Natural-law argument
The natural-law argument states that because there are consistent and predictable natural laws in the universe, there must be a law-giver who set those laws in motion. That law-giver is assumed to be God.
"People observed the planets going round the sun according to the law of gravitation, and they thought that God had given a behest to these planets to move in that particular fashion, and that was why they did so. That was, of course, a convenient and simple explanation that saved them the trouble of looking any further for explanations of the law of gravitation."
- "[...] the laws of nature cannot exist without nature itself existing but the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws. The logical conclusion is that science cannot, by its very nature, explain the origin of the universe. The only alternative is that the laws of nature did pre-exist the universe but existed as a kind of blueprint in some non-material medium such as the “mind of God”.[2]"
It is closely related to the Fine-tuning argument which claims the precise balance of cosmological constants that allow the observable universe to exist as it does implies God exists.
Argument[edit]
Syllogism[edit]
- p1. There are natural laws which govern the universe
- p2. All laws have a law giver
- c1. That law giver is God
Counter arguments[edit]
False premise p1: Natural laws[edit]
This argument relies on equivocation between two meanings of the word "law".
Legislative laws, such as "Do not murder" or "No littering" are prescriptive: they are established to demarcate acceptable and unacceptable behavior. If a person breaks such a law, he or she has committed a crime, and may be subject to punishment.
Natural laws, on the other hand, are descriptive: they are human concepts that describe how some aspect of the universe behaves. For instance, Newton's law of motion F = ma describes how solid objects behave when acted upon by a force. If a person or object breaks a physical law, then it is the law that is in error, since it obviously does not adequately describe what it seeks to describe. However, there are natural laws that are at odds with one another and are still taken to be true because there is a clear and consistent pattern. For example, entities governed by the laws of quantum mechanics do not follow the same thermodynamic laws that govern the macro universe.
"We now find that a great many things we thought were Natural Laws are really human conventions. You know that even in the remotest depth of stellar space there are still three feet to a yard. That is, no doubt, a very remarkable fact, but you would hardly call it a law of nature.[1]"
- — Bertrand Russell[1]
This is peripherally related to the Transcendental argument for god, in that it heavily confuses a conceptual abstraction with concrete reality.
False premise p2: The law giver[edit]
The laws in question are descriptive abstractions of what the universe does, not prescriptive legislations about what the universe can do. As such they do not require a law giver, but as long as a law giver is being asserted, it opens up the question of where god got his laws. This opens up a paradox somewhat similar to the euthyphro dilemma.
"Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others? If you say that he did it simply from his own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted. If you say, as more orthodox theologians do, that in all the laws which God issues he had a reason for giving those laws rather than others -- the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, although you would never think it to look at it -- if there was a reason for the laws which God gave, then God himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary."
- — Bertrand Russell[1]
Broken compass c1: Which god?[edit]
- Main Article: Which god?
The argument is an argument from ignorance, god of the gaps and a broken compass argument. The origin of natural laws may have some unknown cause that is not even divine! Other explanations such as the multiverse or cosmological natural selection have not been ruled out.
Even if we grant the false premises that there are prescriptive natural laws, and by extension the existence of a lawgiver god, it does not follow that that god is the one the apologist has in mind, or even that there is only one god involved. It could just as likely be the Flying Spaghetti Monster, purple space pixies, Santa Claus, or invisible pink unicorns, as it could be Yahweh.
We don't even know if the laws of nature are contingent (that they could have been something other than they are)! Perhaps they had to take the form they have now.
See Also[edit]
References[edit]
External Links[edit]
- God & Natural Law – Article by Jason Lisle PhD on, Answers In Genesis.
- Wikipedia:Natural law – Wikipedia article on true natural law
- Wikipedia:Legislation – Wikipedia article on legislative law
- Wikipedia:Natural-law argument – Wikipedia article on the Natural-law argument for god
- Wikipedia:Deductive reasoning - Wikipedia article on deductive reasoning and logical validity
