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93-508: The teleological argument (from τέλος , telos , 'end, aim, goal') also known as physico-theological argument , argument from design , or intelligent design argument , is a rational argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world, which looks designed, is evidence of an intelligent creator. The earliest recorded versions of this argument are associated with Socrates in ancient Greece , although it has been argued that he

186-544: A Creator who pre-determined their synchronism. The 17th-century Dutch writers Lessius and Grotius argued that the intricate structure of the world, like that of a house, was unlikely to have arisen by chance. The empiricist John Locke , writing in the late 17th century, developed the Aristotelian idea that, excluding geometry, all science must attain its knowledge a posteriori —through sensual experience. In response to Locke, Anglican Irish Bishop George Berkeley advanced

279-463: A Creator." 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 Summa Theologica . In the work, Aquinas presented five ways in which he attempted to prove the existence of God: the quinque viae . These arguments feature only

372-459: A Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose. The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz disagreed with Newton's view of design in the teleological argument. In the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence , 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

465-416: A being that directs final causes at every moment. That being is what we call God. Isaac Newton 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 Principia : 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. This view, that "God

558-471: A character explain the concept of a " demiurge " 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 priori order and structure in the world that he had already presented in The Republic . The story does not propose creation ex nihilo ; rather, the demiurge made order from the chaos of the cosmos, imitating

651-479: 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' materialist understanding of causation . 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. Socrates, on

744-460: 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

837-600: 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. Weber (2000) writes that Derham's Physico-Theology "directly influenced" William Paley's later work. The power, and yet

930-483: A fixed paradigm or form for that species. 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. Therefore the most complete explanation in regard to the natural, as well as the artificial, is for the most part teleological. In fact, proposals that species had changed by chance survival of

1023-418: A form of idealism in which things only continue to exist when they are perceived. 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. David Hume, in the mid-18th century, referred to the teleological argument in his A Treatise of Human Nature . Here, he appears to give his support to

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1116-510: A myth, and so throughout history commentators have disagreed about which elements of the myth can be seen as the position of Plato. 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, Epicurus , the Stoics , and Galen all understood Plato as proposing the world originated in an "intelligent creative act". Plato has

1209-436: A pessimistic worldview of the samsara as full of suffering and advocated renunciation and austerities. They laid stress on philosophical concepts like Ahimsa, Karma, Jnana, Samsara and Moksa. Cārvāka (Sanskrit: चार्वाक) (atheist) philosophy, also known as Lokāyata, it is a system of Hindu philosophy that assumes various forms of philosophical skepticism and religious indifference. It is named after its founder, Cārvāka, author of

1302-557: A position closer to Avicenna. An example of the teleological argument in Jewish philosophy appears when the medieval Aristotelian philosopher Maimonides cites the passage in Isaiah 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:" However, Barry Holtz calls this "a crude form of the argument from design", and that this "is only one possible way of reading

1395-588: A posteriori arguments, rather than literal reading of holy texts. 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

1488-409: A purpose and direction something like human activity is controversial in the details. Martha Nussbaum 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. Nevertheless, Nussbaum's position is not universally accepted. In any case, Aristotle

1581-476: A similar intelligent ordering principle causing life and the rotation of the heavens. For example Empedocles , like Hesiod much earlier, described cosmic order and living things as caused by a cosmic version of love , and Pythagoras and Heraclitus attributed the cosmos with " reason " ( logos ). In his Philebus 28c Plato has Socrates speak of this as a tradition, saying that "all philosophers agree—whereby they really exalt themselves—that mind ( nous )

1674-417: 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. 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

1767-629: A succession of moral writers as presenting a valid argument for the proposition that "The wisdom of God is displayed in creation." Telos Telos has been consistently used in the writings of Aristotle, in which the term, on several occasions, denotes 'goal'. It is considered synonymous to teleute ('end'), particularly in Aristotle's discourse about the plot-structure in Poetics . The philosopher went as far as to say that telos can encompass all forms of human activity. One can say, for instance, that

1860-530: 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 Leibniz considered the argument from design to have "only moral certainty" unless it was supported by his own idea of pre-established harmony expounded in his Monadology . Bertrand Russell wrote that "The proof from

1953-435: Is gnōmē 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. In Plato's Phaedo , Socrates is made to say just before dying that his discovery of Anaxagoras' concept of

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2046-541: Is a fusion of two ancient traditions: the Vedic tradition and the śramaṇa tradition. Indian philosophy begins with the Vedas wherein questions pertaining to laws of nature, the origin of the universe, and the place of man in it are asked. In the famous Rigvedic Hymn of Creation ( Nasadiya Sukta ) the poet asks: In the Vedic view, creation is ascribed to the self-consciousness of

2139-535: Is associated with the concept called techne , which is the rational method involved in producing an object or accomplishing a goal or objective. In the Theuth/Thamus myth, for instance, the section covering techne referred to telos and techne together. The two methods are, however, not mutually exclusive in principle. These are demonstrated in the cases of writing and seeing, as explained by Martin Heidegger :

2232-399: 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

2325-409: 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". Xenophon's report in his Memorabilia might be the earliest clear account of an argument that there is evidence in nature of intelligent design. The word traditionally translated and discussed as "design"

2418-465: Is known from his works", was supported and popularized by Newton's friends Richard Bentley , Samuel Clarke and William Whiston in the Boyle lectures , which Newton supervised. 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

2511-431: 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." According to Aristotle the changes which happen by nature are caused by their " formal causes ", and for example in

2604-468: Is now part of the modern analysis of social media platforms as intelligent social machines . Action theory also makes essential use of teleological vocabulary. From Donald Davidson 's perspective, an action is just something an agent does with an intention  – i.e., looking forward to some end to be achieved by the action. Action is considered just a step that is necessary to fulfill human telos, as it leads to habits. According to

2697-428: Is obvious that there is a God. Marcus Minucius Felix (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

2790-419: Is the first person who is definitely known to have explained such a concept using the word " nous " (which is the original Greek term that leads to modern English "intelligence" via its Latin and French translations). Aristotle reports an earlier philosopher from Clazomenae named Hermotimus who had taken a similar position. Amongst Pre-Socratic philosophers before Anaxagoras, other philosophers had proposed

2883-589: The Abrahamic religions . In the Middle Ages , Islamic theologians such as Al-Ghazali used the argument, although it was rejected as unnecessary by Quranic literalists, and as unconvincing by many Islamic philosophers . Later, the teleological argument was accepted by Saint Thomas Aquinas , and included as the fifth of his " Five Ways " of proving the existence of God. In early modern England, clergymen such as William Turner and John Ray were well-known proponents. In

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2976-610: The Marxist perspective , historical change is dictated by socio-economic structures (or "laws"), which are simultaneously preconditions and limitations of the realization of the telos of the class struggle . Classical philosophy This page lists some links to ancient philosophy , namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history ( c.  600 CE ). Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures roughly contemporaneously. Karl Jaspers termed

3069-567: The Neoplatonists , 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 Al-Farabi and Avicenna . Later, Averroes and Thomas Aquinas considered

3162-490: The Stoics 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. Plato's student and friend Aristotle (c. 384 – 322 BC), continued the Socratic tradition of criticising natural scientists such as Democritus who sought (as in modern science) to explain everything in terms of matter and chance motion. He

3255-400: The telos of the blacksmith is the production of a sword, while that of the swordsman's, which uses the weapon as a tool, is to kill or incapacitate an enemy. On the other hand, the telos of these occupations are merely part of the purpose of a ruler, who must oversee the direction and well-being of a state. Moreover, it can be understood as the "supreme end of man's endeavour". Telos

3348-490: The telos of warfare is victory, or the telos of business is the creation of wealth . Within this conceptualization, there are telos that are subordinate to other telos , as all activities have their own, respective goals. For Aristotle, these subordinate telos can become the means to achieve more fundamental telos . Through this concept, for instance, the philosopher underscored the importance of politics and that all other fields are subservient to it. He explained that

3441-464: The " emanationist " approach of the Neoplatonists such as Plotinus, whereby nature is rationally ordered, but God is not like a craftsman who literally manages the world. Later, Avicenna was also convinced of this, and proposed instead a cosmological argument for the existence of God. The argument was however later accepted by both the Aristotelian philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and his great anti-philosophy opponent Al-Ghazali . Averroes' term for

3534-760: The 6th century to 221 BCE, an era of significant cultural and intellectual expansion in China. Even though this period – known in its earlier part as the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period – in its latter part was fraught with chaos and bloody battles, it is also known as the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy because a broad range of thoughts and ideas were developed and discussed freely. The thoughts and ideas discussed and refined during this period have profoundly influenced lifestyles and social consciousness up to

3627-461: The Aristotelian conceptualization outlined in the Nicomachean Ethics , where the eidos  – the soul of the maker – was treated as the arche of the thing made ( ergon ). In this analogy, the telos constitutes the arche but in a certain degree not at the disposition of techne . The notion of purpose, or telos, has formed the foundation of cybernetics , and

3720-587: The Bārhaspatya-sūtras. In classical times, these inquiries were systematized in six schools of philosophy. Some of the questions asked were: The six schools of Indian philosophy are: Chinese philosophy is the dominant philosophical thought in China and other countries within the East Asian cultural sphere that share a common language , including Japan, Korea , and Vietnam . The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from

3813-635: 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 Stoics who "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'". Cicero (c. 106 – c. 43 BC) reported the teleological argument of the Stoics in De Natura Deorum ( On

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3906-613: 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

3999-631: 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

4092-505: 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

4185-503: 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 classical philosophy . Religious thinkers in Judaism , Hinduism , Confucianism , Islam and Christianity also developed versions of

4278-466: The argument from design have been used by Islamic theologians and philosophers from the time of the early Mutakallimun theologians in the 9th century, although it is rejected by fundamentalist or literalist schools, for whom the mention of God in the Qu'ran should be sufficient evidence. The argument from design was also seen as an unconvincing sophism by the early Islamic philosopher Al-Farabi , who instead took

4371-563: 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. ' " However, later he was more critical of the argument in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding . This was presented as a dialogue between Hume and "a friend who loves sceptical paradoxes", where

4464-473: 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. 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

4557-415: 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 final causes , 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

4650-415: The beginning, it was considered a sort of Taoist sect, and there was even a theory about Laozi , founder of Taoism, who went to India and taught his philosophy to Buddha . Mahayana Buddhism was far more successful in China than its rival Hinayana , and both Indian schools and local Chinese sects arose from the 5th century. Two chiefly important monk philosophers were Sengzhao and Daosheng . But probably

4743-415: The case of a bird's wings there is also a final cause 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

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4836-495: The denomination Old Text ) that were so much more reliable. In particular, they refuted the assumption of Confucius as a godlike figure and considered him as the greatest sage, but simply a human and mortal. The 3rd and 4th centuries saw the rise of the Xuanxue (mysterious learning), also called Neo-Taoism . The most influential philosophers of this movement were Wang Bi , Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang . The main question of this school

4929-507: The early 18th century, William Derham published his Physico-Theology , which gave his "demonstration of the being and attributes of God from his works of creation". Later, William Paley , in his 1802 Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity published a prominent presentation of the design argument with his version of the watchmaker analogy and the first use of

5022-501: 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. On

5115-617: The end of Old Iranian philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of early Islamic philosophy . See also: Dualism , Dualism (philosophy of mind) While there are ancient relations between the Indian Vedas and the Iranian Avesta , the two main families of the Indo-Iranian philosophical traditions were characterized by fundamental differences in their implications for the human being's position in society and their view of man's role in

5208-400: The eternal Forms. Plato's world of eternal and unchanging Forms , imperfectly represented in matter by a divine Artisan, contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic Weltanschauungen , of which atomism 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 Epicurus ... while

5301-448: The eternal forms or natures which cause the natural order, including all living things. He clearly refers to this entity having an intellect 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

5394-514: The explanation of biological complexity given in Charles Darwin 's Origin of Species , published in 1859. Since the 1960s, Paley's arguments have been influential in the development of a creation science movement which used phrases such as "design by an intelligent designer", and after 1987 this was rebranded as " intelligent design ", promoted by the intelligent design movement which refers to an intelligent designer . Both movements have used

5487-647: The extant scriptures of the Zoroastrian religion in Avestan language . Among these are treatises such as the Shikand-gumanic Vichar by Mardan-Farrux Ohrmazddadan, selections of Denkard , Wizidagīhā-ī Zātspram ("Selections of Zātspram") as well as older passages of the book Avesta, the Gathas which are attributed to Zarathustra himself and regarded as his "direct teachings". Anacharsis The ancient Indian philosophy

5580-515: The first rude essay of some infant deity... the object of derision to his superiors". Starting in 1696 with his Artificial Clockmaker , William Derham 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 natural theologian , Derham listed scientific observations of

5673-438: The fittest, similar to what is now called " natural selection ", were already known to Aristotle, and he rejected these with the same logic. He conceded that monstrosities (new forms of life) could come about by chance, but he disagreed with those who ascribed all nature purely to chance because he believed science can only provide a general account of that which is normal, "always, or for the most part". The distinction between what

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5766-451: The former is considered a form of techne , as the end product lies beyond ( para ) the activity of producing; whereas, in seeing, there is no remainder outside of or beyond the activity itself at the moment it is accomplished. Aristotle, for his part, simply designated sophia (also referred to as the arete or excellence of philosophical reflection) as the consummation or the final cause ( telos ) of techne . Heidegger attempted to explain

5859-426: 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". Hume also presented arguments both for and against

5952-583: The intense period of philosophical development beginning around the 7th century BCE and concluding around the 3rd century BCE an Axial Age in human thought. In Western philosophy , the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire marked the ending of Hellenistic philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of medieval philosophy , whereas in the Middle East, the spread of Islam through the Arab Empire marked

6045-539: The limitations, of this kind of reasoning is illustrated in microcosm by the history of La Fontaine's fable of The Acorn and the Pumpkin , 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. However, beginning with Anne Finch 's conversion of the story into a polemic against atheism, it has been taken up by

6138-573: 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?" Also, of the "sense of sound" he writes: For who but an intelligent Being, what less than an omnipotent and infinitely wise God could contrive, and make such

6231-496: The natural world, as also the heavens, is ultimately to be understood as a shared striving towards godlike actuality ". 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

6324-530: The official philosophy, quashed Mohist and Confucianist schools . Legalism remained influential until the emperors of the Han dynasty adopted Daoism and later Confucianism as official doctrine. These latter two became the determining forces of Chinese thought until the introduction of Buddhism. Confucianism was particularly strong during the Han dynasty, whose greatest thinker was Dong Zhongshu , who integrated Confucianism with

6417-441: 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

6510-399: 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 Diogenes of Apollonia .); McPherran (1996 :290); and Plato's Timaeus is presented as a description of someone who is explaining a "likely story" in the form of

6603-419: The phrase "argument from design". From its beginning, there have been numerous criticisms of the different versions of the teleological argument. Some have been written as responses to criticisms of non-teleological natural science which are associated with it. Especially important were the general logical arguments presented by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , published in 1779, and

6696-480: 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 monads , programmed to act in a predetermined way. 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

6789-587: The present day in East Asian countries. The intellectual society of this era was characterized by itinerant scholars, who were often employed by various state rulers as advisers on the methods of government , war , and diplomacy . This period ended with the rise of the Qin dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent. The Book of Han lists ten major schools, they are: The founder of the Qin dynasty, who implemented Legalism as

6882-463: The primeval being ( Purusha ). This leads to the inquiry into the one being that underlies the diversity of empirical phenomena and the origin of all things. Cosmic order is termed rta and causal law by karma . Nature ( prakriti ) is taken to have three qualities ( sattva , rajas , and tamas ). Jainism and Buddhism are a continuation of the Sramana school of thought. The Sramanas cultivated

6975-509: The teleological argument in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion . 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

7068-498: The teleological argument to argue against the modern scientific understanding of evolution , and to claim that supernatural explanations should be given equal validity in the public school science curriculum. 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

7161-500: 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 general revelation , Paul the Apostle (AD 5–67), argues in Romans 1:18–20, that because it has been made plain to all from what has been created in the world, it

7254-504: The teleological argument was Galen , 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

7347-497: The teleological argument. Later, variants on the argument from design were produced in Western philosophy and by Christian fundamentalism . Contemporary defenders of the teleological argument are mainly Christians, for example Richard Swinburne and John Lennox . The argument from intelligent design appears to have begun with Socrates , although the concept of a cosmic intelligence is older and David Sedley has argued that Socrates

7440-427: The text". He asserts that "Generally, in the biblical texts the existence of God is taken for granted." Maimonides also recalled that Abraham (in the midrash , or explanatory text, of Genesis Rabbah 39:1) recognized the existence of "one transcendent deity from the fact that the world around him exhibits an order and design". The midrash makes an analogy between the obviousness that a building has an owner, and that

7533-629: The thoughts of the Zhongshu School and the theory of the Five Elements. He also was a promoter of the New Text school, which considered Confucius as a divine figure and a spiritual ruler of China, who foresaw and started the evolution of the world towards the Universal Peace. In contrast, there was an Old Text school that advocated the use of Confucian works written in ancient language (from this comes

7626-401: The universe that there must be a first mover which causes everything else to move. 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 Thomas Aquinas were aware of this debate, and generally took

7719-467: 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 ?" Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) in The City of God mentioned the idea that the world's "well-ordered changes and movements", and "the fair appearance of all visible things"

7812-681: The universe. The first charter of human rights by Cyrus the Great as understood in the Cyrus cylinder is often seen as a reflection of the questions and thoughts expressed by Zarathustra and developed in Zoroastrian schools of thought of the Achaemenid Era of Iranian history . Ideas and tenets of Zoroastrian schools of Early Persian philosophy are part of many works written in Middle Persian and of

7905-430: 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. Galen's connection of

7998-460: The world is looked after by God. Abraham says "Is it conceivable that the world is without a guide?" Because of these examples, the 19th century philosopher Nachman Krochmal called the argument from design "a cardinal principle of the Jewish faith". The American orthodox rabbi, Aryeh Kaplan , retells a legend about the 2nd century AD Rabbi Meir . When told by a philosopher that he did not believe that

8091-433: 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

8184-401: Was developing an older idea, citing Anaxagoras of Clazomenae , born about 500 BC, as a possible earlier proponent. 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

8277-437: Was evidence for the world being created, and "that it could not have been created save by God". 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

8370-409: 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 Metaphysics and other works Aristotle clearly argued a case for there being one highest god or " prime mover " which was the ultimate cause, though specifically not the material cause, of

8463-473: Was taking up an older argument. Later, Plato and Aristotle developed complex approaches to the proposal that the cosmos has an intelligent cause, but it was the Stoics during the Roman era who, under their influence, "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'". Since the Roman era, various versions of the teleological argument have been associated with

8556-412: 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". Instead of direct intervention by a creator it is "scarcely an exaggeration to say that for Aristotle the entire functioning of

8649-711: Was whether Being came before Not-Being (in Chinese, ming and wuming ). A peculiar feature of these Taoist thinkers, like the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove , was the concept of feng liu (lit. wind and flow), a sort of romantic spirit which encouraged following the natural and instinctive impulse. Buddhism arrived in China around the 1st century AD, but it was not until the Northern and Southern , Sui and Tang dynasties that it gained considerable influence and acknowledgement. In

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