William Paley’s design argument starts with the assumption that if something is designed, there must be a designer. Paley says that the universe didn’t have to be like this, and that how everything works together for a purpose indicates design, so therefore, there has to be a designer, that is God. However, the philosopher David Hume states in his work „Critique of the Design Argument“ some objections that he has against Paley’s Argument.
For one, Hume criticizes that the watch analogy is weak, because the universe has no similarities to a watch and you can’t compare a man-made object to a whole universe.
I think this objection is very coherent since a small thing like a watch and the universe have a lot of dissimilarities and the cause of …show more content…
To support this idea, he uses the ship analogy and explains, that just like you need several people to buy a ship, you may need several gods to design the universe. In my opinion this argument is a bit unreasonable, because it contradicts with the idea of God as the greatest possible being (GPB). If you would need multiple gods to design something, God alone wouldn’t be all-powerful and therefore not a God.
Lastly, a different objection is that when Paley says every invention we encounter has a designer behind it, and therefore the universe must have a designer, we might as well say that every designer is a human and therefore the designer of the universe must be human. With this principle of anthropomorphism that Hume shows, that the analogy Paley uses can be interpreted in other ways than he intended it to.
Even though I don’t agree with every objection that Hume makes, I still find his ideas more convincing than Paley’s, because I don’t believe that the universe is designed, which is Paley’s main argument. I understand that it seems to be very unlikely that the world is so fine tuned by coincidence, but in my opinion that alone is not proof that God
For one, Hume criticizes that the watch analogy is weak, because the universe has no similarities to a watch and you can’t compare a man-made object to a whole universe.
I think this objection is very coherent since a small thing like a watch and the universe have a lot of dissimilarities and the cause of …show more content…
To support this idea, he uses the ship analogy and explains, that just like you need several people to buy a ship, you may need several gods to design the universe. In my opinion this argument is a bit unreasonable, because it contradicts with the idea of God as the greatest possible being (GPB). If you would need multiple gods to design something, God alone wouldn’t be all-powerful and therefore not a God.
Lastly, a different objection is that when Paley says every invention we encounter has a designer behind it, and therefore the universe must have a designer, we might as well say that every designer is a human and therefore the designer of the universe must be human. With this principle of anthropomorphism that Hume shows, that the analogy Paley uses can be interpreted in other ways than he intended it to.
Even though I don’t agree with every objection that Hume makes, I still find his ideas more convincing than Paley’s, because I don’t believe that the universe is designed, which is Paley’s main argument. I understand that it seems to be very unlikely that the world is so fine tuned by coincidence, but in my opinion that alone is not proof that God