Watchmaker, God as

The identification of God as a supernatural watchmaker, a being equated with the Creator in the Book of Genesis 1–2, remains one of the most famous analogies in the history of religious thought, especially in ongoing discussions about creation and the beginning of time. Though other scholars like Robert Boyle had compared the universe to a clock, William Paley (1743–1805), the English clergyman, theologian, and Christian apologist, popularized this particular analogy in the opening paragraph of his 1802 classic work, Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature. In Paley's scenario, a thoughtful person finds a watch while crossing a heath; the walker notes the difference between the watch's complex mechanism, as opposed to a simple stone on the path. Paley suggested that this observer might well assume that the watch did not assemble itself or come together by accident. Instead, he said that the watch reflected design and function. Paley closed his argument by pointing to an inevitable inference: The watch's structure was no accident, and it must have had an intelligent maker, an artificer (or artificers) who designed and created it for a purpose.

This watchmaker analogy reflects Paley's background and special interest in “Christian apologetics” or “Christian evidences”—the title of another of his famous books, published earlier in 1794. The book also illustrates the Enlightenment tension between orthodox faith, materialism, and various forms of Deism, all of which found support for their positions in the work of Newton and other scientists and philosophers of that day. When William Paley wrote Natural Theology, he took his place in a long tradition of scholars (e.g., John Ray, William Derham) who acknowledged two kinds of revelation—that is, the printed word/scripture and nature. In this “Watchmaker Analogy,” which is actually a parable about the Creator, he reflected the spirit of Psalm 19:1 and related biblical texts: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy work” (King James Version, as read and quoted in Paley's era). Archdeacon Paley listed many examples of complex designs in the realms of biology and astronomy and, especially, anatomy (e.g., the eye, ear, heart, hand) and argued that such evidence points to the existence of a purposeful and good God. A reasonable observer accepts this inevitable inference, said Paley, because the amazing phenomena discussed in Natural History reflect far more complexity in form and function than the relatively simple mechanism of a watch. He argued like a lawyer as he enumerated example after example, though Paley claimed that the mechanism of human vision alone made the case for God's existence. Of course, a naturalistic explanation for the eyeball's gradual evolution became a cause célèbre for those who rejected supernatural intervention (e.g., Charles Darwin, and later, Richard Dawkins).

from the time of its original publication in 1802, Paley's version of the argument from design [Page 1420]or the ideological argument for the existence of god met with various reactions—from skeptics who found the analogy weak and unconvincing to believers who found the evidence reasonable and compelling. Students of Paley's metaphor must consider the critical questions raised by the earlier writings of Hume and the later conclusions reached by Darwin, most of whose teachers at Cambridge accepted the watchmaker analogy. Surprisingly, both Darwin and, more recently, Dawkins have praised Paley's literary style and logical method. Dawkins prefers Paley's willingness to propose answers to fundamental questions over Hume's skepticism. Even though Dawkins rejects Paley's watchmaker analogy, he appreciates the archdeacon's attempt to explain the way things work, while Hume merely criticized other points of view but proposed no alternative.

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