Today, teleological, or design, arguments remain among the most popular arguments for the existence of God. “Just look around,” believers often say, as though the intricate order of nature automatically compels us to conclude that a supernatural designer must exist. Yet the Scottish philosopher David Hume had already dismantled this type of argument almost 300 years ago—and almost a century before the publication of On the Origin of Species. The case against intelligent design, in other words, is far older than Darwin.
Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published posthumously in 1779, attacks the design argument from several directions. The work does much more than that, of course, and deserves to be read in its entirety. But for our purposes, it is Hume’s critique of the design argument that matters most.
The dialogue unfolds as a conversation among three characters: Cleanthes, the natural theologian who defends the design argument; Demea, the fideistic theist who places his faith in revelation rather than reason; and Philo, the philosophical skeptic who serves, for the most part, as Hume’s mouthpiece. By the end of the discussion, Philo has exposed the design argument as far less powerful than its proponents suppose.
But before considering Hume’s objections, we need to understand the argument on its own terms. For that, we can turn to Cleanthes:
Look round the world: Contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain….The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence…We are led to infer…that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed.
The basic structure of the design argument has changed remarkably little over the centuries. It begins with the claim that nature resembles, in important respects, the kinds of things humans design—except that nature is vastly more complex. If nature resembles a designed object, the argument goes, it must likewise have a designer, one possessing an intelligence vastly greater than our own. The design argument, then, is ultimately an argument from analogy, and its force depends on how strong that analogy really is. Hume, more than any thinker before him, examined the nature of this analogy and exposed the problems that follow from taking it too far.
To help us make sense of these problems, let’s use a concrete example, one proposed by Cleanthes. Suppose you stumbled upon an abandoned cabin hidden deep in the woods. You would immediately recognize that its materials—wood, glass, stone, mortar—had not spontaneously assembled themselves into that particular arrangement. The cabin, of course, had a designer and a builder, perhaps the same person, perhaps several people. But in any case, the cabin is readily explained as the product of intentional design—even if you never meet the designer(s). The cabin, without a doubt, serves a clear purpose, and was constructed with that purpose in mind.
Cleanthes asks, if the existence of a designer is so obvious concerning a relatively simple construction like a house, then what are we to think about something vastly more complex, such as the human eye? If we can see at a glance that a house did not spontaneously assemble itself from its constituent parts, we have even more reason to reject the idea that an eye could have done so. By this reasoning, the apparent order and complexity of nature—from the eye and the human body to the Earth and the universe itself—must ultimately be the product of intelligent design.
Most believers, at this point, are content to rest their case, satisfied that the appearance of design speaks for itself. But Philo was not so easily convinced. The design argument, he argues, falters on at least three grounds: first, the analogy between nature and human artifacts is weak; second, even if the analogy succeeds, it does not establish theism; and third, the existence of evil turns the argument against the very God it seeks to prove. Let’s consider each in turn.
How to Build a God from a Bad Analogy
Cleanthes, as we’ve seen, sought to compare the machinery of nature to human constructions like cabins, but Philo immediately questions the strength of the analogy:
If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect.
Philo’s point is that we have sufficient experience with human artifacts in general and houses in particular to know that they require a designer and builder. We’ve witnessed the construction of many such houses, and we know that they result from intelligent planning. But how many universes, Philo asks, have we witnessed spring into existence?
If the answer is none, then how can we postulate the cause of something in which we have no experience, if experience itself is the foundation of all of our knowledge? As Philo remarks, “Our ideas reach no farther than our experience: We have no experience of divine attributes and operations. I need not conclude my syllogism: You can draw the inference yourself.”
Hume had argued in a previous work that our knowledge of cause and effect derives entirely from experience. More importantly, he observed that we never actually perceive causation itself; all we ever observe is the repeated conjunction of one event with another. From this, we can only infer that the first causes the second. This is how the mind makes sense of reality. But are we justified in nominating the peculiarities of the human mind as a model for the universe at large? As Philo said:
Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred others which fall under daily observation….What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call “thought”, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe?
Philo continues: “A very small part of this great system [the universe], during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?” The design argument, in other words, commits the fallacy of composition—a logical error in which it is assumed that what is true of the parts must also be true of the whole. And the parts we’re working with, says Philo, are small, imperfect, and limited.
An example of the fallacy of composition might be useful. It would be an error, for example, to conclude that, because a house is made entirely of lightweight bricks, that the house itself is lightweight. What is true for the parts—the weight of the individual bricks—is not true for the house as a whole. The house contains its own properties that cannot be reduced to a subsection of its parts taken in isolation.
In the same way, even if it is true, as far as we can tell, that everything within the universe requires a proximate cause, this does not mean that the universe itself, taken as a whole, must also require an ultimate cause. The universe may possess properties that emerge from the dynamics of its constituent parts. The universe may, for example, be eternal and require no first cause, it may function more like an organism than a machine, or it may simply be that our minds are not equipped to comprehend the true nature of reality. In any case, we have no experience of the formation or creation of worlds, and therefore no empirical basis for determining whether the universe requires a cause at all.
This would be enough, in itself, to cast doubt on the strength of the analogy, but we have further reasons for rejecting a designer based on the logic of the analogy itself. In other words, if we are to take the analogy seriously, it leads to a very problematic infinite regress.
Recall that, as Cleanthes noted, the discovery of complex structures like a cabin imply a human designer. But in the same way, according to the analogy, humans themselves represent complex biological machines that also require a designer. Believers call this grand designer of humans God.
Yet there is no reason for the analogy to end there; since God possesses an intelligence similar to, yet far grander than, our own, then God must also require a designer for the same reasons that humans do. In other words, increasingly complex agents require increasingly complex creators, hence an infinite regress of gods.
Philo’s point is that if we are willing to terminate the infinite regress at some arbitrary point, why stop at God rather than at the material world itself? Why introduce an additional principle when the material world is in no more need of an explanation than the God invoked to explain it? To do so is not only a case of special pleading; it violates William of Ockham’s famed maxim that “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” A necessarily existing universe serves the same explanatory role as a necessary being. And as Philo said, “for aught we can know a priori, matter may contain the source or spring of order originally within itself.”
In summary, then, design arguments appear to be weak analogies that commit the fallacy of composition, and, even if taken seriously, beg the question, “Who designed the designer?” Further, and most importantly, since we have no experience observing the creation of universes, we have no empirical leg to stand on to adjudicate their ultimate cause—or even their need for one.
“Having found in so many other subjects much more familiar the imperfections and even contradictions of human reason,” Philo concludes, “I never should expect any success from its feeble conjectures in a subject so sublime and so remote from the sphere of our observation.” We have no business, in other words, making grand pronouncements about matters beyond the reach of experience when we so frequently commit errors even in matters that lie within it.
So much for the design argument as a weak analogy. But the problems don’t end here. For even if we grant the validity of the design argument, it does not lead to the conclusion theists want.
How to (Accidentally) Become a Deist
One thing to note about the design argument is that it is, at best, an argument for a divine architect, not a creator. After all, the designer of our hypothetical cabin did not conjure wood and mortar into existence out of thin air; at most, she manipulated an arrangement of preexisting materials. If we are to remain faithful to the analogy, the divine architect likewise did not create matter ex nihilo, but simply rearranged it, contrary to the claims of orthodox theologians.
But the problem runs far deeper than this. For even if we grant the validity of the analogy and the creation of matter ex nihilo, we’ve still said nothing about the nature of this designer or, for that matter, the number of designers. As Philo explains:
And what shadow of an argument…can you produce from your hypothesis to prove the unity of the Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?
In the example of our hypothetical cabin, we were justified in assuming that it had, for all we know, a single designer and builder. But if we had discovered instead an elaborate mansion or castle, it would be more reasonable to conclude that several people were involved in its construction and design. As a general rule, then, as the complexity of a human artifact increases, so too does the probability that multiple people were involved in its design and implementation.
So what are we to think about a universe filled with trillions of galaxies? If the design argument is valid, we ought to conclude the existence of multiple deities in a cosmos so vast. “The theogeny of ancient times,” Philo says, is thus “brought back upon us.” Quite unexpectedly, the argument from design turns out to be a stronger case for polytheism, not monotheism.
Yet it still tells us nothing about this deity or deities. Here is Philo again:
In a word, Cleanthes, a man who follows your hypothesis is able, perhaps, to assert or conjecture that the universe sometime arose from something like design: But beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance, and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance.
The possibilities for this deity are virtually endless. He could be incompetent or immature, the object of derision to his superiors. He could be old and senile, indifferent, or the creator of multiple universes—of which ours is only the most imperfect and neglected example. Do not the imperfections and evils of the world bear this view out?
In any case, it is difficult to see how the design argument could lend greater support to theism than to deism. Compare the noninterventionist God of deism—content to let the laws of nature run their course—with the all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly benevolent anthropomorphic God of classical theism. The design argument seems far better suited to the former than the latter.
In fact, the design argument may undermine classical theism altogether. For if the world bears the marks of design, there are compelling reasons to think that its designer is either incompetent or malicious—a conclusion that leads directly to the vexing problem of evil.
The Problem of Evil (Or, How to Indict Your Own God)
The design argument, of course, is meant to give credit to God for all the wonderful, awe-inspiring aspects of the universe that make life possible. But it also, in the process, implicates God in the misery and pain that permeates life.
Philo introduces his own version of the design argument:
Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organized, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly…How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children!
I trust no one would argue that the world is filled with war, violence, poverty, famine, pain, disease, infection, cancer, natural disasters, torture, abductions, murders, assaults, disfigurements, birth defects, and much more. The examples are so numerous and obvious that they hardly need to be pointed out. And even if one could argue that, on balance, life contains more pleasure than pain, it would be difficult to deny the existence of gratuitous evil.
“Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world,” Philo asks—with the foreknowledge that it was supervised by an all-powerful and loving God—would he not be taken aback by the level of suffering he witnessed? Would he not be justified in expecting something far superior?
Humans, we can admit, inflict plenty of unnecessary suffering on one another, and this can hardly be blamed on a god (although theists will tell us that God designed us this way). But setting aside human malevolence and idiocy, natural evil is itself much harder to explain. The physical phenomena necessary to the operations of the universe, Philo says, are “apt, on every occasion, to run into the one extreme or the other.” Philo continues:
Thus the winds are requisite to convey the vapors along the surface of the globe, and to assist men in navigation: But how often, rising up to tempests and hurricanes, do they become pernicious? Rains are necessary to nourish all the plants and animals of the earth: But how often are they defective? how often excessive? Heat is requisite to all life and vegetation, but is not always found in the due proportion.
On this point, the design analogy does the theist no favors. Returning to our hypothetical example, suppose I showed you a cabin “where the windows, doors, fires, passages, stairs, and the whole economy of the building were the source of noise, confusion, fatigue, darkness, and the extremes of heat and cold.” You would have little hesitation in blaming the designer or builder. Even if you did not expect the house to be perfectly constructed, obvious defects—say, a porch that was on the verge of collapse—would naturally lead you to suspect that its designer or builder was incompetent, careless, indifferent, or even malicious.
Well, what can we say about the world as we find it? “Is the world, considered in general and as it appears to us in this life,” Philo asks, “different from what a man or such a limited being would, beforehand, expect from a very powerful, wise, and benevolent Deity?” The answer, for Philo, is a resounding Yes! Of course it would be different. We can identify countless extremes, deficiencies, and forms of needless suffering whose correction would immediately make the world a better and happier place. Who could deny, for example, that the world would be instantly improved with the elimination of tens of thousands of childhood cancer deaths each year?
And yet evil persists—a fact noticed by thinkers as far back, at least, as Epicurus in ancient Greece. As Philo said:
Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?
It’s a difficult question to answer in the face of profound suffering. A supposedly all-powerful God—one without limits—could presumably eliminate all evil, let alone the lesser task of simply reducing the suffering that we can plainly see is pointless, or else misdirected at innocent children. So why doesn’t he do it? Is he malicious, indifferent, or perhaps not all-powerful after all? Or is it simply that he doesn’t exist?
Regardless of our answer, Philo makes an additional, crucial point. Even if we grant that there are reasons for evil that we cannot fathom—and therefore that the existence of evil is compatible with the existence of God—the presence of evil precludes our ability to definitively establish the fact. As Philo put it:
There may, for aught we know, be good reasons why Providence interposes not in this manner, but they are unknown to us; And, though the mere supposition that such reasons exist may be sufficient to save the conclusion concerning the divine attributes, yet surely it can never be sufficient to establish that conclusion.
Although the existence of evil may be compatible with the existence of God—due to the limitations of human reason—there’s a much more likely solution to the problem of evil that better fits the evidence. As Philo proposes:
There may four hypotheses be framed concerning the first causes of the universe: that they are endowed with perfect goodness; that they have perfect malice; that they are opposite and have both goodness and malice; that they have neither goodness nor malice. Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles; and the uniformity and steadiness of general laws seem to oppose the third. The fourth, therefore, seems by far the most probable.
And so we arrive, at best, at a form of limited deism—a conclusion embraced by many Enlightenment thinkers of the period. But this impersonal deist God—the only kind of God the design argument can plausibly establish—is indifferent to good and evil. If evil is to be diminished, then, it seems we must learn to do the work ourselves.
The Death of the Design Argument
We claimed earlier that Hume had dismantled the design argument more than a century before Darwin. We can now make good on that claim. Hume exposed a series of problems that, taken together, pose a devastating challenge to classical theism—even if you otherwise reject evolution, in whole or in part.
Hume first exposed the design argument’s reliance on a weak analogy and its fallacy of composition. It asks us to infer the cause of something unlike anything we have ever experienced, and then compounds the problem by inviting an infinite regress of designers. Even if the analogy were sound, therefore, it could never take us as far as its defenders want it to go.
More importantly, Hume showed that the design argument tells us almost nothing about the nature of its supposed designer. If the universe is the product of design, its designer might be one god or many; benevolent, indifferent, incompetent, or malicious. Indeed, the world’s evident imperfections and gratuitous suffering make the traditional conception of an omnipotent and benevolent designer especially difficult to sustain.
Hume’s final move was perhaps the most radical: rather than multiplying our assumptions by positing a supernatural designer, why not suppose that matter itself contains the principles by which order arises? Once the skeptic has exposed the weaknesses of the analogy, the God it was meant to establish becomes an unnecessary hypothesis.
Hume had therefore closed one of the great roads from reason to God: experience could not carry us from the world we observe to the God classical theism demanded. But what if we abandoned experience altogether and sought God through reason alone? That was the strategy of the ontological argument—and it was precisely here that Immanuel Kant would deliver the next great blow.
References and Further Reading
Boissonneault, Ryan. “The (Imaginary) God of Pure Reason: Kant on the Failure of Rational Theology.” Fighting the Gods, August 25, 2026. https://fightingthegods.com/the-imaginary-god-of-pure-reason-kant-on-the-failure-of-rational-theology/.
Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012.
O’Connor, David. Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hume on Religion. Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks. London: Routledge, 2001.