ARGUMENTS FOR MONOTHEISM 207the inference of a creative Lord which claims to be in agreement
with observation is refuted by reasoning which itself is in agree-
ment with observation, and we hence conclude that Scripture is
the only source of knowledge with regard to a supreme soul that
is the Lord of all and constitutes a highest Brahman.^33David Hume, in his famous Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,
offers criticisms similar to those of Ramanuja.^34 He views the argument
from design as an inductive argument. The property relevant to the
inductive inference is something like orderliness or behaving in specifiable,
predictable ways always or for the most part. The things relevant to the
inference are artifacts, like clocks, and natural objects, like apples or sheep.
One is invited to infer from a sample class of which one has had experience
(artifacts having been produced by an observable designer by an observable
process) to a reference class of which one has had only partial relevant
experience (one has observed natural objects though one has not observed
them being caused to possess orderliness by a non-human intelligence). So
the premises concern there being artifacts and natural objects, and both
having orderliness. The conclusion is that natural objects are caused to have
orderliness by a non-human intelligence.
The connecting premises point to the cause of orderliness in artifacts,
namely human intelligence. The core idea is that inferring that orderliness
in natural objects should be taken to have the same sort of cause – an
intelligent mind – and obviously human minds do not cause orderliness in
apples and goats.^35
Hume makes these objections among others:
(a) there are other explanations of orderliness in natural objects
than that they were designed – for example, natural objects
might have a sort of intrinsic order, being by nature organisms
or natural machines produced by natural processes;
(b) we cannot in principle observe natural objects being caused
to have orderliness by non-human intelligence nor can we in
principle observe natural objects being caused to have orderli-
ness by something else; observing an apple grow or a goat give
birth are examples of orderliness, not explanations of orderli-
ness of the sort disputers regarding the argument from design
are concerned with;
(c) there is no lawlike connection that we can know of between
natural objects possessing orderliness and natural objects being
caused to have orderliness by X, whether “X” is filled in by ref-
erence to intelligence, natural processes, or anything else, and
legitimate inductive inferences ride the rails of natural laws.