Hume's Logical Objection to the Argument From Design Based on the Uniqueness of the Universe

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Dennis Temple
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Simple Version ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
The Universe

Arguments from design in Hume's day were often cast as arguments from analogy. For instance, a very simple version might read like this: ‘The universe resembles a machine; machines are the products of intelligent design; therefore, the universe is (probably) the product of intelligent design.’ Design arguments (usually of a more sophisticated sort) were put forward by some of the greatest scientists of the time, including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. Such arguments were generally thought to be on a par with the conclusions of physics: Hume raised a number of well-known objections to such design arguments. I am going to discuss one of these objections, the claim that the uniqueness of the universe is, in itself, a bar to our drawing any conclusion about its cause or origin. This objection is raised by Hume at the end of ‘Of a Particular Providence’ and in Part II of the Dialogues.

The Uses of Natural Theology in Seventeenth-Century England

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Mandelbrote
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Spiritual Phenomena ◽  
The Universe

ArgumentThis essay describes two styles of natural theology that emerged in England out of a debate over the correct interpretation of divine evidences in nature during the seventeenth century. The first style was exemplified in the work of John Wilkins and Robert Boyle. It stressed the lawful operation of the universe under a providential order. The second, embodied in the writings of the Cambridge Platonists, was more open to evidence for the wondrousness of nature provided by the marvelous and by spiritual phenomena. Initially appearing to be alternative and complementary arguments for orthodoxy, these two approaches to natural theology underwent different transformations during the ensuing decades. In the process, a natural theology predicated on the intellectual demonstration of divine power through the argument from design came to predominate over alternative strategies that placed greater emphasis on the wondrousness of nature.

Divine Action, Design, and Natural Theology

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Spatial Order ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Theology Proper

This chapter reviews the debate about intelligent design as it emerged within biology. Then it treats the argument from design as represented by various features of the universe, like temporal and spatial order. The chapter argues that divine agency and divine action inform this debate by highlighting the identity of the agent who is the designer, by exposing how far one can specify the intentions and purposes of God in arguments from design, and by bringing to light two radically different ways of construing the place of natural theology in theology proper. It suggests further work is needed on this issue.

The Curious Eye

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Moment

The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? Today, in our everyday lives we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, The Curious Eye explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but rather an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.

Gendered Ecologies

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Women Writers ◽  
George Eliot ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Natural Domain ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Michael Faraday

Gendered Ecologies: New Materialist Interpretations of Women Writers in the Long Nineteenth Century is comprised of a diverse collection of essays featuring analyses of literary women writers, ecofeminism, feminist ecocriticism, and the value of the interrelationships that exist among human, nonhuman, and nonliving entities as part of the environs. The book presents a case for the often-disregarded literary women writers of the long nineteenth century, who were active contributors to the discourse of natural history—the diachronic study of participants as part of a vibrant community interconnected by matter. While they were not natural philosophers as in the cases of Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and Michael Faraday among others, these women writers did engage in acute observations of materiality in space (e.g., subjects, objects, and abjects), reasoned about their findings, and encoded their discoveries of nature in their literary and artistic productions. The collection includes discussions of the works of influential literary women from the long nineteenth century—Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Caroline Norton, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Margaret Fuller, Susan Fenimore Cooper, Celia Thaxter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Francis Wright, and Lydia Maria Child—whose multi-directional observations of animate and inanimate objects in the natural domain are based on self-made discoveries while interacting with the environs.

Between Isaac Newton and Enlightenment Newtonianism

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
J. B. Shank
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Modern Cosmology ◽  
The Universe

A pervasive, and still stubbornly persuasive, Enlightenment story holds that Isaac Newton’s 1687 Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica played a decisive role in naturalizing early modern cosmology and physical science. Newton, however, was a committed, if heterodox Christian, and his new physics and astronomy depended crucially on a belief in God’s role as both the architect and ruling Pantokrator of the universe. Enlightenment naturalism, therefore, did not develop directly out of Newton’s Principia even if his new mathematical physics became a vehicle for disseminating it once a naturalist understanding of ‘Newtonianism’ had been forged by others. This chapter traces the genealogies that produced Newton and the cosmology of his Principia, along with the naturalizing alternative that contemporaries misleadingly called Enlightenment ‘Newtonianism’. It shows that while these had become entangled by 1800, their conjunction was a historical creation rather than an outcome determined directly by Newton or his science.

The heavens are declaring the glory of God: Contemporary teleological arguments

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-258
Author(s):  
John M. DePoe
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
The Third ◽  
Teleological Argument ◽  
Christian Apologetics ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
The Universe

This article presents an overview of various formations of contemporary teleological arguments with a brief historical background. The fine-tuning argument and three of its most well-known objections are considered first. Next, the argument from design based on the origins of life is presented. The third teleological argument is based on the temporal order of the universe. The final section of the article considers and responds to well-known objections commonly raised against design arguments. The conclusion is that the contemporary versions of the teleological argument have a positive role to play in Christian apologetics despite some of their limitations.

The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle

1966 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The demand and search for the scientific literature of the past has grown enormously in the last twenty years. In an age as conscious as ours of the significance of science to mankind, some scientists naturally turned their thoughts to the origins of science as we know it, how scientific theories grew and how discoveries were made. Both institutions and individual scientists partake in these interests and form collections of books necessary for their study. How did their predecessors fare in this respect? They, of course, formed their libraries at a time when books were easy to find—and cheap. But what did they select for their particular reading? For example, what did the libraries of the three greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, look like? Fortunately in the case of Newton, the history of his books is now fairly clear, thanks to the devoted labours of Colonel R . de Villamil (i), but it is a sad reflection on our attitude to our great intellectual leaders that this library o f the greatest English scientist, whose work changed the world for hundreds of years, was not taken care of, was, in fact, forgotten and at times entirely neglected.

scholarly journals The Inverse Precise Placement of Numbers Based at Pythagoras 1:3 and the Precise Configuration of Numbers as the Basis of a Unified Theorem That Binds the Physics of Mass, Space, Energy and the Torque Power (Inertia) That Sustains the Finite Universe.

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 369-371
Author(s):  
Vinoo Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Physical Science ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Curved Space ◽  
Fixed Angle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Linear Composite ◽  
Bounded Space ◽  
The Universe

This paper is based on the precise inverse cone of Pythagoras 1:3. As in section 1 of this paper, all mathematics presented in this paper is by precise  mathematics equations and the author has maintained by proof that the base numbers constant from which all physics constants can be derived are -1 to 19 ( the value 6 is  as per this paper is the constant for expansion of  all bounded space and 19 is the patent “end value” of the base constant numbers as shown in section 1 and  referenced in this section11). Numbers as created and as placed at the cone of Pythagoras 1:3 are precise manifestation of the numbers of linear composite. However, this paper shows that the invention of designated angles (Trigonometry) is an approximate arbitrary arrangement invented by man, based on the created fixed angle of 90 degrees and is certainly flawed as shown here in this paper. Likewise, any attempts to measure curvature by linear numbers is fraught with much error. The author maintains that “If the atomic density and structure of  meteorites from far space have the same configuration as those found on this earth, then by all created logic , these numbers configuration presented in  these two papers and the book (The God of Papa Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton) are a constant unified theorem of  all the space and mass (  Quantum mechanics) in the universe”. Einstein’s Theory of relativity and all other interstellar phenomena are not addressed in the context of this paper because all this is observed science phenomena and not a physical science, and this paper deals with precise numbers configuration as in the section 1 of the paper. Einstein’s relativity is a real observed natural phenomenon, not science by itself, it is a natural aberration of the fact that observed relativity is due to inherent curvature and linear relationship between any two points in the universe and because of the spiral progression of curved space. Neither does light bend it appears to bend, nor does time really dilate in real terms even though it is a real observed phenomenon, neither numbers or distances dilate by any continuum, unfortunately, that is why Einstein’s misconception about time dilation is a Theory and will always be Theory.

scholarly journals Membaca Narasi Penciptaan Mazmur 19:1-6 Melalui Perspektif Kosmologi Intelligent Design: Irreducible Complexity

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Yahya Afandi
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Universal System ◽  
Irreducible Complexity ◽  
Split Point ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
The Universe

This article examines: is science and theology so wide apart from each other; is the suffering of bible scholars who have a "second class" status in academic conversation impossible to end? The advancement of science which should illuminate the theological-biblical notions which are textually unexplainable in scientific detail has in fact created such a sharp split point. The idea of Intelligent design: irreducible complexity promoted by Michael J. Behe provides a kind of “theistic interstice" that can be used as a lens to see the existence of an intelligent designer of the universe narrated in Psalms 19: 1-6. The existed complexity, cannot be reduced because the condition itself is threatening the universal system. This article concludes with the identification: if the assumptions of an intelligent designer who refers to God is considered too premature; the framework of an intelligent designer then provides an imaginative space to grapple with the possibility of His involvement in the universe. Abstrak Artikel ini mempertanyakan ulang: Apakah ilmu pengetahuan dan teologi alkitabiah sudah sedemikian jauh terpisah satu sama lain? Apakah penderitaan para sarjana kitab suci yang diklaim berstasus “kelas dua” dalam percakapan akademik mustahil diakhiri? Kemajuan ilmu pengetahuan yang semestinya menerangi terminologi teologis-alkitabiah, yang barangkali memang secara tekstual tidak dijelaskan secara detail-ilmiah khususnya isu kosmologi dan kosmogoni, nyatanya justru telah menciptakan titik pisah yang begitu tajam. Gagasan kosmologi Intelligent design: irreducible complexity yang diusung oleh Michael J. Behe memberi semacam “celah teistik” yang dapat dipergunakan sebagai lensa untuk melihat kemungkinan keberadaan Sang Perancang Cerdas semesta raya dalam narasi Mazmur 19:1-6. Kerumitan yang ada, tidak dapat dikurangi, tidak boleh tidak ada. Mengingat situasi tersebut justru berpeluang mengancam sistem semesta. Artikel ini diakhiri dengan identifikasi, bahwa jika dugaan perancang cerdas yang merujuk kepada keberadaan Tuhan dinilai terlalu prematur, maka pemikiran intelligent designer menyediakan ruang imajinatif-intelektual untuk menggumuli kemungkinan keberadaan dan keterlibatan-Nya atas semesta.

Martin Luther’s Influence on the Rise of the Natural Sciences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane H. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Theology Of The Cross ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Biblical Authority ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
The Reformation

Were Luther to have lived another two decades, he might have been surprised even so early on to be informed that he positively influenced the rise of natural science. One can readily cite many Luther quotes that would cast him as anti-science; decontextualized quoting readily constructs such caricatures. But the truth of the matter is quite otherwise. Consideration of Luther and Luther’s protégés and their philosophical-historical contexts reveals their positive regard for science. This is explicit in Luther’s immediate heirs like Melanchthon and Andreas Osiander. Though they differed in their opinions about the work of Copernicus, both respected him and the discipline he practiced. Luther’s influence carried beyond his immediate disciples through Johannes Kepler into the 17th century. The Irish-Anglican chemist and theologian Robert Boyle, for example, was significantly influenced by the Reformation principle of God’s sovereignty. In turn, Boyle strongly influenced Isaac Newton. But Lutheran support for the natural sciences had one major qualification. When “freed science” appeared to speculate more on God’s action than describe the visible character of natural phenomena, Luther saw overreaching ambition. Such are the outlines of a historical approach of Luther’s influence on the beginning of the scientific revolution. Other Lutheran theological themes contributed to natural science’s robustness. In addition to a focus on God’s sovereignty—and so the doctrine of justification by grace through faith—these themes include (1) the nature of biblical authority, (2) the “realistic” epistemology of the theology of the cross, and (3) sacramentology.

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