The necessity of a creative intelligence

Perhaps we can learn something about what Cleanthes means when he supposes that the universe is harmonious by seeing how he understands the second premise of the argument, which is the necessity of a creative intelligence.

Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble, and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has exe­cuted. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

What Cleanthes is arguing here is that just as we know, from expe­rience, that certain kinds of harmony are the product of human intelligence, so we may infer, by analogy, that other kinds of har­mony are the product of a similar intelligence.

Here, then, the argument for the necessity of a creative intelli­gence is an a posteriori argument by analogy whose conclusion is that nature's harmony, like the harmony of things made by human beings, is the result of intentional design. Does this help us to see more clearly what Cleanthes means when he says that means and ends are adapted to one another in nature? A little, I think. For it means that Cleanthes holds that there are many mutual adaptations in the universe that are very like the mutual adaptations in artifacts, such as watches and telescopes, that are made by human beings. The crucial thing, then, is that the kind of order that there is in the universe is sufficiently like the order displayed in human artifacts, which is why it is fitting that Cleanthes says, in effect, that the uni­verse is like an enormous machine, made up of smaller machines. This argument, whatever it is, is not the same as Aquinas' because it does not suppose that harmony must be the result of design. So it is not open to the objection I made in 8.8 against the necessity of a cre­ative intelligence. (I called it the “argument against the necessity of design.”) Cleanthes is only arguing that it is probable (or perhaps more probable than not) that the universe was made by an intelli­gent designer. That means that Cleanthes' argument is rather dif­ferent from Aquinas', because it doesn't assume the necessity of design.

8.11