The Appeal of Design Arguments...


Sometimes I find myself wondering why the traditional arguments for God are so popular or mainstream. One reason I’ve come to accept is the inherent intuitive appeal of some of such arguments. Particularly, arguments from design and cosmological arguments tend to have some intuitive force that appeals to most people who want to defend their faith. I know this because I, like many others who were so-called classical apologists before becoming Van Tilian, was also convinced of the force of these arguments. 

Even before delving really deep into the philosophical nuances of apologetics, I found myself firmly seeing the complex design and order of the universe as evidence for God. When I found out that atheists exist and that they do not believe the same things I do about God, I was shocked. 

“How could they not believe in God?,” I would say as I looked around me, “look at how complex and intricate the entire universe is! Look at the order and the sheer awesomeness of the human body. Surely, they must be blinded! All this couldn’t have come about by chance”.

I’m sure many others have had similar lines of reasoning. This may explain why design arguments are so appealing. It just seems so obvious that all this couldn’t have come about chance. And so, as one studies more about apologetics, they come to learn and defend the various complex variations of the design argument. 

It wasn’t until I became a Van Tilian that everything made sense. I was viewing the world through Christian lenses. As a Christian, I interpreted my experience of the universe as pointing to a God who designed and created everything. This explains why it was so obvious to me that design proves God. Being a Van Tilian, I also received an explanation for why something that was so obvious to me did not persuade the unbeliever. The unbeliever views the universe with different lenses than I do. He would never come to the same conclusions. I also came to the realization that my initial line of reasoning wasn’t wrong. I was right to think that design is evidence for God—it is (Psalms 14). I was also right to think that the unbeliever is blinded—he is, because he is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1). 

In essence, the design arguments receive their appeal from a Christian interpretation of the universe. However, when one tries to formulate an argument that is supposed to establish the existence of God from the fact of the (apparent) design of the universe while neglecting the Christian interpretation of this fact, problems arise. The argument loses its force because the unbeliever would interpret this fact in accordance with his own worldview. It is only within the context of the Christian system that the inference from apparent design to the existence of God can be rationally made as the multitude of devastating objections to design arguments have illustrated.

From the above considerations, it is easy to see why many Christians may be tempted to argue from design. But we must always remember to be epistemologically self-conscious. We must remember that the unbeliever does not see the universe the way we do. We must instead argue that the order, beauty, and uniformity in the universe presupposes the Christian faith for its intelligibility. 

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