We’ve all heard this one before. Here it is coming from atheist George Smith in an argument directed against cosmic fine-tuning:
“If the universe is wonderfully designed, surely God is even more wonderfully designed. He must, therefore, have had a designer even more wonderful than He is. If God did not require a designer, then there is no reason why such a relatively less wonderful thing as the universe needed one.”
Initially I was going to throw this argument out by pointing out that necessarily existent entities are not designed. They just are. A philosopher posits the existence of necessarily existent abstract objects like numbers and propositions to explain facts about the world. Sobody who retorts “Yeah well who designed the number 57 smart guy?” just doesn’t understand the notion of an abstract object. Likewise a theist posits a necessarily existent personal agent to explain certain facts about the world including prima facie extraordinarily complex fine-tuning. So the person who retorts “Who designed God?” likewise simply does not understand what is being proposed.
But then I decided not to make that point because I think the argument Smith has provided could actually be useful. So ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please strike the previous paragraph from your memories. You never heard it. Let’s proceed with the assumption that George Smith is on to something here.
Now let’s begin by identifying an assumed premise:
(1) If something is designed the thing which designed it has a more wonderful designer.
Next, let’s apply this premise to something and see where it takes us:
(2) The car in my driveway was designed.
(3) Therefore the car in my driveway has a more wonderful designer. (1,2)
And then after some investigation, I discover
(4) The designers of the car in my driveway were factory workers in Ulsan Korea.
From this it follows:
(5) Therefore, factory workers in Ulsan Korea were designed and they have a more wonderful designer. (1,3,4)
Yes! An argument that factory workers in Ulsan Korea were designed. And from there we can see how to argue that all human persons have been designed. Not too bad for an argument from an atheist.
Now if we could just tweak premise (1) to get rid of the looming infinite regress…
