly. This is not controversial.
Man-u-facture
It’s Mung’s support of bullshit IDism that is the problem here – the self-imposed catch-22 of this thread. He even justifies his own belittlement in defending ‘strictly scientific’ IDT. And if he doesn’t, then he does nothing at all to suggest otherwise. He is a diehard DI-supporter, full of all the bullshit they pass off as ‘neutral’ PR.
Ah yes. Man-u-facture.
And cells are not men, therefore they cannot Man-u-facture.
And yet they do. They manufacture using molecular machines.
Mung,
Do you have any interest in discussing whether Feser’s book, Scholastic Metaphysics, contains any useful insights?
The etymological derivation is “made by hands”, something cells and “Designers” don’t possess. I guess you translate mano a mano as man to man!
You’ve been watching too many pirated computer simulations. 🙂
Machine is a metaphor. Molecular machines are molecules doing what molecules do. What ID does best is reify metaphors.
Calling something a machine and allowing that metaphor to imply it did not evolve is just propaganda.
Hi petrushka,
I think the question to ask is whether manufacturing is a metaphor.
The more we find out about life the more we find that our “metaphors” used to describe life aren’t metaphors after all.
Have you checked out the latest link I posted in your recent thread?
Certainly not in this thread. And probably not as a separate topic for discussion in any other thread either. I already have too many things I’m juggling right now. Sorry.
I actually have several books on design theory and would love to see ID try to develop some sorts of predictions about living organisms based upon what we do know about human designers. Alas I have not had much time to spend following up on that personally.
And I like Feser alot but I am not a copycat sycophant.
It’s IDists, not ‘ID’ that can ‘develop’. Don’t forget the actual people involved and their limitations and possibilities. IDism does not ‘develop’ in a vacuum, after all.
I’m quite sure that I’ve spent more time ‘following up’ on this personally (and professionally) than you have. But this is also a major problem between us, Mung: namely, lowercase ‘intelligent design’ (by human designers) vs. uppercase ‘Intelligent Design’ (by [a] disembodied, extra-natural or super-natural ‘Designer[s]’). Why are you still too stubborn to publically acknowledge this problem for IDism or even to face the question?
A lot? Tell us then, how you are not simply copying the bullshit manipulative neo-creationist ideology of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and its PR machine. Show us how ‘independent’ a thinker you actually are.
Both Feser & I reject your silly IDist ideology. And this is just a blog.
In order to copy it I’d have to know what it is.
This might be an appropriate time to pause and reflect on Sal’s copy and paste methodology and mine (such as it is).
Whatever, Mung. So, you ‘know’ nothing of the Discovery Institute, nor of the Center for Science and Culture, nor of their mission, nor history, nor about *ANY* of the DI’s Fellow’s ‘definitions’ of ID, nor of their rampant double-talking & equivocation, nor even anything about the IDM? You are simply a neutral, innocent onlooker who happens to promote his own ‘independent’ brand of IDism?
No, sir, that suggestion is simply an attempt at deception. Why not tell the truth?
You are, actually, a Discovery Institute ‘copycat sycophant’ who either won’t or can’t accept that Feser and others have exposed ID’s disgusting double-talk. You call it a ‘catch-22’ and claim IDists like yourself are victims. They did it to themselves, Mung, and you are sadly helping them with this on-going deception.
Untie the yoke of that backwards-looking ideology from your theology, Mung and free yourself from the DI’s (self-)deceptions.
p.s. stcordova (your fellow IDist ‘opponent’) may indeed be simpler than you, less nuanced and sophisticated, but he is at least quite obviously more honest and courageous in the way he communicates.
Metaphors are always metaphors. Manufacturing has not much applicability.
It may be a teaching aid, but the problems start when you start a line of reasoning with a metaphor as a premise. This is particularly troublesome when the metaphor is information and computing.
What do you think I am copying, Gregory?
As for Salvador being more honest, that’s a real howler.
Go play with yourself then, Mung. I’m not going to play your idiotic ‘guess-what-I-think’ games.
Salvador is clearly more honest and open about his views than you are. He may still be a YECist, which is a shame. But at least he puts his views on the table.