Teleological Argument

If we look into the mind of most theists, some of their most basic assumptions rest on the fact that God created the universe, the earth, animals and humans. If someone took away the existence of God, the existence of everything else would also logically be lost. This in itself is only the teleological argument at its most basic. The detailed version of this argument is that the universe displays design as if it were a large machine made up of detailed parts, and an intricate machine must always have had an intelligent creator and therefore so must the universe. On the surface this looks like a logical a posteriori argument but it did not convince me of the existence of a God, especially not one that fits the popular notion of an omnipotent, omniscient and all good God.

In "The Argument From Design" , Paley sums up the Teleological argument as follows:

P1) Human artifacts exhibit a design that is the result of the existence and corresponding skill of some intelligent agent

P2) Natural organized systems are like human artifacts

C) So natural organized systems exhibit a design that is the result of the existence and corresponding skill of some intelligent agent.

In order to provide an example for the design argument, Paley presents the hypothetical situation of someone walking and coming across a stone on the ground and someone finding a watch on the ground. When answering the question of "how the stone came to be there" , we often find it a reasonable answer that it had lain there forever, whereas when asking the same question of the watch, we would find that answer absurd because we can look into the watch and see all its complexities and know that it must have been created by something. Thus, there is a difference between the sort of explanation we feel rationally compelled to give for a stone and the sort of explanation for something like a watch. The teleological argument would state that this difference is absurd because the stone is an intricately designed object as well. Thus, the argument states that just as we would look at a something like a machine and deem it to have a creator, so we must logically look at the universe and realize that someone must have made it.

There are various objections to this argument. About sixty years after

Paley came out with the design argument, Charles Darwin published his theory of Natural Selection that "presented a way for the natural world to develop complex biological functions without invoking any works of an intentional Designer." This shows scientifically the plausibility of an atheistic universe and therefore threatens Paley's argument entirely. However, when examined closely, Darwin's theory does not break everything about the teleological argument, but it only breaks the necessity to play the God card to defend the complexities of the universe. This is because the teleological argument can still stand by saying that there could have been an intelligent creator of this natural selection. This argument however, seems to be stretching it too far and is unconvincing because an atheist, or even someone who does not believe in the argument, could not be asked to change their mind on a possibility when a concrete answer is easily available and far more scientifically plausible.

Another argument that in some ways complements the Darwinian argument against the teleological argument is that the universe isn't as purposefully and amazingly designed as we usually take it to be. We can easily imagine the world working in very different ways and that it turned

out to be the way it is does not prove that someone had to have methodically have thought up all these particular details. In fact, according to Darwin, these details and complexities only arose in order to ensure survival, instead of the opposite, an environment created to ensure survival for the creatures in it.

As for the beginning of the universe, a common objection is that it is perfectly possible that the Big Bang, or any other non-theistic theories for the creation of the universe, to have occurred out of the randomness of the universe. As improbable as it is, this theory cannot be ruled out. It is like someone being shocked that they just won the lottery, even though someone was definitely going to win the lottery. Thus, "some