View source for Teleological argument

{{short description|Argument for the existence of God}}
{{hatnote group|
{{For|teleology in general|Teleology|Telos}}
{{Distinguish|Intelligent design}}
}}
{{merge from|Natural-law argument|date=June 2025}}
The '''teleological argument''' (from {{Langx|grc|τέλος|translit=[[telos]]|lit=end, aim, goal|label=none}}) also known as '''physico-theological argument''', '''argument from design''', or '''intelligent design argument''', is a [[Rationality|rational]] 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.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=teleological argument |encyclopedia=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/teleological_argument|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220182936/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/teleological_argument|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 20, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Teleological Arguments for God's Existence |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=August 10, 2024 |date=June 10, 2005}}</ref><ref>[[Francisco J. Ayala|Ayala, Francisco J.]] 2006. "The Blasphemy of Intelligent Design". ''[[History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences]]'' 28(3):409–21. {{JSTOR|23334140}}. (review of ''[[Creationism's Trojan Horse|Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design]]''):

"The argument from design to demonstrate God's existence, now called the 'Intelligent Design' argument (ID) is a two-tined argument. The first prong asserts that the universe, humans, as well as all sorts of organisms, in their wholes, in their parts, and in their relations to one another and to their environment, appear to have been designed for serving certain functions and for certain ways of life. The second prong of the argument is that only an omnipotent Creator could account for the perfection and purposeful design of the universe and everything in it."</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Argument from Design |url=http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/design.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190716122932/https://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/design.html |archive-date=2019-07-16 |publisher=[[Princeton University]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Intelligent Design |url=http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515051745/http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php |archive-date=2013-05-15 |access-date=2013-05-14 |publisher=Intelligent Design}}</ref> 
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.<ref name="comp">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]], an argument for the existence of the gods from observations of design in the physical world."</ref><ref>Sedley (2007:86) agrees, and cites other recent commentators who agree, and argues in detail that the argument reported by [[Xenophon]] and [[Plato]] is "at any rate the antecedent" of the argument from design (p.&nbsp;213). He shows that the [[Stoicism|Stoics]] frequently paraphrased the account given by Xenophon.</ref> Later, [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] developed complex approaches to the proposal that the cosmos has an intelligent cause, but it was the [[Stoicism|Stoics]] during the Roman era who, under their influence, "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'".<ref name="Sedley 2007, page xvii">Sedley 2007, p.&nbsp;xvii.</ref>

Since the Roman era, various versions of the teleological argument have been associated with the [[Abrahamic religion]]s. In the [[Middle Ages]], Islamic theologians such as [[Al-Ghazali]] used the argument, although it was rejected as unnecessary by [[Quran]]ic literalists, and as unconvincing by many [[Islamic philosophers]]. Later, the teleological argument was accepted by [[Saint Thomas Aquinas]], and included as the fifth of his "[[Quinque viae|Five Ways]]" of proving the existence of God. In early modern England, clergymen such as [[William Turner (naturalist)|William Turner]] and [[John Ray]] 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".<ref>[[William Derham|Derham, William]]. 1713. ''Physico-Theology''.</ref> Later, [[William Paley]], in his 1802 ''[[Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity]]'' published a prominent presentation of the design argument with his version of the [[watchmaker analogy]] and the first use of the phrase "argument from design".<ref name="Oxford English Dictionary">"Design". ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', substantive number 4.</ref>

From its beginning, there have been numerous criticisms of the different versions of the teleological argument. Some have been written as responses to criticisms of non-teleological natural science which are associated with it. Especially important were the general logical arguments presented by [[David Hume]] in his ''[[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]]'', published in 1779, and the explanation of biological complexity given in [[Charles Darwin]]'s ''[[Origin of Species]]'', published in 1859.<ref>Manning, Russell Re. 2013. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=Zp5pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 Introduction]". Pp. 1–9 in ''The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Zp5pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 p.&nbsp;3], for example: "Between them, so the story goes, Hume, Darwin and Barth pulled the rug out from underneath the pretensions of natural theology to any philosophical, scientific, or theological legitimacy."</ref> 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]]. 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.<ref name="SM 07" />

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 [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonists]], 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]]. 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]].<ref name="comp" /> Religious thinkers in [[Judaism]], [[Hinduism]], [[Confucianism]], [[Islam]] 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]].

Contemporary defenders of the teleological argument are mainly Christians,<ref>{{cite court|litigants=Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|reporter=cv|vol=04|opinion=2688|date=December 20, 2005|quote=the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity}}, [[wikisource:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District/2:Context#Page 26 of 139|Ruling p. 26]]. A selection of writings and quotes of intelligent design supporters demonstrating this identification of the Christian god with the intelligent designer are found in the pdf [http://home.kc.rr.com/bnpndxtr/download/HorsesMouth-BP007.pdf ''Horse's Mouth'']{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080627021627/http://home.kc.rr.com/bnpndxtr/download/HorsesMouth-BP007.pdf|date=June 27, 2008}} (PDF) by Brian Poindexter, dated 2003.</ref> for example [[Richard Swinburne]] and [[John Lennox]].

== Classical philosophy ==

===Socrates and the pre-Socratics===
[[File:Sanzio 01 Plato Aristotle.jpg|thumb|upright|Plato and [[Aristotle]], depicted here in ''[[The School of Athens]]'', both developed philosophical arguments addressing the universe's apparent order (''[[logos]]'').]]

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]], born about 500 BC, as a possible earlier proponent.<ref name=mcpherr/><ref name=ahbel/><ref name=sed/> 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]]''" (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]] named [[Hermotimus of Clazomenae|Hermotimus]] who had taken a similar position.<ref>''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'' I.4.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aristot.+Met.+1.984b 984b].</ref> Amongst [[Pre-Socratic philosophers]] before Anaxagoras, other philosophers had proposed a similar intelligent ordering principle causing life and the rotation of the heavens. For example [[Empedocles]], like [[Hesiod]] much earlier, described cosmic order and living things as caused by a cosmic version of [[love]],<ref>Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. 1983. ''The Presocratic Philosophers'' (2nd ed.). Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. ch. 10.</ref> and [[Pythagoras]] and [[Heraclitus]] attributed the cosmos with "[[reason]]" (''[[logos]]'').<ref>Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. 1983. ''The Presocratic Philosophers'' (2nd ed.). Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. pp. 204, 235.</ref> In his ''[[Philebus]]'' 28c [[Plato]] has Socrates speak of this as a tradition, saying that "all philosophers agree—whereby they really exalt themselves—that mind (''[[nous]]'') 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".<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atext%3DPhileb.%3Apage%3D28 28c] and [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atext%3DPhileb.%3Apage%3D30 30d]. Translation by Fowler.</ref>

Xenophon's report in his ''[[Memorabilia (Xenophon)|Memorabilia]]'' might be the earliest clear account of an argument that there is evidence in nature of intelligent design.<ref name="ahbel">Ahbel-Rappe, Sara. 2009. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GKewlVwJ9rgC Socrates: A Guide for the Perplexed]''. {{ISBN|9780826433251}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=GKewlVwJ9rgC&pg=PA27 p. 27].</ref> The word traditionally translated and discussed as "design" is ''[[wikt:γνώμη|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.<ref name="mcpherr">{{Citation |last=McPherran |first=Mark |title=The Religion of Socrates |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nWfQx1CjZl0C&q=socrates+religion+%22intelligent+design%22&pg=PA274 |year=1996 |publisher=The Pennsylvania State University Press |isbn=978-0271040325}}, pp. 273–75.</ref><ref name="sed">{{Citation |last=Sedley |first=David |title=Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SgRuJEfzUG8C |year=2007 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520934368}}.</ref> 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' [[materialism|materialist]] understanding of [[Causality|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.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Apage%3D97 97]-[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Apage%3D98 98]. Also see Ahbel Rappe.</ref> 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]].);<ref name=ahbel /> {{harvcoltxt|McPherran|1996|p=290}}; and<ref>Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. 1983. ''The Presocratic Philosophers'' (2nd ed.). Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. ch. XVI</ref>

===Plato and Aristotle===
Plato's ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|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.<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|132}} 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]], the [[Stoicism|Stoics]], and [[Galen]] all understood Plato as proposing the world originated in an "intelligent creative act".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|133}} Plato has a character explain the concept of a "[[demiurge]]" with supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

Plato's teleological perspective is also built upon the analysis of ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' order and structure in the world that he had already presented in ''[[Republic (dialogue)|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.<ref>Brickhouse, Thomas, and Nicholas D. Smith. 21 April 2005. "[http://www.iep.utm.edu/plato/ Plato]". ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. Retrieved November 12, 2011.</ref>

{{blockquote|text=Plato's world of eternal and unchanging [[Theory of Forms|Forms]], imperfectly represented in matter by a divine Artisan, contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic [[Weltanschauungen]], of which [[atomism]] was, by the 4th century at least, the most prominent {{omission}} This debate was to persist throughout the ancient world. Atomistic mechanism got a shot in the arm from [[Epicurus]] {{omission}} while the [[Stoics]] adopted a divine teleology {{omission}} The choice seems simple: either show how a structured, regular world could arise out of undirected processes, or inject intelligence into the system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hankinson |first=R. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwfy-n5IWL8C |title=Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-19-924656-4 |page=125}}</ref>|author=R. J. Hankinson|title=Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought}}

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".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|204}} 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]]".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|171}} 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.<ref name=sed/>

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.<ref name="HistAnimI2">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.1.i.html#223 |title=History of Animals |at=I 2}}</ref> Therefore the most complete explanation in regard to the natural, as well as the artificial, is for the most part teleological.<ref name="Nussbaum1985">{{Cite book |last=Nussbaum |first=M.C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ISD05P7TcOAC&pg=PA60 |title=Aristotle's de Motu Animalium |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-691-02035-8 |series=Princeton paperbacks |page=60,66,69–70,73–81,94–98,101 |lccn=77072132}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Nussbaum1985" /><ref name="PhysI2">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.1.i.html#130 |title=Physics |at=I 2 (¶15)}}</ref><ref name="PartsAnimI1">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/parts_animals.1.i.html#100 |title=Parts of Animals |at=I 1}}</ref><ref name="Ross2004">{{Cite book |last1=Ross |first1=D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=651Bg2-8xsEC&pg=PA80 |title=Aristotle |last2=Ackrill |first2=J.L. |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-415-32857-9 |page=80}}</ref><ref name="HullRuse2007">{{Cite book |last1=Hull |first1=D.L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aZOgg-x4UyIC&pg=PA174 |title=The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology |last2=Ruse |first2=M. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-521-61671-3 |series=Cambridge Companions to Philosophy |page=174 |lccn=2006025898}}</ref> He conceded that monstrosities (new forms of life) could come about by chance,<ref name="PhysII8a">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#530 |title=Physics |at=II 8 &nbsp;(¶2)}}</ref><ref name="PhysII8b">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#585 |title=Physics |at=II 8 &nbsp;(¶5)}}</ref> but he disagreed with those who ascribed all nature purely to chance<ref name="PhysII8c">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#604 |title=Physics |at=II 8 &nbsp;(¶8)}}</ref> because he believed science can only provide a general account of that which is normal, "always, or for the most part".<ref name="PhysII8">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#522 |title=Physics |at=II 8}}</ref> 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."<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|186}} According to Aristotle the changes which happen by nature are caused by their "[[formal cause]]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:
{{blockquote|text=If then what comes from art is for the sake of something, it is clear that what come from nature is too {{omission}} This is clear most of all in the other animals, which do nothing by art, inquiry, or deliberation; for which reason some people are completely at a loss whether it is by intelligence or in some other way that spiders, ants, and such things work. {{omission}} It is absurd to think that a thing does not happen for the sake of something if we do not see what sets it in motion deliberating. {{omission}} This is most clear when someone practices medicine himself on himself; for nature is like that.|author=Aristotle|source=Physics, II 8.<ref>Sachs translation (1998), ''Aristotle's physics; a guided study'', 2nd ed., pages 67–68.</ref>}}

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]] 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.<ref name="Nussbaum1985" /> 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 (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'' and other works Aristotle clearly argued a case for there being one highest god or "[[prime mover theory|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.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}} He clearly refers to this entity having an [[active intellect|intellect]] 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.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

===Roman era===
It was the [[Stoicism|Stoics]] who "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|xviii}} 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:
{{Blockquote|text=When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers?|author=Cicero|source=''De Natura Deorum'', II.34}}

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.<ref>Sedley (2007) ''Epilogue''.</ref>

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.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

==Medieval philosophy and theology==

===Late classical Christian writers===
As an appeal to [[general revelation]], [[Paul the Apostle]] (AD 5–67), argues in [[Epistle to the Romans|Romans]] 1:18–20,<ref>{{bibleverse|Romans|1:18–20}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Christian philosophy as natural theology |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=17 August 2023 |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/115240/Christianity/67536/Christian-philosophy-as-natural-theology}}</ref>

[[Marcus Minucius Felix]] (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 ?"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marcus Minucius Felix |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8OZqxbh23sQC&q=Marcus%20Minucius%20Felix%20ordered%20house&pg=PA359 |title=The Octavius of Minucius Felix |publisher=OrthodoxEbook |year=2010 |pages=359–361 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

[[Augustine of Hippo]] (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".<ref>[[Augustine of Hippo]], ''[[The City of God|City of God]]'' XI, ch. 4: "the world itself, by its well-ordered changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has been created, and also that it could not have been created save by God, whose greatness and beauty are unutterable and invisible".</ref>

=== 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 [[Quran|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 [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonists]] such as Plotinus, whereby nature is rationally ordered, but God is not like a craftsman who literally manages the world. Later, [[Avicenna]] was also convinced of this, and proposed instead a cosmological argument for the existence of God.<ref>{{Citation |last=Goodman |first=Lenn Evan |title=Avicenna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=779JPlxYtGoC&pg=PA63 |page=63 |year=1992 |publisher=Cornell university press |isbn=978-0801472541}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Citation |last=Abrahamov |first=Binyāmîn |title=Kitāb al-Dalīl al-Kabīr |year=1990 |editor-last=Abrahamov |editor-first=Binyāmîn |chapter=Introduction |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SYqKHJFAhr8C |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-9004089853}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kogan, Barry S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lAyv0Ayy-R0C&q=teleological+argument&pg=PA240 |title=Averroes and the metaphysics of causation |publisher=SUNY Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-88706-063-2 |pages=240–243}}</ref><ref>Belo, Catarina. 2007. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=b4Nii9xOmTYC Chance and Determinism in Avicenna and Averroës]''. Leiden: [[Brill Publishers|Brill]]. p.&nbsp;194.</ref>

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.<ref>[[Carlos Fraenkel|Fraenkel, Carlos]]. 2012. ''Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza: Reason, Religion, and Autonomy''. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=2wYgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA199 199].</ref> 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]] 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:"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+40:26&version=AKJV|title=Bible Gateway passage: Isaiah 40:26 - Authorized (King James) Version|website=Bible Gateway}}</ref> 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."<ref>Holtz, B., ''Back to the Sources'', Simon and Schuster, 2008, p. 287.</ref>

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".<ref name=Koch/> 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?"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/RabbaGenesis/midrashrabbahgen027557mbp?view=theater|title=rabba genesis|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Because of these examples, the 19th century philosopher [[Nachman Krochmal]] called the argument from design "a cardinal principle of the Jewish faith".<ref name="Koch">Harris, J.M., ''Nachman Krochmal: Guiding the Perplexed of the Modern Age'', NYU Press, 1991, p. 45.</ref>

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."<ref>Kaplan, A., ''The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology: Illuminating Expositions on Jewish Thought and Practice by a Revered Teacher'', Volume 1, Mesorah Publications, 1991, p. 114.</ref>

=== Thomas Aquinas ===
[[File:St-thomas-aquinas.jpg|thumb|upright|The fifth of Thomas Aquinas' proofs of God's existence was based on teleology.]]

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]]''. These arguments feature only ''a posteriori'' arguments, rather than literal reading of holy texts.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davies, Brian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TxrDzeKU2VsC&q=aquinas+teleological+argument+aristotle&pg=PA30 |title=The Thought of Thomas Aquinas |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-19-152044-0 |page=30, footnote 30}}</ref> He sums up his teleological argument as follows:

{{Blockquote|text=The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. |author=Thomas Aquinas|source=''Summa Theologica: Article 3, Question 2)''<ref name="Himma">Himma, Kenneth Einar (2006). [http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/design.htm#SH1b "Design Arguments for the Existence of God"], in James Fieser and Bradley Dowden, eds., ''The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', retrieved 8/24/08</ref>}}

Aquinas notes that the existence of [[final cause]]s, 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.<ref name="Himma" />

==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 [[Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica|''Principia'']]:
{{blockquote|text=This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.<ref>Newton, I., quoted in Huyssteen, JWV. (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Science and Religion'', Macmillan, 2003, p. 621.</ref>}}

This view, that "God is known from his works", was supported and popularized by Newton's friends [[Richard Bentley]], [[Samuel Clarke]] and [[William Whiston]] in the [[Boyle lectures]], which Newton supervised.<ref>Leshem, A., ''Newton on Mathematics and Spiritual Purity'', Springer, 2003, p. 19.</ref> Newton wrote to Bentley, just before Bentley delivered the first lecture, that:

{{blockquote|text=when I wrote my treatise about our Systeme I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the beliefe {{sic}} of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose.<ref>Leshem, A., ''Newton on Mathematics and Spiritual Purity'', Springer, 2003, p. 20.</ref>}}

The German philosopher [[Gottfried Leibniz]] disagreed with Newton's view of design in the teleological argument. In the [[Leibniz–Clarke correspondence]], 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:{{blockquote|text=According to [Newton's] doctrine, God Almighty wants [i.e. needs] to wind up his watch from time to time; otherwise it would cease to move. He had not it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion<ref>Leshem, A., ''Newton on Mathematics and Spiritual Purity'', Springer, 2003, pp. 21–22.[https://books.google.com/books?id=fD-qvJp0Q5kC&dq=argument+from+design+%22Samuel+Clarke%22&pg=PA19]</ref>}}

Leibniz considered the argument from design to have "only moral certainty" unless it was supported by his own idea of [[pre-established harmony]] expounded in his [[Monadology]].<ref>Pomerlaeau, ''Western Philosophies Religion'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998, p. 180.</ref> [[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 [[monad (philosophy)|monads]], programmed to act in a predetermined way.<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica'': "monads are basic substances that make up the universe but lack spatial extension and hence are immaterial. Each monad is a unique, indestructible, dynamic, soullike entity whose properties are a function of its perceptions and appetites."</ref> Russell wrote:
{{blockquote|text=In Leibniz's form, the argument states that the harmony of all the monads can only have arisen from a common cause. That they should all exactly synchronize, can only be explained by a Creator who pre-determined their synchronism.<ref>Russell, B., ''A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz,'', Routledge, 2005, First published 1900, p. 218.</ref>}}

=== British empiricists ===

The 17th-century [[Dutch people|Dutch]] writers [[Lessius]] and [[Grotius]] argued that the intricate structure of the world, like that of a house, was unlikely to have arisen by chance.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Franklin |first=James |title=The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8018-6569-5 |location=Baltimore |pages=244–5}}</ref> The empiricist [[John Locke]], writing in the late 17th century, developed the Aristotelian idea that, excluding geometry, all science must attain its knowledge ''a posteriori''—through sensual experience.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Claiborne Chappell, Vere |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f28fFbiohXMC&q=locke+a+priori&pg=PA163 |title=The Cambridge companion to Locke |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-521-38772-9 |pages=161–164}}</ref> In response to Locke, Anglican Irish Bishop [[George Berkeley]] advanced a form of [[idealism]] in which things only continue to exist when they are perceived.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dicker, Georges |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XBqQXI3JGeEC&q=teleological+argument+berkeley&pg=PA260 |title=Berkeley's Idealism: A Critical Examination |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-538146-7 |page=260}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=George Berkeley |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/ |access-date=November 17, 2011 |author=Downing, Lisa}}</ref>

David Hume, in the mid-18th century, referred to the teleological argument in his ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]''. 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.{{'"}}<ref>Wright, JP., in Traiger, S., ''The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise'', John Wiley & Sons, 2008, p.&nbsp;12.</ref>

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".<ref>Pomerleau, WP., ''Twelve Great Philosophers: A Historical Introduction to Human Nature'', Rowman & Littlefield, 1997, p. 215.</ref>

Hume also presented arguments both for and against the teleological argument in his ''[[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]]''. 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:
{{blockquote|text=Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great-machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man; though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument ''a posteriori,'' and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.<ref name="Hume1779" />}}

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".<ref name="Hume1779">{{Cite book |last=Hume |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E7dbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA111 |title=Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion |publisher=[[Sine nomine|s.n.]] |year=1779 |isbn=9781843271659 |edition=The Second |location=London |page=111}}</ref>

=== 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 theology|natural theologian]], 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?"<ref>Derham, W., ''Physico-Theology'', 1713, p. 36.</ref> Also, of the "sense of sound" he writes:<ref>Derham, W., ''Physico-Theology'', 1713, pp. 131–132.</ref>
{{blockquote|text=For who but an intelligent Being, what less than an omnipotent and infinitely wise God could contrive, and make such a fine Body, such a Medium, so susceptible of every Impression, that the Sense of Hearing hath occasion for, to empower all Animals to express their Sense and Meaning to others.}}

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.<ref>[[William Derham|Derham, William]]. 1713. [https://books.google.com/books/about/Physico_theology_Or_A_Demonstration_of_t.html?id=6Tm2CZLTl0wC ''Physico-Theology'']. p. 328.</ref> Weber (2000) writes that Derham's ''Physico-Theology'' "directly influenced" William Paley's later work.<ref>Weber, A. S. 2000. ''Nineteenth-Century Science: An Anthology''. [[Broadview Press]]. p. 18.</ref>

The power, and yet the limitations, of this kind of reasoning is illustrated in microcosm by the history of [[La Fontaine's Fables|La Fontaine's]] fable of [[The Acorn and the Pumpkin]], 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.<ref>Peter France, "The poet as a teacher" in ''Poetry in France: metamorphoses of a muse'', Edinburgh U 1992, p.&nbsp;138</ref> However, beginning with [[Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea|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."<ref>Spirago, Francis, and James Joseph Baxter. 1904. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=--ELAwAAQBAJ Anecdotes and Examples: Illustrating the Catholic Catechism]''. New York: [[Benziger Bros]]. pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=--ELAwAAQBAJ&dq=%22the+acorn+and+the+pumpkin%22&pg=PA39 39]–40.</ref>

=== Watchmaker analogy ===
[[File:WilliamPaley.jpg|thumb|[[William Paley]] popularized the "watchmaker analogy" used by earlier [[natural theology|natural theologians]], making it a famous teleological argument.]]
{{main|Watchmaker analogy}}

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]] 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".<ref>{{Citation |title=De natura deorum |url=https://archive.org/details/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft |year=1933 |publisher=London W. Heinemann}}, translated by H. Rackham. This is discussed at Sedley p.&nbsp;207.</ref> It was also used by [[Robert Hooke]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hooke |first=Rober |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0DYXk_9XX38C |title=Micrographia |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-486-49564-4 |page=2}}</ref> and [[Voltaire]], the latter of whom remarked:<ref>[[Étienne Gilson|Gilson, Étienne]], trans. 2009. ''Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution''. [[Ignatius Press]]. p. 126.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Voltaire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ai8HAAAAQAAJ&q=point+d%27horloger&pg=PA9 |title=Les cabales,: oeuvre pacifique |publisher=Oxford University, s. n., 1772 |year=1772 |isbn=978-1-165-51896-8 |page=9 |author-link=Voltaire}}</ref>

{{Verse translation|{{lang|fr|L'univers m'embarrasse, et je ne puis songer
Que cette horloge existe, et n'ait point d'horloger}}|The Universe troubles me, and much less can I think
That this clock exists and should have no clockmaker.}}

[[William Paley]] presented his version of the watchmaker analogy at the start of his ''[[Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity|Natural Theology]]'' (1802).<ref>{{harvnb|Paley|1809|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A142&viewtype=text&pageseq=7 1].}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=[S]uppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think...that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for [a] stone [that happened to be lying on the ground]?... For this reason, and for no other; namely, that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, if a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it.}}

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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=McGrath, AE. |url=https://archive.org/details/darwinismdivinee00mcgr |title=Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2011 |page=[https://archive.org/details/darwinismdivinee00mcgr/page/n109 94] |url-access=limited}}</ref>

Natural theology strongly influenced British science, with the expectation as expressed by [[Adam Sedgwick]] in 1831 that truths revealed by science could not conflict with the moral truths of religion.<ref>[[Janet Browne|Browne, E. Janet]]. 1995. ''Charles Darwin: vol. 1 Voyaging''. London: [[Jonathan Cape]]. {{ISBN|1-84413-314-1}}. p. 129.</ref> These natural philosophers saw God as the first cause, and sought secondary causes to explain design in nature: the leading figure Sir [[John Herschel]] wrote in 1836 that by analogy with other [[Physical law|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".<ref name="hersch">{{cite journal | last1 = Wyhe | first1 = John van | authorlink = John van Wyhe | year = 2007 | title = Mind the Gap: Did Darwin Avoid Publishing His Theory for Many Years? | url = http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A544&pageseq=21 | journal = [[Notes and Records of the Royal Society]] | volume = 61 | issue = | pages = 177–205 | doi = 10.1098/rsnr.2006.0171 }}</ref><ref>[[Charles Babbage|Babbage, Charles]]. [1838] 2002. ''[[Ninth Bridgewater Treatise|The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise]]'' (2nd ed.), edited by [[John van Wyhe|J. van Wyhe]]. London: [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]. pp. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A25&pageseq=232 225–27].</ref>

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".<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1958|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1497&pageseq=61 59], [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1497&pageseq=89 87].}}</ref> 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]]'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."<ref name="SMiles">{{cite journal | last1 = Miles | first1 = Sara Joan | year = 2001 | title = Charles Darwin and Asa Gray Discuss Teleology and Design | url = http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Miles.html| journal = PSCF | volume = 53 | issue = | pages = 196–201 }}</ref>

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:"<ref>Darwin, Charles. 1903. ''[[More Letters of Charles Darwin]]'', edited by [[Francis Darwin|F. Darwin]]. New York: [[D. Appleton & Company]]. p. 252, quoted in {{cite journal | last1 = Miles | first1 = Sara Joan | year = 2001 | title = Charles Darwin and Asa Gray Discuss Teleology and Design | url = http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Miles.html | journal = [[Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith]] | volume = 53 | issue = | pages = 196–201 }}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I shd wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed.}}

==Recent proponents==

===Probabilistic arguments===
In 1928 and 1930, [[Frederick Robert Tennant|F. R. Tennant]] published his ''Philosophical Theology'', which was a "bold endeavour to combine scientific and theological thinking".<ref>"Tennant, Frederick Robert". ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.</ref> He proposed a version of the teleological argument based on the accumulation of the probabilities of each individual [[biological adaptation]]. "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."<ref name="Rout" /> 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."<ref name="Rout">Craig, E. 1998. "Tennant, Frederick Robert (1866–1957)." ''[[Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. London: [[Taylor & Francis]].</ref>

[[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".<ref name="Rout" /> 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".<ref name="EB">"Christian philosophy". ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.</ref> Swinburne writes:<ref>[[Richard Swinburne|Swinburne, Richard]]. 2004. ''The Existence of God''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. p. 166.</ref>
{{blockquote|text=[T]he existence of order in the world confirms the existence of God if and only if the existence of this order in the world is more probable if there is a God than if there is not. ... the probability of order of the right kind is very much greater if there is a God, and so that the existence of such order adds greatly to the probability that there is a God.}}

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 argument]]s 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]]'':<ref>[[Alvin Plantinga|Plantinga, A.]] [1967] 1990. ''[[God and Other Minds|God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God]]''. [[Cornell University Press]]. p.&nbsp;104.</ref>

{{Poem quote|text=Every contingent object such that we know whether or not it was the product of intelligent design, was the product of intelligent design.
The universe is a contingent object.
So probably the universe is designed.}}

Following Plantinga, Georges Dicker produced a slightly different version in his book about [[George Berkeley]]:<ref>Dicker, G. 2011. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5yVwAgAAQBAJ Berkeley's Idealism: A Critical Examination]''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=5yVwAgAAQBAJ&dq=plantinga+++%22argument+from+design%22&pg=PA262 p.&nbsp;262].</ref>

{{Poem quote|text=A. The world ... shows amazing teleological order.
B. All Objects exhibiting such order ... are products of intelligent design.
C. Probably the world is a result of intelligent design.
D. Probably, God exists and created the world.}}

The ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' has the following criticism of such arguments:<ref name="EB" />
{{blockquote|text=It can of course be said that any form in which the universe might be is statistically enormously improbable as it is only one of a virtual infinity of possible forms. But its actual form is no more improbable, in this sense, than innumerable others. It is only the fact that humans are part of it that makes it seem so special, requiring a transcendent explanation.}}

=== Fine-tuned universe ===
{{Main|Fine-tuned universe}}

A modern variation of the teleological argument is built upon the concept of the [[fine-tuned universe]]: According to the website ''[[BioLogos|Biologos]]'':<ref name="biologos.org">{{Cite web |title=What is the "fine-tuning" of the universe, and how does it serve as a "pointer to God"? &#124; BioLogos |url=http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141221081439/http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning |archive-date=2014-12-21 |access-date=2015-01-11}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=Fine-tuning refers to the surprising precision of nature's physical constants, and the beginning state of the Universe. To explain the present state of the universe, even the best scientific theories require that the physical constants of nature and the beginning state of the Universe have extremely precise values.}}

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]] explosion had been different by 1/10 to the sixtieth power or the [[strong interaction|strong interaction force]] was only 5% different, life would be impossible.<ref name="Himma2009"/> Noted 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".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=White |first1=Martin |last2=Kochanek |first2=C. S. |year=2001 |title=Constraints on the Long-Range Properties of Gravity from Weak Gravitational Lensing |journal=The Astrophysical Journal |volume=560 |issue=2 |pages=539–543 |arxiv=astro-ph/0105227 |bibcode=2001ApJ...560..539W |doi=10.1086/323074 |s2cid=11812709}}</ref> 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.<ref name="biologos.org" /><ref name="Himma2009">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Design Arguments for the Existence of God |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/design |access-date=November 19, 2011 |date=12 April 2009 |author=Himma, Kenneth Einar}}</ref> 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..."<ref name="Himma2009" /> Himma attributes the "Argument from Suspicious Improbabilities", a formalization of "the fine-tuning intuition" to [[George N. Schlesinger]]:

{{blockquote|text=To understand Schlesinger's argument, consider your reaction to two different events. If John wins a 1-in-1,000,000,000 lottery game, you would not immediately be tempted to think that John (or someone acting on his behalf) cheated. If, however, John won three consecutive 1-in-1,000 lotteries, you would immediately be tempted to think that John (or someone acting on his behalf) cheated. Schlesinger believes that the intuitive reaction to these two scenarios is epistemically justified. The structure of the latter event is such that it... justifies a belief that intelligent design is the cause... Despite the fact that the probability of winning three consecutive 1-in-1,000 games is exactly the same as the probability of winning one 1-in-1,000,000,000 game, the former event... warrants an inference of intelligent design.}}

Himma considers Schlesinger's argument to be subject to the same vulnerabilities he noted in other versions of the design argument:<ref name="Himma2009" />
{{blockquote|text=While Schlesinger is undoubtedly correct in thinking that we are justified in suspecting design in the case [of winning] three consecutive lotteries, it is because—and only because—we know two related empirical facts about such events. First, we already know that there exist intelligent agents who have the right motivations and causal abilities to deliberately bring about such events. Second, we know from past experience with such events that they are usually explained by the deliberate agency of one or more of these agents. Without at least one of these two pieces of information, we are not obviously justified in seeing design in such cases {{omission}} [T]he problem for the fine-tuning argument is that we lack both of the pieces that are needed to justify an inference of design. First, the very point of the argument is to establish the fact that there exists an intelligent agency that has the right causal abilities and motivations to bring the existence of a universe capable of sustaining life. Second, and more obviously, we do not have any past experience with the genesis of worlds and are hence not in a position to know whether the existence of fine-tuned universes are usually explained by the deliberate agency of some intelligent agency. Because we lack this essential background information, we are not justified in inferring that there exists an intelligent Deity who deliberately created a universe capable of sustaining life.}}

[[Antony Flew]], who spent most of his life as an atheist, converted to [[deism]] 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".<ref name="Diogenes">{{Cite book |last=Allen, Diogenes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ouWlkBXeg5IC&q=anthropic+principle+antony+flew&pg=PA42 |title=Theology for a Troubled Believer: An Introduction to the Christian Faith |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-664-22322-9 |page=42}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=D'Souza, Dinesh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vVXf2PV8pyQC&q=anthropic%20principle%20antony%20flew&pg=PA133 |title=What's so great about Christianity |publisher=Regnery |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-59698-517-9 |pages=132–3}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Diogenes" />
{{blockquote|text=Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would ... A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.<ref name="Hoyle1981">{{Cite journal |last=Hoyle |first=Fred |date=November 1981 |title=The Universe: Past and Present Reflections |journal=Engineering and Science |pages=8–12}}</ref>|author=Fred Hoyle|title=Engineering and Science|source=The Universe: Past and Present Reflections}}

[[Robin Collins]] argues that the universe is fine-tuned for scientific discoverability, and that this fine-tuning cannot be explained by the multiverse hypothesis.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/72611587 |title=The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability  |last=Collins |first=Robin |date=2016 |website= |publisher=Philosophy Educator Scholarship |access-date=27 August 2024 |quote=}}</ref> According to Collins, the universe's laws, fundamental parameters, and initial conditions must be just right for the universe to be as discoverable as ours. According to Collins, examples of fine-tuning for discoverability include:
* The [[fine-structure constant]] is fine-tuned for energy usage. If it were stronger, there would be no practical way to harness energy. If it were weaker, fire would burn through wood too quickly and energy usage would be impractical.
* The baryon-to-photon ratio allowed for the discovery of the big bang via the [[cosmic microwave background]].
* Many things in particle physics are within a narrow range required for discoverability, such as the mass of the [[Higgs boson]].

=== Creation science and intelligent design ===
{{Main|Intelligent design}}
A version of the argument from design is central to both [[creation science]] and [[intelligent design]],<ref name="SM 07" /> but unlike Paley's openness to [[deism|deistic]] design through God-given laws, proponents seek scientific confirmation of repeated miraculous interventions in the history of life, and argue that their [[theistic science]] should be taught in science classrooms.<ref name="PM 09">{{cite journal | last1 = Padian | first1 = Kevin | authorlink = Kevin Padian | authorlink2 = Nick Matzke | last2 = Matzke | first2 = Nicholas | year = 2009 | title = Darwin, Dover, 'Intelligent Design' and textbooks | url = | journal = [[Biochemical Journal]] | volume = 417 | issue = 1| pages = 29–42 | doi = 10.1042/bj20081534 | pmid = 19061485 }}</ref>

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]] led to the [[Biological Sciences Curriculum Study]] reintroducing the teaching of evolution. In response, there was a resurgence of [[creationism]], 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.")<ref name="SM 07" />

A 1989 survey found that virtually all literature promoting creation science presented the design argument, with [[John D. Morris]] 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]]'' (closely resembling a fine-tuning argument). The [[United States Supreme Court]] ruling on ''[[Edwards v. Aguillard]]'' barred the teaching of "Creation Science" in public schools because it breached the [[Separation of church and state in the United States|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.<ref name="SM 07">{{Cite journal|pmc=1876445 |date=2007 |last1=Scott |first1=E. C. |last2=Matzke |first2=N. J. |title=Biological design in science classrooms |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=104 |issue=Suppl 1 |pages=8669–8676 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0701505104 |doi-access=free |pmid=17494747 |bibcode=2007PNAS..104.8669S }}</ref>

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.<ref name="Pigliucci2010" /> The court took evidence from theologian [[John F. Haught]], and ruled that "ID is not a new scientific [[argument]], 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."<ref>{{cite court
|litigants=Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
|vol=04
|reporter=cv
|opinion=2688
|date=December 20, 2005
}}, [[s:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District/2:Context#Page 24 of 139|Ruling, p. 24]].</ref>

Proponents of the [[intelligent design movement]] such as Cornelius G. Hunter, have asserted that the methodological [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]] upon which science is based is religious in nature.<ref>"Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism". Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, (2007)</ref> They commonly refer to it as 'scientific materialism' or as 'methodological materialism' and conflate it with 'metaphysical naturalism'.<ref>[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/barbara_forrest/naturalism.html Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism]: Clarifying the Connection (2000), [[Barbara Forrest]], Retrieved 2007-05-20.</ref> 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 realism|theistic science]]. This ignores the distinction between science and religion, established in Ancient Greece, in which science can not use supernatural explanations.<ref name="Pigliucci2010">{{Cite book |last=Pigliucci |first=Massimo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aC8Baky2qTcC&pg=PA177 |title=Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-226-66786-7 |page=177 |lccn=2009049778 |quote=[E]ven back in Aristotle's time, a fundamental assumption of doing things scientifically is that the supernatural is out: no explanations that invoke non-natural causes are allowed.}}</ref>

Intelligent design advocate and [[biochemist]] [[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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Oppy, Graham |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DlVtfUxPD14C&q=behe&pg=PA187 |title=Arguing About Gods |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-521-86386-5 |pages=187–189}}</ref> This negative argument against step by step evolution ignores longstanding evidence that evolution proceeds through [[exaptation|changes of function]] from preceding systems. The specific examples Behe proposes have been shown to have simpler [[Homology (biology)|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.{{Citation needed|date=October 2018}} {{Example needed|s|date=October 2022}} 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".<ref name="SM 07" />

===Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics===
[[William Lane Craig]] has proposed a 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{{sic}} 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 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:<ref>{{Cite web |title=God and the 'Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics' - Reasonable Faith |url=http://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/god-and-the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-mathematics/ |website=www.reasonablefaith.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Does God Exist? - Reasonable Faith |url=http://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/does-god-exist1/ |website=www.reasonablefaith.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=YouTube |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZmFptNGnFs |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200313161320/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZmFptNGnFs&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=2020-03-13 |access-date=2018-12-11 |website=www.youtube.com}}</ref>

{{Poem quote|text=1. If God did not exist, the applicability of mathematics would be just a happy coincidence.
2. The applicability of mathematics is not just a happy coincidence.
3. Therefore, God exists.|char=|sign=|title=|source=}}

=== "Third way" proposal ===

[[University of Chicago]] [[geneticist]] [[James A. Shapiro]], 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]]" systems, can produce radical reorganizations of the "genetic apparatus within a single cell generation".<ref name="Shapiro">{{Cite web |last=Shapiro |first=James |title=A Third Way |url=https://bostonreview.net/archives/BR22.1/shapiro.html}}</ref> Shapiro suggests what he calls a 'Third Way'; a non-creationist, non-Darwinian type of evolution:
{{blockquote|text=What significance does an emerging interface between biology and information science hold for thinking about evolution? It opens up the possibility of addressing scientifically rather than ideologically the central issue so hotly contested by fundamentalists on both sides of the Creationist-Darwinist debate: Is there any guiding intelligence at work in the origin of species displaying exquisite adaptations {{omission}}<ref name="Shapiro" />}}

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 [can] be attributed to cells", even though this is "the kind of teleological thinking that scientists have been taught to avoid at all costs".<ref>[[James A. Shapiro|Shapiro, James A]]. 2011. ''Evolution: A View from the 21st Century''. Pearson Education. [https://books.google.com/books?id=T7-UgI_kgT8C&q=shapiro+creationism pp. 136–37].</ref>

===Interacting whole===

The metaphysical theologian [[Norris Clarke]] shared an argument to his fellow professors at [[Fordham University]] 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Twenty Arguments God's Existence by Peter Kreeft (& Ronald K. Tacelli) |url=http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#8 |website=www.peterkreeft.com}}</ref>

== 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 [[Epicurus|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.<ref name=sed/>

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".<ref>Chiaradonna, Riccardo. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=7Wt2BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 Plotinus' account of demiurgic causation and its philosophical background]". Pp. 31–50 in ''Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity'', edited by A. Marmodoro and B. D. Prince. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7Wt2BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 p.&nbsp;31].</ref>

===David Hume===
[[File:David Hume.jpg|thumb|David Hume outlined his criticisms of the teleological argument in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''.]]

Louis Loeb writes that [[David Hume]], in his ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding|Enquiry]]'', "insists that inductive inference cannot justify belief in extended objects". Loeb also quotes Hume as writing:
{{blockquote|text=It is only when two species of objects are found to be constantly conjoined, that we can infer the one from the other. {{omission}} If experience and observation and analogy be, indeed, the only guides which we can reasonably follow in inference of this nature; both the effect and cause must bear a similarity and resemblance to other effects and causes...which we have found, in many instances, to be conjoined with another. {{omission}} [The proponents of the argument] always suppose the universe, an effect quite singular and unparalleled, to be the proof of a Deity, a cause no less singular and unparalleled.}}

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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Radcliffe |first=Elizabeth S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ECxW_2tAf0C&dq=%22insists+that+inductive%22+hume&pg=PA118 |title=Loeb, LE., in Radcliffe, ES (ed.), ''A Companion to Hume'', John Wiley & Sons, 2010, p. 118. |date=31 May 2011 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9781444337860}}</ref>
 
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.<ref name="IEP Hume">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=David Hume (1711–1776) |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume |access-date=November 24, 2011 |date=June 30, 2011 |author=Fiesar, James}}</ref> Philo argues:
{{Blockquote|text=A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?|author=David Hume|source=Dialogues 2<ref name="IEP Hume" />}}

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.<ref name="IEP Hume" /> 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.<ref name="God Hypothesis">{{Cite book |last=Auerbach, Albert A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OtDSNNPjpRwC&q=teleological+argument+from+ignorance&pg=PA60 |title=The God Hypothesis and Other Theories of the Universe |publisher=Infinity Publishing |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-7414-0245-5 |pages=59–60}}</ref> 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.&nbsp;108).<ref name="Hume1779" />

[[Wesley C. Salmon]] 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]], Salmon concludes that it is very improbable that the universe was created by the type of intelligent being theists argue for.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Salmon | first1 = Wesley C. | year = 1978 | title = Religion and Science: A New Look at Hume's Dialogues | url = | journal = Philosophical Studies | volume = 33 | issue = | pages = 143–176 }}</ref>

[[Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)|Nancy Cartwright]] accuses Salmon of [[begging the question]]. 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cartwright |first=Nancy |year=1978 |title=Comments on Wesley Salmon's 'Science and Religion ...' |journal=Philosophical Studies |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=177–183 |doi=10.1007/BF00571885 |jstor=4319204 |s2cid=170346176|url=https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1400886 }}</ref>

==={{anchor|The intelligence may not be God}}Intelligence may not be God===
Referring to it as the [[Natural theology|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."<ref>Buroker, J. V. ''Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason': An Introduction'', Cambridge University Press. p.&nbsp;279.[https://books.google.com/books?id=2DaHzDGjR48C&q=%22argument+from+design%22+&pg=PA278]</ref><ref>Kant, Immanuel. [1781] 1998. ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]''. in Guyer, P. and A. W. Wood, trans. [[Cambridge University Press]]. p. 578.</ref> 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]]".<ref>Rabitte, E. 1995. ''David Hume: Critical Assessments'' 5, edited by S. Tweyman. [[Taylor & Francis]]. p. 192.</ref>[[File:D'après Nicolas de Largillière, portrait de Voltaire (Institut et Musée Voltaire) -001.jpg|thumb|[[Voltaire]] argued that, at best, the teleological argument could only indicate the existence of a powerful, but not necessarily all-powerful or all-knowing, intelligence.]]

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.<ref name="Voltaire">{{Cite book |last=Voltaire |title=The Works of Voltaire: The Henriade: Letters and miscellanies |publisher=Werner |others=trans. William F. Fleming |year=1901 |volume=XXI |pages=239–240 |chapter=On the Existence of God |author-link=Voltaire |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RCctAAAAYAAJ |orig-year=1734}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text= {{omission}} from this sole argument I cannot conclude anything further than that it is probable that an intelligent and superior being has skillfully prepared and fashioned the matter. I cannot conclude from that alone that this being has made matter out of nothing and that he is infinite in every sense.|author=Voltaire|source={{lang|fr|Traité de métaphysique}}<ref name="Voltaire" />}}

=== Argument from improbability ===
{{further|Problem of the creator of God}}
[[Richard Dawkins]] is harshly critical of intelligent design in his book ''[[The God Delusion]].'' In this book, he contends that an appeal to intelligent design can provide no explanation for biology because it not only [[begs the question]] 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.<ref name="dawkins2006" /> 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]] effectively counters skepticism with regard to improbability. For example Astronomer [[Fred Hoyle#Rejection of Earth-based abiogenesis|Fred Hoyle]] suggested that potential for life on Earth was no more probable than a [[Boeing 747]] 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:<ref name="dawkins2006" />

{{blockquote|text=The argument from improbability is the big one. In the traditional guise of the argument from design, it is easily today's most popular argument offered in favour of the existence of God and it is seen, by an amazingly large number of theists, as completely and utterly convincing. It is indeed a very strong and, I suspect, unanswerable argument—but in precisely the opposite direction from the theist's intention. The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does ''not'' exist. My name for the statistical demonstration that God almost certainly does not exist is the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit.

The creationist misappropriation of the argument from improbability always takes the same general form, and it doesn't make any difference {{omission}} [if called] 'intelligent design' (ID). Some observed phenomenon—often a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the universe itself—is correctly extolled as statistically improbable. Sometimes the language of information theory is used: the Darwinian is challenged to explain the source all the information in living matter, in the technical sense of information content as a measure of improbability or 'surprise value'... However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.

{{omission}} The whole argument turns on the familiar question 'Who made God?' {{omission}} A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us to escape. This argument... demonstrates that God, though not technically disprovable, is very very improbable indeed.<ref name="dawkins2006" />|author=Richard Dawkins|source=''The God Delusion''}}

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."<ref name="dawkins2006">{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&pg=PA103 |title=The God Delusion |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Co. |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-618-68000-9 |pages=103, 136–138, 162–166 |lccn=2006015506}}</ref>

Philosopher [[Edward Feser]] contends that Dawkins fundamentally misunderstands the teleological argument, particularly Aquinas' version, and refutes a [[straw man]].<ref>[[Edward Feser|Feser, Edward]]. 2008. ''The Last Superstition''. St. Augustine Press. p. 111.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2010-03-26 |title=The New Philistinism |work=American Enterprise Institute - AEI |url=https://www.aei.org/articles/the-new-philistinism/}}</ref>

=== Perception of purpose in biology ===
{{main|Teleology in biology}}

The [[philosophy of biology|philosopher of biology]] [[Michael Ruse]] 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".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ruse, Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/darwindesigndoes00ruse_0 |title=Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780674010239 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/darwindesigndoes00ruse_0/page/122 122] |url-access=registration}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Richards, Robert J. |year=2004 |title=Michael Ruse's Design for Living |url=http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Richards%20on%20Ruse.pdf |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=37 |pages=25–38 |doi=10.1023/b:hist.0000020388.99933.5b |s2cid=9034212}}</ref> [[Robert Foley (academic)|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".<ref>Foley, RA., in Morris, SC., ''The Deep Structure of Biology: Is Convergence Sufficiently Ubiquitous to Give a Directional Signal'', Templeton Foundation Press, 2008 p. 175.</ref>

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]]'', 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]].<ref name="Dawkins1986">{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPpaZnZMDG0C&pg=PA1 |title=The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design |publisher=Norton |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-393-31570-7 |page=1 |lccn=96229669}}</ref>

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.
{{blockquote|text=[The entire biological] evolutionary process depends upon the unusual chemistry of carbon, which allows it to bond to itself, as well as other elements, creating highly complex molecules that are stable over prevailing terrestrial temperatures, and are capable of conveying genetic information (especially DNA). {{omission}} Whereas it might be argued that nature creates its own fine-tuning, this can only be done if the primordial constituents of the universe are such that an evolutionary process can be initiated. The unique chemistry of carbon is the ultimate foundation of the capacity of nature to tune itself.<ref name="biologos.org" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=McGrath |first=Alister E. |title=A fine-tuned universe: the quest for God in science and theology |date=2009 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0664233105 |edition=1st |location=Louisville, KY. |page=176}}</ref>}}

Proponents of [[intelligent design]] creationism, such as [[William A. Dembski]] 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]] 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]].<ref name="Dembski2004" /> He suggests a principle of [[constrained optimization]] more realistically describes the best any designer could hope to achieve:

{{blockquote|text=Not knowing the objectives of the designer, Gould was in no position to say whether the designer proposed a faulty compromise among those objectives… In criticizing design, biologists tend to place a premium on functionalities of individual organisms and see design as optimal to the degree that those individual functionalities are maximized. But higher-order designs of entire ecosystems might require lower-order designs of individual organisms to fall short of maximal function.<ref name="Dembski2004">{{Cite book |last=Dembski |first=William A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sKVqpXqE0VwC&pg=PA58 |title=The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design |publisher=InterVarsity Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8308-3216-3 |pages=58–59, 61 |lccn=2003020589}}</ref>|author=William A. Dembski|source=''[[The Design Revolution]]: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design''}}

=== Fideism and rejection of natural theology ===
{{main|Natural theology#Faith and fideism}}
Some theologians [[Natural theology#Criticism|oppose the usage of human reason and science in attaining knowledge of God]] altogether, asserting the primacy of faith in this endeavour.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

=== Alleged argument from analogy ===
The design claim can be challenged as an [[argument from analogy]]. 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cornman |first1=James W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cRHegYZgyfUC |title=Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction |last2=Lehrer |first2=Keith |last3=Pappas |first3=George Sotiros |date=1992-01-01 |publisher=Hackett Publishing |isbn=978-0-87220-124-8 |language=en}}</ref> 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."<ref>Rust, E., ''Religion, Revelation and Reason'', Mercer University Press, 1981, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=AcSw6GDlLVwC&dq=criticism+%22teleological+argument%22&pg=PA96 96].</ref>

=== 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:<ref>[[George H. Smith|Smith, George H.]] 2003. ''[[Atheism: The Case Against God]]''. [[Prometheus Books]]. p. 155.</ref>
{{blockquote|text=Now consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature {{omission}} provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects.}}

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", "[i]n no case do we find intelligence". "There are other ways that order and design can come about" such as by "purely physical forces."<ref>Cornman, J. W., K. Lehrer, and G. S. Pappas. 1992. ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/Philosophical_Problems_and_Arguments.html?id=cRHegYZgyfUC Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction]''. [[Hackett Publishing]]. pp. 245–56.</ref>

Most professional biologists [[Level of support for evolution#Scientific support|support]] the [[Modern synthesis (20th century)|modern evolutionary synthesis]], not merely as an alternative explanation for the complexity of life but a better explanation with more supporting evidence.<ref>[http://www.interacademies.net/10878/13901.aspx IAP Statement on the Teaching of Evolution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717190031/http://www.interacademies.net/10878/13901.aspx |date=2011-07-17 }} Joint statement issued by the national science academies of 67 countries, including the [[United Kingdom]]'s [[Royal Society]] (PDF file)</ref> Living organisms obey the same physical laws as inanimate objects. Over [[Geologic time scale|very long periods of time]] self-replicating structures arose and later formed [[DNA]].<ref>Russell, P. J. 2008. ''Biology: The Dynamic Science'' 1. [[Cengage Learning]]. p. 72.</ref>

In response to such objections, Andrew Loke of Hong Kong Baptist University argues that these can be avoided by formulating the argument deductively as an argument by exclusion concerning the possible explanations for the highly ordered laws of nature rather than as an argument based on analogy, and that the objection from evolution is invalid because evolution requires the highly ordered laws of nature to be already in place.<ref>Loke, Andrew. 2022. ''The Teleological and Kalām Cosmological Arguments Revisited.'' Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion Series. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.</ref>

==Similar discussions in other civilizations==

===Hinduism===
[[Nyaya]], the Hindu school of logic, had a version of the argument from design. P.G. Patil writes that, in this view, it is not the complexity of the world from which one can infer the existence of a creator, but the fact that "the world is made up of parts". In this context, it is the Supreme Soul, [[Ishvara]], who created all the world.

The argument is in five parts:<ref>Patil, Parimal. G. 2013. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=z88GAfvNGH0C&dq=buddhism+%22argument+from+design%22&pg=PT65 Against a Hindu God: Buddhist Philosophy of Religion in India]''. [[Columbia University Press]]. Chapter 2.

In a note, the author says that the Nyaya argument has been called a "cosmo-teleological argument".</ref>
# 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]], 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."<ref>Banerjea, K. M. 1861. ''Dialogues on the Hindu Philosophy Comprising the Nyaya, the Sankhya, the Vedanta''. Thacker Spink. p. 252.</ref>

===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".<ref>Jackson, R. R. 1993. ''Is Enlightenment Possible?: Dharmakīrti and RGyal Tshab Rje on Knowledge, Rebirth, No-self and Liberation''. [[Snow Lion Publications]]. p. 130.</ref>

===Confucianism===
The 18th century German philosopher [[Christian Wolff (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 [[David Hume|Hume]]'s [[Cleanthes]]."<ref>Van Norden, B. W. 2002. ''Confucius and the Analects''. [[Oxford University Press]]. p.&nbsp;83.</ref>

===Taoism===
The Taoist writings of the 6th-century-BC philosopher [[Laozi]] (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 [dao] is not consciously providential.<ref>Schwartz, B., Quoted in Lai, K., ''An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, 2008, p.&nbsp;79.</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Argument from beauty]]
* [[Inverse gambler's fallacy]]
* [[Deism]]
* [[No miracles argument]]
* [[Turtles all the way down]]
* [[Intelligent design]]
*[[Orthogenesis]] - teleology in evolution

== References ==

{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==

*[[William Lane Craig|Craig, William Lane]]. 1990. "[http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/teleo.html 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 Press|Edwin Mellen]].
* Dawkins, Richard. 1986. ''[[The Blind Watchmaker]]''. (Takes a view against the teleological argument.)
* [[William A. Dembski|Dembski, William A.]] 2004. ''[[The Design Revolution]]''. UK: [[InterVarsity Press]].
*[[Daniel Dennett|Dennett, Daniel]]. 1995. ''[[Darwin's Dangerous Idea]]''. {{ISBN|978-0-684-82471-0}}
* Gjersen, Derek. 1989. ''Science and Philosophy: Past and Present''. London: [[Penguin Books|Penguin]]. {{ISBN|0-14-014962-7}}.
*[[John F. Haught|Haught, John F.]] March 2011. "[http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/God-after-Darwin.php 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]]. {{ISBN|9781587431708}}
* Hurlbutt, Robert H. 1998. ''Hume, Newton, and the Design Argument'' (revised ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: [[University of Michigan Press]]. {{ISBN|0-8032-2337-4}}
* Jantzen, Benjamin C. 2014. ''An Introduction to Design Arguments''. [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-1-107-00534-1}} (hrdbk), {{ISBN|978-0-521-18303-1}} (pbk).
* [[Bernard Lightman|Lightman, Bernard V.]] 2007. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ady3NSvPi_8C Victorian Popularizers of Science]''. {{ISBN|978-0-226-48118-0}}. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
* [[J. P. Moreland|Moreland, J. P.]] 1987. ''Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity''. ch. 2. {{ISBN|9780801062223}}
* Ratzsch, Del, and Jeffrey Koperski. [2005] 2019. "[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/ Teleological Arguments for God's Existence]". ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''.
* Ross, Hugh. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20100414231943/http://www.doesgodexist.org/Charts/EvidenceForDesignInTheUniverse.html Evidence For Design In The Universe]". ''Limits for the Universe''
* Sotnak, Eric. 15 March 1993. "[https://infidels.org/library/modern/anachronist/why_i_believe/3_apndx.html Analysis of the Teleological Argument]". ''[[Internet Infidels]]''.

== External links ==
* "[https://iep.utm.edu/design-arguments-for-existence-of-god/ Design arguments for the existence of God]". ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050404080039/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-80 Design argument] from the ''Dictionary of the history of Ideas''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071014070611/http://stephenpimentel.com/papers/purpose_revised.html A "Preface" to Aquinas' Teleological Argument]
* {{Cite book |last=Paley |first=William |url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A142&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 |title=Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity |publisher=Printed for J. Faulder |year=1809 |edition=12th |location=London |author-link=William Paley}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Darwin |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Darwin |year=1958 |editor-last=Barlow |editor-first=Nora |editor-link=Nora Barlow |title=The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter |location=London |publisher=Collins |publication-date=1958}}
* [https://skepdic.com/design.html The Skeptic's Dictionary on argument from design]

{{God arguments}}

[[Category:Anthropic principle]]
[[Category:Arguments for the existence of God]]
[[Category:Christian apologetics]]
[[Category:Intelligent design]]
[[Category:Teleology]]