Both the Cosmological and Teleological (Design) argument for the existence of God argue ‘a posteriori’, in that, they look to science to substantiate God’s existence. Whereas the crucial notion of the cosmological argument is causality, the teleological argument (from the Greek word ‘teleos’ meaning ‘end’ or purpose) argues qua regularity and qua purpose(1). Design arguments are arguments from analogy(2); the universe is analogical to things within it and therefore like these, must have a cause.
The most famous example of analogy qua purpose was by William Paley(3) ‘Just as a watch is a complex mechanism, having parts which co-operate so as to achieve a certain end, namely the measurement of time, so for example the eye is a highly complex system having parts which co-operate to provide information about its environment to the organism’. The watch was designed by an intelligence with a purpo
David Hume argued that the analogy used did not extend to Gods transcendence, it was limited to human ‘experience’. Why can’t the deity/deities be corporeal i.e. have eyes, ears and a nose? Why shouldn’t the ‘designer’ have a body for example?(7). The capabilities of human designers e.g. the watchmaker are not indicative or ‘inductive’ of a designer of the universe. Furthermore by virtue of the fact that there is evil and suffering in the world contradicts the argument qua design, since an all powerful being would not have included such ‘flaws’ in the design.
The arguments from design qua regularity are best exemplified by F.R Tennant in his Anthropic Principle(5) and Richard Swinbourne in his probabilistic teleological argument. Both hold that the complexities of the universe are too specific, for example the charge on an electron, to have occurred by chance. ‘It is extremely improbab
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