PHILO-120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Intelligent Design, Richard Dawkins, Richard Swinburne
25 Aug 2020
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God as an inference to the best explanation? (swinburne) Richard swinburne has argued that belief in a personal creator to the universe is a better explanation than the universe being without explanation given the nature of the universe. He admits that explanation has to stop somewhere (i. e, with a brute fact) but argues that is makes most sense to stop explanation with existence of god. X is too (complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, and/or beautiful) to have occurred randomly or accidentally. Therefore, x must have been created by a (sentient, intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful) being. God is that (sentient, intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful) being. Analogy to a universe maker is not possible: david hume. The argument, at best, just proves a powerful designer, not god: voltaire. Design is only apparent, functional order is a result of an impersonal process: He later rejected the argument because he believed that evolution explained functional complexity without intelligent design.
