Refutation of Deism, Book Review

Today I read Refutation of Deism by Percy Bysshe Shelley, found here: (link) it is Shelley's argument against William Paley's Watchmaker/intelligent design hypothesis. It seemed to me that Shelley was trying to use the style of argument found in Plato's dialogues, with two fictional Greek characters having the discussion.

One character, Theosophus, is the deist, the other, Eusebes, argues against deism. However, at first I was confused, because Eusebes starts off rebuking Theosophus for his need for evidence and his rejection of the christianity of faith in miracles and revelation. I think Shelley must have been trying to be ironic or sarcastic. Most of Eusebes's replies to Theosophus's deistic intelligent design argument consisted in dismantling the material necessity for a creator.

The dialog ends with Theosophus conceding that Eusebes gives a good argument for atheism, but since he can not give up his belief in god, he will resort to whatever form and practice of traditional Christianity that he can stomach.

I found the arguments against intelligent design very reasonable and well thought out. They comprised the main body of the dialog. There were many quotable portions, including "To suppose some existence above and beyond (the natural laws) is to invent a second and superfluous hypothesis to account for what has already been accounted for by the laws of motion and properties of matter. "

This essay is only 30 pages long, but does take some time to decode and digest.