The Teleological argument (also known as intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God, an intelligent creator based on perceived evidence of intelligent design in the natural world.

Teleological argument for god

﻿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.﻿

<ol><li>The argument does not prove that the intelligent designer is God.</li><li>An intelligent designer must be far more complex than anything it is capable of designing, and the existence of life, let alone something more complex than it, is very impropable.</li><li>Assumes that one can infer the existence of intelligent design merely by examination.</li></ol>

Criticisms of the Teleological argument

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The teleological argument (from τέλος , <a href="/wiki/Telos">telos </a> , 'end, aim, goal'; also known as physico-theological argument , argument from design , or intelligent design argument ) is an argument for the <a href="/wiki/Existence_of_God">existence of God </a>or, more generally, for an <a href="/wiki/Intelligent_designer">intelligent creator </a>based on perceived evidence of <a href="/wiki/Intelligent_design">intelligent design </a>in the natural world.<a href="#cite_note-1">[1] </a> <a href="#cite_note-2">[2] </a> <a href="#cite_note-3">[3] </a>

The earliest recorded versions of this argument are associated with <a href="/wiki/Socrates">Socrates </a>in <a href="/wiki/Ancient_Greece">ancient Greece </a>, although it has been argued that he was taking up an older argument.<a href="#cite_note-comp-4">[4] </a> <a href="#cite_note-5">[5] </a> <a href="/wiki/Plato">Plato </a>and <a href="/wiki/Aristotle">Aristotle </a>, Plato's student, developed complex approaches to the proposal that the cosmos has an intelligent cause, but it was the <a href="/wiki/Stoicism">Stoics </a>who, under their influence, "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'".<a href="#cite_note-Sedley_2007,_page_xvii-6">[6] </a>

<a href="/wiki/Abrahamic_religion">Abrahamic religions </a>have used the teleological argument in many ways, and it has a long association with them. In the <a href="/wiki/Middle_Ages">Middle Ages </a>, Islamic theologians such as <a href="/wiki/Al-Ghazali">Al-Ghazali </a>used the argument, although it was rejected as unnecessary by <a href="/wiki/Quran">Quranic </a>literalists, and as unconvincing by many <a href="/wiki/Islamic_philosophers">Islamic philosophers </a>. Later, the teleological argument was accepted by <a href="/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Aquinas">Saint Thomas Aquinas </a>and included as the fifth of his "<a href="/wiki/Quinque_viae">Five Ways </a>" of proving the existence of God. In early modern England clergymen such as <a href="/wiki/William_Turner_(naturalist)">William Turner </a>and <a href="/wiki/John_Ray">John Ray </a>were well-known proponents. In the early 18th century, <a href="/wiki/William_Derham">William Derham </a>published his Physico-Theology , which gave his "demonstration of the being and attributes of God from his works of creation".<a href="#cite_note-7">[7] </a> Later, <a href="/wiki/William_Paley">William Paley </a>, in his 1802 <a href="/wiki/Natural_Theology_or_Evidences_of_the_Existence_and_Attributes_of_the_Deity">Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity </a> published a prominent presentation of the design argument with his version of the <a href="/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy">watchmaker analogy </a>and the first use of the phrase "argument from design".<a href="#cite_note-Oxford_English_Dictionary-8">[8] </a>

From its beginning, there have been numerous criticisms of the different versions of the teleological argument, and responses to its challenge to the claims against non-teleological natural science. Especially important were the general logical arguments made by <a href="/wiki/David_Hume">David Hume </a>in his <a href="/wiki/Dialogues_Concerning_Natural_Religion">Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion </a> , published in 1779, and the explanation of biological complexity given in <a href="/wiki/Charles_Darwin">Charles Darwin </a>'s <a href="/wiki/Origin_of_Species">Origin of Species </a> , published in 1859.<a href="#cite_note-9">[9] </a> Since the 1960s, Paley's arguments have been influential in the development of a <a href="/wiki/Creation_science">creation science </a>movement which used phrases such as "design by an intelligent designer", and post 1987 this was rebranded as "<a href="/wiki/Intelligent_design">intelligent design </a>", promoted by the <a href="/wiki/Intelligent_design_movement">intelligent design movement </a>. Both movements have used the teleological argument to argue against the modern scientific understanding of <a href="/wiki/Evolution">evolution </a>, and to claim that supernatural explanations should be given equal validity in the public school science curriculum.<a href="#cite_note-SM_07-10">[10] </a>

Also starting already in classical Greece, two approaches to the teleological argument developed, distinguished by their understanding of whether the natural order was literally created or not. The non-creationist approach starts most clearly with Aristotle, although many thinkers, such as the <a href="/wiki/Neoplatonism">Neoplatonists </a>, 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 <a href="/wiki/Al-Farabi">Al-Farabi </a>and <a href="/wiki/Avicenna">Avicenna </a>. Later, <a href="/wiki/Averroes">Averroes </a>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 <a href="/wiki/Classical_philosophy">classical philosophy </a>.<a href="#cite_note-comp-4">[4] </a> Religious thinkers in <a href="/wiki/Judaism">Judaism </a>, <a href="/wiki/Hinduism">Hinduism </a>, <a href="/wiki/Confucianism">Confucianism </a>, <a href="/wiki/Islam">Islam </a>and <a href="/wiki/Christianity">Christianity </a>also developed versions of the teleological argument. Later, variants on the argument from design were produced in <a href="/wiki/Western_philosophy">Western philosophy </a>and by <a href="/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism">Christian fundamentalism </a>.

Contemporary defenders of the teleological argument include <a href="/wiki/Richard_Swinburne">Richard Swinburne </a>and <a href="/wiki/John_Lennox">John Lennox </a>.

<ul><li><a href="#Classical_philosophy">1 Classical philosophy </a><ul><li><a href="#Socrates_and_the_pre-Socratics">1.1 Socrates and the pre-Socratics </a> </li><li><a href="#Plato_and_Aristotle">1.2 Plato and Aristotle </a> </li><li><a href="#Roman_era">1.3 Roman era </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Medieval_philosophy_and_theology">2 Medieval philosophy and theology </a><ul><li><a href="#Late_classical_Christian_writers">2.1 Late classical Christian writers </a> </li><li><a href="#Islamic_philosophy">2.2 Islamic philosophy </a> </li><li><a href="#Jewish_philosophy">2.3 Jewish philosophy </a> </li><li><a href="#Thomas_Aquinas">2.4 Thomas Aquinas </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Modernity">3 Modernity </a><ul><li><a href="#Newton_and_Leibniz">3.1 Newton and Leibniz </a> </li><li><a href="#British_empiricists">3.2 British empiricists </a> </li><li><a href="#Derham's_natural_theology">3.3 Derham's natural theology </a> </li><li><a href="#Watchmaker_analogy">3.4 Watchmaker analogy </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Recent_proponents">4 Recent proponents </a><ul><li><a href="#Probabilistic_arguments">4.1 Probabilistic arguments </a> </li><li><a href="#Fine-tuned_universe">4.2 Fine-tuned universe </a> </li><li><a href="#Creation_science_and_intelligent_design">4.3 Creation science and intelligent design </a> </li><li><a href="#Unreasonable_effectiveness_of_mathematics">4.4 Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics </a> </li><li><a href="#%22Third_way%22_proposal">4.5 "Third way" proposal </a> </li><li><a href="#Interacting_whole">4.6 Interacting whole </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Criticism">5 Criticism </a><ul><li><a href="#Classical">5.1 Classical </a> </li><li><a href="#David_Hume">5.2 David Hume </a> </li><li><a href="#Immanuel_Kant">5.3 Immanuel Kant </a> </li><li><a href="#Does_not_prove_the_existence_of_God">5.4 Does not prove the existence of God </a> </li><li><a href="#Argument_from_improbability">5.5 Argument from improbability </a> </li><li><a href="#A_flawed_argument">5.6 A flawed argument </a> </li><li><a href="#Perception_of_purpose_in_biology">5.7 Perception of purpose in biology </a> </li><li><a href="#Fideism">5.8 Fideism </a> </li><li><a href="#Other_criticisms">5.9 Other criticisms </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Similar_discussions_in_other_civilizations">6 Similar discussions in other civilizations </a><ul><li><a href="#Hinduism">6.1 Hinduism </a> </li><li><a href="#Buddhist_criticism_of_Hindu_Nyaya_logic">6.2 Buddhist criticism of Hindu Nyaya logic </a> </li><li><a href="#Confucianism">6.3 Confucianism </a> </li><li><a href="#Taoism">6.4 Taoism </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#See_also">7 See also </a> </li><li><a href="#References">8 References </a> </li><li><a href="#Further_reading">9 Further reading </a> </li><li><a href="#External_links">10 External links </a> </li> </ul>

The argument from intelligent design appears to have begun with <a href="/wiki/Socrates">Socrates </a>, although the concept of a cosmic intelligence is older and <a href="/wiki/David_Sedley">David Sedley </a>has argued that Socrates was developing an older idea, citing <a href="/wiki/Anaxagoras_of_Clazomenae">Anaxagoras of Clazomenae </a>, born about 500 BC, as a possible earlier proponent.<a href="#cite_note-mcpherr-11">[11] </a> <a href="#cite_note-ahbel-12">[12] </a> <a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> 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 "<a href="/wiki/Nous">nous </a> " (which is the original Greek term that leads to modern English "intelligence" via its Latin and French translations). Aristotle reports an earlier philosopher from <a href="/wiki/Clazomenae">Clazomenae </a>named <a href="/wiki/Hermotimus_of_Clazomenae">Hermotimus </a>who had taken a similar position.<a href="#cite_note-14">[14] </a> Amongst <a href="/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophers">Pre-Socratic philosophers </a>before Anaxagoras, other philosophers had proposed a similar intelligent ordering principle causing life and the rotation of the heavens. For example <a href="/wiki/Empedocles">Empedocles </a>, like <a href="/wiki/Hesiod">Hesiod </a>much earlier, described cosmic order and living things as caused by a cosmic version of <a href="/wiki/Love">love </a>,<a href="#cite_note-15">[15] </a> and <a href="/wiki/Pythagoras">Pythagoras </a>and <a href="/wiki/Heraclitus">Heraclitus </a>attributed the cosmos with "<a href="/wiki/Reason">reason </a>" (<a href="/wiki/Logos">logos </a> ).<a href="#cite_note-16">[16] </a> In his <a href="/wiki/Philebus">Philebus </a> 28c <a href="/wiki/Plato">Plato </a>has Socrates speak of this as a tradition, saying that "all philosophers agree—whereby they really exalt themselves—that mind (<a href="/wiki/Nous">nous </a> ) 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".<a href="#cite_note-17">[17] </a>

Xenophon's report in his <a href="/wiki/Memorabilia_(Xenophon)">Memorabilia </a> might be the earliest clear account of an argument that there is evidence in nature of intelligent design.<a href="#cite_note-ahbel-12">[12] </a> The word traditionally translated and discussed as "design" is <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B3%CE%BD%CF%8E%CE%BC%CE%B7">gnōmē </a> 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.<a href="#cite_note-mcpherr-11">[11] </a> <a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> In Plato's <a href="/wiki/Phaedo">Phaedo </a> , 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' <a href="/wiki/Materialism">materialist </a>understanding of <a href="/wiki/Causality">causation </a>. 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.<a href="#cite_note-18">[18] </a> 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 <a href="/wiki/Diogenes_of_Apollonia">Diogenes of Apollonia </a>.)<a href="#cite_note-19">[19] </a>

Plato's <a href="/wiki/Timaeus_(dialogue)">Timaeus </a> 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.<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> :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, <a href="/wiki/Epicurus">Epicurus </a>, the <a href="/wiki/Stoicism">Stoics </a>, and <a href="/wiki/Galen">Galen </a>all understood Plato as proposing the world originated in an "intelligent creative act".<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> :133 Plato has a character explain the concept of a "<a href="/wiki/Demiurge">demiurge </a>" with supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work.

Plato's teleological perspective is also built upon the analysis of <a href="/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori">a priori </a> order and structure in the world that he had already presented in <a href="/wiki/Republic_(dialogue)">The Republic </a> . The story does not propose creation <a href="/wiki/Ex_nihilo">ex nihilo </a> ; rather, the demiurge made order from the chaos of the cosmos, imitating the eternal Forms.<a href="#cite_note-20">[20] </a>

Plato's world of eternal and unchanging <a href="/wiki/Theory_of_Forms">Forms </a>, imperfectly represented in matter by a divine Artisan, contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic <a href="/wiki/Weltanschauungen">Weltanschauungen </a>, of which <a href="/wiki/Atomism">atomism </a>was, by the 4th century at least, the most prominent... This debate was to persist throughout the ancient world. Atomistic mechanism got a shot in the arm from <a href="/wiki/Epicurus">Epicurus </a>... while the <a href="/wiki/Stoics">Stoics </a>adopted a divine teleology... The choice seems simple: either show how a structured, regular world could arise out of undirected processes, or inject intelligence into the system.<a href="#cite_note-21">[21] </a>

Plato's student and friend Aristotle (c. 384 – 322 BC), continued the Socratic tradition of criticising natural scientists such as <a href="/wiki/Democritus">Democritus </a>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".<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> :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 <a href="/wiki/Actuality">actuality </a>".<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> :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.<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a>

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.<a href="#cite_note-HistAnimI2-22">[22] </a> Therefore the most complete explanation in regard to the natural, as well as the artificial, is for the most part teleological.<a href="#cite_note-Nussbaum1985-23">[23] </a> In fact, proposals that species had changed by chance survival of the fittest, similar to what is now called "<a href="/wiki/Natural_selection">natural selection </a>", were already known to Aristotle, and he rejected these with the same logic.<a href="#cite_note-Nussbaum1985-23">[23] </a> <a href="#cite_note-PhysI2-24">[24] </a> <a href="#cite_note-PartsAnimI1-25">[25] </a> <a href="#cite_note-Ross2004-26">[26] </a> <a href="#cite_note-HullRuse2007-27">[27] </a> He conceded that monstrosities (new forms of life) could come about by chance,<a href="#cite_note-PhysII8a-28">[28] </a> <a href="#cite_note-PhysII8b-29">[29] </a> but he disagreed with those who ascribed all nature purely to chance<a href="#cite_note-PhysII8c-30">[30] </a> because he believed science can only provide a general account of that which is normal, "always, or for the most part".<a href="#cite_note-PhysII8-31">[31] </a> 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."<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> :186 According to Aristotle the changes which happen by nature are caused by their "<a href="/wiki/Formal_cause">formal causes </a>", and for example in the case of a bird's wings there is also a <a href="/wiki/Final_cause">final cause </a>which is the purpose of flying. He explicitly compared this to human technology:

If then what comes from art is for the sake of something, it is clear that what come from nature is too [...] 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. [...] 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. [...] This is most clear when someone practices medicine himself on himself; for nature is like that.

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. <a href="/wiki/Martha_Nussbaum">Martha Nussbaum </a>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.<a href="#cite_note-Nussbaum1985-23">[23] </a> 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 <a href="/wiki/Metaphysics_(Aristotle)">Metaphysics </a> and other works Aristotle clearly argued a case for their being one highest god or "<a href="/wiki/Prime_mover_theory">prime mover </a>" 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. And he clearly refers to this entity having an <a href="/wiki/Active_intellect">intellect </a>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.

It was the <a href="/wiki/Stoicism">Stoics </a>who "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'".<a href="#cite_note-sed-13">[13] </a> :xviii Cicero (c. 106 – c. 43 BC) reported the teleological argument of the Stoics in <a href="/wiki/De_Natura_Deorum">De Natura Deorum </a> (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:

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?

Another very important classical supporter of the teleological argument was <a href="/wiki/Galen">Galen </a>, 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.<a href="#cite_note-33">[33] </a>

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.

As an appeal to <a href="/wiki/General_revelation">general revelation </a>, <a href="/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle">Paul the Apostle </a>(AD 5–67), argues in <a href="/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans">Romans </a>1:18–20<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ro+1%3A18%E2%80%9320&version=NRSV">[1:18–20] </a> , 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.<a href="#cite_note-34">[34] </a>

<a href="/wiki/Marcus_Minucius_Felix">Marcus Minucius Felix </a>(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 ?"<a href="#cite_note-35">[35] </a>

<a href="/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo">Augustine of Hippo </a>(AD 354–430) in <a href="/wiki/The_City_of_God">The City of God </a>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".<a href="#cite_note-36">[36] </a>

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 <a href="/wiki/Mutakallimun">Mutakallimun </a>theologians in the 9th century, although it is rejected by fundamentalist or literalist schools, for whom the mention of God in the <a href="/wiki/Quran">Qu'ran </a>should be sufficient evidence. The argument from design was also seen as an unconvincing sophism by the early Islamic philosopher <a href="/wiki/Al-Farabi">Al-Farabi </a>, who instead took the "emanationist" approach of the <a href="/wiki/Neoplatonism">Neoplatonists </a>such as Plotinus, whereby nature is rationally ordered, but God is not like a craftsman who literally manages the world. Later, <a href="/wiki/Avicenna">Avicenna </a>was also convinced of this, and proposed instead a cosmological argument for the existence of God.<a href="#cite_note-37">[37] </a>

The argument was however later accepted by both the Aristotelian philosopher <a href="/wiki/Averroes">Averroes </a>(Ibn Rushd) and his great anti-philosophy opponent <a href="/wiki/Al-Ghazali">Al-Ghazali </a>. 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.<a href="#cite_note-38">[38] </a> 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.<a href="#cite_note-39">[39] </a> <a href="#cite_note-40">[40] </a>

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.<a href="#cite_note-41">[41] </a> 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 <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas">Thomas Aquinas </a>were aware of this debate, and generally took a position closer to Avicenna.

An example of the teleological argument in <a href="/wiki/Jewish_philosophy">Jewish philosophy </a>appears when the medieval Aristotelian philosopher <a href="/wiki/Maimonides">Maimonides </a>cites the passage in <a href="/wiki/Isaiah">Isaiah </a>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:"<a href="#cite_note-42">[42] </a> 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."<a href="#cite_note-43">[43] </a>

Maimonides also recalled that <a href="/wiki/Abraham">Abraham </a>(in the <a href="/wiki/Midrash">midrash </a>, or explanatory text, of <a href="/wiki/Genesis_Rabbah">Genesis Rabbah </a>39:1) recognized the existence of "one transcendent deity from the fact that the world around him exhibits an order and design".<a href="#cite_note-Koch-44">[44] </a> The <a href="/wiki/Midrash">midrash </a>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?"<a href="#cite_note-45">[45] </a> Because of these examples, the 19th century philosopher <a href="/wiki/Nachman_Krochmal">Nachman Krochmal </a>called the argument from design "a cardinal principle of the Jewish faith".<a href="#cite_note-Koch-44">[44] </a>

The American orthodox rabbi, <a href="/wiki/Aryeh_Kaplan">Aryeh Kaplan </a>, retells a legend about the 2nd century AD <a href="/wiki/Rabbi_Meir">Rabbi Meir </a>. 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."<a href="#cite_note-46">[46] </a>

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 <a href="/wiki/Summa_Theologica">Summa Theologica </a> . In the work, Aquinas presented five ways in which he attempted to prove the existence of God: the <a href="/wiki/Quinque_viae">quinque viae </a> . These arguments feature only a posteriori arguments, rather than literal reading of holy texts.<a href="#cite_note-47">[47] </a> He sums up his teleological argument as follows:

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.

Aquinas notes that the existence of <a href="/wiki/Final_cause">final causes </a>, 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.<a href="#cite_note-Himma-48">[48] </a>

<a href="/wiki/Isaac_Newton">Isaac Newton </a>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 <a href="/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica">Principia </a>:

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.<a href="#cite_note-49">[49] </a>

This view, that "God is known from his works", was supported and popularized by Newton's friends <a href="/wiki/Richard_Bentley">Richard Bentley </a>, <a href="/wiki/Samuel_Clarke">Samuel Clarke </a>and <a href="/wiki/William_Whiston">William Whiston </a>in the <a href="/wiki/Boyle_lectures">Boyle lectures </a>, which Newton supervised.<a href="#cite_note-50">[50] </a> Newton wrote to Bentley, just before Bentley delivered the first lecture, that:

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.<a href="#cite_note-51">[51] </a>

The German philosopher <a href="/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz">Gottfried Leibniz </a>disagreed with Newton's view of design in the teleological argument. In the <a href="/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Clarke_correspondence">Leibniz–Clarke correspondence </a>, 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:

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<a href="#cite_note-52">[52] </a>

Leibniz considered the argument from design to have "only moral certainty" unless it was supported by his own idea of <a href="/wiki/Pre-established_harmony">pre-established harmony </a>expounded in his <a href="/wiki/Monadology">Monadology </a>.<a href="#cite_note-53">[53] </a> <a href="/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Bertrand Russell </a>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 <a href="/wiki/Monad_(philosophy)">monads </a>, programmed to act in a predetermined way.<a href="#cite_note-54">[54] </a> Russell wrote:

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.<a href="#cite_note-55">[55] </a>

The 17th-century <a href="/wiki/Dutch_people">Dutch </a>writers <a href="/wiki/Lessius">Lessius </a>and <a href="/wiki/Grotius">Grotius </a>argued that the intricate structure of the world, like that of a house, was unlikely to have arisen by chance.<a href="#cite_note-56">[56] </a> The empiricist <a href="/wiki/John_Locke">John Locke </a>, writing in the late 17th century, developed the Aristotelian idea that, excluding geometry, all science must attain its knowledge a posteriori - through sensual experience.<a href="#cite_note-57">[57] </a> In response to Locke, Anglican Irish Bishop <a href="/wiki/George_Berkeley">George Berkeley </a>advanced a form of <a href="/wiki/Idealism">idealism </a>in which things only continue to exist when they are perceived.<a href="#cite_note-58">[58] </a> 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.<a href="#cite_note-59">[59] </a>

David Hume, in the mid-18th century, referred to the teleological argument in his <a href="/wiki/A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature">A Treatise of Human Nature </a> . 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.' "<a href="#cite_note-60">[60] </a>

However, later he was more critical of the argument in his <a href="/wiki/An_Enquiry_Concerning_Human_Understanding">An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding </a> . 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".<a href="#cite_note-61">[61] </a>

Hume also presented arguments both for and against the teleological argument in his <a href="/wiki/Dialogues_Concerning_Natural_Religion">Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion </a> . 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:

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.<a href="#cite_note-Hume1779-62">[62] </a>

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".<a href="#cite_note-Hume1779-62">[62] </a>

Starting in 1696 with his Artificial Clockmaker , <a href="/wiki/William_Derham">William Derham </a>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 <a href="/wiki/Natural_theology">natural theologian </a>, 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?"<a href="#cite_note-63">[63] </a> Also, of the "sense of sound" he writes:<a href="#cite_note-64">[64] </a>

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.<a href="#cite_note-65">[65] </a> Weber (2000) writes that Derham's Physico-Theology "directly influenced" William Paley's later work.<a href="#cite_note-66">[66] </a>

The power, and yet the limitations, of this kind of reasoning is illustrated in microcosm by the history of <a href="/wiki/La_Fontaine%27s_Fables">La Fontaine's </a>fable of <a href="/wiki/The_Acorn_and_the_Pumpkin">The Acorn and the Pumpkin </a>, 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.<a href="#cite_note-67">[67] </a> However, beginning with <a href="/wiki/Anne_Finch,_Countess_of_Winchilsea">Anne Finch </a>'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."<a href="#cite_note-68">[68] </a>

The <a href="/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy">watchmaker analogy </a>, framing the teleological argument with reference to a timepiece, dates at least back to the Stoics, who were reported by Cicero in his <a href="/wiki/De_Natura_Deorum">De Natura Deorum </a> (II.88), using such an argument against <a href="/wiki/Epicureans">Epicureans </a>, whom, they taunt, would "think more highly of the achievement of <a href="/wiki/Archimedes">Archimedes </a>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".<a href="#cite_note-69">[69] </a> It was also used by <a href="/wiki/Robert_Hooke">Robert Hooke </a><a href="#cite_note-70">[70] </a> and <a href="/wiki/Voltaire">Voltaire </a>, the latter of whom remarked:<a href="#cite_note-71">[71] </a> <a href="#cite_note-72">[72] </a>

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.

<a href="/wiki/William_Paley">William Paley </a>presented his version of the watchmaker analogy at the start of his <a href="/wiki/Natural_Theology_or_Evidences_of_the_Existence_and_Attributes_of_the_Deity">Natural Theology </a> (1802).<a href="#cite_note-73">[73] </a>

[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 <a href="/wiki/Alister_McGrath">Alister McGrath </a>, 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."<a href="#cite_note-74">[74] </a>

Natural theology strongly influenced British science, with the expectation as expressed by <a href="/wiki/Adam_Sedgwick">Adam Sedgwick </a>in 1831 that truths revealed by science could not conflict with the moral truths of religion.<a href="#cite_note-75">[75] </a> These natural philosophers saw God as the first cause, and sought secondary causes to explain design in nature: the leading figure Sir <a href="/wiki/John_Herschel">John Herschel </a>wrote in 1836 that by analogy with other <a href="/wiki/Physical_law">intermediate causes </a>"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".<a href="#cite_note-hersch-76">[76] </a> <a href="#cite_note-77">[77] </a>

As a theology student, <a href="/wiki/Charles_Darwin">Charles Darwin </a>found Paley's arguments compelling. However, he later developed his theory of <a href="/wiki/Evolution">evolution </a>in his 1859 book <a href="/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species">On the Origin of Species </a> , 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".<a href="#cite_note-78">[78] </a> Darwin struggled with the <a href="/wiki/Problem_of_evil">problem of evil </a>and of suffering in nature, but remained inclined to believe that nature depended upon "designed laws" and commended <a href="/wiki/Asa_Gray">Asa Gray </a>'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."<a href="#cite_note-SMiles-79">[79] </a>

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:"<a href="#cite_note-80">[80] </a>

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.

In 1928 and 1930, <a href="/wiki/Frederick_Robert_Tennant">F. R. Tennant </a>published his Philosophical Theology , which was a "bold endeavour to combine scientific and theological thinking".<a href="#cite_note-81">[81] </a> He proposed a version of the teleological argument based on the accumulation of the probabilities of each individual <a href="/wiki/Biological_adaptation">biological adaptation </a>. "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."<a href="#cite_note-Rout-82">[82] </a> The <a href="/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy">Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy </a> 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 <a href="/wiki/John_Hick">John Hick </a>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."<a href="#cite_note-Rout-82">[82] </a>

<a href="/wiki/Richard_Swinburne">Richard Swinburne </a>'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".<a href="#cite_note-Rout-82">[82] </a> He uses <a href="/wiki/Bayesian_probability">Bayesian probability </a>"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".<a href="#cite_note-EB-83">[83] </a> Swinburne writes:<a href="#cite_note-84">[84] </a>

[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 <a href="/wiki/Cosmological_argument">cosmological arguments </a>and evidence from <a href="/wiki/Mystical_experience">mystical experience </a>, he thinks it can.

While discussing Hume's arguments, <a href="/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga">Alvin Plantinga </a>offered a probability version of the teleological argument in his book <a href="/wiki/God_and_Other_Minds">God and Other Minds </a> :<a href="#cite_note-85">[85] </a>

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 <a href="/wiki/Bishop_Berkeley">Bishop Berkeley </a>:<a href="#cite_note-86">[86] </a>

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 <a href="/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica">Encyclopædia Britannica </a> has the following criticism of such arguments:<a href="#cite_note-EB-83">[83] </a>

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.

A modern variation of the teleological argument is built upon the concept of the <a href="/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe">fine-tuned universe </a>: According to the website <a href="/wiki/BioLogos">Biologos </a> :<a href="#cite_note-biologos.org-87">[87] </a>

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 <a href="/wiki/Big_Bang">Big Bang </a>explosion had been different by 1/10 to the sixtieth power or the <a href="/wiki/Strong_interaction">strong interaction force </a>was only 5% different, life would be impossible.<a href="#cite_note-Himma2009-88">[88] </a> Renowned physicist <a href="/wiki/Stephen_Hawking">Stephen Hawking </a>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".<a href="#cite_note-89">[89] </a> 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.<a href="#cite_note-biologos.org-87">[87] </a> <a href="#cite_note-Himma2009-88">[88] </a> However, in regard to fine-tuning, <a href="/wiki/Kenneth_Einar_Himma">Kenneth Einar Himma </a>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..."<a href="#cite_note-Himma2009-88">[88] </a> Himma attributes the "Argument from Suspicious Improbabilities", a formalization of "the fine-tuning intuition" to <a href="/wiki/George_N._Schlesinger">George N. Schlesinger </a>:

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