“Does God Exist?” (Answered from a Teleological viewpoint + counterarguments)

Philosophy project. Teleology from Aristotle to modern day.

00:00 intro
00:25 history
01:20 Aristotle
02:21 Thomas Aquinas
04:25 The Enlightenment
05:20 William Paley
06:36 Counterarguments
06:51 David Hume
08:32 Charles Darwin
09:28 conclusion

[intelligentdesign]

Hume's objection that the universe is too unique and unlike anything else should also be countered."But how this argument can have place where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain."
Responses:

"From time to time various writers have told us that we cannot
reach any conclusions about the origin or development of the universe, since it is the only one of which we have knowledge, and
rational inquiry can reach conclusions only about objects that belong
to kinds, for example, it can reach a conclusion about what will
happen to this bit of iron only because there are other bits of iron,
the behaviour of which can be studied. This objection has the
surprising, and to most of these writers unwelcome, consequence,
that physical cosmology could not reach justified conclusions about
such matters as the size, age, rate of expansion, and density of the
universe as a whole (because it is the only one of which we have
knowledge); and also that physical anthropology could not reach
conclusions about the origin and development of the human race
(because, as far as our knowledge goes, it is the only one of its kind).
The implausibility of these consequences leads us to doubt the
original objection, which is indeed totally misguided."
(Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God")

"By tracing the origin of
the physical universe to a supposed 'Big Bang', modern cosmology
places Hume in the following dilemma. Either, he must deny that the
physical universe as a whole is singular and unique, on the grounds
that it resembles other things besides it that explode, such as
grenades. Or, alternatively, should he insist on the uniqueness of the
physical universe, he must concede that there are some unique things
which are capable of standing as terms of causal relations. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")

"Hume's objection seems to involve two distinct principles. First, he assumes that we can infer from
an observed A to an observed B only when we frequently see As and Bs together, and we can infer to
a B only when we have actually seen other Bs. Such an assumption is simply false. Scientists often
infer theoretical entities (electrons or quarks) which have never been seen and which may not be
possible to see (e.g., a magnetic field). When observed As have a relation R to Bs, it is often
reasonable to postulate that observed A *s similar to As have the same relation to observed and
unobserved B*s similar to Bs." For example, the pressure of colorless gases varies with the
temperature of those gases, and on this basis, one could infer that a change in pressure of a colored
gaseous substance would likewise vary with the temperature regardless of the fact that he had never
seen a substance of this sort.
Second, Hume seems to assume that the universe is unique and conclusions cannot be reached about
unique objects by analogy. But this is false as well. Astronomers reach conclusions all the time about
the origin of the universe and this is unique. Furthermore, all events are unique in some sense, but no
one would want to say that arguments by analogy do not apply to any objects whatever. The fact that
the universe or some other object is unique does not rule out the possibility that it has properties in
common with some other object, including some of its parts. For example, there may be only one
object which satisfies the description "the tallest man in Maryland, " but one could still compare this
object with other objects and make judgments about the origination of the object. If one accepted Hume's principle it would seem to rule out the possibility of discovering a new culture and inferring
that an utterly new and unique object in that culture was designed. But such an inference seems to be
quite possible.
"
(J.P Moreland "Scaling The Secular City")

"Whether this causal version of the uniqueness objection works depends crucially on whether the universe is, indeed, "without parallel or specific resemblance." If not - if, in modern parlance, it can be placed in an appropriate "reference class" then, contrary to Hume, we could observe a constant conjunction between the type of thing of which the universe is an instance and a type of cause. Yet if the universe does lack "specific resemblance, " this is only a contingent fact. In his day Hume may have been warranted in insisting that the evidence did not justify selecting machine over animal or vegetable as that to which the universe bears specific resemblance. As our picture of the universe fills out, however, the evidence may tilt in favor of some specific analogue.
For example, recent mappings of the galaxies reveal the existence of "foamy" structures. Galaxies are stretched out in stringy filaments, arranged in huge bubbles, and clustered into gigantic walls with galaxy-free space in between. Some astronomers interpreting these maps take them as pointing to phase transitions in the early universe. Part of their reason is that we see the same sorts of features in other substances produced as a result of phase transitions (e.g. the cracks, streaks, and bubbles that develop as liquid water turns to solid ice). Of course it may turn out that a fuller picture of the universe leads cosmologists to abandon these analogies but then again, it may not. The point is that there is no general reason for supposing that the only sort of thing to which a universe might properly be compared is another universe. Whether or not the universe bears a specific resemblance to some familiar kind of object is a thoroughly empirical matter."
(D.Temple "Hume's Logical Objection To Argument From Design Based On Uniqueness Of The Universe")

"But what of Hume's suggestion that the argument from design fails because the universe is unique? Though, as I have
said, it has something to recommend it, this suggestion, too, is
open to question. For it is wrong to assume that no question
about the origin of something unique can reasonably be raised
and answered. Nor is this something which we would normally
suppose. · Scientists certainly try to account for various things
which are unique. The human race and the ·
universe itself are
two good examples.
In any case, one may deny that the universe is unique. To
say that the universe is unique is not to ascribe to it a property
which cannot be ascribed to anything else. It is to say that
there is only one universe. And even if there is only one
universe, it does not follow that the universe is unique in its
properties, that it shares no properties with lesser systems.
'If you were the only girl in the world and I were the only.
boy ', as the once popular song envisaged, there would still be
two human beings. And, so we may say, there are lots of
things like the universe even if there is only one universe . For
the universe shares with its parts properties which can be
ascribed to both the universe and its parts. It is, for example,
in process of change, as are many of its parts, and it is composed of material elements, as people and machines are. As
the version of the argument from design which invokes the
notion of regularity holds, the universe is also something
exhibiting regularity, as, once again, is the case with people
and machines. "
(Davies Brian "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion")

[intelligentdesign]

Hume's critique of the cosmological argument is also unconvincing.For example, he writes:
"In such a ... succession of objects, each part is caused by that
which preceded it and causes that which succeeds it. Where then
is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer
that the uniting of parts into a whole, like the uniting of several
distinct countries into one kingdom, .. . is performed merely by
an arbitrary act of the mind and has no influence on the nature of
things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in
a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of
the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the
cause of the parts."
Response:

"Consider an illustration. Suppose that the series of contingent beings were merely a series of self-propagating robots, each one bringing the next into existence. No matter how far back in time you go,
there was just one of these robots functioning. Each robot functions
for, say, ten years, then, in the last few minutes of functioning, propagates a new robot. (Just as the new robot starts to function, the old
one ceases to function and disintegrates.) Now, in this scheme, we
have a cause for the existence and functioning of each of the robots.
But we have not identified a cause of the robot series as a whole. For
example, what causes (or caused) the series to be one of robots rather
than one of rocks, roses, rats, or reindeer? What is the cause of there
being any robots at all? That question has not been answered.
In the same way, even if we know that each contingent being is
caused to exist by some other contingent being, we still do not have
an explanation for the fact that there are contingent beings. There
might have been nothing at all or only necessary beings.
"
(Stephen Layman "Letters To Doubting Thomas")

[intelligentdesign]

Many atheists (including Hume) believe that the fine-tuning of the universe can be explained through the multiverse. However, this hypothesis has very serious problems:

"The last distinct objection which I can discover in the Dialogues is the following. Why should we not suppose, Hume urges, that this ordered Universe is a
mere accident among the chance arrangements of eternal matter? In the course of
eternity, matter arranges itself in all kinds of ways. We just happen to live in a period
when it is characterized by order, and mistakenly conclude that matter is always
ordered. Now, as Hume phrases this objection, it is directed against an argument
from design which uses as its premise the existence of the regularities of copresence.
"The continual motion of matter... in less than infinite transpositions must produce this economy or order, and by its very nature, that order, when once established, supports itself for many ages if not to eternity."
Hume thus relies here
partly on chance and partly on the operation of regularities of succession (the preservation of order) to account for the existence of regularities of copresence. Insofar
as it relies on regularities of succession to explain regularities of copresence, such
an argument has, as we saw earlier, some plausibility. But insofar as it relies on
chance, it does not, if the amount of order to be accounted for is very striking. An
attempt to attribute the operation of regularities of succession to chance would not
thus be very plausible. The claim would be that there are no laws of nature which
always apply to matter. Matter evinces in the course of eternity all kinds of patterns
of behavior; it is just chance that at the moment the states of the Universe are succeeding each other in a regular way. But if we say that it is chance that in 1960
matter is behaving in a regular way, our claim becomes less and less plausible as we
find that in 1961 and 1962 and so on it continues to behave in a regular way. An
appeal to chance to account for order becomes less and less plausible, the greater
the order. We would be justified attributing a typewritten version of collected works
of Shakespeare to the activity of monkeys typing eternally on eternal typewriters if
we had some evidence of the existence of an infinite quantity of paper randomly
covered with type, as well as the collected works. In the absence of any evidence
that matter behaved irregularly at other temporal periods, we are not justified in
attributing its present regular behavior to chance. "(Richard Swinburne " The Argument From Design ")

"Multiverse naturalism explains too much, too easily;
for by appeal to the multiverse we can explain any physical phenomenon P just by pointing out that, given that there are so many universes differing in random ways, it’s not surprising that one of them
contains P. Any arrangement of physical particles or structures is apt
to be realized if we postulate enough universes. So the multiverse
hypothesis can apparently explain any physical phenomenon. But can
it really be that easy to explain each and every physical phenomenon?
Surely not. It seems, then, that the multiverse approach offers a very
dubious type of explanation—one that has all the advantages of theft
over honest toil. "
(Stephen Layman "God:Eight Enduring Questions")

"The multiverse hypothesis has some more general problems, however. Such
proposals “over-explain, ” especially if the number of proposed universes is
infinite. Having an infinite set of random universes means that any possibility
will occur an infinite number of times. There is, then, no need to explain anything in the physics of our own universe, because whatever we find could have
just occurred by chance. So those who are seeking explanations for the values
of parameters such as the masses of elementary particles, or the strengths of
physical forces, could be wasting their time. If even our own universe is infinitely large, then there will be an infinite number of planets closely like our
own planet Earth, containing populations that include people closely resembling you and me, who made choices in their lives the same as yours and mine,
or differing in arbitrary ways. Anything with a small probability to happen will
occur somewhere, indeed an infinite number of times. “Impossible” events
might occur with nominally zero probability but still a finite number of times.
It becomes hard to determine whether anything is truly impossible.
Suggestions such as these stretch our notion of what is reasonable far
beyond normal limits. They are not forced upon us by observation, needless
to say, but by theoretical ideas that are considered by their proposers to be
attractive! The quantum theorist Max Born once wrote, “Intellect distinguishes
between the possible and the impossible, but reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless.”
We need
to think very hard about the criteria for judging concepts that are logically
consistent but which seem to destroy understanding rather than extend it, or
even destroy the need for understanding."
(Peter Bussey "Signposts To God")

"Finally, the hypothesis proves too much. While its advocates take the
hypothesis to allow one to avoid the conclusion that the universe resulted
from an intentional creative action by God, I think it also drives one to
avoid believing in other intentional actions by us humans. Consider this: In
the infinite ensemble of concrete universes, there will be myriads of
universes that contain observing beings. Within that range of universes,
there will be universes that contain doubles of us; beings that are
indistinguishably similar to us but have a different life (say, my duplicate is
a lawyer instead of a philosopher).
Now suppose we have a pot of $500 for the winner of our bridge card
game and I am the dealer. On the first deal—surprise—I  give myself a
perfect winning hand. The others at the table (rightly) accuse me of doing
an intentional act (purposely cheating). I respond by noting that, in the
Many Worlds Ensemble, there are many, many worlds where we have
duplicates, and in many of those, they are playing bridge, and in each
world, players get a different hand on the first deal. We just happen to be in
that concrete universe where I got a winning hand on the first deal. Surely
such an explanation is bogus, but not if I and my card-playing friends
correctly apply the ensemble view to our current situation!
"
(J.P Moreland "Scientism and Secularism")

"Reaction (c): Low-Probability Events Happen All the Time
The comment: Forget about life in general; let’s consider the probability
of you. Think of all the coincidences involved in your parents being in
the same place and meeting and hitting it off and getting together.
Think of the miniscule probability of a particular sperm outracing
a billion others to find the egg. Multiply similarly tiny probabilities
for all your ancestors stretching back in time, and you get an extraordinarily small probability. Yet, here you are. You’re just going to have to
get used to it.
The short answer: Small probabilities sometimes mean that
something unlikely has happened. Enough said. But sometimes they
mean that we’ve made an incorrect assumption. Given that almost no
one believes that the laws of nature as we know them are the ultimate
laws of the Universe, the low probability of a life-permitting universe
could be a clue to a better explanation, a deeper theory.
The long answer: Sure, the lawyer says, the DNA evidence
makes it extraordinary unlikely that my client is innocent. But, your
honour, unlikely events happen all the time! Eggs and sperm and such!
The defence rests.
Something must have gone wrong with this response to finetuning, since the same reply could be made to any appeal to low
probabilities. We’d never be able to reason probabilistically at all.Think about some seemingly improbable events: a poker player
deals himself another royal flush, a large blip appears on our detector,
a safe with a trillion possible combinations is opened. In these cases,
a small probability is generated not just by the event but also by our
assumptions. We’ve assumed that the dealer is fair, that the instrument reading is just noise, or that the burglar guessed the combination
to the safe.
What separates these from the ‘just unlikely’ cases is the availability (or even just a glimpse) of a better explanation: a trick shuffle,
a signal, or an inside job. This is precisely what we don’t have in the
case of ‘egg + sperm = you’.
So before we dismiss a low-probability event as just a fluke, we
should consider alternative explanations. "
(Luke Barnes "The Fortunate Universe")

[intelligentdesign]

Hume asks, "Who created the Creator? "Responses:

"Now a full explanation really does by itself explain why something
happened. It does so quite independently of whether or not there is
an explanation of how any states it cites came to be (for example, why
the sun was where it was) or why any reasons that it cites operate (for
example, why certain natural laws hold). To suppose otherwise is to
commit a fallacy that we may call ‘the completist fallacy’. Clearly it is
a fallacy. For if it were really the case that F could not explain E unless
there is an explanation of F, nothing in the universe could be
explained, unless there were explanations of such things as the origin
of our galaxy—which is absurd. It is, however, a common fallacy.
Thus Hume objects in the Dialogues to postulating a God who
planned the world as an explanation of its order, on the grounds
that the postulated existence of a rational agent who produces the
order of the world would itself need explaining. Picturing such an
agent as a mind, and a mind as an arrangement of ideas, Hume
phrases the objection as follows: ‘a mental world or universe of ideas
requires a cause as much as does a material world or universe of objects.’ Hume himself provides the obvious answer to this—that it
is no objection to explaining E by F that we cannot explain F. But
then he suggests that the F in this case, the mind, is just as mysterious
as the ordered universe. Men never ‘thought it satisfactory to explain
a particular effect by a particular cause which was no more to be
accounted for than the effect itself’. But that is plainly false. We can
give a perfectly good explanation of how it came about that Jones lost
his fortune in terms of the way the Monte Carlo roulette wheel spun
as it did, while judging that there was no explanation of how the
roulette wheel spun, this being something utterly beyond accounting
for."
(Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God")

"The next argument which we meet in the Dialogues is that the postulated
existence of a rational agent who produces the order of the world would itself need
explaining. Picturing such an agent as a mind, and a mind as an arrangement of
ideas, Hume phrases the objection as follows: "a mental world or Universe of ideas
requires a cause as much as does a material world or Universe of objects."
Hume
himself provides the obvious answer to this—that it is no objection to explaining
X by Y that we cannot explain Y. But then he suggests that the Y, in this case the
mind, is just as mysterious as the ordered Universe. Men never "thought it satisfactory to explain a particular effect by a particular cause which was no more to be
accounted for than the effect itself."
On the contrary, scientists have always
thought it reasonable to postulate entities merely to explain effects, so long as the
postulated entities accounted simply and coherently for the characteristics of the
effects. The existence of molecules with their characteristic behavior was "no more to be accounted for" than observable phenomena, but the postulation of their existence gave a neat and simple explanation of a whole host of chemical and physical
phenomena, and that was the justification for postulating their existence. "
(Richard Swinburne "The Argument From Design")

"Or again, the "Who designed God?" objection might have some
force if Theism were proposed for no other reason than to explain the
life-supporting universe. (We would at least need assurance that
there was some explanatory advantage in postulating one complex
entity to explain another complex entity. But keep in mind that scientists routinely hypothesize one complex entity to explain another;
e.g., think of subatomic physics. So there's nothing wrong with doing this as long as there's a clear explanatory advantage to be gained.) But as we've seen, Theism is partly grounded in religious
experience. It isn't just cooked up to explain our life-supporting universe. Theism also does a good job of explaining the presence of contingent beings. It purportedly explains additional phenomena as
well—though we've not yet discussed these. To sum up, Theism gets
some support from religious experience, and Theism is a metaphysical hypothesis that promises to explain a wide range of phenomena.
Finally, I thought we agreed long ago that no theory can explain
everything. When theorizing, you have to start somewhere. There
has to be an initial hypothesis, a claim that something or other has
so-and-so features. And if this hypothesis is genuinely one's initial
move in the "explanation game, " then one will have no explanation
for the state of affairs it postulates. And Theism is offered as an initial metaphysical hypothesis.
For all these reasons, the "Who designed God?" objection misses
the mark, in my estimation.
"
(Stephen Layman "Letters To Doubting Thomas")

"But positing an uncaused designer would not constitute an unjustified exception to this
principle, if it constitutes an exception at all. In every worldview or metaphysical
system of thought something stands as the ultimate or prime reality, the thing from which
everything else comes. All causal explanations either involve an infinitive regress of prior
causes, or they must ultimately terminate with explanatory entities that do not themselves
require explication by reference to anything more fundamental or primary. If the latter,
then something has to stand as the ultimate or primary causal principle at the beginning
of each causal chain."
(Stephen Meyer "Signature In The Cell")

"Hume also argues that one can ask who designed the designer. If one needs to postulate that design
needs a designer, then so does the designer, and this leads to an infinite regress.
Three things can he said in response. First, as Hume himself noted, y can explain x even if y itself
needs explanation. The properties of water can he explained by the properties of hydrogen and
oxygen with or without an explanation of these latter properties. Second, explanation cannot keep
going on forever. One has to stop somewhere with an explanatory ultimate." And when it comes to
examples of design as order or purpose, we normally accept an explanation in terms of a rational
agent as a proper stopping point and do not so regard an explanation in terms of physical causes. For
example, when one sees a complex machine and asks why it is there, one can explain the machine by
appealing to the physical laws governing the working of its parts. But such an explanation is not
complete. It is proper to go on and say that these particular parts were put into this particular machine
so the machine would operate according to the plan of the maker of the machine. One does not need to
go on and explain the design of the plan in the machine-maker's mind. Rational agents cause their own
ideas to cone together freely, and an appeal to a rational agent and his intentions can he a proper
stopping place."
Third, Hume seems to assume that if the parts of an object are ordered, the ideas in the mind of the
object's designer must exhibit the same order. But it is not clear that ideas can be said to exhibit any
order, at least not the kind of order that physical objects exhibit. Ideas do not stand in that sort of
relation to one another. When we say that ideas are ordered we usually mean that they stand in logical
relations to one another or that the objects which they are about exhibit order. And even if ideas are
ordered in some sort of way (e.g., logically), it is not clear from experience that that order needs a
designer, as does the order found in the parts of a machine. If the order between ideas does need to be
accounted for, it seems that the free agency of the rational mind itself is all that is needed. Agents can
freely bring their ideas together in a variety of ways which are spontaneous."
(J.P Moreland "Scaling The Secular City")

[intelligentdesign]

Many of Hume's objections can be answered.
Objection (1) :"A great number of men join in building a house or a ship, in rearing a
city, in framing a commonwealth: why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?"
Responses:

"If the
physical universe is the product of intelligent design, rather than
being a pure accident, it is more likely to be the handiwork of only
one rather than more than one intelligence. This is so for two broad
reasons. The first reason is the need for theoretical parsimony. In the
absence of any evidence for supposing the universe to be the handiwork of more than one intelligence rather than only one, then, faced
with a choice between supposing it the handiwork of one or of more
than one intelligent designer, we should choose to suppose it to be the
creation of only one. For it is not necessary to postulate more than
one to account for the phenomena in question. The second reason for
preferring the hypothesis of there being only one designer of the
universe to supposing more than one is that the general harmony and
uniformity of everything in the universe suggest that, should it be the
product of design, it is more likely to be the handiwork of a single
designer, rather than a plurality of designers who might have been
expected to have left in their joint product some trace of their plural
individualities. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")

"And, to jump ahead a bit, there are two further problems with
polytheism as an explanation of the existence of not merely a universe but a universe governed throughout space and time by the same
natural laws .
If this order in the world is to be explained by many gods, then some
explanation is required for how and why they cooperate in producing
the same patterns of order throughout the universe. This becomes a
new datum requiring explanation for the same reason as the fact of
order itself. The need for further explanation ends when we postulate
one being who is the cause of the existence of all others, and the
simplest conceivable such—I urge—is God. And, further, the power
of polytheism to explain this order in the world is perhaps not as
great as that of theism. If there were more than one deity responsible
for the order of the universe, we would expect to see characteristic
marks of the handiwork of different deities in different parts of the
universe, just as we see different kinds of workmanship in the
different houses of a city. We would expect to find an inverse square
of law of gravitation obeyed in one part of the universe, and in
another part a law that was just short of being an inverse square
law—without the difference being explicable in terms of a more
general law."
(Richard Swinburne "The Existence Of God")

"Of the ‘unity of the Deity’ the proof is, the uniformity of plan
observable in the universe. The universe itself is a system; each part
either depending upon other parts, or being connected with other
parts by some common law of motion, or by the presence of some
common substance. One principle of gravitation causes a stone to
drop towards the earth, and the moon to wheel round it. One law of
attraction carries all the different planets about the sun. This philosophers demonstrate. There are also other points of agreement
amongst them, which may be considered as marks of the identity of
their origin, and of their intelligent author. In all are found the
conveniency and stability derived from gravitation. They all experience vicissitudes of days and nights, and changes of season. They all,
at least Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, have the same advantages from
their atmospheres as we have. In all the planets the axes of rotation
are permanent. Nothing is more probable, than that the same attracting influence, acting according to the same rule, reaches to the fixed
stars: but, if this be only probable, another thing is certain, viz. that
the same element of light does.* The light from a fixed star affects our
eyes in the same manner, is refracted and reflected according to the
same laws, as the light of a candle. The velocity of the light of the
fixed stars, is also the same as the velocity of the light of the sun,
reflected from the satellites of Jupiter. The heat of the sun, in kind,
differs nothing from the heat of a coal fire.
In our own globe the case is clearer. New countries are continually
discovered, but the old laws of nature are always found in them: new
plants perhaps or animals, but always in company with plants and
animals, which we already know; and always possessing many of the
same general properties. We never get amongst such original, or
totally different, modes of existence, as to indicate, that we are come
into the province of a different Creator, or under the direction of a
different will. In truth, the same order of things attends us, wherever
we go. The elements act upon one another, electricity operates, the
tides rise and fall, the magnetic needle elects its position, in one
region of the earth and sea, as well as in another. One atmosphere invests all parts of the globe, and connects all: one sun illuminates;
one moon exerts its specific attraction upon all parts. If there be a
variety in natural effects, as, e. g. in the tides of different seas, that
very variety is the result of the same cause, acting under different
circumstances. In many cases this is proved; in all is probable.
The inspection and comparison of living forms, add to this argument examples without number. Of all large terrestrial animals the
structure is very much alike. Their senses nearly the same. Their
natural functions and passions nearly the same. Their viscera nearly
the same, both in substance, shape, and office. Digestion, nutrition,
circulation, secretion, go on, in a similar manner, in all. The great
circulating fluid is the same: for, I think, no difference has been
discovered in the properties of blood, from whatever animal it be
drawn. The experiment of transfusion proves, that the blood of one
animal will serve for another. The skeletons also of the larger terrestrial animals, shew particular varieties, but still under a great general
affinity. The resemblance is somewhat less, yet sufficiently evident,
between quadrupeds and birds. They are alike in five respects, for
one in which they differ.
In fish, which belong to another department, as it were, of nature,
the points of comparison become fewer. But we never lose sight of
our analogy, e. g. we still meet with a stomach, a liver, a spine; with
bile and blood; with teeth; with eyes, which eyes are only slightly
varied from our own, and which variation, in truth, demonstrates,
not an interruption, but a continuance, of the same exquisite plan;
for it is the adaptation of the organ to the element, viz. to the different refraction of light passing into the eye out of a denser medium.
The provinces, also, themselves of water and earth, are connected by
the species of animals which inhabit both; and also by a large tribe of
aquatic animals, which closely resemble the terrestrial in their
internal structure: I mean the cetaceous tribe, * which have hot blood,
respiring lungs, bowels, and other essential parts, like those of land
animals. This similitude, surely, bespeaks the same creation and the
same Creator."
(William Paley "Natural Theology")

Objection (2) :"[I]f we survey the universe ..., it bears a great resemblance to an
animal or organized body, and seems actuated with a like principle
of life and motion. A continual circulation of matter in it ...: a
continual waste in every part is incessantly repaired: the closest
sympathy is perceived throughout the entire system: and each part
or member ... operates both to its own preservation and to that of
the whole [I]t must be confessed, that... the universe resembles
more a human body than it does the works of human art and
contrivance [Y]et is the analogy also defective in many circumstances ...: no organs of sense; no seat of thought or reason; no one
precise origin of motion and action. In short, it seems to bear a
stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an animal."
Response:

"Hume's argument seems weak. Hume's claim is that the physical
universe - more specifically, our solar system - bears a closer resemblance to some animal or a vegetable than it does some machine or
other artefact. The claim is unconvincing.
In its manifest workings,
the physical universe in general, and our own solar system in particular, exhibits a degree of regularity and predictability that far exceeds
that which is exhibited by any animal or vegetable. After all, it is by
the sun that we set our clocks and not by the comings and goings of
sun-flowers or salamanders! That this is so suggests that the physical
universe more closely resembles some regular and predictable
machine or artefact, for example a clock, than it does any far less
regular and predictable animal or vegetable. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")