Hume's Challenges for Natural Theology (Teleological Argument and Testimony about Miracles)

[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:

"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")

"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")

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")

Objection (3) :"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."
Response:

"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")

Objection (4) :"Nature seems to have formed an exact calculation of the necessities
of her creatures; and like a rigid master, has afforded them little
more powers or endowments, than what are strictly sufficient to
supply those necessities. An indulgent parent would have bestowed
a large stock, in order to guard against accidents, and secure the
happiness and welfare of the creature, in the most unfortunate
concurrence of circumstances. Every course of life would not have
been so surrounded with precipices, that the least departure from
the true path, by mistake or necessity, must involve us in misery
and ruin."
Response:

"The third consideration which Hume proffers in support of his claim
that (at least some of) the natural evil in the world is gratuitous is that,
were the universe the handiwork of some benevolent intelligence, its
inhabitants might have been expected to be better provisioned than
they are with the wherewithal for their enjoying felicity. Again, Hume
fails to supply adequate reason for supposing this to be so. For
example, were sheep better able to evade the fox, then foxes would
have been less well able to survive and flourish. Should it be suggested
that the world would have been a better place had sheep been allowed
to graze without any predators, we might wonder whether they might
not then have reproduced beyond the point at which pastures might
have been able to sustain them, ... and so on. "
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")

[intelligentdesign]

Hume's objections are unconvincing. He's writing:

"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."
Responses:

"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")

"Hume's objection has force only if he is correct to suppose that the
parts of any whole none of which exist necessarily in and of themselves can each and all be fully explained in terms of other members
of that same whole. This supposition may be doubted. The causal
explanations of the parts of any such whole in terms of other parts
cannot add up to a causal explanation of the whole, if the items
mentioned as causes are items whose own existence stands in need of a causal explanation. The fatal flaw in Hume's supposition has been
well put by James Sadowsky. He asks,

how any member [of any such causal series] can do any causing
unless it first exists. B cannot cause A until D brings it into existence. What is true of D is equally true of E and F without end.
Since each condition for the existence of A requires the fulfilment
of a prior condition, it follows that none of them can ever be
fulfilled. In each case what is offered as part of the solution turns
out instead to be part of the problem."
(David Conway "Rediscovery Of Wisdom")