Home » Mind & Soul » Atheism » Deus Extra Machina (I)

Deus Extra Machina (I)

© Francois Tremblay

Perhaps the origin of god-belief, and its most powerful argument, is the argument from design. It is basically the idea that because the universe is complex and ordered, it exhibits design (although the idea that the universe is complex is questionable, I will not discuss it). And if there is design, there is a designer. Given this, we conclude that this designer was a god X.

There are two main flaws with the argument from design, which are fairly obvious to anyone. The first is that such a reasoning fails because it seems likely that X is a complex and ordered being, and therefore had to be created as well. This is contrary to all theologies and is very inconvenient for the one who uses the argument. The usual theological answer that X is "trancendent" or "causeless" does not help us. It is circular and explains nothing, it is an ad hoc excuse to try to escape the consequences of the argument.

The second flaw is that there is no logical relationship between the notion of a designer and X. A designer is not necessarily X, and in fact may not necessarily be a god either. Since the god-concept is fundamentally undefined, even if the argument worked, we could not posit that such a designer was a god, let alone X.

We find therefore that even the best Christian argument fails lamentably. Like the rest of their apologetics, it is intellectually bankrupt and based on an assumption of theism.

However, there is a more fundamental problem with the argument from design - its deduction of a designer is flawed. Take the famous watch example. How do we know that a watch found on the street was designed by humans ?

1. We know that humans design a lot of watches.
2. We know that no natural phenomenons produce watches, none that we know of anyway.

These two facts leads to a probability comparaison which is a sufficient condition to conclude that the watch was designed. Complexity in this case is not considered at all. In fact, considering design from the point of view of complexity is only relevant at all because we know it is too complex in its own way to be produced by the phenomenons around us, which is a premise of our proposition 2 above.

Complexity and order does not equal design - in fact, in some categories of entities, simplicity and disorder are often signs of design instead. For example, in computer programming it is often the simplest algorithm which is most difficult to achieve. Entities that exhibit organic complexity, such as animals. are apparently designed but made by natural phenomenons - Dawkins calls such entities "designoids". There is no general relation between the two which can be used here.

The copyright of the article Deus Extra Machina (I) in Atheism is owned by . Permission to republish Deus Extra Machina (I) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.