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In the previous blog, I discussed the so-called “anthropic coincidences” and Hume’s criticism of the use of these to support a theistic designer. Moreland then anticipates a second objection to the “fine-tuning” of the universe by considering a view called the “multiple universe ensemble” view. This view asserts that in addition to the universe in which we live, there exists an infinite number of parallel universes. These universes are inaccessible to each other universe and exist parallel to each other. These universes have varying degrees of order, some highly ordered and others less so. We just happened to be in one which is highly ordered which is why we are able to exist. It should not be considered unlikely, this view asserts, that with an infinite number of universes one might exist just like ours. Thus, there is no need for a designer.

Moreland finds this theory unconvincing for three reasons:

1. The view appears to be contrived, made up largely to avoid thestic conclusions.

2. If one is going to embrace a view of reality that allows for bizarre entitities like alternative parallel worlds, then on should not have intellectual difficulties with the notion of a Designer or Creator God. For example, one can no longer reject the existence of God because God is not detectable by sensory experience, since multiple worlds are not sense-detectable either.

3. There is little or no additional evidence for these parallel universes, but there is additional evidence for God apart from the existence of the delicately balanced precondtions for life in our world.

William Dembski speaks in terms of probabilistic resources. An article in which he discusses these concepts can be found here. He argues that in our known universe there are limited probabilistic resources. A universal probability bound of 1 in 10 to the 150th power exists such as any event whose probability exceeds this bound is immensely improbable. (A fuller discussion of this bound is no possible in our limited space for this post, but he explains this concept in more detail in the aforementioned article.) Dembski asserts that the probability of the complexity that is witnessed in our world arising by chance far exceeds this probability bound rendering it a non-viable alternative. The multiple universe ensemble view commits what Dembski calls the “inflationary fallacy”.

The basic argument is this: It is never enough to postulate probabilistic resources merely to prop an otherwise failing chance hypothesis. Rather, one needs independent evidence whether there really are enough probabilistic resources to render chance plausible. Consider, for instance, a state lottery. Suppose we know nothing about the number of lottery tickets sold and are informed simply that the lottery had a winner. Suppose further that the probability of any lottery ticket producing a winner is extremely low.
What can we conclude? Does it follow that many lottery tickets were sold? Hardly. We are entitled to this conclusion only if we have independent evidence that many lottery tickets were sold. Apart from such evidence we have no way of assessing how many tickets were sold, much less whether the lottery was conducted fairly and whether its outcome was due to chance. It is illegitimate to take an event, decide for whatever reason that it must be due to chance, and then propose numerous probabilistic resources because otherwise chance would be implausible. I call this the inflationary fallacy.

Next…A third objection ot the design argument.

This is another in a series of blogs discussing J. P. Moreland’s introduction to The Creation Hypothesis. In the last few blogs, I have covered several arguments for design advanced by Moreland. He then turns to briefly address certain criticisms of design. The first criticism he tackles is one proposed by David Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, written in the 1750’s. Advocates of the design argument cite as evidence for design the occurrence of various factors which are necessary for human life. Today, it is also referred to as the “fine-tuning” argument. The values of various cosmic constants, the chemical properties of water, and other factors seem to possess just the right values or properties to sustain life.

Hume suggested we should not be surprised that this is the case. If the world had not been one in which intelligent life could have occurred, we would not be here to discuss this issue. Since those factors are necessary for us to be here, we should not be surprised that they exist, as we are, in fact, here! Moreland maintains that Hume is misstating the argument as follows:

Theists are supposedly saying, “Isn’t it amazing that the factors necessary for life preceded us instead of some other facts that make life impossible preceding us?” In other words, theists are comparing these two different world courses:
World Course 1: a through g obtain, and human beings appear
World Course 2: alternate factors (say h through n) obtain, and human beings appear.

Those two worlds do not accurately represent what the design argument says. Instead, consider the following two worlds:
World Course 1: a through g obtain, human beings appear
World Course 2: alternate factors obtain, no human life appears.

The first argument is wrong because it is hard to see how humans could emerge in any world in which the factors necessary for their existence are not found. What design advocates state is “that the emergence of any life, including human life, was incredibly unlikely and required the actualization of a delicately balanced set of preconditions, and the realization of these preconditions require explanation provided by the existence of a Designer”. Moreland quotes atheist J. L. Mackie:

There is only one actual universe, with a unique set of basic materials and physical constants, and it is therefore surprising that the elements of this unique set-up are just right for life when they might easily have been wrong. This is not made less surprising by the fact that if it had not been so, no one would have been here to be surprised. We can properly envisage and consider alternative possibilities which do not include our being there to experience them.

Next, criticism two.

In two previous blogs I have examined the first two of Moreland’s three formulations of the design argument. It uses an approach to evidence evaluation called Bayes’ theorem:

I first remember running across this theorem in medical school at Penn State. It provides a means for evaluating the probability of something as being true based on your prior probability (before the evidence was obtained) and in light of the new evidence. I use this principle in everyday decision making in medical practice. I have a prior probability in my mind of how likely I think it is that someone has a certain disease process. After obtaining the results of a specific test, I then have a post-test probability. To look more concretely at the theorem, here is how the terms are defined. It’s worth the few moments required to make sense of the above equation.

P (T/E) = the posterior probability of T given evidence E.
P (E/T) = the likelihood of E given T (i.e., If we accept T, does that make E certain, very likely, or just plausible?)
P (T) = the prior probability that T is true apart from evidence E.
P (E) = the probability that E will obtain apart from T, also called the expectedness of E.

So, we read the theorem this way: The probability of T being true given evidence E is equal to the prior probability of T being true without evidence E, multiplied by the likelihood that E will occur given that T is true, divided by the prior probability that E is expected to occur without T being true. If the probability that T is true given E is greater than the probability that T is true without E, P (T/E) > P (T), then the evidence E offers positive support for T.

Okay. What does all this have to do with the design argument? Let’s let T be the hypothesis that their is a theistic designer of the universe. Let E be the appearance of design found in the universe. There are three factors in the Bayesian theorem. P (E/T) is the probability that design would occur in the universe given that God was the designer, and this would be equivalent to 1, P(E/T) = 1, in Christian theism. This would be multiplied by the probability that a theistic designer exists apart from the evidence of design (e.g., based on other arguments for God’s existence). This would then be divided by the likelihood that the universe would have the appearance of design if God did not exist.

If P (E/T) is equal to 1, then it disappears from the equation. One could then argue that P(T) is not insignificant because of other arguments, and also argue that the likelihood of the appearance of design without the existence of God P (E) is quite low. A large number divided by a small number yields a positive posterior probability that a theistic designer exists.

In his introduction to The Creation Hypothesis, Moreland next examines criticisms of the design argument. I will look at those criticisms and Moreland’s response beginning in the next blog.

In the last post in this series exploring J. P. Moreland’s introduction to The Creation Hypothesis, we examined the design argument as an argument from analogy. I concluded by suggesting this may not be the best way to understand the design argument. “Inference to the Best Explanation” attempts to evaluate a range of phenomena and consider them as a problem to be solved. Varying hypotheses may present themselves as possible solutions to the puzzling data. Each may explain the data more or less adequately than others.

For example, let us say that I come home from work tonight and find that my 12 year old daughter’s room is meticulously cleaned. Now this is an unusual occurrence which demands an explanation. Varying competing hypotheses are considered. Perhaps, my 12 year old daugther suddenly recognized the value of cleanliness. Perhaps, an alien from a distant solar system where messiness is not tolerated entered my home and decided to tidy up (perhaps more likely than hypothesis 1). Perhaps my wife tired of her messiness and decided to clean her room. One could propose an infinite number of alternatives, some more or less plausible. Of the above, it is most likely my wife is the responsible party.

Regarding the design argument, the various features of design in our universe present themselves as puzzles that find themselves in need of explanation. Elliott Sober, a philosipher of biology and critic of intelligent design, feels Hume, who is widely heralded as the one who destroyed natural theology, did not understand Paley’s design argument as it should be understood:

Hume did not think of the design argument (as an inference to the best explanation). For him…it (was) an argument from analogy, or an inductive argument. This alternate conception of the argument makes a great deal of difference. Hume’s criticisms are quite powerful if the argument has the character he attributes to it. But if the argument is, as I maintain, an inference to the best explanation, Hume’s criticisms entirely lose their bite.

In contrast to the argument from analogy, Dembski sets up the inference to the best explanation as follows:

A. The watch is intricate and well- suited to the task of timekeeping.
W1. The watch is the product of intelligent design.
W2. The watch is the product of random physical processes.

Paley claims that P (A/W1) >>P (A/W2), or that the probability of A given that W1 is the case is much larger than the probability that W2 is the case. The same argument applies to living things.

B. Living things are intricate and well-suited to the task of surviving and reproducing.
L1. Living things are the product of intelligent design.
L2. Living things are the product of random physical processes.

P (B/L1) >> P (B/L2). The likelihood principle states that for a competing set of hypotheses, the one that confers maximum probability on the data is the best explanation. We use this sort of reasoning every day to arrive at proper explanations for the data we encounter. It is my belief that the design argument as an inference to the best explanation is strong, indeed. Next, a third form of the design argument.

This is perhaps my favorite hymn, sometimes said to be anonymous, sometimes attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, 1153:

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred head, what glory, what bliss till now was thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call thee mine.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ‘Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

The last post ended with Moreland’s suggestion that the design argument may take three forms, the first of which is the argument from analogy.

An argument from analogy looks like this:

A has property Z.
A and B have properties W, X, Y.
Therefore B has Z.

Not all analogies are created equal. The strength of an analogy is dependent upon the adequacy and appropriateness of the comparison between A and B. Any two things will be similar in some ways and disimilar in others. One can go wrong in an analogy. It is the Paley’s (watchmaker) design argument as an analogy which was famously attacked by David Hume. Paley’s design argument may be stated as an analogy in this way:

Watches are intelligently designed.
Watches and organisms have similar characteristics.
Therefore, organisms are also intelligently designed.

As, Dembski points out in Intelligent Design, the chief problem with arguments from analogy is that they are always also arguments from disanalogy. If A and B are identical there is no need for an analogy. If A and B are not identical, then A will always possess properties not possessed by B and, likewise, B will always possess properties not possessed by A. At best, an argument for analogy might give us reason to believe that two objects which share many similarities might also share another similarity. An analogy can offer no compelling support. Dembski offers the follow two analogies as examples which give true and false conclusions.

In human beings, the blood circulates.
Human beings and dogs are similar.
Therefore, in dogs the blood circulates.

In human beings, the blood circulates.
Human beings and plants are similar.
Therefore, in plants the blood circulates.

It is obvious that in both analogies, the first two statements are true. However, only in the first analogy is the characteristic in question similar. Some have suggested that Hume’s attack of Paley’s watchmaker argument was an argument against a straw man. Paley’s argument should perhaps be understood in terms of another kind of argument…Next blog.

I wasn’t able to talk about it much until everything became official, but FSU has hired five new senior philosophy professors for next fall: Michael McKenna, Michael Bishop, Randolph Clarke, Justin Leiber, and Marie Flemming. These appointments should rocket us up at least into the top 40 philosophy departments, and with the trio of McKenna, Clarke, and Al Mele, we should easily become the top department in the nation for free will.

I’ve been presenting J. P. Moreland’s introduction to the book, The Creation Hypothesis. The last three posts have dealt with the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Moreland next turned his attention to a second argument for the existence of God: The design argument. His formulation of the basic argument is as follows:

Science cannot explain away all examples of order (or other design-bearing features - e.g., beauty, information) as being the result of merely natural processes, because scientific explanations presuppose and must start with ordered entities and laws…Scientific explanations cannot get off the ground without starting with ordered entities and laws.

We regularly experience order and information in the world. The order and information we encounter is the direct result of intelligent persons who intentionally act. Therefore the ultimate order and laws that exist in the universe must be taken as brute, unexplainable realities (as science cannot explain them) or explained the way we explain everyday examples of order - the result of an intelligent mind.

Moreland lists several different kinds of design appropriated by advocates of the design argument:

1. The intricacy of the laws of nature and their orderly, regular application to the natural world.
2. The order present in various aspects of reality (e.g., planetary orbits, the eye)
3. The delicate concurrence of a number of factors that serve as necessary conditions for life (constants, etc)
4. The presence of aspects of the world beneficial to life.
5. The simplicity of the world and the laws describing it, along with the complexity of the word (e.g. the complex interaction of various parts in living organisms for certain ends).
6. The information content of DNA.
7. The trustworthiness of the senses and intellect as truth-gatherers, as well as the aptness of that world to be know by those senses and intellect.
8. The beauty and elegance of the various aspects of the world and of the equations used to describe the world.

Three points are made concerning these kinds of design. First, the full force and power of each can only be apprecated through a detailed presentation. The argument does not simply stop at “The world has order that points to a designer”. The details provide the power. Second, the manifold types of design gives the argument greater strength by providing a broad range of data. Third, through these types of design we see the design of
God as an engineer, speaker and author, playful artist, mathematician, and provider.

The desing argument usually takes one of three forms, each of which will be discussed in the next three posts: The argument from analogy, The inference to the best explanation, and The Bayesian approach.

Premise three of Moreland’s formulation of the Kalam Cosmological argument claims that the cause of the universe was personal. He claims that “whatever created the universe’s beginning existed in a timeless, changeless, immutable, spaceless state of affairs (all time and space resulted from the first cause).”

Moreland explains that there are two general types of efficient causes, the means that produces an effect.

1. The kind that governs the behavior of physical or natural causal relationships and is the primary focus of science. This may also be called state-state or event-event causation. An easily understood example is that of one billiard ball striking another causing the second billiard ball to move. These causal sequences presuppose temporal succession. It should be obvious that the first event could not have been caused by such a mechanism.

2. Agent causation occurs when a person acts, e.g., when I speak. In this case, the cause is a substance or thing (a self), not a temporally prior event or state inside a thing. The effect occurs immediately, directly, and spontaneously as the self exercises and acutalizes its causal powers. This kind of cause would have explanatory power in describing the cause of the first event.

Moreland asserts, therefore, that the cause of the universe must be personal. Event-event causation cannot cause a first event, but agent causation can. Next, I leave the Kalam Cosmological Argument as Moreland turns to the design argument.

Continuing a series on Moreland’s introduction to The Creation Hypothesis, I would like to discuss his formulation of premise 2 of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The last blog considered premise one: The universe had a beginning. Premise two states that the the beginning of the universe was caused. What is our justification for such a claim. It seems justified by the principle that every event has a cause. It is our common experience that events don’t just pop into existence. They were caused by some other thing.

Two possible objections are presented by Moreland:
1. Certain quantum events do not have causes.
2. If all events need caused, what caused God?

Regarding the first, Moreland proposes that we cannot say with certainty that quantum events do not have causes. Given the reasonability of the causal principle, it seems best to say that we do not know what those causes are rather than to state they are uncaused. These two positions are equally compatible with observations. That we do not know the causes preserves a principle which at present has overwhelming evidence. His last response is to show that even if we grant that some events do not need causes, premise 2 can still be grounded in the idea that whatever begins to exist has a cause. While one may maintain that quantum events do not have causes, quantum objects did begin to exist, so therefore must have been caused.

Regarding the second (What caused God?), Moreland responds thusly:

…We can consistently hold that all events need causes and that God does not need a cause because God is not an event.

His strongest response to this objection is to point out that the question, “Who made God?” commits the categorical fallacy. This question is similar to the question, “What color is the note C?” Moreland states:

…God, if he exists at all, is a necessary being, the uncreated Creator of all else…Now, if that is what “God” means, then the question “What made God?” turns out to be “What made an entity, God, who is by definition unmakeable?”

Next, Premise 3.