Week 9 Discussion — Does Order or Evil Settle the Question? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

Picture a watch lying on a heath, its gears fitted so the hands mark the hours, and then picture a town after a flood that no one caused. William Paley thought the first scene points to a designer, and J. L. Mackie argued that scenes like the second are hard to square with a God who is wholly good and all-powerful.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Paley argues by analogy that, as a watch found on a heath shows a watchmaker, the order of living things shows a designer. How strong is that analogy? Take a position, put one of Hume's objections at its strongest and reply to it, and test your view against one well-ordered thing from your own field or life, such as a cell, a bridge, a song, or a team.

Option B: Does the problem of evil, in its logical or its evidential version, give a strong reason against the existence of a God who is wholly good and omnipotent, or does the free will defense or a soul-making theodicy meet it? Take a position on how well one response works, and test it against one kind of natural evil, such as a flood, a drought, or a wildfire.

There is no single right answer. Careful thinkers of every belief, and of none, still disagree about both questions. You are arguing about how strong an argument is; you never have to say what you personally believe about God.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, say how strong Paley's analogy is, judge it for strength rather than validity, and test your view on one well-ordered thing from your field or life; for Option B, say how well the free will defense or a soul-making theodicy meets the problem of evil, and test it on one kind of natural evil.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (design argument, argument from analogy, the watch on the heath, Hume's objections, logical problem of evil, evidential problem of evil, moral evil, natural evil, free will defense, soul-making theodicy) correctly.
• State the side you reject in its strongest form, give your reason, and say what would change your mind.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
• Keep every example you give away from any particular religion's teachings and away from a real person's private loss, and never name a real person in a case.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: state the strongest version of the poster's view in your own words, ask whether their example really fits the option they chose, or offer a variation that pulls the other way. "Nice point!" on its own does not count. Reply to the reasoning, never to anyone's beliefs.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option A. I think Paley's analogy has some strength but less than he hoped, and a suspension bridge is my test. A bridge's cables, towers, and deck fit together to carry a load, and I know an engineering team planned it. An eye's parts fit together to let a creature see, which is the likeness Paley's argument needs. Hume's strongest objection is that the universe is as much like a plant as like a machine, since a plant grows from within rather than being built from outside. I grant that a living thing is more like a plant than a bridge. But the argument only needs the likeness in one feature, parts fitted to a purpose, so I think it keeps some support. What would change my mind is a clear account of how parts fitted to a purpose could arise with no planning at all.

Notice how it takes a position on the argument's strength, states the other side at its strongest, ties the reason to the argument from analogy and Hume's objection as the course defines them, and says what would change the writer's mind. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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