“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” (Romans 1:21 (KJV)).
Reverend William Paley published a very influential book in the year nnnn that discussed the world of nature. The book is famous for its early 19th century analysis of human anatomy and physiology to a watch with its many parts, elementary parts with subservient purposes, and the final purpose of the watch, to tell time for the use of a human being.
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What has been discovered in the last 200 years that may improve upon or negate Paley’s arguments? Have they become stronger based on the evidence, or not? Have they been actually refuted?
As stated in the Scripture reference (Rom. 1:21) quoted above, it is important that we do not become vain or purposeless in our imaginations when studying nature, or drawing conclusions from these studies. Rather, this study should lead us to glorify and thank God, which is our proper response to His allowing us to understand a small portion of His creation.
Paley himself was active in Britain as an opponent of the slave trade. Paley’s book incorporates the method of Natural Theology; arguing by analogy that a watch, which obviously has a maker, is similar to the observations in the world of biology. Of course, his was the world of the early 19th century, much different that today’s intellectual environment. How have his methods and approaches, and his implicit predictions (we will talk about this in some depth, as it is a linchpin of the modern scientific method)held up, not to modern philosophical notions, nor to scientific world views, but to the actual known facts of nature as we have them now in the early 21st century? In fact, quite well we will see. In fact, the argument has not been weakened by 200 years of scientific progress in facts; quite the contrary, it is stronger than ever.
We might ask the following questions: (1) Are there “contrivances”? (2) Are there a series of parts that are arranged in such a manner as to accomplish a purpose?
Paley’s argument is centrally based on the “mechanism” of a watch that he supposes is found on the beach. Today’s biology is stocked with mechanisms that do all sorts of things from transcribing codes to capturing light for either information or energy to pulling specific nutrients to the right places in cells. So the mechanism analogy has held up quite well. And we might consider that it might not have. If it turned out that life’s chemistry was resistant to analysis, as was sometimes thought in the 18th century, then Paley’s argument would certainly be irrelevant today. But that is not the case; in fact, quite the opposite has been born out to be true in the ensuing two centuries plus change since Paley published his book.
The reductionist view of nature is very much in vogue today. It is a first cousin to atheism although some of its non-atheist practitioners would object. It works at the elemental chemical level to say, for example, that carbon is the basis for long organic chemistry and many other basic statements, and that’s just the way it is (aren’t we lucky to be made of carbon).
It seems to me that there should be objection to the fact that there is exist deoxyribonucleic acids that contain vast blocks of information that are used within a wondrous coded biochemical system of logic and molecular machinery. Rather like having faith in throwing dice, the modern theory of evolution puts its faith in the self-assembly property of this entire system. This has not been proved, it is faith and nothing else, and so Paley’s inference to a Designer, and his tenet that the watch or biological being could not have designed itself is still in play as a valid option. Put your faith where you will. If you believe all is random, I would encourage you to examine the actual proof that life originated randomly, that evolution can climb very high dimensional fitness hills (or fitness functions for the mathematically inclined), that complexity of the sort that exceeds a modern fighter jet could be something that could arise in 3.5 billion years as a product of self-assembly and self-organization. None of this has been proved and the faith of the scientific community that it will be proved, or that it is the only alternative and therefore must be so, is not necessarily the reason to expect these beliefs to hold water. Paley revisited offers a rationale alternative, and one which aligns with the purpose and wonder of life, and with the truth of the Bible