Teleological arguments
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The teleological argument (from ; also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world which looks designed is evidence of an intelligent creator. The earliest recorded versions of this argument are associated with Socrates in ancient Greece, although it has been argued that he was taking up an older argument.Ahbel-Rappe, Sara, and R. Kamtekar. 2009. ''A Companion to Socrates''. John Wiley & Sons. p. 45. " Xenophon attributes to Socrates what is probably the earliest known
natural theology Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science. This distinguishes it from ...
, an argument for the existence of the gods from observations of design in the physical world."
Plato and Aristotle developed complex approaches to the proposal that the cosmos has an intelligent cause, but it was the
Stoics Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
who, under their influence, "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'".Sedley 2007, p. xvii.
Abrahamic religion The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran. Jewish tradition ...
s have used the teleological argument in many ways, and it has a long association with them. In the Middle Ages, Islamic theologians such as Al-Ghazali used the argument, although it was rejected as unnecessary by Quranic literalists, and as unconvincing by many Islamic philosophers. Later, the teleological argument was accepted by
Saint Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
and included as the fifth of his " Five Ways" of proving the existence of God. In early modern England clergymen such as William Turner and
John Ray John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after ...
were well-known proponents. In the early 18th century, William Derham published his ''Physico-Theology'', which gave his "demonstration of the being and attributes of God from his works of creation". Later, William Paley, in his 1802 ''
Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity ''Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity'' is an 1802 work of Christian apologetics and philosophy of religion by the English clergyman William Paley (1743–1805). The book expounds his arguments from natural ...
'' published a prominent presentation of the design argument with his version of the
watchmaker analogy The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer, especially intelligent design by an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy ...
and the first use of the phrase "argument from design"."Design". '' Oxford English Dictionary'', substantive number 4. From its beginning, there have been numerous criticisms of the different versions of the teleological argument, and responses to its challenge to the claims against non-teleological natural science. Especially important were the general logical arguments made by David Hume in his ''
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion'' is a philosophical work by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published in 1779. Through dialogue, three philosophers named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence. Whet ...
'', published in 1779, and the explanation of biological complexity given in Charles Darwin's '' Origin of Species'', published in 1859. Since the 1960s, Paley's arguments have been influential in the development of a creation science movement which used phrases such as "design by an intelligent designer", and after 1987 this was rebranded as " intelligent design", promoted by the intelligent design movement which refers to an
intelligent designer An intelligent designer, also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the hypothetical willed and self-aware entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term "intelligent cause" ...
. Both movements have used the teleological argument to argue against the modern scientific understanding of evolution, and to claim that supernatural explanations should be given equal validity in the public school science curriculum. Also starting already in classical Greece, two approaches to the teleological argument developed, distinguished by their understanding of whether the natural order was literally created or not. The non-creationist approach starts most clearly with Aristotle, although many thinkers, such as the
Neoplatonists Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ide ...
, believed it was already intended by Plato. This approach is not creationist in a simple sense, because while it agrees that a cosmic intelligence is responsible for the natural order, it rejects the proposal that this requires a "creator" to physically make and maintain this order. The Neoplatonists did not find the teleological argument convincing, and in this they were followed by medieval philosophers such as Al-Farabi and
Avicenna Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...
. Later, Averroes and Thomas Aquinas considered the argument acceptable, but not necessarily the best argument. While the concept of an intelligence behind the natural order is ancient, a rational argument that concludes that we can know that the natural world has a designer, or a creating intelligence which has human-like purposes, appears to have begun with classical philosophy. Religious thinkers in Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism,
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
and Christianity also developed versions of the teleological argument. Later, variants on the argument from design were produced in Western philosophy and by
Christian fundamentalism Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and ...
. Contemporary defenders of the teleological argument are mainly Christians, for example Richard Swinburne and
John Lennox John Carson Lennox (born 7 November 1943) is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist and Christian apologist. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and faith (like his books, ''Has Science Buried Go ...
.


Classical philosophy


Socrates and the pre-Socratics

The argument from intelligent design appears to have begun with Socrates, although the concept of a cosmic intelligence is older and David Sedley has argued that Socrates was developing an older idea, citing
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae Anaxagoras (; grc-gre, Ἀναξαγόρας, ''Anaxagóras'', "lord of the assembly";  500 –  428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, ...
, born about 500 BC, as a possible earlier proponent. The proposal that the order of nature showed evidence of having its own human-like "intelligence" goes back to the origins of Greek natural philosophy and science, and its attention to the orderliness of nature, often with special reference to the revolving of the heavens. Anaxagoras is the first person who is definitely known to have explained such a concept using the word "''
nous ''Nous'', or Greek νοῦς (, ), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real. Alternative English terms used in p ...
''" (which is the original Greek term that leads to modern English "intelligence" via its Latin and French translations). Aristotle reports an earlier philosopher from
Clazomenae Klazomenai ( grc, Κλαζομεναί) or Clazomenae was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia and a member of the Ionian League. It was one of the first cities to issue silver coinage. Its ruins are now located in the modern town Urla n ...
named Hermotimus who had taken a similar position. Amongst
Pre-Socratic philosophers Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...
before Anaxagoras, other philosophers had proposed a similar intelligent ordering principle causing life and the rotation of the heavens. For example Empedocles, like
Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
much earlier, described cosmic order and living things as caused by a cosmic version of love, and Pythagoras and Heraclitus attributed the cosmos with " reason" ('' logos''). In his ''
Philebus The ''Philebus'' (; occasionally given as ''Philebos''; Greek: ) is a Socratic dialogue written in the 4th century BC by Plato. Besides Socrates (the main speaker) the other interlocutors are Philebus and Protarchus. Philebus, who advocates the ...
'' 28c Plato has Socrates speak of this as a tradition, saying that "all philosophers agree—whereby they really exalt themselves—that mind (''
nous ''Nous'', or Greek νοῦς (, ), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real. Alternative English terms used in p ...
'') is king of heaven and earth. Perhaps they are right." and later states that the ensuing discussion "confirms the utterances of those who declared of old that mind (''nous'') always rules the universe". Xenophon's report in his '' Memorabilia'' might be the earliest clear account of an argument that there is evidence in nature of intelligent design.Ahbel-Rappe, Sara. 2009.
Socrates: A Guide for the Perplexed
'.
p. 27
The word traditionally translated and discussed as "design" is '' gnōmē'' and Socrates is reported by Xenophon to have pressed doubting young men to look at things in the market, and consider whether they could tell which things showed evidence of ''gnōmē'', and which seemed more to be by blind chance, and then to compare this to nature and consider whether it could be by blind chance., pp. 273–75.. In Plato's '' Phaedo'', Socrates is made to say just before dying that his discovery of Anaxagoras' concept of a cosmic ''nous'' as the cause of the order of things, was an important turning point for him. But he also expressed disagreement with Anaxagoras' understanding of the implications of his own doctrine, because of Anaxagoras'
materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...
understanding of causation. Socrates complained that Anaxagoras restricted the work of the cosmic ''nous'' to the beginning, as if it were uninterested and all events since then just happened because of causes like air and water. Socrates, on the other hand, apparently insisted that the demiurge must be "loving", particularly concerning humanity. (In this desire to go beyond Anaxagoras and make the cosmic ''nous'' a more active manager, Socrates was apparently preceded by
Diogenes of Apollonia Diogenes of Apollonia ( ; grc, Διογένης ὁ Ἀπολλωνιάτης, Diogénēs ho Apollōniátēs; 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, and was a native of the Milesian colony Apollonia in Thrace. He lived for some ti ...
.)


Plato and Aristotle

Plato's '' Timaeus'' is presented as a description of someone who is explaining a "likely story" in the form of a myth, and so throughout history commentators have disagreed about which elements of the myth can be seen as the position of Plato. Sedley (2007) nevertheless calls it "the creationist manifesto" and points out that although some of Plato's followers denied that he intended it, in classical times writers such as Aristotle,
Epicurus Epicurus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκουρος ; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influenced ...
, the
Stoics Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
, and Galen all understood Plato as proposing the world originated in an "intelligent creative act". Plato has a character explain the concept of a " demiurge" with supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work. Plato's teleological perspective is also built upon the analysis of '' a priori'' order and structure in the world that he had already presented in '' The Republic''. The story does not propose creation '' ex nihilo''; rather, the demiurge made order from the chaos of the cosmos, imitating the eternal Forms. Plato's student and friend Aristotle (c. 384 – 322 BC), continued the Socratic tradition of criticising natural scientists such as Democritus who sought (as in modern science) to explain everything in terms of matter and chance motion. He was very influential in the future development of classical creationism, but was not a straightforward "creationist" because he required no creation interventions in nature, meaning he "insulated god from any requirement to intervene in nature, either as creator or as administrator". Instead of direct intervention by a creator it is "scarcely an exaggeration to say that for Aristotle the entire functioning of the natural world, as also the heavens, is ultimately to be understood as a shared striving towards godlike
actuality In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', '' Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''. Th ...
". And whereas the myth in the ''Timaeus'' suggests that all living things are based on one single paradigm, not one for each species, and even tells a story of "devolution" whereby other living things devolved from humans, it was Aristotle who presented the influential idea that each type of normal living thing must be based on a fixed paradigm or form for that species. Aristotle felt that biology was a particularly important example of a field where materialist natural science ignored information which was needed in order to understand living things well. For example birds use wings for the purpose of flight. Therefore the most complete explanation in regard to the natural, as well as the artificial, is for the most part teleological. In fact, proposals that species had changed by chance survival of the fittest, similar to what is now called " natural selection", were already known to Aristotle, and he rejected these with the same logic. He conceded that monstrosities (new forms of life) could come about by chance, but he disagreed with those who ascribed all nature purely to chance because he believed science can only provide a general account of that which is normal, "always, or for the most part". The distinction between what is normal, or by nature, and what is "accidental", or not by nature, is important in Aristotle's understanding of nature. As pointed out by Sedley, "Aristotle is happy to say (''Physics'' II 8, 199a33-b4) without the slightest fear of blasphemy, crafts make occasional mistakes; therefore, by analogy, so can nature." According to Aristotle the changes which happen by nature are caused by their "
formal cause The four causes or four explanations are, in Aristotelian thought, four fundamental types of answer to the question "why?", in analysis of change or movement in nature: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. Aristotle wrote th ...
s", and for example in the case of a bird's wings there is also a final cause which is the purpose of flying. He explicitly compared this to human technology: The question of how to understand Aristotle's conception of nature having a purpose and direction something like human activity is controversial in the details.
Martha Nussbaum Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
for example has argued that in his biology this approach was practical and meant to show nature only being analogous to human art, explanations of an organ being greatly informed by knowledge of its essential function. Nevertheless, Nussbaum's position is not universally accepted. In any case, Aristotle was not understood this way by his followers in the Middle Ages, who saw him as consistent with monotheistic religion and a teleological understanding of all nature. Consistent with the medieval interpretation, in his '' Metaphysics'' and other works Aristotle clearly argued a case for there being one highest god or " prime mover" which was the ultimate cause, though specifically not the material cause, of the eternal forms or natures which cause the natural order, including all living things. He clearly refers to this entity having an
intellect In the study of the human mind, intellect refers to, describes, and identifies the ability of the human mind to reach correct conclusions about what is true and what is false in reality; and how to solve problems. Derived from the Ancient Gree ...
that humans somehow share in, which helps humans see the true natures or forms of things without relying purely on sense perception of physical things, including living species. This understanding of nature, and Aristotle's arguments against materialist understandings of nature, were very influential in the Middle Ages in Europe. The idea of fixed species remained dominant in biology until Darwin, and a focus upon biology is still common today in teleological criticisms of modern science.


Roman era

It was the
Stoics Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
who "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'". Cicero (c. 106 – c. 43 BC) reported the teleological argument of the Stoics in '' De Natura Deorum'' (''On the Nature of the Gods'') Book II, which includes an early version of the watchmaker analogy, which was later developed by William Paley. He has one of the characters in the dialogue say: Another very important classical supporter of the teleological argument was Galen, whose compendious works were one of the major sources of medical knowledge until modern times, both in Europe and the medieval Islamic world. He was not a Stoic, but like them he looked back to the Socratics and was constantly engaged in arguing against atomists such as the Epicureans. Unlike Aristotle (who was however a major influence upon him), and unlike the Neoplatonists, he believed there was really evidence for something literally like the "demiurge" found in Plato's ''Timaeus'', which worked physical upon nature. In works such as his ''On the Usefulness of Parts'' he explained evidence for it in the complexity of animal construction. His work shows "early signs of contact and contrast between the pagan and the Judaeo-Christian tradition of creation", criticizing the account found in the Bible. "Moses, he suggests, would have contented himself with saying that God ordered the eyelashes not to grow and that they obeyed. In contrast to this, the Platonic tradition's Demiurge is above all else a technician." Surprisingly, neither Aristotle nor Plato, but Xenophon are considered by Galen, as the best writer on this subject. Galen shared with Xenophon a scepticism of the value of books about most speculative philosophy, except for inquiries such as whether there is "something in the world superior in power and wisdom to man". This he saw as having an everyday importance, a usefulness for living well. He also asserted that Xenophon was the author who reported the real position of Socrates, including his aloofness from many types of speculative science and philosophy. Galen's connection of the teleological argument to discussions about the complexity of living things, and his insistence that this is possible for a practical scientist, foreshadows some aspects of modern uses of the teleological argument.


Medieval philosophy and theology


Late classical Christian writers

As an appeal to
general revelation In theology, general revelation, or natural revelation, refers to knowledge about God and spiritual matters, discovered through natural means, such as observation of nature (the physical universe), philosophy, and reasoning. Christian theologians ...
,
Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
(AD 5–67), argues in Romans 1:18–20, that because it has been made plain to all from what has been created in the world, it is obvious that there is a God.
Marcus Minucius Felix __NOTOC__ Marcus Minucius Felix (died c. 250 AD in Rome) was one of the earliest of the Latin Christian apologetics, apologists for Christianity. Nothing is known of his personal history, and even the date at which he wrote can be only approximate ...
(c. late 2nd to 3rd century), an Early Christian writer, argued for the existence of God based on the analogy of an ordered house in his ''The Orders of Minucius Felix'': "Supposing you went into a house and found everything neat, orderly and well-kept, surely you would assume it had a master, and one much better than the good things, his belongings; so in this house of the universe, when throughout heaven and earth you see the marks of foresight, order and law, may you not assume that the lord and author of the universe is fairer than the stars themselves or than any portions of the entire world ?"
Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
(AD 354–430) in The City of God mentioned the idea that the world's "well-ordered changes and movements", and "the fair appearance of all visible things" was evidence for the world being created, and "that it could not have been created save by God".


Islamic philosophy

Early Islamic philosophy played an important role in developing the philosophical understandings of God among Jewish and Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages, but concerning the teleological argument one of the lasting effects of this tradition came from its discussions of the difficulties which this type of proof has. Various forms of the argument from design have been used by Islamic theologians and philosophers from the time of the early Mutakallimun theologians in the 9th century, although it is rejected by fundamentalist or literalist schools, for whom the mention of God in the Qu'ran should be sufficient evidence. The argument from design was also seen as an unconvincing sophism by the early Islamic philosopher Al-Farabi, who instead took the " emanationist" approach of the
Neoplatonists Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ide ...
such as Plotinus, whereby nature is rationally ordered, but God is not like a craftsman who literally manages the world. Later,
Avicenna Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...
was also convinced of this, and proposed instead a cosmological argument for the existence of God. The argument was however later accepted by both the Aristotelian philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and his great anti-philosophy opponent Al-Ghazali. Averroes' term for the argument was ''Dalīl al-ˁināya'', which can be translated as "argument from providence". Both of them however accepted the argument ''because'' they believed it is explicitly mentioned in the Quran. Despite this, like Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, and Al-Farabi, Averroes proposed that order and continual motion in the world is caused by God's intellect. Whether Averroes was an "emanationist" like his predecessors has been a subject of disagreement and uncertainty. But it is generally agreed that what he adapted from those traditions, agreed with them about the fact that God does not create in the same way as a craftsman. In fact then, Averroes treated the teleological argument as one of two "religious" arguments for the existence of God. The principal demonstrative proof is, according to Averroes, Aristotle's proof from motion in the universe that there must be a first mover which causes everything else to move. Averroes' position that the most logically valid proof should be physical rather than metaphysical (because then metaphysics would be proving itself) was in conscious opposition to the position of Avicenna. Later Jewish and Christian philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas were aware of this debate, and generally took a position closer to Avicenna.


Jewish philosophy

An example of the teleological argument in
Jewish philosophy Jewish philosophy () includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern ''Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile ...
appears when the medieval Aristotelian philosopher Maimonides cites the passage in Isaiah 40:26, where the "Holy One" says: "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number:" However, Barry Holtz calls this "a crude form of the argument from design", and that this "is only one possible way of reading the text". He asserts that "Generally, in the biblical texts the existence of God is taken for granted." Maimonides also recalled that Abraham (in the midrash, or explanatory text, of Genesis Rabbah 39:1) recognized the existence of "one transcendent deity from the fact that the world around him exhibits an order and design". The midrash makes an analogy between the obviousness that a building has an owner, and that the world is looked after by God. Abraham says "Is it conceivable that the world is without a guide?" Because of these examples, the 19th century philosopher Nachman Krochmal called the argument from design "a cardinal principle of the Jewish faith".Harris, J.M., ''Nachman Krochmal: Guiding the Perplexed of the Modern Age'', NYU Press, 1991, p. 45. The American orthodox rabbi, Aryeh Kaplan, retells a legend about the 2nd century AD Rabbi Meir. When told by a philosopher that he did not believe that the world was created by God, the rabbi produced a beautiful poem that he claimed had come into being when a cat accidentally knocked over a pot of ink, "spilling ink all over the document. This poem was the result." The philosopher exclaims that would be impossible: "There must be an author. There must be a scribe." The rabbi concludes, "How could the universe ... come into being by itself? There must be an Author. There must be a Creator."


Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), whose writings became widely accepted within Catholic western Europe, was heavily influenced by Aristotle, Averroes, and other Islamic and Jewish philosophers. He presented a teleological argument in his '' Summa Theologica''. In the work, Aquinas presented five ways in which he attempted to prove the existence of God: the ''
quinque viae The ''Quinque viæ'' (Latin for "Five Ways") (sometimes called "five proofs") are five logical arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas in his book ''Summa Theologica''. ...
''. These arguments feature only ''a posteriori'' arguments, rather than literal reading of holy texts. He sums up his teleological argument as follows: Aquinas notes that the existence of final causes, by which a cause is directed toward an effect, can only be explained by an appeal to intelligence. However, as natural bodies aside from humans do not possess intelligence, there must, he reasons, exist a being that directs final causes at every moment. That being is what we call God.


Modernity


Newton and Leibniz

Isaac Newton affirmed his belief in the truth of the argument when, in 1713, he wrote these words in an appendix to the second edition of his Principia: This view, that "God is known from his works", was supported and popularized by Newton's friends
Richard Bentley Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellen ...
, Samuel Clarke and William Whiston in the
Boyle lectures The Boyle Lectures are named after Robert Boyle, a prominent natural philosopher of the 17th century and son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork. Under the terms of his Will, Robert Boyle endowed a series of lectures or sermons (originally eight e ...
, which Newton supervised. Newton wrote to Bentley, just before Bentley delivered the first lecture, that: The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz disagreed with Newton's view of design in the teleological argument. In the
Leibniz–Clarke correspondence The Leibniz–Clarke correspondence was a scientific, theological and philosophical debate conducted in an exchange of letters between the German thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, an English supporter of Isaac Newton during the ...
, Samuel Clarke argued Newton's case that God constantly intervenes in the world to keep His design adjusted, while Leibniz thought that the universe was created in such a way that God would not need to intervene at all. As quoted by Ayval Leshem, Leibniz wrote: Leibniz considered the argument from design to have "only moral certainty" unless it was supported by his own idea of
pre-established harmony Gottfried Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony (french: harmonie préétablie) is a philosophical theory about causation under which every " substance" affects only itself, but all the substances (both bodies and minds) in the world never ...
expounded in his Monadology. Bertrand Russell wrote that "The proof from the pre-established harmony is a particular form of the so-called physico-theological proof, otherwise known as the argument from design." According to Leibniz, the universe is completely made from individual substances known as monads, programmed to act in a predetermined way. Russell wrote:


British empiricists

The 17th-century Dutch writers
Lessius Leonardus Lessius ( nl, Lenaert Leys; 1 October 1554, in Brecht – 15 January 1623, in Leuven) was a Flemish moral theologian from the Jesuit order. Life At the age of thirteen the young Leonard won the Brecht scholarship to the University ...
and Grotius argued that the intricate structure of the world, like that of a house, was unlikely to have arisen by chance. The empiricist
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
, writing in the late 17th century, developed the Aristotelian idea that, excluding geometry, all science must attain its knowledge ''a posteriori'' - through sensual experience. In response to Locke, Anglican Irish Bishop
George Berkeley George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immate ...
advanced a form of idealism in which things only continue to exist when they are perceived. When humans do not perceive objects, they continue to exist because God is perceiving them. Therefore, in order for objects to remain in existence, God must exist omnipresently. David Hume, in the mid-18th century, referred to the teleological argument in his ''
A Treatise of Human Nature '' A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects'' (1739–40) is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, considered by many to be Hume's most important work and one of the ...
''. Here, he appears to give his support to the argument from design. John Wright notes that "Indeed, he claims that the whole thrust of his analysis of causality in the Treatise supports the Design argument", and that, according to Hume, "we are obliged 'to infer an infinitely perfect Architect. However, later he was more critical of the argument in his '' An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding''. This was presented as a dialogue between Hume and "a friend who loves sceptical paradoxes", where the friend gives a version of the argument by saying of its proponents, they "paint in the most magnificent colours the order, beauty, and wise arrangement of the universe; and then ask if such a glorious display of intelligence could come from a random coming together of atoms, or if chance could produce something that the greatest genius can never sufficiently admire". Hume also presented arguments both for and against the teleological argument in his ''
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion'' is a philosophical work by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published in 1779. Through dialogue, three philosophers named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence. Whet ...
''. The character Cleanthes, summarizing the teleological argument, likens the universe to a man-made machine, and concludes by the principle of similar effects and similar causes that it must have a designing intelligence: On the other hand, Hume's sceptic, Philo, is not satisfied with the argument from design. He attempts a number of refutations, including one that arguably foreshadows Darwin's theory, and makes the point that if God resembles a human designer, then assuming divine characteristics such as omnipotence and omniscience is not justified. He goes on to joke that far from being the perfect creation of a perfect designer, this universe may be "only the first rude essay of some infant deity... the object of derision to his superiors".


Derham's natural theology

Starting in 1696 with his ''Artificial Clockmaker'', William Derham published a stream of teleological books. The best known of these are ''Physico-Theology'' (1713); '' Astro-Theology'' (1714); and ''Christo-Theology'' (1730). ''Physico-Theology'', for example, was explicitly subtitled "A demonstration of the being and attributes of God from his works of creation". A
natural theologian Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science. This distinguishes it from ...
, Derham listed scientific observations of the many variations in nature, and proposed that these proved "the unreasonableness of infidelity". At the end of the section on Gravity for instance, he writes: "What else can be concluded, but that all was made with manifest Design, and that all the whole Structure is the Work of some intelligent Being; some Artist, of Power and Skill equivalent to such a Work?" Also, of the "sense of sound" he writes: Derham concludes: "For it is a Sign a Man is a wilful, perverse Atheist, that will impute so glorious a Work, as the Creation is, to any Thing, yea, a mere Nothing (as Chance is) rather than to God. Weber (2000) writes that Derham's ''Physico-Theology'' "directly influenced" William Paley's later work. The power, and yet the limitations, of this kind of reasoning is illustrated in microcosm by the history of La Fontaine's fable of
The Acorn and the Pumpkin The Acorn and the Pumpkin, in French ''Le gland et la citrouille'', is one of La Fontaine's Fables, published in his second volume (IX.4) in 1679. In English especially, new versions of the story were written to support the teleological argument fo ...
, which first appeared in France in 1679. The light-hearted anecdote of how a doubting peasant is finally convinced of the wisdom behind creation arguably undermines this approach. However, beginning with Anne Finch's conversion of the story into a polemic against atheism, it has been taken up by a succession of moral writers as presenting a valid argument for the proposition that "The wisdom of God is displayed in creation."


Watchmaker analogy

The
watchmaker analogy The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer, especially intelligent design by an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy ...
, framing the teleological argument with reference to a timepiece, dates at least back to the Stoics, who were reported by Cicero in his '' De Natura Deorum'' (II.88), using such an argument against Epicureans, whom, they taunt, would "think more highly of the achievement of
Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists ...
in making a model of the revolutions of the firmament than of that of nature in creating them, although the perfection of the original shows a craftsmanship many times as great as does the counterfeit". It was also used by
Robert Hooke Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...
and Voltaire, the latter of whom remarked: William Paley presented his version of the watchmaker analogy at the start of his ''
Natural Theology Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science. This distinguishes it from ...
'' (1802). According to Alister McGrath, Paley argued that "The same complexity and utility evident in the design and functioning of a watch can also be discerned in the natural world. Each feature of a biological organism, like that of a watch, showed evidence of being designed in such a way as to adapt the organism to survival within its environment. Complexity and utility are observed; the conclusion that they were designed and constructed by God, Paley holds, is as natural as it is correct." Natural theology strongly influenced British science, with the expectation as expressed by
Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on W ...
in 1831 that truths revealed by science could not conflict with the moral truths of religion. These natural philosophers saw God as the first cause, and sought secondary causes to explain design in nature: the leading figure Sir
John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...
wrote in 1836 that by analogy with other intermediate causes "the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". Wyhe, John van. 2007. "Mind the Gap: Did Darwin Avoid Publishing His Theory for Many Years?" ''
Notes and Records of the Royal Society ''Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science'' is an international, quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal which publishes original research in the history of science, technology, and medicine. The journal welcomes oth ...
'' 61:177–205. . p
197
As a theology student, Charles Darwin found Paley's arguments compelling. However, he later developed his theory of evolution in his 1859 book '' On the Origin of Species'', which offers an alternate explanation of biological order. In his autobiography, Darwin wrote that "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered". Darwin struggled with the problem of evil and of suffering in nature, but remained inclined to believe that nature depended upon "designed laws" and commended
Asa Gray Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His ''Darwiniana'' was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually excl ...
's statement about "Darwin's great service to Natural Science in bringing back to it Teleology: so that, instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology."Miles, Sara Joan,
Charles Darwin and Asa Gray Discuss Teleology and Design
, ''PSCF'' (2001) 53: 196–201.
Darwin owned he was "bewildered" on the subject, but was "inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance:"


Recent proponents


Probabilistic arguments

In 1928 and 1930, F. R. Tennant published his ''Philosophical Theology'', which was a "bold endeavour to combine scientific and theological thinking". He proposed a version of the teleological argument based on the accumulation of the probabilities of each individual
biological adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the p ...
. "Tennant concedes that naturalistic accounts such as evolutionary theory may explain each of the individual adaptations he cites, but he insists that in this case the whole exceeds the sum of its parts: naturalism can explain each adaptation but not their totality." The '' Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that "Critics have insisted on focusing on the cogency of each piece of theistic evidence – reminding us that, in the end, ten leaky buckets hold no more water than one." Also, "Some critics, such as John Hick and D.H. Mellor, have objected to Tennant's particular use of probability theory and have challenged the relevance of any kind of probabilistic reasoning to theistic belief."Craig, E. 1998. "Tennant, Frederick Robert (1866–1957)." '' Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. London: Taylor & Francis. Richard Swinburne's "contributions to philosophical theology have sought to apply more sophisticated versions of probability theory to the question of God's existence, a methodological improvement on Tennant's work but squarely in the same spirit". He uses Bayesian probability "taking account not only of the order and functioning of nature but also of the 'fit' between human intelligence and the universe, whereby one can understand its workings, as well as human aesthetic, moral, and religious experience"."Christian philosophy". '' Encyclopædia Britannica''. Swinburne writes: Swinburne acknowledges that his argument by itself may not give a reason to believe in the existence of God, but in combination with other arguments such as cosmological arguments and evidence from mystical experience, he thinks it can. While discussing Hume's arguments, Alvin Plantinga offered a probability version of the teleological argument in his book '' God and Other Minds'': Following Plantinga, Georges Dicker produced a slightly different version in his book about
Bishop Berkeley George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immateri ...
: The '' Encyclopædia Britannica'' has the following criticism of such arguments:


Fine-tuned universe

A modern variation of the teleological argument is built upon the concept of the
fine-tuned universe The characterization of the universe as finely tuned suggests that the occurrence of life in the universe is very sensitive to the values of certain fundamental physical constants and that the observed values are, for some reason, improbable. If ...
: According to the website ''
Biologos The BioLogos Foundation is a Christianity, Christian advocacy group that supports the view that God in Christianity, God Creationism, created the world using evolution of different species as the mechanism. It was established by Francis Collins i ...
'': Also, the fine-tuning of the Universe is the apparent delicate balance of conditions necessary for human life. In this view, speculation about a vast range of possible conditions in which life cannot exist is used to explore the probability of conditions in which life can and does exist. For example, it can be argued that if the force of the
Big Bang The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...
explosion had been different by 1/10 to the sixtieth power or the strong interaction force was only 5% different, life would be impossible. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking estimates that "if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed into a hot fireball due to gravitational attraction". In terms of a teleological argument, the intuition in relation to a fine-tuned universe would be that God must have been responsible, if achieving such perfect conditions is so improbable. However, in regard to fine-tuning, Kenneth Einar Himma writes: "The mere fact that it is enormously improbable that an event occurred... by itself, gives us no reason to think that it occurred by design ... As intuitively tempting as it may be..." Himma attributes the "Argument from Suspicious Improbabilities", a formalization of "the fine-tuning intuition" to George N. Schlesinger: Himma considers Schlesinger's argument to be subject to the same vulnerabilities he noted in other versions of the design argument: Antony Flew, who spent most of his life as an atheist, converted to
deism Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the Philosophy, philosophical position and Rationalism, rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that Empirical evi ...
late in life, and postulated "an intelligent being as involved in some way in the design of conditions that would allow life to arise and evolve". He concluded that the fine-tuning of the universe was too precise to be the result of chance, so accepted the existence of God. He said that his commitment to "go where the evidence leads" meant that he ended up accepting the existence of God. Flew proposed the view, held earlier by Fred Hoyle, that the universe is too young for life to have developed purely by chance and that, therefore, an intelligent being must exist which was involved in designing the conditions required for life to evolve.


Creation science and intelligent design

A version of the argument from design is central to both creation science and Intelligent design, but unlike Paley's openness to
deistic Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of t ...
design through God-given laws, proponents seek scientific confirmation of repeated miraculous interventions in the history of life, and argue that their
theistic science Theistic science, also referred to as theistic realism, is the pseudoscientific proposal that the central scientific method of requiring testability, known as methodological naturalism, should be replaced by a philosophy of science that allows occ ...
should be taught in science classrooms. Padian, Kevin, and Nicholas Matzke. 2009. "Darwin, Dover, 'Intelligent Design' and textbooks". '' Biochemical Journal'' 417(1):29–42. . . The teaching of evolution was effectively barred from United States public school curricula by the outcome of the 1925 Scopes Trial, but in the 1960s the
National Defense Education Act The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was signed into law on September 2, 1958, providing funding to United States education institutions at all levels.Schwegler 1 NDEA was among many science initiatives implemented by President Dwight D. ...
led to the
Biological Sciences Curriculum Study BSCS Science Learning, formerly known as Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), is an educational center that develops curricular materials, provides educational support, and conducts research and evaluation in the fields of science and techn ...
reintroducing the teaching of evolution. In response, there was a resurgence of
creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...
, now presented as "creation science", based on biblical literalism but with Bible quotes optional. ("Explicit references to the Bible were optional: Morris's 1974 book ''Scientific Creationism'' came in two versions, one with Bible quotes, and one without.") A 1989 survey found that virtually all literature promoting creation science presented the design argument, with
John D. Morris John David Morris (born 1946) was an American young earth creationist. He was the son of "the father of creation science", Henry M. Morris, and served as president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) from the time of his father's death ...
saying "any living thing gives such strong evidence for design by an intelligent designer that only a willful ignorance of the data (II Peter 3:5) could lead one to assign such intricacy to chance". Such publications introduced concepts central to intelligent design, including '' irreducible complexity'' (a variant of the watchmaker analogy) and ''
specified complexity Specified complexity is a creationist argument introduced by William Dembski, used by advocates to promote the pseudoscience of intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept can formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both ...
'' (closely resembling a fine-tuning argument). The United States Supreme Court ruling on ''
Edwards v. Aguillard ''Edwards v. Aguillard'', 482 U.S. 578 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public ...
'' barred the teaching of "Creation Science" in public schools because it breached the separation of church and state, and a group of creationists rebranded Creation Science as "intelligent design" which was presented as a scientific theory rather than as a religious argument. Scott, Eugenie C. 2007.
Biological design in science classrooms
. '' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 104(suppl. 1):8669–76. . . .
Scientists disagreed with the assertion that intelligent design is scientific, and its introduction into the science curriculum of a Pennsylvania school district led to the 2005 '' Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'' trial, which ruled that the "intelligent design" arguments are essentially religious in nature and not science. The court took evidence from theologian
John F. Haught John F. Haught is an American theologian. He is a Distinguished Research Professor at Georgetown University. He specializes in Roman Catholic systematic theology, with a particular interest in issues pertaining to physical cosmology, evolutionary b ...
, and ruled that "ID is not a new scientific
argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God. He traced this argument back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer." "This argument for the existence of God was advanced early in the 19th century by Reverend Paley": "The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID's 'official position' does not acknowledge that the designer is God." Proponents of the intelligent design movement such as Cornelius G. Hunter, have asserted that the methodological naturalism upon which science is based is religious in nature. They commonly refer to it as 'scientific materialism' or as 'methodological materialism' and conflate it with 'metaphysical naturalism'. They use this assertion to support their claim that modern science is atheistic, and contrast it with their preferred approach of a revived natural philosophy which welcomes supernatural explanations for natural phenomena and supports
theistic science Theistic science, also referred to as theistic realism, is the pseudoscientific proposal that the central scientific method of requiring testability, known as methodological naturalism, should be replaced by a philosophy of science that allows occ ...
. This ignores the distinction between science and religion, established in Ancient Greece, in which science can not use supernatural explanations. Intelligent design advocate and
biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...
Michael Behe proposed a development of Paley's watch analogy in which he argued in favour of intelligent design. Unlike Paley, Behe only attempts to prove the existence of an intelligent designer, rather than the God of classical theism. Behe uses the analogy of a mousetrap to propose irreducible complexity: he argues that if a mousetrap loses just one of its parts, it can no longer function as a mousetrap. He argues that irreducible complexity in an object guarantees the presence of intelligent design. Behe claims that there are instances of irreducible complexity in the natural world and that parts of the world must have been designed. This negative argument against step by step evolution ignores longstanding evidence that evolution proceeds through changes of function from preceding systems. The specific examples Behe proposes have been shown to have simpler homologues which could act as precursors with different functions. His arguments have been rebutted, both in general and in specific cases by numerous scientific papers. In response, Behe and others, "ironically, given the absence of any detail in their own explanation, complain that the proffered explanations lack sufficient detail to be empirically tested".


Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics

William Lane Craig has proposed an nominalist argument influenced by the philosophy of mathematics. This argument revolves around the fact that, by using mathematical concepts, we can discover much about the natural world. For example, Craig writes, Peter Higgs, and any similar scientist, 'can sit down at his desk and, by pouring over mathematical equations, predict the existence of a fundamental particle which, thirty years later, after investing millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours, experimentalists are finally able to detect.' He names mathematics as the 'language of nature', and refutes two possible explanations for this. Firstly, he suggests, the idea that they are abstract entities brings about the question of their application. Secondly, he responds to the problem of whether they are merely useful fictions by suggesting that this asks why these fictions are so useful. Citing Eugene Wigner as an influence on his thought, he summarizes his argument as follows:


"Third way" proposal

University of Chicago geneticist
James A. Shapiro James Alan Shapiro (born May 18, 1943) is an American biologist, an expert in bacterial genetics and a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. Academic biography Shapiro obtained his Bachelor ...
, writing in the '' Boston Review'', states that advancements in genetics and molecular biology, and "the growing realization that cells have molecular computing networks which process information about internal operations and about the external environment to make decisions controlling growth, movement, and differentiation", have implications for the teleological argument. Shapiro states that these "
natural genetic engineering Natural genetic engineering (NGE) is a class of process proposed by molecular biologist James A. Shapiro to account for novelty created in the course of biological evolution. Shapiro developed this work in several peer-reviewed publications from 19 ...
" systems, can produce radical reorganizations of the "genetic apparatus within a single cell generation". Shapiro suggests what he calls a 'Third Way'; a non-creationist, non-Darwinian type of evolution: In his book, '' Evolution: A View from the 21st Century'', Shapiro refers to this concept of "natural genetic engineering", which he says, has proved troublesome, because many scientists feel that it supports the intelligent design argument. He suggests that "function-oriented capacities anbe attributed to cells", even though this is "the kind of teleological thinking that scientists have been taught to avoid at all costs".


Interacting whole

The metaphysical theologian
Norris Clarke William Norris Clarke, SJ (1 June 1915 - 10 June 2008) was an American Thomist philosopher and Jesuit priest. He was a president of the Metaphysical Society of America, as well as founder and editor of the International Philosophical Quarterly ...
shared an argument to his fellow professors at
Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...
that was popularised by Peter Kreeft in his "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God" (1994). The argument states that as components are ordered universally in relation to one another, and are defined by these connections (for example, every two hydrogen atoms are ordered to form a compound with one oxygen atom.) Therefore, none of the parts are self-sufficient, and cannot be explained individually. However, the whole cannot be explained either because it is composed of separate beings and is not a whole. From here, three conclusions can be found: firstly, as the system cannot in any way explain itself, it requires an efficient cause. Secondly, it must be an intelligent mind because the unity transcends every part, and thus must have been conceived as an idea, because, by definition, only an idea can hold together elements without destroying or fusing their distinctness. An idea cannot exist without a creator, so there must be an intelligent mind. Thirdly, the creative mind must be transcendent, because if it were not, it would rely upon the system of space and time, despite having created it. Such an idea is absurd. As a conclusion, therefore, the universe relies upon a transcendent creative mind.


Criticism


Classical

The original development of the argument from design was in reaction to atomistic, explicitly non-teleological understandings of nature. Socrates, as reported by Plato and Xenophon, was reacting to such natural philosophers. While less has survived from the debates of the Hellenistic and Roman eras, it is clear from sources such as Cicero and Lucretius, that debate continued for generations, and several of the striking metaphors used still today, such as the unseen watchmaker, and the infinite monkey theorem, have their roots in this period. While the Stoics became the most well-known proponents of the argument from design, the atomistic counter arguments were refined most famously by the Epicureans. On the one hand, they criticized the supposed evidence for intelligent design, and the logic of the Stoics. On the defensive side, they were faced with the challenge of explaining how un-directed chance can cause something which appears to be a rational order. Much of this defence revolved around arguments such as the infinite monkey metaphor. Democritus had already apparently used such arguments at the time of Socrates, saying that there will be infinite planets, and only some having an order like the planet we know. But the Epicureans refined this argument, by proposing that the actual number of types of atoms in nature is small, not infinite, making it less coincidental that after a long period of time, certain orderly outcomes will result. These were not the only positions held in classical times. A more complex position also continued to be held by some schools, such as the Neoplatonists, who, like Plato and Aristotle, insisted that Nature did indeed have a rational order, but were concerned about how to describe the way in which this rational order is caused. According to Plotinus for example, Plato's metaphor of a craftsman should be seen only as a metaphor, and Plato should be understood as agreeing with Aristotle that the rational order in nature works through a form of causation unlike everyday causation. In fact, according to this proposal each thing already has its own nature, fitting into a rational order, whereby the thing itself is "in need of, and directed towards, what is higher or better".


David Hume

Louis Loeb writes that David Hume, in his ''
Enquiry An inquiry (also spelled as enquiry in British English) is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ...
'', "insists that inductive inference cannot justify belief in extended objects". Loeb also quotes Hume as writing: Loeb notes that "we observe neither God nor other universes, and hence no conjunction involving them. There is no observed conjunction to ground an inference either to extended objects or to God, as unobserved causes." Hume also presented a criticism of the argument in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''. The character ''Philo'', a religious sceptic, voices Hume's criticisms of the argument. He argues that the design argument is built upon a faulty analogy as, unlike with man-made objects, we have not witnessed the design of a universe, so do not know whether the universe was the result of design. Moreover, the size of the universe makes the analogy problematic: although our experience of the universe is of order, there may be chaos in other parts of the universe. Philo argues: Philo also proposes that the order in nature may be due to nature alone. If nature contains a principle of order within it, the need for a designer is removed. Philo argues that even if the universe is indeed designed, it is unreasonable to justify the conclusion that the designer must be an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God – the God of classical theism. It is impossible, he argues, to infer the perfect nature of a creator from the nature of its creation. Philo argues that the designer may have been defective or otherwise imperfect, suggesting that the universe may have been a poor first attempt at design. Hume also pointed out that the argument does not necessarily lead to the existence of one God: “why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing the world?” (p. 108).
Wesley C. Salmon Wesley Charles Salmon (August 9, 1925 – April 22, 2001) was an American philosopher of science renowned for his work on the nature of scientific explanation. He also worked on confirmation theory, trying to explicate how probability theory via ...
developed Hume's insights, arguing that all things in the universe which exhibit order are, to our knowledge, created by material, imperfect, finite beings or forces. He also argued that there are no known instances of an immaterial, perfect, infinite being creating anything. Using the probability calculus of
Bayes Theorem In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule), named after Thomas Bayes, describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. For examp ...
, Salmon concludes that it is very improbable that the universe was created by the type of intelligent being theists argue for. Nancy Cartwright accuses Salmon of
begging the question In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: ') is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. For example: * "Green is t ...
. One piece of evidence he uses in his probabilistic argument – that atoms and molecules are not caused by design – is equivalent to the conclusion he draws, that the universe is probably not caused by design. The atoms and molecules are what the universe is made up of and whose origins are at issue. Therefore, they cannot be used as evidence against the theistic conclusion.


Immanuel Kant

Referring to it as the physico-theological proof, Immanuel Kant discussed the teleological argument in his Critique of Pure Reason. Even though he referred to it as "the oldest, clearest and most appropriate to human reason", he nevertheless rejected it, heading section VI with the words, "On the impossibility of a physico-theological proof." In accepting some of Hume's criticisms, Kant wrote that the argument "proves at most intelligence only in the arrangement of the 'matter' of the universe, and hence the existence not of a 'Supreme Being', but of an 'Architect'". Using the argument to try to prove the existence of God required "a concealed appeal to the
Ontological argument An ontological argument is a philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend to refer to the state of being or existing. More specifically, ontological arguments ...
".


The intelligence may not be God

In his ''Traité de métaphysique'' Voltaire argued that, even if the argument from design could prove the existence of a powerful intelligent designer, it would not prove that this designer is God.


Argument from improbability

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
is harshly critical of intelligent design in his book ''
The God Delusion ''The God Delusion'' is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist, ethologist Richard Dawkins, a professorial fellow at New College, Oxford and, at the time of publication, the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science ...
.'' In this book, he contends that an appeal to intelligent design can provide no explanation for biology because it not only
begs the question In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: ') is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. For example: * "Green is ...
of the designer's own origin but raises additional questions: an intelligent designer must itself be far more complex and difficult to explain than anything it is capable of designing. He believes the chances of life arising on a planet like the Earth are many orders of magnitude less probable than most people would think, but the
anthropic principle The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, beca ...
effectively counters skepticism with regard to improbability. For example Astronomer Fred Hoyle suggested that potential for life on Earth was no more probable than a
Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...
being assembled by a hurricane from the scrapyard. Dawkins argues that a one-time event is indeed subject to improbability but once under way, natural selection itself is nothing like random chance. Furthermore, he refers to his counter argument to the argument from improbability by that same name: Dawkins considered the argument from improbability to be "much more powerful" than the teleological argument, or argument from design, although he sometimes implies the terms are used interchangeably. He paraphrases St. Thomas' teleological argument as follows: "Things in the world, especially living things, look as though they have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer, and we call him God." Philosopher Edward Feser contends that Dawkins fundamentally misunderstands the teleological argument, particularly Aquinas' version, and refutes a straw man.


Perception of purpose in biology

The
philosopher of biology The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have long ...
Michael Ruse Michael Ruse (born 21 June 1940) is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcatio ...
has argued that Darwin treated the structure of organisms as if they had a purpose: "the organism-as-if-it-were-designed-by God picture was absolutely central to Darwin's thinking in 1862, as it always had been". He refers to this as "the metaphor of design ... Organisms give the appearance of being designed, and thanks to Charles Darwin's discovery of natural selection we know why this is true." In his review of Ruse's book, R.J. Richards writes, "Biologists quite routinely refer to the design of organisms and their traits, but properly speaking it's ''apparent'' design to which they refer – an 'as if' design." Robert Foley refers to this as "the illusion of purpose, design, and progress". He adds, "there is no purpose in a fundamentally causative manner in evolution but that the processes of selection and adaptation give the illusion of purpose through the utter functionality and designed nature of the biological world". Richard Dawkins suggests that while biology can at first seem to be purposeful and ordered, upon closer inspection its true function becomes questionable. Dawkins rejects the claim that biology serves any designed function, claiming rather that biology only mimics such purpose. In his book ''
The Blind Watchmaker ''The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design'' is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selecti ...
'', Dawkins states that animals are the most complex things in the known universe: "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." He argues that natural selection should suffice as an explanation of biological complexity without recourse to
divine providence In theology, Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is God's intervention in the Universe. The term ''Divine Providence'' (usually capitalized) is also used as a title of God. A distinction is usually made between "general providence", which ...
. However, theologian Alister McGrath has pointed out that the fine-tuning of carbon is even responsible for nature's ability to tune itself to any degree. Proponents of intelligent design creationism, such as
William A. Dembski William Albert Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. He was a proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience, specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the ...
question the philosophical assumptions made by critics with regard to what a designer would or would not do. Dembski claims that such arguments are not merely beyond the purview of science: often they are tacitly or overtly theological while failing to provide a serious analysis of the hypothetical objective's relative merit. Some critics, such as
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...
suggest that any purported 'cosmic' designer would only produce optimal designs, while there are numerous biological criticisms to demonstrate that such an ideal is manifestly untenable. Against these ideas, Dembski characterizes both Dawkins' and Gould's argument as a rhetorical straw man. He suggests a principle of
constrained optimization In mathematical optimization, constrained optimization (in some contexts called constraint optimization) is the process of optimizing an objective function with respect to some variables in the presence of constraints on those variables. The obj ...
more realistically describes the best any designer could hope to achieve:


Fideism and rejection of natural theology

Some theologians oppose the usage of human reason and science in attaining knowledge of God altogether, asserting the primacy of faith in this endeavour.


Alleged argument from analogy

The design claim can be challenged as an
argument from analogy Argument from analogy or false analogy is a special type of inductive argument, whereby perceived similarities are used as a basis to infer some further similarity that has yet to be observed. Analogical reasoning is one of the most common metho ...
. Supporters of design suggest that natural objects and man-made objects have many similar properties, and man-made objects have a designer. Therefore, it is probable that natural objects must be designed as well. However, proponents must demonstrate that all the available evidence has been taken into account. Eric Rust argues that, when speaking of familiar objects such as watches, "we have a basis to make an inference from such an object to its designer". However, the "universe is a unique and isolated case" and we have nothing to compare it with, so "we have no basis for making an inference such as we can with individual objects. ... We have no basis for applying to the whole universe what may hold of constituent elements in the universe."


Other criticisms

George H. Smith, in his book '' Atheism: The Case Against God'', points out what he considers to be a flaw in the argument from design: The teleological argument assumes that one can infer the existence of intelligent design merely by examination, and because life is reminiscent of something a human might design, it too must have been designed. However, considering "snowflakes and crystals of certain salts", " no case do we find intelligence". "There are other ways that order and design can come about" such as by "purely physical forces." Most professional biologists
support Support may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Supporting character Business and finance * Support (technical analysis) * Child support * Customer support * Income Support Construction * Support (structure), or lateral support, a ...
the
modern evolutionary synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...
, not merely as an alternative explanation for the complexity of life but a better explanation with more supporting evidence. Living organisms obey the same physical laws as inanimate objects. Over very long periods of time self-replicating structures arose and later formed DNA.


Similar discussions in other civilizations


Hinduism

Nyaya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",Ishvara, who created all the world. The argument is in five parts: # The ... world ... has been constructed by an intelligent agent. # On account of being an effect. # Each and every effect has been constructed by an intelligent agent, just like a pot. # And the world is an effect. # Therefore, it has been constructed by an intelligent agent. However, other Hindu schools, such as
Samkhya ''Samkhya'' or ''Sankya'' (; Sanskrit सांख्य), IAST: ') is a Dualism (Indian philosophy), dualistic Āstika and nāstika, school of Indian philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, ''purusha, puruṣa' ...
, deny that the existence of God can ever be proved, because such a creator can never be perceived. Krishna Mohan Banerjee, in his ''Dialogues on the Hindu Philosophy'', has the Samkhya speaker saying, "the existence of God cannot be established because there is no proof. ... nor can it be proved by Inference, because you cannot exhibit an analogous instance."


Buddhist criticism of Hindu Nyaya logic

Buddhism denies the existence of a creator god, and rejects the Nyaya syllogism for the teleological argument as being "logically flawed". Buddhists argue that "the 'creation' of the world cannot be shown to be analogous to the creation of a human artifact, such as a pot".


Confucianism

The 18th century German philosopher Christian Wolff once thought that Confucius was a godless man, and that "the ancient Chinese had no natural religion, since they did not know the creator of the world". However, later, Wolff changed his mind to some extent. "On Wolff's reading, Confucius's religious perspective is thus more or less the weak deistic one of
Hume Hume most commonly refers to: * David Hume (1711–1776), Scottish philosopher Hume may also refer to: People * Hume (surname) * Hume (given name) * James Hume Nisbet (1849–1923), Scottish-born novelist and artist In fiction * Hume, the ...
's Cleanthes."


Taoism

The Taoist writings of the 6th-century-BC philosopher
Laozi Laozi (), also known by numerous other names, was a semilegendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. Laozi ( zh, ) is a Chinese honorific, generally translated as "the Old Master". Traditional accounts say he was born as in the state ...
(also known as Lao Tzu) have similarities with modern naturalist science. B. Schwartz notes that, in Taoism, "The processes of nature are not guided by a teleological consciousness ... the tao aois not consciously providential.Schwartz, B., Quoted in Lai, K., ''An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 79.


See also

*
Argument from beauty The argument from beauty (also the aesthetic argument) is an argument for the existence of a realm of immaterial ideas or, most commonly, for the existence of God, that roughly states that the elegance of the laws of physics or the elegant laws of ...
*
Inverse gambler's fallacy The inverse gambler's fallacy, named by philosopher Ian Hacking, is a formal fallacy of Bayesian inference which is an inverse of the better known gambler's fallacy. It is the fallacy of concluding, on the basis of an unlikely outcome of a rando ...
*
Deism Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the Philosophy, philosophical position and Rationalism, rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that Empirical evi ...
*
No miracles argument Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. Within philosophy of science, this view is often an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" T ...
* Turtles all the way down * Intelligent design *
Orthogenesis Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some go ...
- teleology in evolution


References


Further reading

* Craig, William Lane. 1990.
The Teleological Argument and the Anthropic Principle
. Pp. 127–53 in ''The Logic of Rational Theism: Exploratory Essays'', edited by W. L. Craig and M. McLeod, (''Problems in Contemporary Philosophy'' 24). Lewiston, NY:
Edwin Mellen The Edwin Mellen Press or Mellen Press is an international independent company and academic publishing house with editorial offices in Lewiston, New York, and Lampeter, Wales. It was founded, in 1972, by the religious studies scholar Professo ...
. * Dawkins, Richard. 1986. ''
The Blind Watchmaker ''The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design'' is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selecti ...
''. (Takes a view against the teleological argument.) * Dembski, William A. 2004. ''
The Design Revolution ''The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design'' is a 2004 book by William A. Dembski, who supports intelligent design, and the idea that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained b ...
''. UK: InterVarsity Press. * Dennett, Daniel. 1995. '' Darwin's Dangerous Idea''. * Gjersen, Derek. 1989. ''Science and Philosophy: Past and Present''. London:
Penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
. . * Haught, John F. March 2011.
God after Darwin
. ''The Montréal Review''. * Hunter, Cornelius G. 2007. "Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism". Grand Rapids, MI:
Brazos Press Baker Publishing Group is a Christian book publisher that discusses historic Christian happenings for its evangelical readers. It is based in Ada, Michigan and has six subdivisions: namely Bethany House, Revell, Baker Books, Baker Academic, Chos ...
. * Hurlbutt, Robert H. 1998. ''Hume, Newton, and the Design Argument'' (revised ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. * Jantzen, Benjamin C. 2014. ''An Introduction to Design Arguments''. Cambridge University Press. (hrdbk), (pbk). * Lightman, Bernard V. 2007.
Victorian Popularizers of Science
'. . Retrieved 22 June 2009. * Moreland, J. P. 1987. ''Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity''. ch. 2. * Ratzsch, Del, and Jeffrey Koperski.
005 ''005'' is a 1981 arcade game by Sega. They advertised it as the first of their RasterScan Convert-a-Game series, designed so that it could be changed into another game in minutes "at a substantial savings". It is one of the first examples of a ...
2019.
Teleological Arguments for God's Existence
. ''
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
''. * Ross, Hugh.
Evidence For Design In The Universe
. ''Limits for the Universe'' * Sotnak, Eric. 15 March 1993.

. '' Internet Infidels''.


External links

*
Design arguments for the existence of God
. ''
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original pape ...
''.
Design argument
from the ''Dictionary of the history of Ideas''

* *

{{Theology Anthropic principle Arguments for the existence of God Intelligent design Teleology Philosophy of religion