Structural Order. Teleology is order in activity, and is therefore called dynamic order. But
there is also the order of structure. Structural order ; is the harmonious arrangement of diverse integral parts in one pattern or configuration. Thus the frond of a fern or palm has leaflets or blades, arranged along the stern in a recognizable pattern. Structural order is characterized by symmetry and proportion. Symmetry is the repetition of some feature, as in the similarity of two leaflets on opposite sides of the stem, or the two eyes of an animal. Proportion is the gradation of a feature or character according to a more or less fixed ratio; thus in the frond the row of leaflets on either side of the stem is arranged in gradually diminishing sizes from the base to the tip. Structural order is observable in the wings of a bird, in a snowflake, in a frost- flower on a window-pane. In fact, a most interesting study is the examination of natural objects, even with a microscope, to discover their intricate and amazing structures. Moreover, X-rays disclose a structure in the very atoms themselves.
It is true that structure is often suitable for useful activity, still it can be recognized without our knowing its utility. Hence, structural order, apart from dynamic order, furnishes independent evidence for intelligence. But since the formation of the arguments the same in both cases, we combine the evidence from both sources to one set of proofs. And although we recognize purposive activity from its useful results, which we contend could not be attained unless intended, structural order is recognized by merely noting its symmetry and proportion, without our being required to know its purpose. It must not be thought, however, that structural order is necessarily immobile and unchangeable. The structure of an organism changes in its progress from the germ state to that of maturity; and when the organism dies, the same matter is taken up by ether organisms to be formed into other structures. Included under structure are the arrangement and shading of colors, as in flowers, butterflies and practically all animals. We may even extend the term to graceful motion; and, on the authority of musicians, to the very bird songs, which, to be truly musical, must have harmonious “structure.”
Many things, when taken on a large scale, as mountains and the stars, have no symmetry or proportion. By reason of their immensity and their inherent mystery, they can only be denominated as sublime and as transcending the status of mere patterns. Nevertheless, on a small scale, the very crystals of granite and the atoms which are known to exist in the stars, have a minute and intricate structural order. Order cannot be explained by_chance
much less can its repetition and continuance be so explained. The only alternative is intelligence. And whether that Intelligence created the world, or merely arranged and operates it, to reject His existence is to dethrone reason.
Thesis 2. The material universe displays purposive finality and structural order, for which the ultimate reason must be sought in a supramundane intelligent cause.
Part 1. Intelligence is required
All grant that there is marvelous order in nature, that countless specimens of natural objects exhibit an in an intricate structure, and act and interact in such a way as to preserve and develop a highly ordered universe. But such order can be explained only on the ground that some intelligence intended it.
The minor. a) There is no other sufficient cause, as is acknowledged by the conviction of all mankind in much simpler effects. Let a man but discover on some lone island a crude tomahawk or a sundial, and no amount of argument will persuade him that these things were the product of unreasoning nature. The human mind recognizes an
essential connection between fitness and intention.
Our experience also warrants the conviction that a highly complicated order cannot result
otherwise than from intelligent selection and arrangement of the parts. We cannot so much as lay a tile floor in a simple pattern of alternate colors unless we be allowed to see the color of each tile, and thus recognize its fitness for its particular place. The same is true of the construction of the simplest implement or machine. One may construct a photographic camera which with proper adjustment will focus an object before it, but he cannot secure this effect without intelligent selection and arrangement of the materials to that end. Yet every eye regularly represents what is before it, even the most shifting scenes. And if the ordered performances of the eye are worthy of years of study, what shall we say of the order throughout the universe from atom to solar system?
(c) Moreover, the order in the universe does not happen just once,—as might be said of a still picture.
There is constant change in every instant of time, and always there is order preserved in all the mutations and developments. To attempt to explain such progressive results, achieved by astounding coordination and cooperation of the constituent elements, without having recourse to an intelligent cause is to stultify the human mind.
(d) The appeal to the inexorable necessity of the world processes merely distracts the attention from the thing to be explained, namely, that they are ordered processes whatever their necessity.
The intelligence is supramundane
Argument. The material universe gives evidence of intelligence as the cause of its order. But this cause is not the world itself. Therefore it is extramundane.
The major was proved in part one.
The minor. The natural objects under discussion do recognize ends as such themselves, and consequently are not themselves intelligent. Man, in his deliberate acts is indeed exempted from the discussion; but no one holds that man is accountable for the world’s order.
Noit. Ths!Jtre that the Ajhthcrld’ a is absolutel infinite but t proves that 11e is superor to the world an Ininct from it, and omnipotent at least to the extent that He is more powerful than all the forces of. the material universe, since He established them and put them in order.
Difficulties.
The end does not exist until the action is done, But what does not exist until the action is done cannot be a motive for the action.
Reply. The end is not obtained in external fact until the action is done, I grant; the end does not exist in the mind as something intended before the action is done, I. deny.
2. The world is ruled by chance. An oak, e.g., will produce thousands of acorns in vain compared to the few that may grow into other oaks.
Reply. Even granting that none of the acorns ever grow into an oak, it is clear that they are fitted to do so, and hence manifest finality; the oak is thus producing by the thousands, concrete arguments for our thesis. Moreover the acorns are serviceable as food for animals and for enriching the soil for further vegetation; they are fit not only for the bonun sibi, but bonum allius as well. This inter-service of the parts of
the universe gives us still more overwhelming evidence of finality. And even confining our consideration to the primary end of propagation of the species, the tremendous insistence of nature that nothing shall thwart that end is emphasized by the prolific profusion of seeds. If we, furthermore, turn our attention to structure, we see that the intricate pattern of each acorn requires a marvelous Artist. To the parsimonious such profusion may seem a useless waste, but since it is all ultimately for man’s enlightenment, it my easily be justified on the sole ground of manifesting to man the liberality of the Creator.
3. In living beings there are many rudimentary organs are entirely useless; e.g.. the vermiform appendix, the eyes of the mole, the muscles for moving the human ear, etc. Reply. We might grant that these structures have no purpose whatsoever, and never had any, nor ever will have, without in the least infringing the argument for finality. There is so overpowering an abundance of evidence for purpose that we do not need these few remnants as though they were Indispensable to the argument. Were we proving that the Author of nature is infinitely wise, we might, perhaps, be called upon to explain some such apparent discrepancies. The objection attempts to ignore the point at issue, which is not whether God be absolutely infinite in His wisdom and whether in such case He might produce apparently useless things; he question is whether He is endowed with intelligence or entirely without it. As a matter of fact the manifest order of the world is too great for us ever to sound the depths of the Intelligence responsible for it. The more we investigate the more astoundingly the marvels of order open to our view. The fact that we have not yet discovered the purpose of a natural object is no sign that it has none. Even now the medical profession is discovering purposes of the appendix. Also the uniformity of structural design is evidence of intelligence in the Maker, just as the aptitude to reproduce at structure is an evidence of finality in the natural agent
4. Science follows the principle of closed causality, i.e. not to seek outside the world for an explanation of things in the world. But such a principle excludes an extramundane causes of the world’s order.
Reply. The scope of physical science is to discover the integral parts of bodies and to formulate laws of their activities; hence it is not called upon to give any explanation beyond that such and such is the nature of their bodies. Science takes nature as dataum, but if it be true science it does not condemn the philosophical attempt to explain nature. On the contrary scientific investigation supplies philosohpy with abundant data from which to reason to an extramundane cause of the world’s order. Thus science, whether willingly or not, becomes an ancilla philosophiae.
5. Out of all the combinations possible to chance the present world order is one. Therefore that order may be due to chance.
Reply.. When we consider that there is order in each single atom, and molecule, and crystal, and cell, and organ, and organism, and in the interrelation of all the various classes of beings, and that there is cooperation to a refined degree among all the forms of energy, and when we reflect on the countless constituents of the material world, we begin to see how futile is the appeal to chance. But that is not all; the world is in a condition of constant change, and has been so, according to science, for millions of years. The astounding chance which the objection postulates for any given instant of that time must be repeated all over again in that infinitesimal fraction of the world’s duration; for order is preserved throughout the continuous change. Such an occurrence is mathematically and metaphysically impossible. The idea of its happening by chance even once makes the mind reel …
6. Given a certain amount of matter, equipped with certain forces, and granted that the matter thus diversified he distributed in the proper ratio and collocation, then all the physical and chemical processes which we recognize as world result necessarily. But what results necessarily does not require intelligence. Therefore world-processes do not require intelligence.
Reply. If what results is disorder, I grant that it does not require intelligence. If what results is an ordered series of events. then, that it does not require intelligence, I deny. The objection, in fact, fails on four counts. (a) it supplies that finality does not omit the natural agent_to act
That supposition is false. For, as we have seen, finality does not exclude necessity in the activity of the immediate material agent. (b) The objection is silent on the exact point at issue, which is not that the forces act and interact with necessity, but that they do so in such a way that a very complicated and highly ordered universe results and continues unceasingly to result and develop. This is the fact that ways stares us in the face, and from which the clamor about necessity (which no one denies) can never distract our attention. Necessity is irrelevant: it can be present in activities that produce disorder, as in the wreck of a railway train; it can be present in activities that produce order, as in the smoothly operating machine. Necessity in activity is not opposed to finality, it is opposed to freedom. But wherever there is order whether in free or necessary actions, intelligence alone can be responsible for the order. So much for the explanation of the distinction given at the beginning of our reply. Furthermore, (c) reason cannot grant the postulate that plants and animals, and even the intellect of man, are, as the objection supposes, purely the results of physico-chernical forces. Finally, (d) the postulate begs the question, for it implies that matter with its forces and arrangement is unproduced and self-evident, that it not only acts necessarily but exists necessarily, that it is a se, or in other words the absolutely ultimate reality, and that therefore no further explanation of world-order can possibly be found. To ask that we grant such a postulate is tantamount to asking that we
grant the conclusion of the argument before the argument begins.
7. Nature is a machine. But a machine needs no intelligence.
Reply. Nature is more than a mere machine. Even a machine, however, needs an intelligent builder, and usually an intelligent operator.
8. In storms, earthquakes and other cataclysms, as well as in the case of monstrosites, physical defects, death and other evils, the forces of nature produce disorder rather than order.
Reply. The immediate and obvious effects may be disorder and to that extent may fail to offer any evidence for our thesis. For all that, the remote effects are frequently a good to nature in general, and can be made to serve a beneficial purpose at least in the moral life of man.
9. Many things in nature are abhorrent, as pain, parasites, the struggle for existence. But these things cannot be considered as intended by a wise and beneficent Creator.
Reply. The examples cited give evidence of intelligence, whether pleasant or not. Our task here is to show that the Author of the world is intelligent. We leave to theodicy the vindication of His wisdom and goodness.
