Hume
Paley wrote his design argument 26 years after the death of Hume. Therefore Hume never read Paley’s work, but Paley’s argument from analogy was not original. In his book ‘Dialogues Concerning Natural religion’ Hume argued against the form of the design argument that Paley later popularized
- Humans do not have enough knowledge to know if the world is designed or not.
- Our world is more organic than mechanical so would be better compared to a carrot than a watch.
- Similar effects do not necessarily imply similar causes.
- The existence of unpleasant features of nature suggests that God is not just and good.
- The analogy makes God more human than divine - if God is to be compared with a human designer then it limits him.
- The presence of order could be explained in many ways without reference to God.
- Unless the universe was an orderly place, people would not be around to comment on its existence.
- The universe could have come about by chance (e.g. Epicurean hypothesis).
- There could be many creators – a committee of gods.