226 PART I. — THEOLOGY [Ch. U. — Theism.
istic, will not even experience sufficiently warrant us to ascribe to both a similar, though proportionable, cause." ^
This argument from design is constantly urged in the Old Testa- mtnt, which appeals to the heavens and the earth as revealing the being and perfections of God. The Apostle Paul says that the living God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea and all that is therein, hath not left himself without a witness. (Acts xiv. 15- 17.) He demonstrated to the Athenians the nature of God from his works and from our relation to him as his offspring. (Acts xvii. 23-31.) To the Romans he said that the eternal power and God- head of the Supreme Being, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. (Rom. i. 20.) The ancient philosophers drew the same conclusion from the same premises. Anaxagoras argued that voOs, mind, must be admitted as controlling everything in the world, because everything indicates design. Socrates con- stantly dwells on this as the great proof of the being of God. Cicero^ says that it is as impossible that an ordered world could be formed by the fortuitous concurrence of atoms, as that a book should be composed by the throwing about letters at random. Trendelen- burg,'^ after referring to that passage, says : " It is perhaps more difficult to assume, that by the blind combination of chemical and physical elements and forces, any one even of the organs of the body should be formed, — the eye, for example, so clear, sharp, and all-seeing, — much less the harmonious union of organs which make up the body, than that a book should be made by chance, by throwing types about."
Philo presents the argument in its simplest syllogistic form. " No work of art is self-made. The world is the most perfect work of art. Therefore, the world was made by a good and most perfect Author. Thus we have the knowledge of the existence of God."* All the Christian fathers and subsequent theologians have reasoned in the same way. Even Kant, although denying its conclusive- ness, says that the teleological argument should always be treated with respect. It is, he says, the oldest, the clearest, and the best adapted to the human mind.
' Dr. Buchanan's Analogy a Guide to Truth and an Aid to Faith, edit. Edinburgh, 1864, p. 414. 2 Da Natura Deorum, ii. 37. » Logische Untersuchungea, vol. ii. p. 64
* De Monarchia, i. § 4, edit. Leipsig, 1828, vol. iv. p. 290.
g4. A.] THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 227
§ 4. Objections to the Argume^it from Design. A.. The Denial of Final Causes.
The doctrine of final causes in nature must stand or fall with the doctrine of a personal God. The one cannot be denied without denying the other. And the admission of the one involves the admission of the other. By final cause is not meant a mere tend- ency, or the end to which events either actually or apparently tend ; but the end contemplated in the use of means adapted to attain it. The contemplation of an end, is a mental act. The selection and use of means adapted to attain such end, are both intelligent and voluntary acts. But an intelligent voluntary agent is a person. 1 In other words, the use of means to accomplish a contemplated end is a function of personality, or at least of intelli- gent agency.
Such being the nature of final causes, they are of course denied, (1.) By the positivist, who believes nothing but facts of which the senses take cognizance; and who admits of no other 'causation than regularity of sequence. As efficiency, intention, and mind are not perceived by the senses, they are not, and cannot be philosophically admitted. (2.) By those who, while they admit such a thing as force, and, therefore, in that sense, a cause, allow of no distinction between physical, vital, and mental causes, or forces ; and who maintain that the one can be resolved into either of the others. The advocates of this theory make thought a product of the brain; and have as their watch-word, " Ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke." Of course phosphorus must be before thought, and therefore there can be no final cause in the production of phosphorus, or of anything else. (3.) Final causes are denied by those who regard the uni- verse as the development of the infinite Being under the operation of necessary law. Of that Being no intelligence, consciousness, or will can be predicated. Consequently there can be no preconceived der.ign to be accomplished, either by the universe as a whole, or by any of its parts. According to Spinoza, therefore, final causes are " humana figmenta et deliria."
If you should ask a peasant, where a tree or the body of an ani- mal came from, he would probably answer, " Why, it grew." That for him is the final fact. And so it is for all the advocates of the above-named theories. Thus it is that extremes (the peas- ant's thought and the savant's theory) meet. What more, what
' This is in accordance with the accepted theological definition of a person as a ' ar.ppo srtum jntelligens."
228 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. n. — Theism
deeper thought is found in the words of Stuart Mill than in the peasant's answer, when the logician says: "Sequences entirely phys- ical and material, as soon as they had become sufficiently familiar to the human mind, came to be thought perfectly natural, and M'ere regarded not only as needing no explanation themselves, but as being capable of affording it to others, and even of serving as the ultimate explanation of things in general." ^
B. Objections of Hume and Kant. Hume's answer to the argument from design, or final causes, is, that our knowledge is limited by experience. We have often seen houses, ships, engines, and other machines made, and therefore, ■when we see similar products of human skill we are authorized to infer that they too were constructed by an intelligent author. But the world belongs to an entirely different category ; we have never seen a world made ; and therefore we have no rational ground for assuming that this world had a maker. " When two species of objects," says Hume,^ " have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one whenever I see the existence of the other, and this I call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without par- allel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly uni- verse must arise from some thought and art, like the human, be- cause we have experience of it ? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds ; and it is not sufficient surely that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance." What experience teaches is that design implies intelligence ; i. e., that we never see the adapta- tion of means to an end without having evidence that such adap- tation is the work of an intelligent agent. And, therefore, even under the guidance of experience we infer that wherever we see design, whether in nature or in art, there must be an intelligent agent. But experience is not the ground or limit of this convic- tion. It is an intuitive truth, self-evident from its nature, that design cannot be accounted for on the ground of chance or neces- sity. Let any man try to persuade himself that a watch is the product of chance, and he will see how futile is the attempt.
Kant presents substantially the same objection as Hume when
1 Logic, edit. London, 1851, vol. i. p. 366.
* " Dialogues on Natural Religion," Works, edit. Edinburgh, 1826, vol. ii. p. 449.