Teleological Argument

Aquinas’ Fifth Way

• Aquinas was a supporter of both revealed theology (i.e. the Bible) and natural theology (using reason) to demonstrate God’s existence

• Aquinas argues that the world is like an arrow shot from an archer's bow - without the archer giving the purposive direction, the arrow would remain in its quiver. In this analogy, God is the archer, a source of guiding intelligence

• Everything in nature operates in what appears to be a purposeful manner/direction (e.g. an acorn has the goal of becoming an oak tree, can never grow into something else). In following natural laws, these things are able to flourish. Things without intelligence cannot direct themselves, something else with intelligence must be responsible for directing it. This is God

William Paley’s Design Argument

• Imagine crossing a heath. If you come across a stone, you might consider it to be an accident but if you come across a watch then this provides clear evidence or contrivance of design due to its complexity, even if the purpose of the watch is not obvious 

• "Its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose". However, we do not need to know the purpose of the watch or the universe, see it being made or have it work perfectly in order to infer a designer - simply that the design implies a designer with a purpose. This is the argument qua purpose      

• Everything is meticulously designed to serve a purpose (e.g. suitability of animals’ body structure to their conditions in life). Even on the smallest scale, there is evidence of craft and skill; despite the number of things in the world, the same care seems to have been taken with the design of each, evidencing not only intelligent design but also God’s care for the world

Advantages of the teleological argument

Fine tuning - Formulated by Brandon Carter in the 1970s, modern formulations of the teleological argument do not rely on analogy - instead, they rely on what is known as the 'fine tuning' of the universe or 'anthropic coincidences' - the world is perfectly able to sustain human life. The universe demonstrates regularity in its laws of physics, without which life would not be possible. This cannot be the result of chance because there are too many coincidences for chance to explain it. Therefore, there must be a designer of the universe and this is God

Categories of coincidences - Features of the fundamental law of nature 

• Characteristics of the fundamental particles of matter (e.g. Self-replicating life seems to depend on the co-existence of lighter and heavier elements such as hydrogen, carbon and oxygen) 

• Rate of expansion of matter emerging from the big bang 

• Too rapid a rate of expansion would have overpowered the gravitational attraction of the various bits of matter to each other and no gases (then galaxies) could have been formed 

• Too slow a rate of expansion would have caused too much gravitational attraction and the universe would have collapsed back into itself billions of years ago 

• If the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force were changed by one part in 10 to the 40th power, star formation would have been impossible 

Counter-argument

• No telos - Richard Dawkins claims that natural selection is 'blind', it has no aim, no purpose (beyond short-term goals of survival and reproduction). Evolution also challenges the Aristotelian account of causation which includes telos as it shows that natural processes can be explained without needing to refer to a goal

• Complexity and order are natural - Random changes can lead to order and complex systems can be self-arranging (e.g. theory of evolution) organisms that adapt to their environment pass on genes more effectively than those that don’t. Therefore, there is no need to appeal to a divine intelligence

• Problem of evil - Presence of suffering in the universe prompts us to question what kind of designer it has (e.g. Dawkin’s Digger Wasp example, where female wasp lays eggs inside of a live caterpillar so the larvae can eat it from the inside as they grow)

• Imperfect and immoral God - A perfect God cannot be inferred from the state of the universe (e.g. earthquakes and illness). As Hume says: “The world is very faulty and imperfect, and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who abandoned it”. There could be two gods or forces: a good and an evil. That would explain far better the state of the universe.

• Can't rationalise universe - Hume argues that we have no prior experience of world-making and it is like nothing we can experience on Earth, so no empirical evidence can fully support the teleological argument

• Philo’s Epicurean Hypothesis - The world is the chance arrangement of atoms, and the universe could have come about randomly and still look designed, given enough time

• Unsound analogy - Hume claims that the world and the watch are very unlike each other. The world is composed of organic and mineral matter, so it is not like a machine and more like an organism. The analogy of a man-made thing is bound to lead to the conclusion that the universe was designed. But Hume points out that we already have experience or knowledge of watches or houses being made, and so this just begs the question when it comes to the universe. It also implies a human-like God (like effects imply like causes), but this causes problems as God is meant to be infinite in His qualities.

• A watch usually has many designers - why not the universe?