_The Argument from Design._
The most highly refined and scientific form of anthropomorphic theism
is that which we are accustomed to associate with Paley and the authors
of the Bridgewater treatises. It is not peculiar to Christianity,
since it has been held by pagans and unbelievers as firmly as by the
devoutest members of the church. The argument from design is as old as
Sokrates, and was relied on by Voltaire and the English deists of the
eighteenth century no less than by Dr. Chalmers and Sir Charles Bell.
Upon this theory the universe is supposed to have been created by a
Being possessed of intelligence and volition essentially similar to the
intelligence and volition of Man. This Being is actuated by a desire
for the good of his creatures, and in pursuance thereof entertains
purposes and adapts means to ends with consummate ingenuity. The
process by which the world was created was analogous to manufacture, as
being the work of an intelligent artist operating upon unintelligent
materials objectively existing. It is in accordance with this theory
that books on natural theology, as well as those text-books of science
which deem it edifying to introduce theological reflections where they
have no proper place, are fond of speaking of the "Divine Architect" or
the "Great Designer."
This theory, which is still commonly held, was in high favour during
the earlier part of the present century. In view of the great and
sudden advances which physical knowledge was making, it seemed well
worth while to consecrate science to the service of theology; and
at the same time, in emphasizing the argument from design, theology
adopted the methods of science. The attempt to discover evidences
of beneficent purpose in the structure of the eye and ear, in the
distribution of plants and animals over the earth's surface, in the
shapes of the planetary orbits and the inclinations of their axes, or
in any other of the innumerable arrangements of nature, was an attempt
at true induction; and high praise is due to the able men who have
devoted their energies to reinforcing the argument. By far the greater
part of the evidence was naturally drawn from the organic world, which
began to be comprehensively studied in the mutual relations of all its
parts in the time of Lamarck and Cuvier. The organic world is full of
unspeakably beautiful and wonderful adaptations between organisms and
their environments, as well as between the various parts of the same
organism. The unmistakable end of these adaptations is the welfare
of the animal or plant; they conduce to length and completeness of
life, to the permanence and prosperity of the species. For some time,
therefore, the arguments of natural theology seemed to be victorious
along the whole line. The same kind of reasoning was pushed farther
and farther to explain the classification and morphology of plants and
animals; until the climax was reached in Agassiz's remarkable "Essay
on Classification," published in 1859, in which every organic form was
not only regarded as a concrete thought of the Creator interpretable
by the human mind, but this kind of explanation was expressly urged as
a substitute for inquiries into the physical causes whereby such forms
might have been originated.
In its best days, however, there was a serious weakness in the argument
from design, which was ably pointed out by Mr. Mill, in an essay
wherein he accords much more weight to the general argument than could
now by any possibility be granted it. Its fault was the familiar
logical weakness of proving too much. The very success of the argument
in showing the world to have been the work of an intelligent Designer
made it impossible to suppose that Creator to be at once omnipotent
and absolutely benevolent. For nothing can be clearer than that Nature
is full of cruelty and maladaptation. In every part of the animal
world we find implements of torture surpassing in devilish ingenuity
anything that was ever seen in the dungeons of the Inquisition. We
are introduced to a scene of incessant and universal strife, of which
it is not apparent on the surface that the outcome is the good or
the happiness of anything that is sentient. In pre-Darwinian times,
before we had gone below the surface, no such outcome was discernible.
Often, indeed, we find the higher life wantonly sacrificed to the
lower, as instanced by the myriads of parasites apparently created for
no other purpose than to prey upon creatures better than themselves.
Such considerations bring up, with renewed emphasis, the everlasting
problem of the origin of evil. If the Creator of such a world is
omnipotent he cannot be actuated solely by a desire for the welfare of
his creatures, but must have other ends in view to which this is in
some measure subordinated. Or if he is absolutely benevolent, then he
cannot be omnipotent, but there is something in the nature of things
which sets limits to his creative power. This dilemma is as old as
human thinking, and it still remains a stumbling-block in the way of
any theory of the universe that can possibly be devised. But it is an
obstacle especially formidable to any kind of anthropomorphic theism.
For the only avenue of escape is the assumption of an inscrutable
mystery which would contain the solution of the problem if the human
intellect could only penetrate so far; and the more closely we invite a
comparison between divine and human methods of working, the more do we
close up that only outlet.
The practical solution oftenest adopted has been that which sacrifices
the Creator's omnipotence in favour of his benevolence. In the noblest
of the purely Aryan religions--that of which the sacred literature
is contained in the Zendavesta--the evil spirit Ahriman exists
independently of the will of the good Ormuzd, and is accountable for
all the sin in the world, but in the fullness of time he is to be bound
in chains and shorn of his power for mischief.[19] This theory has
passed into Christendom in the form of Manichæism; but its essential
features have been adopted by orthodox Christianity, which at the same
time has tried to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and save the
omnipotence of the Deity by paying him what Mr. Mill calls the doubtful
compliment of making him the creator of the devil. By this device the
essential polytheism of the conception is thinly veiled. The confusion
of thought has been persistently blinked by the popular mind; but among
the profoundest thinkers of the Aryan race there have been two who
have explicitly adopted the solution which limits the Creator's power.
One of these was Plato, who held that God's perfect goodness has been
partially thwarted by the intractableness of the materials he has had
to work with. This theory was carried to extremes by those Gnostics
who believed that God's work consisted in redeeming a world originally
created by the devil, and in orthodox Christianity it gave rise to the
Augustinian doctrine of total depravity, and the "philosophy of the
plan of salvation" founded thereon. The other great thinker who adopted
a similar solution was Leibnitz. In his famous theory of optimism the
world is by no means represented as perfect; it is only the best of all
possible worlds, the best the Creator could make out of the materials
at hand. In recent times Mr. Mill shows a marked preference for this
view, and one of the foremost religious teachers now living, Dr.
Martineau, falls into a parallel line of thinking in his suggestion
that the primary qualities of matter constitute a "datum objective to
God," who, "in shaping the orbits out of immensity, and determining
seasons out of eternity, could but follow the laws of curvature,
measure, and proportion."[20]
But indeed it is not necessary to refer to the problem of evil in
order to show that the argument from design cannot prove the existence
of an omnipotent and benevolent Designer. It is not omnipotence that
contrives and plans and adapts means to ends. These are the methods of
finite intelligence; they imply the overcoming of obstacles; and to
ascribe them to omnipotence is to combine words that severally possess
meanings into a phrase that has no meaning. "God said, Let there be
light: and there was light." In this noble description of creative
omnipotence one would search in vain for any hint of contrivance. The
most the argument from design could legitimately hope to accomplish
was to make it seem probable that the universe was wrought into its
present shape by an intelligent and benevolent Being immeasurably
superior to Man, but far from infinite in power and resources. Such an
argument hardly rises to the level of true theism.[21]