Argument from Design or the Teleological Argument

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Although Kant reject­ed the valid­i­ty of the tra­di­tion­al proofs for God’s exis­tence, he admit­ted that:

This proof will always deserve to be treat­ed with respect. It is the old­est, the clear­est and most in con­for­mi­ty with human rea­son.… We have noth­ing to say against the rea­son­able­ness and util­i­ty of this line of argu­ment, but wish, on the con­trary, to com­mend and encour­age it.

This argu­ment is built on a very basic and obvi­ous obser­va­tion of man:

1 There Is Order and Harmony in Nature

If we look around we see there is a very com­plex and well fit­ting arrange­ment every­where and in the uni­verse every­thing hap­pens in such a won­der­ful way which pro­vides a very friend­ly sur­round­ing for the har­mo­nious struc­tures, life and man. We see a mar­vel­lous uni­ty and con­cord in nature. The whole uni­verse is a com­plex sys­tem, con­sist­ing of strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed and con­nect­ed parts, sub­jects to exact laws, devel­op­ing togeth­er in an inter­de­pen­dent way towards a spe­cif­ic pur­pose.

It would be too long here to list the fields (even with­out giv­ing details) in which sci­ence clear­ly shows the evi­dences of reg­u­lar­i­ty, order and har­mo­ny. There are oth­er books (or rather libraries) which com­plete this task. The one who deals with it will recog­nise it in every part of the remote macro-uni­verse and in the enig­mat­ic behav­iour of the micro-uni­verse, in the com­plex struc­tures of the inor­gan­ic and organ­ic mat­ter, in the world of the cell and bio­log­i­cal process­es, in the behav­iour of ani­mals or the dance of bees, in the com­po­si­tion of the human eye or the well co-ordi­nat­ed func­tion­ing of oth­er organs.

Even if some can regard the world from the oppo­site direc­tion and observe rather imper­fec­tion, dishar­mo­ny, dis­cord or the exis­tence of phys­i­cal evil, nat­ur­al calami­ties, oth­ers draw the con­clu­sion from the evo­lu­tion­ary view that nature is ruled by cru­el strug­gle for sur­vival and devel­op­ment is always pos­si­ble through the oppres­sion of the weak one, there always still remains a large bal­ance on the oth­er side: reg­u­lar­i­ty, order and har­mo­ny is obvi­ous­ly present in the uni­verse, life and man finds the best pro­tec­tion even in severe con­di­tions.

2 The Design of the Universe Can Be Explained Neither By Chance, Nor By Natural Laws

The coin­ci­dences “by chance” are too well tuned that we can explain them by “chance”. Chance is not an expla­na­tion but renounc­ing to expla­na­tion. Sci­en­tists explain nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na by assum­ing that the effects have their caus­es. Gen­er­al­ly there are no doubts in apply­ing this prin­ci­ple in the case of those phe­nom­e­na for which man has already found a cer­tain expla­na­tion, but there are some dif­fi­cult ques­tions for which sci­ence has­n’t found an answer yet. If they are more com­plex ques­tions, why should we give up the log­i­cal infer­ence that they need more com­plex expla­na­tion and not just the con­trary, the chance or chaos which is accept­ed as the sim­plest?

Does the the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion give suf­fi­cient expla­na­tion?

Many claim that the the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion gives the expla­na­tion for the devel­op­ment of the uni­verse and life, instead of God. But there are many oth­er seri­ous sci­en­tists who tes­ti­fy that just the very oppo­site is true. Even from the evo­lu­tion­ary stand­point the uni­verse does­n’t show dis­or­der but a mar­vel­lous design which will lead the hon­est sci­en­tist to a hum­ble won­der­ing that every­thing hap­pened in such a well adjust­ed way that, despite so many hin­drances and great gaps between the dif­fer­ent steps, it was pos­si­ble to reach the appear­ance of life and at the top of evo­lu­tion man with con­science who can admire today all these things. Isn’t it rather a clear evi­dence for a high­est intel­li­gent design?

Fol­low­ing the for­mu­la­tion of William Paley con­cern­ing a man who found a watch, and con­clud­ed that it must have been made by a watch­mak­er, Voltaire resumed:

If a watch proves the exis­tence of a watch­mak­er but the uni­verse does not prove the exis­tence of a great Archi­tect, then I con­sent to be called a fool.

Now, if some­body finds an auto­mat­ed fac­to­ry that pro­duces watch­es with­out any human inter­ven­tion, will not he think that it must have been designed by a high­er intel­li­gence? In the same way, sci­en­tif­ic the­o­ries will nev­er show that every­thing can explain itself but rather they will make even clear­er how won­der­ful this world is and every­thing func­tions in a fit­ting order, there­fore it requires a more intel­li­gent super­nat­ur­al Cre­ator.

The fact is that the the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion, at least at the present stage, can give a suf­fi­cient answer nei­ther for the pur­pose­ful devel­op­ment, because it con­tains great gaps in the chain of expla­na­tions, nor for the ori­gin of the uni­verse, the ori­gin of life, ori­gin of species or the ori­gin of human spir­it. Even if many peo­ple hope that it is a ques­tion of time and once mankind will find expla­na­tion for every­thing, there are seri­ous rea­sons to doubt it. But even if we find a suf­fi­cient expla­na­tion of how some­thing hap­pened, it does­n’t mean that it hap­pened by itself. Even the best sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tion or the most com­pre­hen­sive or gen­er­al the­o­ry would not explain why the nat­ur­al laws are just these and why just these process­es must hap­pen. Sci­ence can explain many details of the cos­mos but it can not grasp ques­tions that are out­side its frame.

3 Therefore the Design of the Universe Can Be Explained Completely Satisfactorily for Human Mankind By an Intelligent Supernatural Designer That We Can Believe in Him and It Does Not Leave Place for Other Explanations

Nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na do not poss­es intel­li­gence in them­selves and we can not speak about their inten­tion­al act­ing so their pur­pose­ful act­ing can be explained only by the con­trol of a wise being hav­ing free will. This argu­ment does not prove in itself the infin­i­ty and per­fec­tion of the Design­er, but it shows at least that He is beyond the uni­verse and is a supe­ri­or Mind who directs every­thing towards the ful­fil­ment of a cer­tain aim. We can get to know also some­thing about this aim, at least that every­thing is guid­ed so that humans own­ing mind and free will able to love come into exis­tence.

Sci­ence can only be cre­at­ed by those who are thor­ough­ly imbued with the aspi­ra­tion toward truth and under­stand­ing. This source of feel­ing, how­ev­er, springs from the sphere of reli­gion. To this there also belongs the faith in the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the reg­u­la­tions valid for the world of exis­tence are ratio­nal, that is, com­pre­hen­si­ble to rea­son. I can­not con­ceive of a gen­uine sci­en­tist with­out that pro­found faith. The sit­u­a­tion may be expressed by an image: sci­ence with­out reli­gion is lame, reli­gion with­out sci­ence is blind. (A. Ein­stein)

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