Put together for a purpose

Examining a few responses to Paley's Watchmaker Analogy

Photo by Katriona McCarthy on Unsplash

I love William Paley’s Watchmaker Analogy because I think it is an elegant thought experiment that points to the reality and conceivability of an intentional designer working meticulously to order the cosmos that we inhabit. 

Last week we looked at the analogy in some detail, and this week I want to take a look at a few common critiques and responses that you may come across. Catch up here if you missed last week’s post: 

David Hume

Though public opinion seems to assume that Paley’s Watchmaker analogy was thoroughly refuted by David Hume in his 1779 book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, that’s not clear at all. 

For one, Paley’s Natural Theology was published in response to Hume’s work—not the other way around. He was completely aware of Hume’s claims in Dialogues and structured his argument to address them directly. 

So, we don’t even have to leave Paley’s work to find ready responses for many of Hume’s criticisms. An example here: 

Hume argues that things in the universe don’t quite correlate to the universe itself. “If we see a house, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder…But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect.”¹ 

Paley’s response? It doesn’t weaken the analogy if one has never seen the “How It’s Made” episode for pocket watches. 

“Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion that we had never seen a watch made; that we had never known an artist capable of making one: that we are altogether incapable of executing such a piece of workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed…” 

After all, there are plenty of works of ancient art and even “productions of modern manufacture” whose design and construction remains a mystery—still, it’s more reasonable to conclude that someone designed and created these creations than to assume that they could have come to be through simple chance.  

Hume’s critique, of course, comprises much more than this single objection—you can read more here if you’re interested.

Richard Dawkins

Everyone’s favorite New Atheist commentator famously criticized Paley’s conclusion in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, arguing that the scientific data presents evidence for a universe that has no design and no designer. 

But Dawkins has a more well-known criticism to design arguments, which was central to his popular 2006 book The God Delusion. It’s best summarized by asking a simple question: “Who designed the designer?” 

If the universe’s complexity implies design, then it stands to reason that the designer was even more complex than the universe, Dawkins argues. But, that designer’s complexity needs to be explained, just like the universe’s, doesn’t it? So, from that reasoning, one must assume that the designer had an even more complex designer.

Unfortunately, that creates the same problem—greater complexity necessitates more complex designers, until we’ve found ourselves in an infinite regress of ever more complex and powerful designers. 

This response fails in a few ways. First, it’s not simply complexity that Paley is highlighting with the watch analogy, but intentionality. 

Let’s revisit Paley’s argument for a bit:

“…when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose…”

It’s not just that the watch has gears and springs and chains that work together, but that the elements seem to have been intentionally chosen to produce a specific effect. 

It’s certainly possible that the stone has its own sort of complexity; perhaps one could break it in half and find a geode inside, a complex and mathematical crystalline structure that took years to form. This would be a great find—but it wouldn’t imply or necessitate a designer who set the process in motion for any purpose. It’s simply an expected outcome of a known process of nature.

So, complexity in itself isn’t quite enough to necessitate design on Paley’s analogy. But the bigger philosophical issue here is that Dawkins’ criticism misunderstands an essential quality of God’s nature, his aseity. 

Aseity describes God’s ability to exist without a cause, but simply by the nature of who he is. Think of how God identifies himself to Moses when they first meet at the burning bush; when Moses asks his name, God replies “I AM WHO I AM.” What seems like a grammatical flub actually provides deep insight into the nature of the Almighty. 

Theologians and philosophers throughout history have described this property in various ways; Thomas Aquinas, for instance, posits that God is the “uncaused cause,” the “First Cause” who set everything else in the universe in motion. If God is the greatest conceivable being, the Creator of the universe, the all-powerful and all-knowing, then he must be uncaused and self-sustaining; it’s simply tied up in the definition. If he doesn’t quite achieve one of those things, then he simply isn’t God. 

Why do objections matter? 

Maybe you’ve had this experience before: You hear a beautiful, well-spoken presentation of an argument and find yourself convinced. The premises make sense; it’s logical; the conclusion is palatable.

Then, with a singular sentence, an objector tears a hole in the logic you previously thought was impenetrable. It’s unsettling! How could something that seemed so clearly true on its face have such an easy to find weakness—and why didn’t I notice it before I bought the argument hook, line, and sinker?

Now, as we’ve seen, objections and critiques don’t always spell defeat for arguments. But, even when they do, I’d argue that this is a good thing! Proverbs 27:17 tells us that “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another;” I think it’s clear that arguments sharpen arguments, and objections can help us strengthen not only our arguments, but our own minds. 

God endows all people—believers and nonbelievers alike—with rational faculties, and it’s an act of worship to use them to point glory back to him. All truth is God’s truth; as Christians, it’s our responsibility to share that truth and defend it in a world that desperately needs it. 

From the archives:

If you’ve still got the philosophy bug, here’s a post from last summer about how to find and avoid logical fallacies.

1. It’s important to note that Paley’s argument is analogical, an argument that uses analogy to make its claims. Analogies are inherently imperfect, as a perfect analogy would simply be the thing you’re trying to describe. But, that doesn’t mean that they’re useless when trying to draw philosophical conclusions.