There are a number of reasons why sceptics have thought that the teleological argument is too weak to achieve its ostensible target. Maybe it does not make its case, maybe it does and since we are not God, have no idea what we are talking about.
The first thing some find wrong is an internal reason - what is designed and what is not seems to be the distinguishing issue for some.
The second thing that some find wrong is that they see the argument as highly doubtful in determining that one can reliably infer the precise nature of a cause from the nature of its effect in any case. The bend towards more (scientific) to hypothesising causes, inferring their probable effects and trying for experimental confirmation/dis-confirmation to the hypothetical/deductive/nomological method and not to alleged inference of causes from effects.
And a third cause we have dealt with in the past is that it does not exercise the restraint called for by Ockham's razor.
Here are some thoughts --
- Summarising Greg Boyd:
- I submit that the problem is solved if we understand prayer to be part of the morally responsible potential, the spiritual say-so that God gives free agents in his desire to have a creation in which love is possible. I have argued that God is restricted in terms of what he can unilaterally carry out by the domain of irrevocable freedom he has given to agents. I have further argued that this entails that the short- and long-term implications of agents’ behaviour for all other agents must be allowed to unfold, for better or for worse. We may understand prayer as a central aspect of this moral responsibility. By God’s own design, it functions as a crucial constituent in the ‘givens’ of any situation that makes it possible for God more intensely to steer a situation toward his desired end.
- Movie Expelled summarised by Jeffrey Schloss:
- At face value, there is evidence of a purposeful creator, and there is a reigning ideological commitment to excluding, even punishing, those who advocate this point of view. In fact, at a general level many Christians would not even need a movie to be convinced of this. But the film attempts to go beyond the general, by portraying very specific examples of this dynamic. If there is bona fide scientific evidence for design, it’s in the details; and if there is institutionalised commitment to suppressing such evidence, it’s in the details as well. Therefore it’s important to take a hard look at the claims, or as the film encourages, to examine the issues without ruling out one option in advance. In exploring these issues with my own students, I invite them to begin by taking to heart the advice of Proverbs, which exhorts us to unwavering self-honesty: “He who gives an answer without first hearing of the matter, it is his folly and shame.” The importance of this proverbial counsel is amplified by the theological notion I mentioned above, of a delusional conspiracy that resists the gospel. For it is not just Rome, but also Jerusalem that conspires. The community of faith is not immune to misidentifying the enemy, in the very name of orthodoxy. The need here, as always, is to “examine everything carefully and hold on to the good” (I Thessalonians 5:21).
The most important issue, however, is that if one replaces the explanatory principles of design and intention that are at work in the teleological argument with concepts of random change over time and feedback loops in a "competitive" arena, no external designer at all may be necessary to explain functionality. This is why Darwin thought not disproving God, renders the design account unnecessary.
There is a fourth thing identified as wrong with the teleological argument and that is it ignores data. But not all the data is verified, most still in a hypothesized state in a desire that is overexposure to dismissing God. At the end of this all, we can say only that the existence of God may not have been shown, not that the non-existence of God has been shown.
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