Designer watch?

One of the most influential Christian apologists in the 18th century was inspired by a pocket watch in his presentation of the faith.

William Paley (1743–1805) was an Anglican minister, mathematician, and philosopher. He wrote extensively on arguments in favour of miracles, the reliability of the New Testament, and fulfilled prophecy in the life of Jesus. His works became standard textbooks at Cambridge University.

But Paley’s most famous argument starts with the story of finding a watch abandoned on heathland. In Natural Theology he compares finding the watch with finding a stone. If we asked how they happen to be there, the stone needs no explanation. Natural processes are enough to explain the presence of a stone. However, the watch can’t be dismissed so easily.

The design inference

Paley writes: ‘Its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose.’ The watch is an intricate mechanism requiring several carefully designed parts to work together for the entire watch to function. This simple observation leads to a natural inference, ‘the watch must have had a maker … who comprehended its construction, and designed its use’. After this simple observation, Paley goes on to supply a vast range of evidence for such design in nature – from muscles, bones, insects, plants, and even astronomy. All around us we see evidence of irreducible complexity and design that cannot be explained by chance or natural processes alone.

In 1828 a young naturalist, Charles Darwin, arrived at Cambridge University and came to occupy the same room that had once belonged to William Paley. Darwin loved the work of Paley and had found his design argument conclusive. However, in the course of time Darwin would be considered Paley’s nemesis. The key theme of his book On the Origin of Species (1859) would be an explanation of how natural mechanisms, far more complex than a Rolex, could form through natural processes. Charles Darwin still believed in a watchmaker. But instead of a benevolent and purposeful God, the designer was, in Richard Dawkins’ words, ‘a blind watchmaker’ – pitiless and indifferent natural processes.

God of the gaps

One of the key objections to William Paley’s examples of design are apparent imperfections. What about examples of poor design and suffering? Darwin thought this a fatal objection. Paley was aware of this problem and had addressed it, writing ‘… is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to shew with what design it was made.’ There are reasons why a design may be optimal for a particular task without being perfect for every possible task.

Paley has often been dismissed as arguing for a ‘god of the gaps’. The claim is that Christians appeal to God, a designer, to explain what we cannot understand, such as irreducible complexity in nature. But the modern resurgence of interest in William Paley shows that his argument never relied on a God of the gaps. Paley was inspired by the things we do understand to infer the existence of a designer. And, in the decades since, we have discovered layers of complexity far beyond anything known to Darwin or Paley. The language of DNA and nanomachines of microbiology have given fresh impetus to the design inference. In other words, Paley’s argument was not based on what we don’t know, but upon what we do know. Far from being a ‘god of the gaps’, he is a God revealed by the very things we have found in the gaps. William Paley encourages us to see that one route to God is an enthusiasm for the natural sciences.

At Christ’s College, Cambridge, the portraits of Charles Darwin and William Paley hang side by side, seeming to stare at each other. Perhaps that reminds us the gap between Darwin and Paley is not as vast as some might think. They were both enthusiasts for science. But it also reminds us what a difference faith makes to our perspective. Two men looking through the same prison bars, one sees mud and the other sees stars.