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Single Idea 6204

[filed under theme 28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique ]

Full Idea

To have recourse to God in explaining the arrangements of nature is not a physical explanation but a confession that one has come to the end of philosophy, since one assumes something of which one has no concept to conceive what is before one's eyes.

Gist of Idea

Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)

Book Ref

Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Practical Reason (Third edition)', ed/tr. Beck,Lewis White [Library of Liberal Arts 1993], p.145

A Reaction

Hume had many objections to the design argument, some of them positively sarcastic, but none as ruthless as this, since Kant (here) seems to find God to be a totally empty concept, and hence a complete non-starter as explanation for anything.

The 28 ideas with the same theme [denying that order and harmony prove God]:

1535 Democritus said people imagined gods as the source of what awed or frightened them [Democritus, by Sext.Empiricus]
1555 People used to think anything helpful to life was a god, as the Egyptians think the Nile a god [Prodicus]
5707 The universe can't have been created by gods, because it is too imperfect [Lucretius]
2657 If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero]
2232 You can't infer the cause to be any greater than its effect [Hume]
6958 How can we pronounce on a whole after a brief look at a very small part? [Hume]
6960 Analogy suggests that God has a very great human mind [Hume]
6965 The universe may be the result of trial-and-error [Hume]
6963 Why would we infer an infinite creator from a finite creation? [Hume]
6964 From our limited view, we cannot tell if the universe is faulty [Hume]
21284 This Creator god might be an infant or incompetent or senile [Hume]
21279 If the divine cause is proportional to its effects, the effects are finite, so the Deity cannot be infinite [Hume]
21282 Design cannot prove a unified Deity. Many men make a city, so why not many gods for a world? [Hume]
21280 From a ship you would judge its creator a genius, not a mere humble workman [Hume]
21281 This excellent world may be the result of a huge sequence of trial-and-error [Hume]
21283 Humans renew their species sexually. If there are many gods, would they not do the same? [Hume]
6966 Creation is more like vegetation than human art, so it won't come from reason [Hume]
6967 Order may come from an irrational source as well as a rational one [Hume]
21286 Motion often begins in matter, with no sign of a controlling agent [Hume]
21287 The universe could settle into superficial order, without a designer [Hume]
21288 Ideas arise from objects, not vice versa; ideas only influence matter if they are linked [Hume]
21256 A surprise feature of all products of 9 looks like design, but is actually a necessity [Hume]
6204 Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you [Kant]
6206 From our limited knowledge we can infer great virtues in God, but not ultimate ones [Kant]
21332 We don't get a love of 'order' from nature - which is thoroughly chaotic [Mill]
18977 The wonderful design of a woodpecker looks diabolical to its victims [James]
18979 Things with parts always have some structure, so they always appear to be designed [James]
20708 If God is an orderly being, he cannot be the explanation of order [Davies,B]