So far, we've covered two major arguments in favour of the existence of God. Today we shall be looking at the Teleological Argument, otherwise known as 'the argument from design'. This argument takes into account various features of the universe that appear to be designed and argues that the best explanation for the appearance of design is actual design.
Now, many labour under the delusion that evolutionary theory has long since refuted the teleological argument, but is this really the case? For starters, evolutionary theory only seeks to explain how the significant amount of biodiversity we observe emerged from a single, universal common ancestor. It relies on there already being randomly varying replicators.
However, evolutionary theory does nothing to explain how such living organisms themselves arose, nor does it seek to explain features of the universe that strongly imply design. So, at best, evolutionary theory removes the need for appealing to design only for certain biological systems. However, need we even concede this much?
It should be worth pointing out that evolutionary theory, despite being a very successful theory, is nevertheless incomplete at present. The reason for this is because there is currently no explanation for how biological systems are able to somehow anticipate or match environmental pressures in a way that leads to novel, heritable traits.
Evolution isn't simply change over time; it is heritable changes over time. The pressures of survival entails that new traits that arise that provide an edge are 'selected' but don't explain how novel features themselves arise. It used to be believed that random mutations alone could explain the origin of novel traits, but this is no longer the case.
Biologists have had to coin the term 'teleonomy' to refer to traits that seemingly anticipate either other traits or come about in response to environmental pressures. Aside from this, it is also worth pointing out that the belief that evolutionary processes are necessarily blind and unguided is an unjustified metaphysical belief, not derived from any evidence.
Now, one could argue that we shouldn't assume intelligent design in the absence of any evidence because it is simpler. However, whilst true, this only entails that the default position is agnosticism regarding the existence of intelligent design, and not its explicit denial. Moreover, given that there exists features of the physical world that strongly exhibit the appearance of design, why not appeal to actual design?
Note, furthermore, that we have gone beyond the scientific evidence into the realm of metaphysics in considering this question. Now, before we move onto considering answers to that question, it is worth noting once again that evolutionary theory does not explain how living organisms first arose. There is currently no widely accepted theoretical framework that even comes close to a partial explanation for this.
Whilst the idea that life was intentionally, intelligently designed is derided as 'pseudo-science', it is nevertheless a fact that DNA represents highly complex, highly specified information. However, the best evidence of design actually comes to us from the field of cosmology. It has long been noted that not only do we just so happen to have just the right laws of physics to permit life, but that the constants of nature, and the initial conditions of the early universe are incredibly finely tuned.
Constants are numerical values that describe the relative strength of various physical forces, such as the gravitational constant, G, which describes the strength of gravity. However, it has been discovered that the life-permitting range of multiple constants are such that even the slightest deviation from their current value would mean life would not have arisen.
Too weak, and the universe would have expanded too rapidly and cooled off way too early, too strong and it would have resulted in the universe collapsing in on itself in a kind of big crunch. The strong force needs to be strong enough to bind atoms without being so strong that all matter clumps together and without being so weak that atoms cannot form.
Moreover, the initial conditions of the early universe are similarly finely tuned. Perhaps the most breath-taking example is the low entropy condition of the early universe. Roger Penrose (who is an atheist) calculated that the probability of the low entropy condition of the early universe having arisen by chance would have been 1 in 10 ^ 10 ^ 120.
To put things into perspective, that is larger than the difference in size between a single proton and the entire observable universe. So, the evidence for design is simply overwhelming. What we have to determine is whether or not the universe is actually designed or not. Aside from actual design, the other two alternatives are necessity and chance.
Now, with features of design in biology and chemistry, one could ostensibly argue that these features of the universe are nevertheless explainable by means of appealing to the laws of nature. Stephen Hawking once remarked that the universe could "create itself from nothing" because of gravity.
Now, aside from the fact that he was clearly equivocating between nothing and the initial state of the universe as described in the Hartle-Hawking No Boundary model, he is also assuming that gravity has causative powers, which is far from clear at all. The laws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive. They themselves cause nothing.
Of course, if the laws, constants, and initial conditions of the universe themselves are all finely tuned also, then we can't just fall back on this as a potential explanation for these features anyway, since that would be to argue in a circle. As such, when seeking a purely scientific explanation without appealing to a personal explanation, critics argue that our universe's fine-tuning is explicable in terms of some kind of multiverse hypothesis.
The problems with appealing to a multiverse in order to explain just our universe cannot be overstated enough. For starters, the idea of there being a multiverse is highly speculative. Not only does it seem to be incredibly ad hoc, but you've also greatly multiplied the explanandum in violation of Occam's Razor.
Moreover, it seems as if there could never be any kind of verifiable evidence for the existence of such a world ensemble, which means that, at best, the multiverse is scientifically inscrutable. In other words, our reasons for preferring it have to be based on reasons other than scientific reasons. Of course, with that said, the existence of a multiverse is at least implied by some pretty interesting mathematical models of the universe.
My only issue with these mathematical models is that they posit more than 3 spatial dimensions. The most popular of these, M-Theory, for instance, has 11 dimensions. This just seems to be utter nonsense. The second big issue is that, assuming we are sticking strictly to the realm of science, is that these models don't actually solve the problem of fine-tuning. They merely push things back a step.
M-Theory, for instance, entails a particular 'setup' of the multiverse that allows for not just variance of the values of each universe's laws, etc., but also for a sufficient number of them to overcome the vastly low improbabilities of our universe's having arisen by chance. In other words, the multiverse itself would also be highly finely tuned.
Of course, if we abandon pure science and branch off to speculative metaphysics, one could argue that every logically possible world exists as part of a world ensemble. The problem here is that there is a crippling dilemma that renders appealing to such an unbounded, speculative model moot. Either it abnegates the need for explanation of our universe's fine tuning, or it does not.
If it does, then it also does the same for every scenario featuring incredibly low probabilities. There would be no need to explain any low probability event, since all you can do is appeal to the multiverse. If I drew a Royal Flush 100 times in a row, then I could just say it was because this scenario is one of many logical possibilities that exists in the multiverse.
If it does not abnegate the need for explanation, then it is explanatorily vacuous and thus appealing to such an unrestricted multiverse solves nothing. So, the only choices left are either necessity or design. But why think our universe has the properties that it does because of necessity? It certainly seems as if the universe could have been a multitude of different ways.
Now, some still object to this argument in three possible ways. The first is to argue that it is unsurprising that the universe is finely tuned for life, otherwise we would not be here to observe it. The second is to parody the argument by claiming that potholes must be finely tuned to contain puddles. The third is to attack the idea of probability being applied to a one-off event such as the beginning of our universe.
Now, the first argument confuses the true claim 'it is unsurprising to observe that the universe is finely tuned, given that I am alive to observe it and would not be here to observe it were it not' with the false claim: 'it is unsurprising that the universe is finely tuned'.
Secondly, it does nothing to resolve which of the three options explains the fine-tuning. The fine-tuning is due to either necessity, chance, or design. Simply claiming that it is an unsurprising observation does not obviate the need for explanation. So, clearly, this response will not do.
The second argument attempts to parody the argument to create a reductio ad absurdum. However, the example given, that of a sentient puddle observing that the pothole it is in seems 'finely tuned' for it, is not like the example of the fine-tuning of the universe. The probability of rain filling an open pothole in the road is particularly high.
So, this second response will not do either. The third argument, I think, manages to be the most reasonable. It claims that it is meaningless to speak of the probability of the values of the constants of nature, etc., taking their values by chance because there is only one observable universe. We would need to observe multiple universes to observe the actual probability.
Whilst more understandable, this argument is nevertheless similarly misguided because it confuses two different types of probability. It confuses statistical probability with epistemic probability. We are not talking of statistical probability when discussing the fine-tuning of the universe, so this objection similarly falters.
Given that two of the three options have been ruled out, and given that only these three options are available, it follows logically and inescapably that the explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe is therefore due to design.
Now, Richard Dawkins famously complained: 'who made God?' He also argues that positing a super intelligence to explain improbable events increases the overall level of complexity and so is not a good explanation for that reason.
For the first complaint, this is irrelevant. Whilst it is technically logically possible for the universe to have been created by something other than God, for all intents and purposes, it is simpler to posit God rather than posit some unknown entity that may or may not have begun to exist. However, if God made the universe, then this explanation melts away when one considers that God did not begin to exist.
The second complaint makes more sense but is similarly misguided. For God, being spaceless and immaterial, is therefore not composed of any parts. As such, He is absolutely simple and thus does not add a great deal of complexity at all. Whereas the idea that there is potentially infinite world ensemble does raise the overall level of complexity, and massively so.
Whilst there is a tendency to mistakenly believe that science either explains everything or will one day do so, the reality is that scientific explanations and personal explanations are only incompatible if naturalism is true. Thus, to argue that we need not appeal to intelligence to explain design because of successful scientific theories is to beg the question in favour of naturalism.
Starting from a position of agnosticism, the proponent of science as the best means of knowing might argue that we should not needlessly suppose that such a super intelligence exists. However, if the evidence is such that the only remaining explanation is such an intelligence, we are clearly rationally justified in accepting the existence of such a being.