Teleology - A Case for Intelligent Design

The teleological argument is the case from design. Teleological means “directed towards some goal.” [1] Sir Thomas Aquinas believed the fingerprint of God was on nature. Life’s processes and components appeared to have purpose. And their purpose was designed by a creator. According to Aquinas the natural world governed. Aquinas wrote,

We see how things, like natural bodies, work for an end even though they have no knowledge. The fact that they nearly always operate in the same way, and so as to achieve the maximum good, makes this obvious, and shows that they attain their end by design, not by chance…There is therefore an intelligent being by whom all natural things are directed to their end[2]

  Aquinas posited that nature shows signs of design by its working order. This is seen in natural things as they exist for a purpose with an appearance of design.

                 One of the most significant contributors to the teleological argument was William Paley. It was in 1802 that Paley created the famous analogy of a watch.[3] He observes a watch found on a heath. His observation leads him to consider two hypotheses. First, the watch is made by an intelligent designer. Or, second, the watch was made by random chance. One way to decide between two possibilities is by appealing to the “likelihood principle.” The likelihood principle weighs the evidence in light of the theory.[4] When looking at these two possibilities, using the “likelihood principle” the odds are in favor of a designer designing a watch.[5] Paley’s formula is as follows:

               A: The watch is intricate and well suited to the task of timekeeping.

               W1: The watch is the product of intelligent design.

               W2: The watch is the product of random physical processes.[6]

Paley would say P(A / W1) >> P(A / W2).[7] Based on this equation the probability that the watch was designed by a watchmaker has a greater likelihood of being true. The same likelihood principle can be applied to the natural realm.

              Author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins rejects Paley’s illustration, “Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view.”[8] However, Dawkins still admits that nature appears designed: “Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.”[9] Even Dawkins acknowledges the appearance of design, but denies any purpose behind it. Early in his life, Charles Darwin was affected by Paley’s Natural Theology. Dawkins states, “Unfortunately for Paley, the mature Darwin blew it out of the water…Thanks to Darwin, it is no longer true to say that nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed.”[10] I wonder if Darwin would still be affected in light of the new scientific evidence.

Science has discovered that the universe balances on a "razor's edge" for life to exist.[11] This razor’s edge represents the fragility of life on Earth and its dependence on the fine-tuning of the universe. As Walter Bradley argued, “Evidence for an intelligent designer becomes more compelling the more we understand about our carefully crafted habitat.”[12] Complex life requires very specific conditions. These are “the masses of electron, neutron, and proton; the strength of weak and strong nuclear forces; resonance levels of carbon and oxygen; and power of polarity of the water molecule.”[13] The likelihood of fine-tuning of chemistry and physics for complex life by chance is less than one part in 10 to the power of 123.[14] Paul Davies suggests this is as likely as a marksman hitting a coin from twenty billion light years away.[15]

However Naturalists such as Dawkins contend that creationists “seize upon the improbability of the physical constants all being tuned in their more or less narrow Goldilocks zones, and suggest that there must be a cosmic intelligence who deliberately did the tuning.”[16]  Therefore naturalists say proponents of ID are using the logic of “God in the Gaps” to further the case for designed fine-tuning. J.P. Moreland describes this argument is used when someone “is ignorant of a natural explanation for a scientific phenomenon. Dawkins attacks creationists as being afraid of scientific advancement because “God would have nothing to do and nothing to hide.”[17] But scientific advancement has only shown that ID is extremely plausible.

Professor Robbin Collins, highlights three examples, out of over thirty, of evidence for fine-tuning.[18] First, there is production of oxygen and carbon in the stars. The astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle said, “I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars.”[19] Physicist Heinz Oberhummer and fellow scientists recently discovered that only a one percent change of strong nuclear force would create a thirty-to a thousand-fold influence on the creation of carbon and oxygen in stars. Oberhummer explains, “Stars provide the carbon and oxygen needed for life on planets, if you throw that off balance, conditions in the universe would be much less optimal for the existence of life.”[20]
Second is gravity. If the fine tuning of the universe were like a ruler spanning the galaxy, marked in inch long increments, there would be billions of inches for tuning. These inches control the strength of gravity, the weakest force, and the strongest force is the strong nuclear force that glues protons and neutrons together inside nuclei. If you moved the dial from our present fine tuning to one inch left or right, the results would be catastrophic. Any animals the size of a human or smaller would be crushed flat. Astrophysicist Martin Rees said, "In an imaginary strong gravity world, even insects would need thick legs to support them, and no animals could get much larger."[21] The force of gravity also determines the kinds of stars that exist. If the force were slightly stronger, stars would be more massive than the sun by at a minimum of 1.4 times. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross notes, “These large stars important in that they alone manufacture elements heavier than iron, and they alone disperse elements heavier than beryllium to the interstellar medium.”[22] These elements are vital for the formation of planets and all living things, but stars of this caliber burn too fast and inconsistently to preserve life-supporting planets. If the force were reduced, the stars’ mass would be 0.8 times that of the sun. “Though such stars burn long enough and evenly enough to maintain life-supporting planets, there would be no heavy elements for building such planets or life, itself.”[23] 

Last is the strong nuclear force. The strong nuclear force binds the particles in the nucleus of an atom. If the nuclear force were decreased by fifty percent, which is minuscule – “one part in ten thousand billion billion billion billion, compared to the total range of force strengths,” the repulsive force of positive charged protons would destroy all atoms, except hydrogen inside atomic nuclei.[24] If the force were stronger, binding would be stronger and more common. Ross determines, “Not only would hydrogen (a bachelor nuclear particle) be rare in the universe, but the supply of the various life-essential elements heavier than iron (elements resulting from the fission of very heavy elements) would be insufficient. Either way, life would be impossible.”[25] According to Craig, the combined evidence of static nature of cosmology and the force of gravity, the unimaginative odds of fine tuning would be “one part in a hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion.”[26]
Faced with these astronomical odds, Naturalists such as physicist Stephen Hawking have propose the idea of a “multiverse.”[27] This hypothesis suggests our universe is one of many universes. With enough chances, eventually a universe would be fine-tuned for life to exist. It would be as if “our universe won a cosmic lottery.”[28] For a vast number of universes to exist, there must be a universe generator. This generator has continually adjusted the tuning of physics resulting in infinite variations of universes. A generator has yet to be discovered, but theoretical physicist Lee Smolin suggests a hypothetical concept that black holes produce new universes with variations of natural laws.  Dembski explains “This entirely ad hoc metaphysical assumption then provides variation. Selection is imposed by the suggestion that anthropic universes are particularly apt to generate many black holes and so come to dominate the supercosmic evolutionary process.”[29] The idea of black holes being the agent of universe creation is creatively scientific, but holds no proof.

Unfortunately for Smolin and Hawking, there is no physical evidence to support this theory of infinite universes. We know only of our own. According to the cofounder of Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Casey Luskin, currently there is no way to detect other universes. It infringed on Occam’s razor, which warns against making superfluous assumptions.[30]  Hawking’s colleague, Roger Penrose, contends the multiverse hypothesis is “impotent” and “misconceived.”[31] Nobel laureate Arno Penzias concludes “Some people are uncomfortable with the purposefully created world. To come up with things that contradict purpose, they tend to speculate about things they haven’t seen.”[32]

Conclusion

It is evident that science has uncovered much evidence supporting ID. Teleology shows us that our universe is fine-tuned so specifically that the tiniest adjustment would end life on Earth. Just like a TV that hangs on the wall has the signature of an intelligent designer, how much more does the universe, our Earth, and the living creatures on it display and demand an intelligent designer. Even Stephen Hawking once suggested that “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as an act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”[33] Amen!

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[1] Alister McGrath, Science & Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,2000), 99

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 99.

[4] Ibid., 98-100.

[5] William A. Dembski, ed. and Michael Ruse, ed. Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 99.

[6] William A. Dembski. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 274.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996), 21.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, (New York: Bantam Press, 2008), 103.

[11] Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 127.

[12] Ibid.

[13] House, ed.,76.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Zacharias., 121.

[16] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 176.

[17] Ibid., 151.

[18] Strobel., 131-132.

[19] Ibid., 127.

[20] Ibid., 131.

[21] Ibid., 131-132.

[22] Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God (Orange, California: Promise Publishing, 1999),121.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Strobel, 134.

[25] Ross, 122.

[26] Strobel, 134.

[27] Hank Hanegraaff, The Creation Answer Book, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2012), 42.

[28] House, ed., 76.

[29] Dembski, 252.

[30] House, ed., 76.

[31] Hanegraaff, 42.

[32] Zacharias, 123.

[33] Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, (New York: Bantam Books, 1998), 126.