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| Who made the watch? |
The “Design” Argument: Teleology
One of the oldest arguments to support the existence of God
is called the “argument from design” or the “teleological” or cosmological argument.
The teleological argument tells us that where there is design, there must be a
designer. Wherever we make a close study of the phenomena of the observable
world, we find an irreducible complexity. This complex design cannot have been produced
exclusively through random processes driven purely by chance. The universe is
perfectly fit for life. It is unreasonable to assume that everything is a
coincidence. A purely materialistic explanation does not make sense, for it fails
to explain consciousness. The structure and architecture of the cosmos is
evidence of design and purpose. Intelligent design implies some form of
conscious architect. The teleological argument claims that the irreducible complexity
of the cosmos points to purposeful design on a higher level of consciousness:
some form of higher consciousness responsible in the origin, fine-tuning and
evolution of the universe.
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| Diagraming the Mechanical Flagellum of a Simple Organism |
Since evolutionary biologists are gods of their laboratories, working to replicate the design found in nature they hate the idea of a designing God. They believe in “neutrality” and “objectivity.” As we have seen from our glimpse at quantum physics, however, there is no such thing as “objectivity.” Everything is subjective. Science is never neutral. In practice, science has served many different ideologies, from the social Darwinisim of capitalism to Stalin’s Lysenkoism and Hitler’s genocide. Science has served war efforts, population control, and even ethnic cleansing in its long and checkered history using tools like napalm, Zyklon B and the atomic bomb. That science is neutral is a fiction. So thinkers like Dawkins go to lengths to refute the teleological argument.
But despite refutations from David Hume to Richard Dawkins, the “argument from design” continues to provoke.
It’s hard to believe the
universe is a product of chance. It goes against common sense. How can atoms
and molecules organize themselves into the wonder of life simply through randomness? A careful architect needs a high degree
of perfectionism to execute a design. How is it possible that the designs in
nature are so perfect? Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926)
did his best to imitate organic forms in his creation of the Sagrada Familia in
Barcelona. His buildings seem plantlike and
heliotropic as they reach for the sky. But wonders of architecture as they are
they don’t reach the perfection they aspire for. A sunflower is a far more
sophisticated architectural wonder than any of Gaudi’s creations and he knew
it. The great Spanish philosopher Seneca remarked that “All
art is an imitation of nature.” Artists are notoriously temperamental and hate
when they are outdone by other artists. So the scientists are enraged upon
witnessing the art within nature.
As arguments go, the “intelligent design” idea is called A Posteriori
since it is argued “after the fact.” We weren’t around at the beginning of the
universe to see the designer at work. We can only reason backwards like a
forensic detective based on our experience and capacity to reason from the
evidence. The evidence of design is everywhere,
and yet what do we make of the evidence? Is there purpose in the universe? Greek
telos which means “purpose,” so another way to see teleology is the “search
for purpose.” |
| Who Designed the Eye? |
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| A World of Designs |
Why study arguments for the existence of God?
Lutheran theologian and existentialist Paul Tillich has said that the task
of a theological treatment of the traditional arguments for the existence of
God is twofold: they develop the question of while exposing their inability to
answer the question of God:
These arguments bring the ontological analysis to a
conclusion by disclosing that the question of God is implied in the finite
structure of being. In performing this function, they partially accept and also
partially reject traditional natural theology, and they drive reason to the
quest for revelation.
In other words, argument might give support in our search
for truth; but higher truth is only available through faith. Faith is not
merely a question of proving God’s existence. One who has faith must act and
live in faith. How one acts and lives in faith is the question of a lifetime.
Udayana Acharya
The argument from design is not new, of course. It has been
a part of our search for light and truth ever since we first looked at the
stars and wondered. The philosophical Greeks entertained such arguments. Both Plato
and Aristotle had versions of the teleological arguments and taught them to
their students. But in a world where faith was more important than logic, “proof”
of God was not seen as a priority. The need for “proof” becomes more urgent
when there is a challenge. In India the challenge came in the form of Buddhism.
Buddhism entered India as a non-theistic ethical system which countered the
Vedic Brahmanism which dominated the South Asian subcontinent before the 5th
century B.C. As an alternative to Brahmanism, Buddhism was popular until around
the 10th century when it began to migrate to China, Japan, and the
Indochinese peninsula.
Udayana Acharya was a teacher of logic who defended theism
defended from the atheistic Buddhists of
his time. His version of logic was called nyāya.
At the end of the 10th century, (984) Udāyana
Acharya offered a series of theological arguments to combat the nihilism of the
Buddhists. He engaged in many debates and did his best to refute Buddhism with
his own particular logical form of theism.
Udayana's Nyaya-Kuṣumanjali
was a logical philosophical work.
There he gives nine arguments in defense of the existence of God.[1]
Here’s his version of the argument from design or the teleological argument:
“Primordial matter, atom and karma act only when they are
directed by an intelligent cause because they are non-spiritual. Just as an axe
acts only when it is directed by an intelligent wood-cutter, in the same manner
primordial matter, atom and karma, being non-spiritual, act only when they are
directed by an intelligent cause. "
“There are many proofs
to establish the existence of God. The earth being a product like a pot must
have a maker. The maker must be an intelligent being possessing a will to bring
atoms together and to support them. That intelligent being is God. God having
made this world causes it to collapse, and having destroyed it remakes it as a
magic-show. His will manifests itself unhindered in all actions. Perceiving
suitable materials (atoms) for creation and conceiving a desire for the same,
He made this wonderful universe which is supported by His will.” [2]
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| Consciousn Evolution by Design or Random Chance? |
Western traditions: Aquinas
Writing some three centuries after Udayana Acharya, in his Quinque Viae, the
Catholic philosopher. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 7 March 1274) has given five
reasons for the existence of God, among which, the most famous is called the
teleological argument, or the argument from design, the 5th of the Classical
Arguments. Of course, Aquinas did not
invent the teleological argument. But he is probably its most famous exponent
writing in ancient times. Aquinas was the first theologian to depart from an
entirely mystical approach or on based exclusively on biblical hermeneutics. He
confronted the philosophical world with a reasoned response. 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.
Plato and Aristotle developed complex approaches to the proposal that the
cosmos has an intelligent cause. This idea evolved into what has been called,
the 'The Argument from Design.’Writing in ancient times, Aquinas points out that things in the world move toward goals, they have purpose. The arrow does not move towards its target except by the archer’s aim. The arrows purpose is given by the archer. Just as the archer directs the movement of the arrow by aiming it, God has given direction and purpose to the universe through his design and maintenance. There is a hierarchy of designs from simple to complex, which implies design, purpose, and a creative designer with intelligence.
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| Who Designed the Eye? |
Coppleston: Aquinas, theology and philosophy
Frederick Copleston: “The assertion that the most important
philosophical event in mediaeval philosophy was the discovery by the Christian
West of the more or less complete works of Aristotle is an assertion which
could, I think, be defended. When the work of the translators of the twelfth
century and of the early part of the thirteenth made the thought of Aristotle
available to the Christian thinkers of western Europe, they were faced for the
first time with what seemed to them a complete and inclusive rational system of
philosophy which owed nothing either to Jewish or to Christian revelation, since
it was the work of a Greek philosopher.
They were forced, therefore, to adopt some attitude towards
it: they could not simply ignore it. Some of the attitudes adopted, varying from
hostility, greater or less, to enthusiastic and rather uncritical acclamation,
we have seen in the preceding volume. St. Thomas Aquinas's attitude was one of
critical acceptance: he attempted to reconcile Aristotelianism and
Christianity, not simply, of course, in order to avert the dangerous influence
of a pagan thinker or to render him innocuous by utilizing him for 'apologetic'
purposes, but also because he sincerely believed that the Aristotelian
philosophy was, in the main, true. Had he not believed this, he would not have
adopted philosophical positions which, in the eyes of many contemporaries,
appeared novel and suspicious. But the point I want to make at the moment is
this, that in adopting a definite attitude towards Aristotelianism a thirteenth-
century thinker was, to all intents and purposes, adopting an attitude towards philosophy.
The significance of this fact has not always been realized by historians.
Looking on mediaeval philosophers, especially those of the thirteenth century,
as slavish adherents of Aristotle, they have not seen that Aristotelianism
really meant, at that time, philosophy itself.” [3]
Aquinas on The 5th Argument, the “Argument from Design”
The teleological argument as we know it today was developed by Saint Thomas
Aquinas and included as the fifth of his "Five Ways" of proving the
existence of God. Aquinas: “We see that natural bodies work toward some purpose and do not do so by chance. Most natural things lack knowledge, but as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligent. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this we call “God.”
Writing just before Darwin, William Paley, in his 1802 work on natural theology made his famous defense of the design argument with his version of the watchmaker analogy and the expression "argument from design".
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| Mechanism of a flagellum |
The “anthropic principle”
The anthropic principle is an extension of the teleological argument
that proposes that the design of the universe includes a special purpose: human
life. The idea is that the universe is fit for human life. The universe might have been designed in different ways with different laws of physics; different stars and planets; bigger or smaller big bang. The majority of potential universes would be unfit for human life. The anthropic principle is the thesis that the universal design favors the development and evolution of human life. How is this possible if there were no design? Many different factors had to fall into place for us to exist at all. This is difficult to believe. The fact that the universe is fit for human life requires an explanation. Chance and randomness are not an explanation. The fact of the universe, its organization, design and fine-tuning are all evidence for a higher intelligence. Since the highest intelligence is God, he must exist.
The teleological argument tells us there must be a designer. All the examples of design and purpose in the natural world make it hard to believe that we are the result of a random process. Since the universe is perfectly fit for life it must have been designed that way. The cosmos is evidence of intelligent design. Teleology claims that the complexity of our planet points to an architect who not only created our universe, but sustains it today. The examples of design are countless, But among them, for example:
The Earth is the perfect size and distance from the sun for sustaining life. The atmosphere, mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth's surface is perfect for sustaining life. A different sized Earth might have a thin atmosphere like Mercury where life cannot exist. Or it could have been heavy with methane gas like Jupiter.
Planet Earth is perfectly suited for life, with a perfect atmosphere, the perfect distance from the sun and warmed at the perfect temperature for life. Is it all a coincidence? Is there really no design? Is everything really simply a random product of a chance process? What of the hydrosphere, the water system that covers our planet and almost magically replenishes itself through rain and salty oceans? Is there no design? Without describing the amazing design found in everything from seeds to leafs to octopus, what of the human brain? What are the odds that random arrangements of amino acids will somehow organize themselves into a human brain with the capacity for reading this message and rejecting its logic?
Monkeys with typewriters
If a million monkeys armed with a million typewriters produce text at random
will they produce the Bible, the Quixote, the works of Shakespeare and
the Bhagavad-Gita? Will they type out
the plans for a nuclear reactor and the operating system for the iPhone? How is
it possible that chance has produced organization? It is an intriguing
question. Einstein once said, “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the
universe.” Teleology argues that observable order in the universe must be result of intelligence, of consciousness. The design and organization of everything from DNA to the human brain is not an accident or result of chance.
Darwinism is a reaction to teleological argument
In a sense Darwinism itself is a reaction to the teleological argument.
Every explanation offered by the theory of natural selection is an attempt to
rid science of teleological principles. Theorists from Darwin to Dawkins,
obsessed with teleology look everywhere for a natural explanation to the design
they have found in life forms.It is difficult to believe that such complicated designs as the structure of a DNA molecule or the flagellum of a microscopic insect originate in a complete random process. The concept of natural selection is an attempt to give a natural explanation to what seems supernaturally wonderful. As a consequence, teleology is universally loathed by scientists. Their raison d’etre is to show that teleology is not necessary; that intelligent design is a myth. Naturally they loathe the idea that things cannot be explained naturally. And yet, in spite of all attempts to ban design from the laboratory, it is an idea with staying power. That is the power of this particular argument. Where the ontological argument of Anselm is difficult to understand and easy to ridicule, intelligent design makes sense. It is an easy argument to get. It has to do with what is called “irreducible complexity,” a term coined by the prominent Intelligent Design proponent Michael Behe.
In his recent book, Signature in the Cell, science philosopher and biologist Stephen C. Meyer finds that the digital code in DNA is a good example of the idea that there must be a designing intelligence behind the origin of life.
A Cambridge University-trained theorist and researcher, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, Dr. Meyer argues that the universe is not only comprised of matter, energy, but consciousness. Some designing consciousness organizes the information that drives the evolutionary process at the cellular level. Consciousness at the cellular level works as a kind of master programmer of life, assuring the organization of the DNA molecule.
Meyer observes[4]:
“the theory of intelligent design holds that there are
tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained
by an intelligent cause—that is, by the conscious choice of a rational
agent—rather than by an undirected process. Either life arose as the result of
purely undirected processes, or a guiding intelligence played a role. Advocates
of intelligent design argue for the latter option based on evidence from the
natural world. The theory does not challenge the idea of evolution defined as
change over time or even common ancestry, but it does dispute the Darwinian
idea that the cause of all biological change is wholly blind and undirected.
Even so, the theory is not based on biblical doctrine. Intelligent design is an
inference from scientific evidence, not a deduction from religious authority.”
In Signature in the Cell,
the digital technology at work in the cell has been progressively revealed as
the consequence not of a purely mechanistic, undirected process but an organic
one driven by conscious agency. As we have seen, the teleological argument is
nothing new. Arguments for designed existence have been around at least from
the time of Plato in Book X of The Republic, presents
his argument for design. The idea is particularly tenacious, having lasted
centuries, outliving the Buddhist atheists of Udayana’s time and the doubters
who inspired Thomas Aquinas.
The Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume,
who died in the year of American Independence, did his best as a skeptic to
refute the idea of an immortal soul and raised strong objections to the teleological
argument. He responded to Paley’s claims and objected to the argument from
analogy on nine different points in his work Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion. You can find a detailed
refutation of David Hume here. http://www.drchinese.com/David/Hume's_Determinism_Refuted.htm
Somehow the teolological argument outlived David Hume, just as it has survived Charles
Darwin, and Bertrand Russell. All
attempts to the contrary it will outlive Dawkins and Hawkings who have
expressed great contempt for teleological ideas.
So far, we have seen the Ontological
and Teleological arguments. As
logical arguments go they have their critics. Perhaps they are not entirely
convincing. But, as we have seen, logic and argument are inconclusive in terms
of consciousness communing with higher consciousness. Knowledge is a poor instrument
for “knowing” God. Above knowledge is faith. This may seem “anti-rational,” but
insistence on a rational explanation for absolutely everything is also
irrational. Some questions are beyond the knowable. That something is beyond
the “knowable” doesn’t mean that it is nonexistent, but difficult to “know.”
As the great French philosopher and mathematician Blaise
Pascal once wrote, “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.”
1.
[1] Cause and effect argument: (Kāryāt) The world is an effect, all effects have efficient cause,
hence the world must have an efficient cause. That efficient cause is God.
2.
Combinative
Principle: Āyojanāt : Atoms are
inactive. To form a substance, they must combine. To combine, they must move.
Nothing moves without intelligence and source of motion. Since we perceive
substance, some intelligent source must have moved the inactive atoms. That
intelligent source is God.
3.
Fine-tuning or maintenance
argument. Dhŗtyādéḥ: The world is
sustained, maintained, and fine-tuned by some force. That force destroys this world. Unintelligent and
unseen principles of nature cannot do this. We infer that some intelligent reality
is behind it. That is God.
4.
Linguistic
evidence, Padāt: Words have meaning and represent objects.
The representational power of words has a cause. That cause is God.
5.
Evidence from
faith, Pratyayataḥ (lit, from
faith): Vedas are
infallible. Human beings are fallible. Infallible Vedas cannot have been
authored by fallible human beings. Someone authored the infallible Vedas. That
author is God.
6.
Scriptural
evidence, Shrutéḥ The infallible
Vedas testify to the existence of God. Therefore God exists.
7.
Evidence from
traditional spoken teachings and law, Vākyāt :
Vedas deal with moral laws, the rights and the wrongs. These are divine. Divine
injunctions and prohibitions can only come from a divine creator of laws. That
divine creator is God.
8.
Mathemamatical
evidence, Samkhyāviśeşāt : By
rules of perception, only the number "one" can ever be directly
perceived. All numbers other than one are inferences and concepts created by
consciousness. When man is born, his mind is incapable of inferences and
concepts. He develops consciousness as he develops. The consciousness
development is self-evident and proven because of man's ability with perfect
numerical conception. This ability to conceive numerically perfect concepts
must depend on something. That something is divine consciousness. So God must
exist.
9.
Unseen Power
argument, Adṛṣṭāt: Everybody reaps
the fruits of his own actions. Merits and demerits accrue from his own actions.
An Unseen Power keeps a balance sheet of the merit and demerit. But since this
Unseen Power is Unintelligent, it needs intelligent guidance to work. That
intelligent guide is God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udayana
- cite_note-csharma-1
[2] (A History of
Indian Logic: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Schools) By Satis Chandra
Vidyabhusana, 1920)
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