And I look forward to the multiverse post. I think that a cosmological multiverse is actually a mundane and sensible concept (regardless of any role it may have in arguments about God). Yes, really, I do! Here is a rough outline — please point out any absurd steps in the argument!
(1) In the standard cosmological model the universe extends spatially to infinity (or a least a Very Long Way). That’s because any edge is going to cause you way more philosophical problems than “let’s just continue more of the same”.
(2) The current model of the Big Bang requires an “inflationary” episode to make it work and fit observations. And, on our current understanding of physics, it is pretty much impossible to make it drop out of an “inflationary state” into a “normal state”, everywhere at once, it’s only possible to do this locally, producing a normal-state “bubble” in a surrounding inflationary state.
(3) A physical process for producing a normal-state bubble is likely to happen lots of times rather than only once (in the same way that a physical process for making sand grains or snowflakes will make lots of them, not just one). Hence — granting only that something like the inflationary model of the Big Bang is correct — there almost has to be lots of normal-state bubbles within a surrounding inflationary state (our observable universe being in one of those bubbles). That right there is a “multiverse”. We don’t know how to construct a working model of Big Bang cosmology that *does* *not* result in such a multiverse!
(4) Are the physical constants the same in each of these bubbles? Well, we don’t really know. But note that it is far more parsimonious (least information content) to specify “assign all physical constants at random in each bubble” than to specify exactly each and every one of about 70 physical constants, each to 20 decimal places or whatever.
(5) Obviously observers like ourselves would only find ourselves observing a surrounding universe that had physical constants that could lead to us.
That’s it. Seems sensible reasoning to me. Please feel free to point out any absurd steps that I’ve made.
I have to say, in all my years of blogging about apologetics and science, this may be my favorite comment of all time! Truly brilliant. I wondered if someone would take me to task for my cheeky multiverse comment. Your reply was no less than I deserved, and frankly far more gracious. And to be clear, nothing you said here was even remotely absurd. All of it was of course cogent and well-reasoned. I don't have a lot of time today, so take this fairly unedited ramble with a grain of salt.
I will here note only a few things. (1) I am not an expert on the science of the Big Bang; my reasons for taking the multiverse argument to task are not technical; but rather based on what I view as overarching a priori probabilities. (2) My reasons for taking it to task are also not theological. The multiverse fits just fine in my Christian worldview, as does almost any scientific finding/theory I can think of. (3) Your excellent narrative strikes me as very plausible narrative if your assumptions are all correct. I am probably biased here by my own scientific background in psychology, where a lot of times our assumptions prove to be wrong. But that's a lot of multiplied assumptions based on theoretical models (I'm also a huge fan of theoretical models, so that isn't quite the insult it seems to be). At each point, it is worth asking how accurate our assumptions/models have been so far, how much they change (frequently), and how much we actually know about these things (very little I'd wager). We are making a guess based upon a guess upon a guess, that is based on very little information, for an event that no one has seen, for universes that may not even be observable. My point is that subjectively, that reads as quite improbable to the average person.
At every point, I wondered: How confident are we of this assumption? Is the universe *really* infinite? Is it really an argument for its infinite nature that it "causes more problems philosophically" to accept boundaries? Does the Big Bang really *require* an inflationary episode? How "impossible" is "pretty much impossible?" Is it really *obvious* that we'd only be able to observe physical constraints that led to us? And so on.
It's a wacky world. Quantum physics seems absurd to me, and yet I'm (largely) convinced it is true. I'm not saying these models are wrong, or that you are wrong. I'm perfectly fine accepting the multiverse and part of me hopes it is true because I like truly wacky and wonderful things. God can be God of the multiverse as well as a universe, so as an intellectual point, it of course doesn't adjudicate that I can see (in either direction) between our points of view, excepting perhaps providing a potential counter to the argument from design (that seems largely unneeded, since you have better arguments and the design argument isn't really a winner to begin with).
And yet, the a priori probability of a multiverse (by which I mean, concurrent universes that exist right now that we can't directly perceive) seems very low. It may turn out to be true, and I would have said the same thing about many properties of quantum physics years ago. But given that we can't run tests on them, that we are (at best) inferring them from guesses and abstract theories based on limited information about an event no one can possibly have observed, the idea that there are multiple universes concurrently existing right now really does seem quite "out there" to me, even though your arguments are very sound.
Returning to the original point of my essay: My original comment was a response to atheists who have used the idea of a multiverse as an alternative to the argument from design. I frankly don't see why atheists would do that, because you have much better arguments and this one throws in with something that is at best, right now, speculative as I see it. When people do that (as with the "swoon" theory of Jesus' resurrection), it rather strikes me as validating that our side is on to something than otherwise. Of course, that is an aside from your point, which is to evaluate the multiverse independently.
All THAT said: I am more than willing to admit that I was wrong here and that the multiverse is quite probable, and if I can be convinced of that, I will retract my comment! There is a very good chance you are right here and I'm simply talking about stuff I don't understand very well. You have clearly delved more into this than I have, and I was honestly impressed by your reasoning despite my "assumption-questioning" bit. And in any event, my cheeky remarks about the absurdity of it clearly doesn't apply to your well-reasoned and cogent argument.
Thanks for your reply. Here’s a more general comment, that leads to the idea that a multiverse is at least sensible (though perhaps forever untestable).
If you ask a physicist what caused the Big Bang, then the most sensible answer would be “we don’t know, that’s beyond our tested models”, but if you forced them to speculate then they would say “well maybe the Big Bang originated as a quantum-gravity fluctuation in some prior state”, because that’s most in line with what we currently do know.
Now, extending from above, any natural process that makes one of any kind of thing makes lots of them. Any process that makes a snowflake makes lots of them. Ditto sand grains. Ditto stars or planets, ditto carbon atoms or water molecules, ditto rabbits or oak trees. It’s almost impossible to scheme up a process that would make exactly one and only one of any natural entity. That would seem to require a near-impossible degree of fine tuning. Indeed I cannot think of any type of natural entity about which we think that only one exists.
So, when it comes to the Big Bang, whatever process made it could and would surely have made lots of Big Bangs. So, really, a multiverse is the prosaic way of thinking. The Earth isn’t the only planet, there are lots; the Sun isn’t the only star, there are lots; the Milky Way isn’t the only galaxy, there are lots — and our Big-Bang-created universe is not the only one, there are lots of others. Thinking that our Big Bang and our universe is the only ones is as parochial as the pre-Copernican thinking that Earth is unique and at the centre of all things.
Well said. It might not surprise you to know that the snowflake argument was my favorite part of your original comment. And the expanding (pun purely accidental) of it here was very helpful.
(As an aside, you are probably already aware of this, but wow, you have a real gift for this kind of writing/argument. I just joined your Substack and can't wait to read more).
I gotta be honest: At first glance, your argument here moves the needle for me on the multiverse somewhat. It is, of course, entirely inductive: It has the same logical property as saying "because other scientists are great scientists, I also am a great scientist." Chesterton pointed out some of the flaws in that reasoning in his book Orthodoxy. There is no logical reason that has to be true. And in this case, there is no logical reason that I can see why there may not be a stop point, and it is intuitive to me to assume that there probably is.
But you are right: That is just as easily a product of my mind (and as you'll see in my future posts if you read them, I've never been a huge fan of arguments that presuppose a "start" and "end" point), much the same way that it was once a product of the mind of the ancients that the stop point was the earth (etc.). And as you'll no doubt note, I'm more of a probabilistic than a deductive logic thinker anyway, and most of my own apologetics arguments have a flavor much like the one you are using. I can't claim a baseline for "normal" and then act like the "normal" thing is abnormal. I always thought Chesterton was partially wrong about this issue, even though I grant the purely logical point.
As a theist, of course, I'm not limited to purely natural explanations, although I assume they comprise a lot of my world. In my worldview, it is possible that God merely made only one of these universes as a starting point even though He made millions of everything else (or however we want to frame that). But I assume here we are merely debating the natural possibility of the multiverse because I said it seems naturally implausible, and I'm certainly not trying to wave "God" at that problem.
I don't have time for a deep consideration at the moment, but I appreciate the dialogue! I'm going to give it some thought. But I am considering downgrading my original score to C instead of C+ because, if the multiverse really is this plausible, then my cheeky comment is a bit like saying "look at these atheists positing...QUANTUM PHYSICS!" I really don't want to be associated with such a weak argument, so you're doing me a favor here.
Thanks for subscribing to my Substack (though I fear that the next post to appear there, which I’ve just written for HXSTEM about God in a science classroom, has a rather atheistic theme to it!). Out of interest, as this series continues, are there any arguments for God that will get an A grade? (And there I was thinking that no American professor ever awards anything less than an A- these days, lest the students immediately troop down to the Dean’s office to testify of their “trauma” and how that professor makes them feel “unsafe”.)
You certainly have nothing to be sheepish about as an atheist writing an atheistic post! I would have expected nothing less. I welcome the dialogue, and I'm of the "if you can't take it, don't dish it out school." Meaning: I know that I dish it out, so I must be able to take it too.
One of my mottos is that "I don't believe in the A argument," so no, none of the arguments I grade will get an A. So far, I think the highest grade is a B or B-.
Hi Luke, as an atheist I appreciated this post! It seems to me that the easiest refutation of the ontological argument is, when it gets to “… if God only exists in your head then …” to point out that, no, that is not God existing in your head, only the *conception* of God exists in your head. And the argument gets no further.
On the argument from design, if the universe looks designed for a purpose, what purpose does it look designed for?
Yes, a very sensible counter to the ontological argument. I think Scott had a counter to that counter, but to be honest, I don't take the whole ontological argument seriously because I entirely agree with you that really, that should end the debate.
Ah, yes, that is indeed a reasonable question! I probably should have addressed that in the piece (after all, that's what teleology means). And I don't think I have an especially good answer to the question, when push comes to shove. I confess the argument has never really been that important to me one way or the other, so take this with a grain of salt. But your question simultaneously made me think "wow, I should already have discussed that obvious question" AND prompted me to think about it more deeply: The best kind of question.
The first thing, and this may be your point (if so, I certainly grant it), is that the argument seems prone to conflate design with purpose. It may be useful to separate out the systematic and intelligent aspects of design from the functional aspects. I often use a Jurassic Park metaphor in my methods class that goes something like this: Of course, it is bad that the raptors in the original movie wanted to eat people like you (that was their purpose). But you should be more scared of the raptors when you find out that they are trying to get out of the fence systematically (and not willy-nilly) because it suggests there is an intelligent being behind it.
I'm not claiming to understand their intent (and I'm not deeply read on this argument at all), but to my untrained eye, both Aquinas' and Paley's arguments seem on the surface to address more the systematic and intelligent aspect of a design (the fact that stuff seems orderly and fits together) and not its actual purpose. To focus on Paley, the key point strikes me as the improbability that something as orderly and sophisticated as a watch would emerge by chance and thus does not appear the result of random forces (systematic and intelligent), and not the fact that the watch tells time (the purpose of a watch). Presumably, even if you didn't know what the watch did, its sophisticated design would still have some impact. I think a lot of the subjective value of the argument, then, is that the world does often feel like it was designed so that stuff fits together. (It does make me question why it is called the teleological argument).
That was mostly what I was referring to in my piece. But it is definitely not a winning argument, which is why it didn't rise above a C+.
As for me, I find it almost embarrassing that I've never really spent time evaluating what I believed was the connection between my subjective feeling that the world often feels designed and my subjective feeling that it has purpose! So I really enjoyed your question. (For the record, I'm not at all claiming that my subjective experiences here are a compelling apologetics argument; rather, I'm trying to answer your perfectly reasonable question. I think this is weak sauce as an argument for God). I think the truest answer goes something like this: I often don't know what the purpose of the natural world is, but it seems designed for something. If I saw the watch, I'd assume someone made it for something even if I couldn't tell time. It seems to run in a more orderly fashion than I'd expect by chance. So when the universe seems designed, that's how it seems designed to me. I would feel more like this attributed quote from Rousseau:
"I am like a man who sees the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary of admiring the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the instrument and has never seen its face. I do not know what this is for, says he, but I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman in the details of his work, and I am quite certain that all these wheels only work together in this fashion for some common end which I cannot perceive. Let us compare the special ends, the means, the ordered relations of every kind, then let us listen to the inner voice of feeling; what healthy mind can reject its evidence? Unless the eyes are blinded by prejudices, can they fail to see that the visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence? What sophisms must be brought together before we fail to understand the harmony of existence and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the maintenance of the rest?"
But of course, it often doesn't seem designed to me at all! Even subjectively to this theist, this isn't a clean win. And there is no necessary reason why order could not emerge without a designer. The argument sometimes has a feel of the "God of the gaps" angle that I don't like: We can't understand why there is this law of thermodynamics, therefore...God.
And I look forward to the multiverse post. I think that a cosmological multiverse is actually a mundane and sensible concept (regardless of any role it may have in arguments about God). Yes, really, I do! Here is a rough outline — please point out any absurd steps in the argument!
(1) In the standard cosmological model the universe extends spatially to infinity (or a least a Very Long Way). That’s because any edge is going to cause you way more philosophical problems than “let’s just continue more of the same”.
(2) The current model of the Big Bang requires an “inflationary” episode to make it work and fit observations. And, on our current understanding of physics, it is pretty much impossible to make it drop out of an “inflationary state” into a “normal state”, everywhere at once, it’s only possible to do this locally, producing a normal-state “bubble” in a surrounding inflationary state.
(3) A physical process for producing a normal-state bubble is likely to happen lots of times rather than only once (in the same way that a physical process for making sand grains or snowflakes will make lots of them, not just one). Hence — granting only that something like the inflationary model of the Big Bang is correct — there almost has to be lots of normal-state bubbles within a surrounding inflationary state (our observable universe being in one of those bubbles). That right there is a “multiverse”. We don’t know how to construct a working model of Big Bang cosmology that *does* *not* result in such a multiverse!
(4) Are the physical constants the same in each of these bubbles? Well, we don’t really know. But note that it is far more parsimonious (least information content) to specify “assign all physical constants at random in each bubble” than to specify exactly each and every one of about 70 physical constants, each to 20 decimal places or whatever.
(5) Obviously observers like ourselves would only find ourselves observing a surrounding universe that had physical constants that could lead to us.
That’s it. Seems sensible reasoning to me. Please feel free to point out any absurd steps that I’ve made.
I have to say, in all my years of blogging about apologetics and science, this may be my favorite comment of all time! Truly brilliant. I wondered if someone would take me to task for my cheeky multiverse comment. Your reply was no less than I deserved, and frankly far more gracious. And to be clear, nothing you said here was even remotely absurd. All of it was of course cogent and well-reasoned. I don't have a lot of time today, so take this fairly unedited ramble with a grain of salt.
I will here note only a few things. (1) I am not an expert on the science of the Big Bang; my reasons for taking the multiverse argument to task are not technical; but rather based on what I view as overarching a priori probabilities. (2) My reasons for taking it to task are also not theological. The multiverse fits just fine in my Christian worldview, as does almost any scientific finding/theory I can think of. (3) Your excellent narrative strikes me as very plausible narrative if your assumptions are all correct. I am probably biased here by my own scientific background in psychology, where a lot of times our assumptions prove to be wrong. But that's a lot of multiplied assumptions based on theoretical models (I'm also a huge fan of theoretical models, so that isn't quite the insult it seems to be). At each point, it is worth asking how accurate our assumptions/models have been so far, how much they change (frequently), and how much we actually know about these things (very little I'd wager). We are making a guess based upon a guess upon a guess, that is based on very little information, for an event that no one has seen, for universes that may not even be observable. My point is that subjectively, that reads as quite improbable to the average person.
At every point, I wondered: How confident are we of this assumption? Is the universe *really* infinite? Is it really an argument for its infinite nature that it "causes more problems philosophically" to accept boundaries? Does the Big Bang really *require* an inflationary episode? How "impossible" is "pretty much impossible?" Is it really *obvious* that we'd only be able to observe physical constraints that led to us? And so on.
It's a wacky world. Quantum physics seems absurd to me, and yet I'm (largely) convinced it is true. I'm not saying these models are wrong, or that you are wrong. I'm perfectly fine accepting the multiverse and part of me hopes it is true because I like truly wacky and wonderful things. God can be God of the multiverse as well as a universe, so as an intellectual point, it of course doesn't adjudicate that I can see (in either direction) between our points of view, excepting perhaps providing a potential counter to the argument from design (that seems largely unneeded, since you have better arguments and the design argument isn't really a winner to begin with).
And yet, the a priori probability of a multiverse (by which I mean, concurrent universes that exist right now that we can't directly perceive) seems very low. It may turn out to be true, and I would have said the same thing about many properties of quantum physics years ago. But given that we can't run tests on them, that we are (at best) inferring them from guesses and abstract theories based on limited information about an event no one can possibly have observed, the idea that there are multiple universes concurrently existing right now really does seem quite "out there" to me, even though your arguments are very sound.
Returning to the original point of my essay: My original comment was a response to atheists who have used the idea of a multiverse as an alternative to the argument from design. I frankly don't see why atheists would do that, because you have much better arguments and this one throws in with something that is at best, right now, speculative as I see it. When people do that (as with the "swoon" theory of Jesus' resurrection), it rather strikes me as validating that our side is on to something than otherwise. Of course, that is an aside from your point, which is to evaluate the multiverse independently.
All THAT said: I am more than willing to admit that I was wrong here and that the multiverse is quite probable, and if I can be convinced of that, I will retract my comment! There is a very good chance you are right here and I'm simply talking about stuff I don't understand very well. You have clearly delved more into this than I have, and I was honestly impressed by your reasoning despite my "assumption-questioning" bit. And in any event, my cheeky remarks about the absurdity of it clearly doesn't apply to your well-reasoned and cogent argument.
Really enjoyed your comments!
Thanks for your reply. Here’s a more general comment, that leads to the idea that a multiverse is at least sensible (though perhaps forever untestable).
If you ask a physicist what caused the Big Bang, then the most sensible answer would be “we don’t know, that’s beyond our tested models”, but if you forced them to speculate then they would say “well maybe the Big Bang originated as a quantum-gravity fluctuation in some prior state”, because that’s most in line with what we currently do know.
Now, extending from above, any natural process that makes one of any kind of thing makes lots of them. Any process that makes a snowflake makes lots of them. Ditto sand grains. Ditto stars or planets, ditto carbon atoms or water molecules, ditto rabbits or oak trees. It’s almost impossible to scheme up a process that would make exactly one and only one of any natural entity. That would seem to require a near-impossible degree of fine tuning. Indeed I cannot think of any type of natural entity about which we think that only one exists.
So, when it comes to the Big Bang, whatever process made it could and would surely have made lots of Big Bangs. So, really, a multiverse is the prosaic way of thinking. The Earth isn’t the only planet, there are lots; the Sun isn’t the only star, there are lots; the Milky Way isn’t the only galaxy, there are lots — and our Big-Bang-created universe is not the only one, there are lots of others. Thinking that our Big Bang and our universe is the only ones is as parochial as the pre-Copernican thinking that Earth is unique and at the centre of all things.
Well said. It might not surprise you to know that the snowflake argument was my favorite part of your original comment. And the expanding (pun purely accidental) of it here was very helpful.
(As an aside, you are probably already aware of this, but wow, you have a real gift for this kind of writing/argument. I just joined your Substack and can't wait to read more).
I gotta be honest: At first glance, your argument here moves the needle for me on the multiverse somewhat. It is, of course, entirely inductive: It has the same logical property as saying "because other scientists are great scientists, I also am a great scientist." Chesterton pointed out some of the flaws in that reasoning in his book Orthodoxy. There is no logical reason that has to be true. And in this case, there is no logical reason that I can see why there may not be a stop point, and it is intuitive to me to assume that there probably is.
But you are right: That is just as easily a product of my mind (and as you'll see in my future posts if you read them, I've never been a huge fan of arguments that presuppose a "start" and "end" point), much the same way that it was once a product of the mind of the ancients that the stop point was the earth (etc.). And as you'll no doubt note, I'm more of a probabilistic than a deductive logic thinker anyway, and most of my own apologetics arguments have a flavor much like the one you are using. I can't claim a baseline for "normal" and then act like the "normal" thing is abnormal. I always thought Chesterton was partially wrong about this issue, even though I grant the purely logical point.
As a theist, of course, I'm not limited to purely natural explanations, although I assume they comprise a lot of my world. In my worldview, it is possible that God merely made only one of these universes as a starting point even though He made millions of everything else (or however we want to frame that). But I assume here we are merely debating the natural possibility of the multiverse because I said it seems naturally implausible, and I'm certainly not trying to wave "God" at that problem.
I don't have time for a deep consideration at the moment, but I appreciate the dialogue! I'm going to give it some thought. But I am considering downgrading my original score to C instead of C+ because, if the multiverse really is this plausible, then my cheeky comment is a bit like saying "look at these atheists positing...QUANTUM PHYSICS!" I really don't want to be associated with such a weak argument, so you're doing me a favor here.
Thanks for subscribing to my Substack (though I fear that the next post to appear there, which I’ve just written for HXSTEM about God in a science classroom, has a rather atheistic theme to it!). Out of interest, as this series continues, are there any arguments for God that will get an A grade? (And there I was thinking that no American professor ever awards anything less than an A- these days, lest the students immediately troop down to the Dean’s office to testify of their “trauma” and how that professor makes them feel “unsafe”.)
You certainly have nothing to be sheepish about as an atheist writing an atheistic post! I would have expected nothing less. I welcome the dialogue, and I'm of the "if you can't take it, don't dish it out school." Meaning: I know that I dish it out, so I must be able to take it too.
One of my mottos is that "I don't believe in the A argument," so no, none of the arguments I grade will get an A. So far, I think the highest grade is a B or B-.
Thanks for your comments!
Hi Luke, as an atheist I appreciated this post! It seems to me that the easiest refutation of the ontological argument is, when it gets to “… if God only exists in your head then …” to point out that, no, that is not God existing in your head, only the *conception* of God exists in your head. And the argument gets no further.
On the argument from design, if the universe looks designed for a purpose, what purpose does it look designed for?
Thanks for your kind words!
Yes, a very sensible counter to the ontological argument. I think Scott had a counter to that counter, but to be honest, I don't take the whole ontological argument seriously because I entirely agree with you that really, that should end the debate.
Ah, yes, that is indeed a reasonable question! I probably should have addressed that in the piece (after all, that's what teleology means). And I don't think I have an especially good answer to the question, when push comes to shove. I confess the argument has never really been that important to me one way or the other, so take this with a grain of salt. But your question simultaneously made me think "wow, I should already have discussed that obvious question" AND prompted me to think about it more deeply: The best kind of question.
The first thing, and this may be your point (if so, I certainly grant it), is that the argument seems prone to conflate design with purpose. It may be useful to separate out the systematic and intelligent aspects of design from the functional aspects. I often use a Jurassic Park metaphor in my methods class that goes something like this: Of course, it is bad that the raptors in the original movie wanted to eat people like you (that was their purpose). But you should be more scared of the raptors when you find out that they are trying to get out of the fence systematically (and not willy-nilly) because it suggests there is an intelligent being behind it.
I'm not claiming to understand their intent (and I'm not deeply read on this argument at all), but to my untrained eye, both Aquinas' and Paley's arguments seem on the surface to address more the systematic and intelligent aspect of a design (the fact that stuff seems orderly and fits together) and not its actual purpose. To focus on Paley, the key point strikes me as the improbability that something as orderly and sophisticated as a watch would emerge by chance and thus does not appear the result of random forces (systematic and intelligent), and not the fact that the watch tells time (the purpose of a watch). Presumably, even if you didn't know what the watch did, its sophisticated design would still have some impact. I think a lot of the subjective value of the argument, then, is that the world does often feel like it was designed so that stuff fits together. (It does make me question why it is called the teleological argument).
That was mostly what I was referring to in my piece. But it is definitely not a winning argument, which is why it didn't rise above a C+.
As for me, I find it almost embarrassing that I've never really spent time evaluating what I believed was the connection between my subjective feeling that the world often feels designed and my subjective feeling that it has purpose! So I really enjoyed your question. (For the record, I'm not at all claiming that my subjective experiences here are a compelling apologetics argument; rather, I'm trying to answer your perfectly reasonable question. I think this is weak sauce as an argument for God). I think the truest answer goes something like this: I often don't know what the purpose of the natural world is, but it seems designed for something. If I saw the watch, I'd assume someone made it for something even if I couldn't tell time. It seems to run in a more orderly fashion than I'd expect by chance. So when the universe seems designed, that's how it seems designed to me. I would feel more like this attributed quote from Rousseau:
"I am like a man who sees the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary of admiring the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the instrument and has never seen its face. I do not know what this is for, says he, but I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman in the details of his work, and I am quite certain that all these wheels only work together in this fashion for some common end which I cannot perceive. Let us compare the special ends, the means, the ordered relations of every kind, then let us listen to the inner voice of feeling; what healthy mind can reject its evidence? Unless the eyes are blinded by prejudices, can they fail to see that the visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence? What sophisms must be brought together before we fail to understand the harmony of existence and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the maintenance of the rest?"
But of course, it often doesn't seem designed to me at all! Even subjectively to this theist, this isn't a clean win. And there is no necessary reason why order could not emerge without a designer. The argument sometimes has a feel of the "God of the gaps" angle that I don't like: We can't understand why there is this law of thermodynamics, therefore...God.