The planets all turn the same way: this system has a Lord
Newton's design argument (General Scholium)
This most beautiful system of the Sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. If the fixed stars are the centres of like systems, all are subject to One Lord.
Gravity keeps the planets in orbit but does not explain their layout, so regular while the comets roam everywhere.
"The planets all turn the same way: this system has a Lord" is an argument by Isaac Newton (Principia, 2nd ed. (1713), General Scholium; letters to Bentley (1692-1693), 1692) on the question "Does God exist?" (answer: theism). Its claim: This most beautiful system of the Sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. If the fixed stars are the centres of like systems, all are subject to One Lord. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.
Newton has just shown that gravity explains why the planets circle the Sun. He could stop there. In the General Scholium that closes the Principia, he asks one more question: what about the layout of the orbits? The six known planets turn in the same direction, almost in the same plane. Comets, by contrast, arrive from every direction. If mere mechanics were the whole story, why are some so orderly and others so free? For Newton, such regularity comes from a choice, and a choice has an author.
click a premise to reject it
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, one could accept P1 to P3 and say: perhaps there is a natural cause we do not yet know, for example an early state of the Sun that set everything in motion. That would be a cause, but not a design.
Objections
4Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1715 · attacks the conclusionLeibniz attacks the theology that goes with the physics of Newton and his followers: a God who must wind up his watch from time to time, or mend his work, would be a poor clockmaker. A perfect God foresaw from the start a world that runs without touch-ups.
a defender replies
Leibniz attacks the theology that goes with the physics of Newton and his followers: a God who must wind up his watch from time to time, or mend his work, would be a poor clockmaker. A perfect God foresaw from the start a world that runs without touch-ups.
Pierre-Simon de Laplace 1814 · attacks premise 3Laplace applies the calculus of probabilities to the regularity Newton had noted, and draws a different conclusion. That the 43 motions of the solar system go the same way is not chance: more than four thousand billion to one. So there is indeed a common cause. But that cause is physical: the Sun was once surrounded by a vast atmosphere which gave the planets their motion. A mechanical cause is enough.
a defender replies
Laplace applies the calculus of probabilities to the regularity Newton had noted, and draws a different conclusion. That the 43 motions of the solar system go the same way is not chance: more than four thousand billion to one. So there is indeed a common cause. But that cause is physical: the Sun was once surrounded by a vast atmosphere which gave the planets their motion. A mechanical cause is enough.
David Hume (Philo, in the Dialogues) 1779 · attacks the conclusionEven if one grants an order that calls for an intelligent cause, what do we know of that cause? Philo reminds us that an admirable work may come from a mediocre workman who copied others and often failed: many worlds may have been botched before this one. From a single world, one cannot say where the truth lies, nor even the probability.
no reply
Even if one grants an order that calls for an intelligent cause, what do we know of that cause? Philo reminds us that an admirable work may come from a mediocre workman who copied others and often failed: many worlds may have been botched before this one. From a single world, one cannot say where the truth lies, nor even the probability.
Immanuel Kant 1781 · attacks the conclusionKant admits that reasoning by analogy with works of human art is the surest road. But this proof shows at most an architect of the world, limited by the material he works on, not a creator to whom all things are subject. It does not prove Newton's almighty Lord.
no reply
Kant admits that reasoning by analogy with works of human art is the surest road. But this proof shows at most an architect of the world, limited by the material he works on, not a creator to whom all things are subject. It does not prove Newton's almighty Lord.