Table Of ContentThDei vine
Lawmaker
LECTUROENS
InducLtaiwoosfNn a,t ure,
Antdh Eex isotfGe ondc e
JohFno ster
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Preface
The Divine Lawmaker is a slightly revised version of a series of lectures that
I recently gave at the Univ<.'rsity of Oxford under the title of 'Induction,
Laws of Nature, and the Existence of Cod'-a title that explkitly indicates
the topks that form the.ir subject matter. Needless to say; I have not, in the
space of ten lectures, tried to cover all aspects of these topics, though I have
f
tried to deal in some depth with the speciic issues on which 1 focus. Nor, in
pursuing these issues, have I tried co provide anything approaching a com
prehensive review of the extensive relevant literature. Indeed, apart from
the detailed discussion of Armstrong's views on the nature of laws in
Lecture 6, l have, for the most part, prelerred to focus on the issues in the
abstract, rather than in the contrxt of what others have said about them.
I have preferred this because I think I .an cover the philosophical ground
chat I want to cover more simply and more dearly by proceeding in
this way.
Even with respect to the issues on which I focus, I have not tried to take
accow1t of all the considerations that bear on them. This must be espe
cially borne in mind in the case of the issue over the existence of God. As
I memion at the outset of the lectures, one of my aims is to provide an
argument for the existence of God-a God of a broadly Judaeo-Ch1i:;tian
type. I think that the particular argument I present is a powerful one, but it
is only one argument, not a wide-ranging general defence. lf I were aiming
to construct the strongest overall case forJudaeo-Chtistian theism, I would
want to deploy other arguments as well. The reason why I have restricted
my attention to this one aq:.,T1.1ment is that, in the contc�xt of these lectures,
my dialectical concern with the issue of theism is narrowly circumscribed.
In efef ct, I am only concerned with the possibility of the.ism as a way of
responding to two other issues, namely, how we should account for the
f
presence of natural regularities, and how, i at all, we can make sense of
the notion of a natural law And it is in relation to these issues that the rel
evant argument emerges.
In preparing the final version of the book, I was greatly helped by the
detailed comments of two OUP readers-Richard Swinburne and an
anonymous reader-who looked at an earlier draft. I am grateful tO
viii · Preface
f
Peter Momtchilof of the Press for organizing this, and to the readers
themselves, who took considerable trouble.
Lectures 2 and 4 contain passages that are drawn, sometimes with slight
changes, from my paper 'Induction, Explanation, and Natural Necessity',
in Proceedings of the Aristot-cUan Society, 83 (1982-3), and from my book
Ayer, Part fll, sections 1-5 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985). l am
grateful to the editor of the Aristotelian Society Proceedings and to the pub
lishers of the book for permission to re-use the relevant material here.
J. I'.
Oxjord,]uly 2003
Contents
Lect1u. rTehP er obolfIe nmd uction 1
LenureS2o.mA et temSpotleudt ions
17
Lect3u.rT ehN eo mologicalS-oElxuptliaonna tory
37
Lect4u.rT ew oO bjectNiEoSn s to
57
Lect5u. rTehP er obolfLe amw s 77
Lect6u.rA er mstrTohnego'rsy
94
Lect7u.rT ehS ec enwairtihoLo auwts 111
Lect8u.rT heTe h eiAsctciocu nt 128
Lect9u.rG eo adn Lda ws 149
Lect1u0.rC oem pletthPiein cgt ure
167
Bibliography 185
Index
189
LECTURIE
ThPer obolfeI mn duction
I
I have called thesclectures 'Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence
of God', and it is already dear from the title that I am intending to cover
quire a lot of ground. And, on the face of it, diverse ground. But there is a
connection between the difl'erent topics. One of my main aims is to pro
vide an argument for the existence of Cod a personal Cod of a broadly
Judaeo-Chrisrian type. But I want to get there in four stages, and it is in
these stages that the topics of induction and laws of nature feature.
I want to begin by looking at the familiar problem of induction and
tryingtoshowthatcertain ways of au·emptingtosolve it do not work. This
will occupy our attention for the first two lectures. After that-at stage
two-I want to introduce and defend what I think is, in it.,; core, the right
solution to the problem. It is a solution whi.eh the Australian philosopher
David t\rmstrong and I independently hit upon at virtually the same
time-Armstrong presenting it in his 1983 book \Vhat is a Law of Nature?,
I in my 1983 paper to the Aristotelian Society entitled 'Induction,
Explamition, and Natural Necessity'. Armstrong and I arc at opposite ends
of the metaphysical spectrum. Armstrong is the foremost. modern cham
pion of total materialism. I am one of the tew modern defenders of a
Cartesian conception of the mind; and, more exotically, J combine this
with an idealist view of the physical world (though this is something best
ignored in the context of these lectures), Both of us found it amusing, and
in a sense reassuring, that, with such contrasting metaphysical outlooks,
we managed to converge on the same view in this one area.
Now this solution to the problem of induction involves accepting the
existence of laws of nature, and it involves recognizing these laws not just
2 · The Problem of lndttclion.
as regularities in the behaviour of things (consistencies in how the world
works in different places and times), but as forms of natural necessity-as
laws whose obtaining e,isures that things behave and interact in certain
regular ways. It is this that brings the disrussion to its third stage. For
I want, in this next stage. to show that accepting the existence of laws of
this kind, though facilitating a solution to the problem of induction, cre
ates its own problem. The problem it creates is simply that, given the kind
of necessity they involve, it is hard to see how we can make sense of such
laws how the relevant notion of a law can be considered coherent.
It is in relation to this new problem that, in the final phase of the
discussion, l construct myar gument for the existence of God. For l argue
that, given the problem, we can only a��hieve a satisfactory account of
the situation if we accept that there is a God of the relevant (broadly
Judaeo-Christian) type, and that it is he who is the creator of the natural
world and the source of its laws. With the argument for theism in place,
Ibr ing the disrnssion to a dose by looking again at the issue of induction,
and showing how my earlier proposal needs to be reworked, in a certain
key respect, in response w the theistic outcome.
With the course of the discussion outlined, let us now turn to the initial
topic: the problem of induction. And we need to start by getting dear about
wh:H the problem is. Although he does nor use the term 'indunion', the
classic statement of the problem was provided by David Hume, in sections
IV and V ofhisAnRnquiry Concerning Hum.an Understanding. And if you have
not already done so, I would encourage you to read his powerful account.
II
Here is a coin, which l am holding in my hand. I could release itf rom my
grasp, l\·1y firm expectation itsha t, if I did, the coin would fall-fall straight
down till it reached some solid surface to give it support. I am quite
confident that thi.s would be the outcome-or would be unless there were
some spe(ial change in the circumstances presently obtaining, like a
sudden strong gust of wind or the force of an e.xplosion. Bue why should
I be so confident? The expected downward movement of the coin is only
one of infinitely many directions in which the coin could move. And then,
in addition, there are such possibilities as the coin staying suspended in
mid-air, or its breaking into a hundred fragments which move in different
directions, or its disappeadng altogether. If it were a matter of assigning
The Problem of lnAuction · 3
equal chances to all the logically possible outcomes, the. likelihood of the
downward movement would be infinitesimally small.
Well, the basic reason why r expect the coin to fall is because that is the
outcome which i� in line with how, in my experience, ol�jects like this are
known to have behaved in the past. Coins, and other similar objects, have,
when thus re.leased, always fallen- fallen straight down-or at least they
have done so unless there was some special reason (like the gust of wind or
the eA-plosion) to explain why thc.·y did not. But then the question becomes:
why should this kind of past regularity be a good reason for expecting future
cases to follow suit? It obviously does not hold as a matter of logic that if
things have happened in a certain way in the past, then they will go on hap
pening in that way in the future. From the premises that all unsupported
coins fall, and that thls, if released. will be an unsupported coin, I can indeed
validly deduce that this, if released, wi11 fall. But from the premises that all
unsupported <:oins have up until MW fallen, and that this. if released, will he
an unsupported coin, I obviously cannol validly deduce that this, if released,
will fall. But if my inference from the past regularity to the foture instance is
not deducLivdy valid, what is its rationale? Can it be justified at all?
Imtig ht be thought that what lies behind it, and justifies it. is the princi
ple that nature is uniform�that the fundamental ways in which things
behave in di.ffcrcnt parts and phases of the universe are constant. But such
a principle can only help to justify the inference if I know the principle to
he correct, or at least have some good reason to believe it. And what could
such a reasonb ci' The principle is not one which can be known a p1iori: it
is not a sdfcvident truth, or something deducible from self-evident tn1ths.
It is conceivable that difforent parts or phast:.s of the untverse work in quite
difterem ways; and we cannot then, on purely a priori ground'>, ruJe out
the possibility of some radical change in how things like coins will behave
in future. So my only reason for accepting the principle of uniformity
seems to be that it has held well enough hitherto. Ilut, of course, if this is
my only reason for accepting the principle, then I am relying on the same
kind of inference to justif)· accepting the principle as I was employing in
the first place to justify my expectation regarding the coin-an inference
from a knowledge of how things have been in the past to a conclusion that
they will go on in the same way in the future. So, in effect, appealing to the
principle of uniformity to justify my original inference would just beg
the question. If that kind of inference needed justification in the original
case, it would equally need it in the case of the principle too. In short,
I seem to have made no progress in finding a rationale for my expectation
4 The Problem of Induction
about the coin. I remain confident that if released, it will fall. But I cannot
seem to find any gronnds or justifkation for this confidence.
Now this is an illustration of the problem of induction. Inductive
inference, as I shall here understand it, is a form of cxtrapol.ative interence.1
\Ve know that a certain regularity has held among the observed (exam
ined) cases; and, by induction, we infer that this regularity will extend to
some not as yet observed (not as yet examined) case or class of cases. So we
know that, in our expe1ience so far, coins, and such like, when released in
such and such circumstances. have always fallen, and we condude that this
coin, if now released in these drcumstances, will foll. Or again, we know
that, in our experience so far, ravens have always been black, and we
cond ude that all ravens in a certain ( as yet unexamined) wood are black
Or again, we know rhat, in our experience so far, water has always
expanded when frozen, and we conclude that water, always and every
where, expands when frozen. Quite generally, in the most straightforward
cases. the form of the inference is from the knowledge that all the exam
ined F�rhings have been G to the conclusion that a certain mi.examined
F-thing is G, or that a certain group of unexamined F-things are G, or that
all F-things are G, Notice how the conclusion can vary in extrapolative
scope: it may be merely the r.onclusion that a particular unexamined c.ase
will turn out a certain way (this coin, if released now, will fall'), or it may
be, more strongly, the conclusion that a certain range of unexamined cases
will turn our that way ('all the ravens in yonder wood are black'), or it may
be, still more strongly, the conclusion that all unexamined cases wilt turn
out that way (\'vatcr, always a11d everywhere, expands when frozen'). The
form of the inference is subject: to other kinds of variation too. Thus some
times the knowledge which forms the basis of the inference is not that
all the examined cases are of a certain type, but only that most are, or that a
certain proportion are. And, correspondingly, the conclusion inductively
inferred is sometimes merely that a certain unexamined case will probably
be of tht; relevant type, or that the relevanl type will or.cur among the
unexamined cases with a certain relative frequency. But, for the time being
at least, it will be best to put these further variations on one side and focus
on the more straightforward types of inference we first identified-where
we move from a knowledge of how things have universally been with
respect to the examined cases to a conclusion about how they will
1 Some philosophers use the term 'induction' in a hroad-,r sense, to cover certain <>the.
non-deductive forms of inference mo. ln my usage, induction is always extrapolative.
