Professor Feser’s Puzzling Assault on ID
| April 18, 2010 | Posted by Thomas Cudworth under Intelligent Design |
In an earlier column (27 March 2010), I offered constructive criticism of the position of Francis Beckwith, who had implied an incompatibility between the ID and Thomist approaches to design, and had condemned ID for advancing or at least implying a bad form of Christian theology:
Prof. Beckwith responded once to my article, but only touched on a couple of points, and in the course of his discussion misrepresented both my motivation and some of my arguments. When I clarified my position (in Comment #8 below the article), Beckwith did not respond to the clarification. Thus, he left the impression that he had demolished my argument, when in fact he had rebutted only a misrepresentation of just part of my argument.
I here undertake a constructively critical response to some arguments of Professor Edward Feser, who like Prof. Beckwith has contrasted ID unfavorably with Thomist design arguments and has accused ID of faulty theology. I am hoping that Professor Feser will reply, here or on his own site, and will engage more fully with my comments than did Prof. Beckwith.
On his own blogspot, Professor Feser has lately published a lengthy reply to vjtorley, alleging that vjtorley has misunderstood both Feser’s own argument, and the position of Thomas Aquinas:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/id-theory-aquinas-and-origin-of-life.html
I will not enter into the particulars of the Feser-Torley debate, as I am sure Mr. Torley will wish to defend himself. Rather, I would like to focus on a couple of statements made in the cited article by Mr. Feser, statements which seem to me to point to characteristic blind spots in the Feser-Beckwith critique of ID.
First, when describing the Aristotelian-Thomistic critique of atheistic, materialistic metaphysics, Feser writes:
“What all A-T theorists agree on … is that life could not possibly have arisen in a purely mechanistic universe of the sort presupposed by naturalism, so that no naturalistic explanation of life is possible even in principle.”
In other words, naturalism fails in its own terms. This is an argument straight out of the ID playbook. If ID does not differ from Thomism over the assertion that naturalism fails in its own terms, what is Feser’s objection to ID’s attempt to confront naturalism on its own terms?
Second, Feser writes:
“… when God creates a living thing, He does not do so in the manner in which an artificer constructs an artifact. And any method for studying living things which (like ID) proceeds on the assumption that He does is simply making a fundamental metaphysical and conceptual error that cannot fail to lead to serious misunderstandings of God’s relationship to the world, and thus to serious misunderstandings of how to reason from features of the world to the existence and nature of God.”
I have more than a passing acquaintance with ID literature. I have read most of the major theoretical works of the ID proponents, and a good number of their rejoinders to their critics. I have not seen any ID proponent say that God creates living things “in the manner in which an artificer constructs an artifact”. In fact, I have not seen any ID proponent describe how God creates living things at all. On the contrary, ID has been repeatedly criticized by the Darwinians precisely for not describing, in terms of past events and their efficient causes, how intelligence was involved in the origin and/or evolution of species. I don’t see how ID can be criticized for describing God’s creative activity in the “wrong” way, when it has never described that activity at all.
ID makes use of the artificer analogy not to establish a historical claim about some past act of physical construction (e.g., “When God created the flagellum, he took an existing bacterium and sewed the base of a wavy new organelle into the cell wall”), but to establish the fact that, like a machine, a living system or organism involves the adjustment of means to ends, and, like a very complex machine with integrated systems interrelated in mutual feedback loops, it does not come into existence without a design, and therefore without a designing intelligence. In other words, ID focuses only on establishing the existence of design; how the design is realized by God is not ID’s concern.
Being silent on the question of “how”, ID cannot be guilty of contradicting the Thomistic understanding of “how”. ID has said nothing, for example, against the “four cause” analysis of Thomism. Nor, contrary to what Feser seems to imply elsewhere in his article, does it insist that such teleology as exists in living things has been imposed purely externally, and has no immanent aspect. ID simply does not deal with such questions. Feser, like Beckwith, seems to believe that ID is posing as a rival theology or rival metaphysics to Thomism, but ID does not claim to offer a theology or a metaphysics at all.
Feser and Beckwith are misled by ID’s use of the analogy of the designer or craftsman. And what is odd about this is that both Aristotle and Aquinas make extensive use of this analogy, and neither Beckwith nor Feser complains about it. Why don’t they? Surely because they understand that in the case of Aristotle and Aquinas, the analogy was meant to be pressed only so far, and not intended as a photographic representation of how God (or in Aristotle’s case, nature) operates. The question is: Why they don’t extend to ID theorists the same intellectual courtesy, i.e., the assumption that ID theorists are bright enough to recognize the limited character of all analogies, and sensible enough not to take them as literal descriptions of divine action?
Many ID people are friendly to Thomism for its unwavering affirmation of a close connection between rationality, nature and God. ID people wish to remain on good terms with Thomists, and to ally with Thomists against atheistic Darwinists, and against those among the theistic evolutionists who divorce God from reason and nature and whose understanding of origins is distinguishable from that of atheistic Darwinism only by a private “leap of faith”. We do not understand why Beckwith and Feser are launching this attack against us. Are there not enough “erroneous” non-Thomist theologies of nature out there (e.g., affirmations of wholly naturalistic evolution supplemented by Barthian and other fideisms), to keep Thomist metaphysicians busy, that they have the time and energy to attack ID for theological positions that it does not in fact hold?
38 Responses to Professor Feser’s Puzzling Assault on ID
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Thomas Cudworth,
First off, I appreciate the kind words – and naturally, I think you (and some others here at UD) are being very civil and thoughtful in this whole conversation. I should clarify I’m not a thomist. I’m very inclined to accept the thomist’s arguments I’ve seen and understood so far, but as an amateur at best in the company of several who’ve clearly devoted more time and study to the subject, I don’t want to pretend I have much authority here.
Further, I wasn’t defending Beckwith’s piece at Biologos. In fact, I thought the entire display was downright bizarre – I may be an amateur, but I know enough to realize that whatever problems a thomist may have with ID, there are problems of equal or greater concern represented over at Biologos. And, pseudonym’d nobody though I am, I made my criticisms on this very site. At most, I wanted to point out some ID-friendly points Beckwith has made. What can I say, I openly wish ID proponents and thomists to get along better.
But anyway, on to the meat of the conversation…
* You talk about “ID’s arguments for the existence of God”. But my response is that ID as ID has no such thing, by the admission of their own proponents. Dembski admits (even stresses) ID doesn’t get one to God. Behe admits it. I think even you’d say the same – maybe you meant that ID infers intelligence, but the intelligence ID infers may be God, though that conclusion is reached by argument and consideration independent from ID alone?
Either way, it’s my understanding that ID at absolute best infers the work of an intelligent agent in nature.
* With the previous in mind, I want to stress what I see as the key thomist claims and concerns here.
A) First, it has nothing to do with the negative arguments. That darwinism may not be capable of X with any reasonable probability, or chemical reactions in the wild may not be capable of same, are manifestly not claims incompatible with thomism. I only point this out because I see these criticisms as an important part of the ID project, and usually those with criticisms of ID come at the question from this position. Every thomist I’ve read speaking about this has admitted this is not a problem – those cases are to be judged on their merits.
B) Thomists do believe that “design can be inferred in nature”, speaking broadly. But the arguments and proofs thomists make for God are not probablistic (“There’s a real good chance God’s responsible for intrinsic teleology, and only a small chance alternate choice X is!”) or empirical (“I don’t think any natural process could possibly produce apparent artifact Z, while an intelligent agent certainly could! Of course if such a natural process is found, I’m wrong.”)
This is important for two reasons. First, it helps to explain why thomists – in a culture where so many people seem to think arguments only come in those two forms – have a strong reaction against having their (metaphysical, philosophical, logical) arguments taken as “ID arguments”. Especially when this is apparently not an accidental or misunderstood aspect of ID, but a core commitment. Is the “Big Tent” of ID meant to include non-scientific arguments as well? That doesn’t seem to be the case, but then I’m not the one deciding these things.
Second, it stresses the different aims of thomism and ID. ID is expressly limited to inferring ‘intelligence’, and intelligence of a general sort – at most, a powerful/capable agent. Thomism, meanwhile, strives to prove – not infer in a probablistic way, but prove through logic, philosophy, and metaphysics, as certainly as is possible – God. And not ‘a god’, but the God, the Logos, the One, the Ultimate. And these proofs are not subject to being called into question by some natural explanation, or some amazing and unexpected origin of life discovery, etc. If the thomists are right, then ID has no use as ‘proving the existence of a ‘greater intelligence”. Thomists already have their proofs of such. At that point, science is only capable of finding out how the certainly-designed-and-sustained-by-God nature operated and operates, and perhaps uncovering a miraculous act (again, while knowing just Who would have been responsible for it ultimately.)
* Hopefully I did a fair and reasonable job of explaining why, in my amateur view, I see thomists as having a problem with ID. And with all that said, I want to stress at least one way I think thomists and ID proponents could and should cooperate.
William Dembski has recently said he rejects a mechanistic view of nature himself, though he prefers Plato to Aristotle when it comes to metaphysics. He’s also stated that he sees ID as a kind of arguendo practice – [in my interpretation] showing that, even if we take a mechanistic view of the world, it absolutely does not grant atheists what they so desperately want: Mind and God ‘explained away’ as part of the explanation for our universe, our planet, our animals, ourselves, etc. That, in fact, we can – within that mechanistic approach and worldview – find great reasons to suspect and infer (even strongly) some kind of intelligence being responsible for each and every one of these things.
If Dembski is serious about this – that one can be an ID supporter even if one merely sees ID as a kind of arguendo case – then I cannot for the life of me see why this would be incompatible with thomism. Now, maybe an individual thomist may consider it a bad move in a rhetorical sense (maybe they’d prefer to deal with atheists rather than pagans, though personally give me the pagans any day of the week). But certainly a faithful thomist can point out what realities are really in play for someone with a differing metaphysical view than themselves.
Ed Feser himself, in this blog post, actually comes close to doing exactly this. The difference is that he seems to think it’s a waste of time and energy for someone wishing to prove God (of course, meaning the God of classical theism), and may serve only to confuse issues further. But again, Dembski, in speaking of accepting a mechanistic metaphysic “for the sake of argument” can have another aim. It can show that the mechanistic view does not do what so many hope and expect it to do after all (namely, get rid of any and all gods or mind-as-responsible for what we see in nature). And I happen to think that is valuable, even if thomism is correct. Again, I don’t think thomists are forbidden from demonstrating unexpected ‘problems’ in others’ metaphysics.
Anyway, hopefully I’ve represented all sides fairly here. I think the heated rhetoric that so often pops up in these conversations is unnecessary, even if both sides have valid points and criticisms to speak of.
Steve Fuller,
Suppose that it does raise the hackles of certain Thomists when people talk about the genetic code, especially when people notice that it is not merely “like” a code. There is no analogy. It is a true code, and translation really decodes symbolic information.
How is this in any sense a problem for ID, or a fault of ID? ID proponents did not create the code and could not take it away if we wished.
How is this not purely and simply a devastating problem for that narrow so-called Thomist* perspective?
[*Side point: As indicated by Thomas Cudworth, as well as Jay Richards, I too am skeptical about the claims of certain Thomists to faithfully represent the actual position of Thomas.]
—nullasalus:” Thomists do believe that “design can be inferred in nature”, speaking broadly. But the arguments and proofs thomists make for God are not probablistic…”
True, and no one disputes this. The edgy part is when neo-Thomists, whose knowledge of Thomism seems limited to textbook definitions, declare that the ID probabalistic arguments are incompatible with Thomas’ philosophical arguments. That is like saying that a physician who measures blood pressure to confirm that a patient is alive has compromised the idea that humans have souls. To look at something from a different vantage point is not necessarily to violate the unity of truth. Indeed, it is the principle of unity that allows for all the multivaried disciplines to be a part of a larger understanding of reality. Feser and Beckwith, to be consistent, would have to say that detecting design in cosmological constants militates against the idea that God created the universe.
In any case, I have already posted the names of several Thomists who disagree with their point of view, and I have even made a few abbreviated arguments of my own. I, and others, have also asked our critics to provide passages from St. Thomas to defend their novel interpretations. They didn’t bother to respond to any of these points.
Here is something to consider. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that God created humans in finished form. That means that his philosophy of nature could not possibly be in conflict with a God who tweaks his creation. That is a very simple point that anyone can understand, and one needs no formal education in metaphysics to get it.
In keeping with that point, anyone who insists on the unity of truth and the fact that God’s revelation in Scripture is consistent with his revelation in nature is a Thomist in principle. Scripture holds down the Dogmatic end, Thomas holds down the philosophical end, and ID holds down the scientific end. Feser and Beckwith are simply wrong to say that any one part of that triad could possibly militate against the other.
Not only that, but Aquinas was explicit about the fact that both Adam and Eve were created by transforming preexisting material, i.e. the “slime” of the earth, Adam’s rib.
The post “Response to Michael Tkacz’s Critique of ID” by Jay Richards examines this in light of one so-called Thomist critic of ID.
So I am doubly mystified as to how such critics can then fault ID for being “mechanistic” concerning how God created, in spite of the fact that an ID inference is not able to determine the specific means.
I don’t see how Thomas Cudworth could have been more clear.
Thomas Cudworth, have you yet found any Thomist critic of ID in any venue to seriously and reasonably engage the issue you’ve so clearly raised?