Teleological Argument Analysis

In order to gain a full understanding of the teleological argument, it is also important to examine the viewpoints of those who question the validity of the teleological argument. Critics discount the argument in a number of ways. They say the premise that “the universe has a design” is groundless because there is also apparent disorder and absence of design that cannot be disregarded. Critics argue that the belief that there can be no design without a grand designer is also not true. For example, “Ink drops folded in a paper sometimes appear strikingly symmetrical. If some patterns are produced unpurposively, then it is at least possible that such patterns as the world as a whole may have been produced unpurposively” (A. Bahm, 1944,

Similarly, what if the designer created the universe by accident, or designed the universe as a result of some mechanical necessity instead of as a result of purpose? Others argue that the universe could have been designed for a purpose long ago, but it no longer has the purpose it once had as its purpose may have been either lost or fulfilled. Charles Darwin argued that just because we reveal order in something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the product of some purposive action. Darwin goes on to say that as difficult as it may be to acknowledge, the complexity of connections between things can all be explained by nature without having to appeal to the supernatural. “Undeniably, the power of the design argument as an inference to the best explanation has been seriously weakened since Darwin and Alfred Wallace independently came up with natural selection as a naturalistic explanation for design” (H. De Cruz, J. De Smedt, 2010, p. 679). There is no doubt that Darwin’s work on biological evolution suggesting that humans evolved through a process of natural selection is now seen by many as one of the most powerful substantiations of world

Kant also believed that human reason is unable to arrive at specific conclusions regarding the noumenal world as human scientific knowledge cannot extend beyond the phenomenal world. Based on Kant’s “transcendental idealism”, human reasoning, from effects to causes, has no legitimacy beyond the phenomenal world. Kant does, however, conclude that the design argument plays an important investigational role within science. “Unlike many philosophers of science since Darwin, Kant believed that it is a legitimate and important function of science to investigate the overall design of nature. He implicitly rejects the conception of science that limits it to the study of impersonal, unguided, and purposeless forces” (R. Koons, n.d.). Kant does not see the design argument as an adversary or as hindering scientific progress, he sees the argument as a beginning and a guide to the scientific