A teleological argument, or argument from design, is an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction — or some combination of these — in nature. The word "teleological" is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning "end" or "purpose". Teleology is the supposition that there is purpose or directive principle in the works and processes of nature.

• Arguments for Design
• Arguments from Design
• Further Information

Arguments for Design

• The universe and the amazement of life inspires a sense of awe – everything’s so complex and intricate
• One should be amazed that we can understand anything at all – the world could have been a complete incoherent shambles, with nothing constant.
• However, the world is full of order, predictability and it is consistent. In living creatures, different parts work together and it fits neatly into its environment – why?

Life

• The way that living things work requires a huge co-ordination of lots of tiny bits, with each bit doing their specific job
• This is hugely complex, and this complex process suggests planning – a plan that follows a purpose
• Acting on a plan guided by a purpose is design
• If living creatures are designed, then, by definition, there must be a designer
• This is the next step in an argument for the existence of God – an argument from design

Evolution by Natural Selection

• Just because we’re so complex doesn’t mean that we were designed, so we may look at another explanation
• Another, more scientific and testable theory is Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
  • Millions of alterations randomly take place in a creature
  • Traits that coincidentally help a creature to survive spreads, because the creature is better suited to its environment, and so can reproduce easier.
  • As a result, more creatures end up with the specific trait, as those without it will die due to not being as ‘genetically advanced’ or adapted to their environment
  • What appears to be designed is just evidence of good functioning
• So what appears to be designed are just product of coincidence that happens over a great time span
• Using Occam’s razor, this is a simpler solution, and thus a better explanation, as we aren’t inferring the existence of something we can’t be sure exists.

The ‘Fine Tuning’ Argument

• If we accept Darwinism, we can ask the question: ‘What makes Darwinism occur in nature?’
• Perhaps the universe was organized and designed so that life evolves by natural selection
• Cosmologists state that the conditions needed for life to come into existence are incredibly improbable
  • Life needs planets, and planets need stars – but the universe needn’t have had stars
  • If anything at the Big Bang was even slightly different, then the universe would be completely different – stars wouldn’t exist, and neither would planets and neither would we!
  • For life to form on planets and in the universe is extremely improbable – the fact that everything is adjusted so that life exists is a staggering coincidence
• An alternative viewpoint to life in the universe being a staggering coincidence is that there was a designer that created the universe and the laws of nature to allow life to evolve.

Paley and design-like properties

• William Paley proposed an argument for design:
  • If one were walking in a field, and found a stone, one would think that that stone had always been there
  • However, if I found a watch, I could not say the same thing
  • I would have to infer that the watch had a designer
• Paley then needed to ask what properties of a watch are direct evidence of a designer
• Even if we do not know the designer of the watch, Paley argues that by the general organization of the parts put together and resulting in the watch implies that this had to be done by a conscious being – a designer
• He then makes the next step to say that the same properties occur with the universe
• The universe and natural things have the same property of order, so they must therefore have a designer

An Objection

• Paley assumes, in his argument, that the properties from which he infers that there must be a designer for can’t come about by natural means
• In the case of using the analogy of the watch, this is correct, as nature doesn’t produce watches
• However, natural things are precisely the sort of thing that nature does produce
• We can’t then argue that natural things cannot be produced by natural means

• So what is the fundamental difference between natural things and watches?
• The main difference is that natural things don’t show evidence of being manufactured artifacts
  • Their design-like properties don’t necessarily lead to a designer
• We can make this claim as processes like Darwinism show that nature can produce design-like properties

Arguments from Design

• We have so far given argument for evidence of design in nature
• Arguments from design start from the evidence of design and infer the existence of a designer – a mind that can order things for a purpose

The Argument from Analogy

• The argument from analogy states that nature is like human inventions in the way it displays purpose (e.g. the heart pumping blood)
• Therefore, nature must have a similar cause to human inventions – a mind that intended to create such design

Objections to the Argument from Analogy

• First, he questions its strength: A watch is an example of something designed and made by humans, but living creatures or the universe aren’t like watches, so we can’t infer similar causes, as the effects aren’t alike
• Second, even if the analogy between effects was better; inferring a similar cause would be dubious
• We can’t reliably generalize from our very finite and limited experience of the universe to ascertain the cause of the universe as a whole
• Third, there could be other explanations of apparent design
• If there are different explanations of the apparent design of the universe, then we can’t infer that the cause is a designer

Is the Designer God?

• If we’re relying on analogy, this extra step from designer to God faces extra difficulties
• Using the analogy between human inventions and the universe, we should note that in the human case, the designer is not always also the creator
  • We therefore can’t infer that the designer of the universe also created the universe

• The scale of the design reflects the powers of the designer
  • Watches aren’t infinite, and neither are the minds that make them
  • The universe isn’t infinite, so we can’t infer that the designer is infinite; only that whoever designed the universe had sufficient power and intelligence to do that – but God is said to be infinite
• The quality of what is designed reflects the abilities of the designer
• Designers need to be trained, and their first designs will be poor and could be improved.
• We can argue that since the purpose of the universe is life, then the universe shows poor design, as there are things that wipe out life, e.g. volcanoes and comets hitting planets wipe out life – (but who says that the purpose of the universe is life, or that it has a purpose?)
• The aforementioned example would show that the designer made mistakes – but God is said to not make mistakes
• As is demonstrated; if the argument from design completely rests on analogy, then the argument faces many problems
• It follows that we’d need to remove the appeal to analogy...

Further

• As has been previously mentioned, we want to avoid appealing to analogy when inferring the existence of a designer
• Instead, we inferred a designer’s existence based on the probability of the universe being how it is
• This is an inductive argument from the existence of God

Swinburne’s Argument

• Swinburne says that God is the only satisfactory way that we can explain the fact that the universe allows life to evolve
• He says that science cannot possibly give us this answer, because all scientific explanations presuppose laws
  • For example, science explains why water boils when you heat it in terms of effects of heat on the particles, and then the sub atomic particles inside these, which suppose other laws and properties
• As a result, scientific laws are ‘brute’ – they have no explanation unless we can find some other kind of explanation for them

• However, even if you accept that there is a designer, David Hume pointed out that you can’t show that this designer is God
• This is because the argument doesn’t show that there is only one cause of the universe
• Or that the cause is perfect – omniscient and omnibenevolent, etc. or a being that cares about people

The Limits of Explanation

• If we explain design in terms of God, we would have to ask ‘What explains God?’
  • This seems even more puzzling than ‘What explains scientific laws?’
• If we cannot explain this, then we have failed to make progress

• Swinburne claims that it is progress, and science does it all the time
  • E.g. introducing sub atomic particles to explain something that happens in nuclear accelerators.
• This is progress, as you’re explaining one more thing
• As a result, we can still say that God’s a good explanation for scientific laws even if we can’t explain God

• But if we always have something we can’t explain, then why invoke God? Wouldn’t it be the same to say we can’t explain scientific laws?
• This is because we, as humans/scientists/philosophers should always try to explain as much as we can, and scientific laws leave fewer things unexplained, and is therefore the best result for finding higher ‘truths’ and ‘meanings’
• If you give up on finding these, then you give up on pursuing these forms of thought.

Does the Universe Need Explaining?

• Some things that appear to be coincidence or ‘luck’ are in fact inevitable
  • For example, winning the lottery is highly unlikely, but someone has to
  • Just because there’s a minute possibility of someone winning and they do win, doesn’t mean we need a special explanation for it (e.g. ‘It was rigged’)

• So suppose millions of universes existed, with different scientific laws that didn’t allow the universe to continue to exist.
• As soon as it begins, it would end.
• Some universes might be made with no life in them
• One must therefore thing that given all the possible variations in scientific laws, a universe such as ours would eventually come to exist – so it doesn’t need any special explanation – it had to happen!
• ‘Our’ universe had to be the right one because we wouldn’t be here to question it if it wasn’t! It goes back to Descartes!

• We can object to this argument, saying that it assumes the existence of a huge number of universes, which we have no evidence (sounds like God to me!)
• Swinburne argues that it’s simpler, and more evidential that the existence of one universe designed by God is a better evidence