Faith & Science Icon Faith & Science
Intelligent Design Icon Intelligent Design

John Maynard Keynes on Why the “Argument from Design” Is Not to Be Confused with Theology


Yesterday ENV pointed out the story of Charles Darwin’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Laura Keynes, a self-described Catholic apologist who, as an agnostic, got turned off by New Atheist intolerance and decided to pursue an authentically skeptical course of thought inspired by Darwin himself. She thereby found religion.
The article where she’s profiled, in the British Catholic Herald, also mentions that she is from a sort of skeptical aristocracy, well known in England:

Although Keynes hails from Britain’s sceptical “intellectual aristocracy” — a web of families including the Galtons, Benns, Keynes and Darwins — among her family members was a 17th-century Jesuit, Fr John Keynes, who wrote “A Rational Compendious Way to convince without any Despite, all Persons Whatsoever dissenting from the True Religion.”

Presumably the Keynes family referred to there includes the economist John Maynard Keynes. Which is interesting in itself because a correspondent just sent along a nifty quote from Keynes that nicely defines the “argument from the design” and explains why it’s not to be confused with theology:

4. The discussion of final causes and of the argument from design has suffered confusion from its supposed connection with theology. But the logical problem is plain and can be determined upon formal and abstract considerations. The argument is in all cases simply this — an event has occurred and has been observed which would be very improbable � priori if we did not know that it had actually happened; on the other hand, the event is of such a character that it might have been not unreasonably predicted if we had assumed the existence of a conscious agent whose motives are of a certain kind and whose powers are sufficient.

The source is Keynes’s 1921 book, A Treatise on Probability, p. 340, which you can find free at Project Gutenberg.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

Share

Tags

Views