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The very idea of design: what God couldn't do

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2004

RICHARD D. KORTUM
RICHARD D. KORTUM
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Humanities, East Tennessee State University, Box 70656, Johnson City, TE 37614-0656
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Abstract

This paper argues for the proposition that there is fundamental incoherence in the idea of a divine designer. Such a being would have to have intentions and thoughts prior to designing and making a world. But it is a necessary truth that thought – of the complex and articulated kind necessary for the design of a cosmos – presupposes possession of language. It is further necessarily true that language is impossible, save for beings who inhabit a public world containing other linguistic subjects. The divine designer would be the impossible exemplar of the private language, whose incoherence was demonstrated by Wittgenstein. Objections to this line of argument are noted and rebutted.

Even God can't whisper in His own ear.Isaak Babel

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 81 - 96
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

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