Examine the strengths and weaknesses of the design argument for the existence of God.

The design argument, also referred to as the Teleological Argument, stemmed from the Greek work ‘telos’ meaning ‘end’ or ‘purpose’. It is an a posteriori argument (from experience) based on our empirical senses and it is synthetic meaning that it is from observation. The argument is also inductive meaning there a number of possible conclusions. The main origin of the Teleological argument is based on a designer commonly known as ‘the classical God of theism’ (hereafter referred to as God).

The argument from design find its origins in Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Summa Theleologica’ and is the fifth of his five ways of proving the existence of God. His argument includes the beneficial order in the universe which he observes i.e. there are things in the universe that work towards an end or purpose. He argues that the world is like an arrow shot from an archer’s bow - it has direction and purpose. God is the archer and the world is the arrow. God is controlling the world and as he is the reason behind why it is been created. Aquinas then goes on to say the world works because the designer is God, and so things in nature are ordered for their apparent purpose e.g. trees give us oxygen. However, this is a weak argument because Aquinas is not comparing two similar ideas.

William Paley also argues for the design argument. His argument includes several ideas, one of which uses an analogy of a watch and comparing it to the universe. The analogy explains that if a person found a watch, they would know it had been designed for a purpose (to tell the time) and with the necessary regularity (the mechanisms inside). Therefore, just as the existence of a watch indicates a watchmaker, the existence of the universe indicates a designer. The foundation of the argument is that everything that has been designed needs a designer therefore by analogy the world must have a designer. This designer can only be God. A strength of the argument is that the use of the analogy (watchmaker) in the argument makes it easy for us to understand, as it moves from something within our experience to try to explain something behind it (the creation of the universe). However, this argument is still weak, as proven by Hume who argues against the design argument when it comes to proving the existence of God because there could be multiple gods, and apprentice god etc. who could have created it, just as there could’ve been multiple watchmakers designing the watch.

Another example of the design argument comes from Richard Swinburne who clarifies the modern version of the design argument, which is called the Anthropic Principle. From this argument, he argues that the universe functions by rules e.g. each day has 24 hours and this is not by chance it has been designed to have 24 hours, and the most likely explanation is God. He argues that although science can explain a reason behind these laws occurring, it cannot confirm the presence of these laws and so God is the most logical explanation for this as he is above human power. Frederick R. Tennant also added the Aesthetic Principle, which states that proof of God’s design is that beauty exists in world. Tennant points out that beauty cannot be derived through natural selection as it provides no survival benefit to species and therefore beauty has to have a designer. Tennant concludes his argument by stating that the designer must be God. God is omnipotent and only someone as great as him would have the power to make something as great and beautiful as the universe. Nevertheless, this is a weak argument because it fails to mention that the world is not always beautiful and great and there is a lot of evil in it, as stated by J.S. Mill, who argues that either God does not exist, or he is not all-loving.

Comment on the view that this argument is inconclusive as a proof for the existence of God.

The statement that this argument is inconclusive as a proof for the existence of God is accurate because the design argument is a weak argument. It does not prove the existence of God with actual evidence, but instead it implies that God exists and he has created the universe. Being an a posteriori argument, it cannot be proven but at the same time, it can’t be disproven because we all have different experiences about the world.

A strength of the design argument is that it is simple to understand and it’s reasonable therefore many people will adjust to the idea of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God. For example, every human knows that one day they are going to die – however most people want to know what will happen to them after they die, and religion gives an answer i.e. the afterlife.

On the other hand, Darwin’s theory of Evolution and his studies on natural selection, which are scientifically documented, negate the idea of an intelligent design, but rather support the idea that species evolve during long periods of time, and so the human species might have evolved as well. Richard Dawkins also argues that the impressive system of natural selection creates an ‘illusion’ of design which theists have misinterpreted as actual evidence of design.

However, Michael Behe, who believes in the idea of intelligent design, argues that organisms like the bacterial flagellum display ‘irreducible complexity’ (which means its components can’t be removed without the entire system to stop working), which couldn’t have possibly happened through natural selection. Nevertheless, this theory has very little scientific evidence, and so it is a weak argument against Darwin’s theory.

Overall, the weaknesses overcome the strengths for the design argument because there is no actual proof of the design argument, and it mostly relies on analogies, most of which are flawed and cannot actually prove that the design argument is true or that the design is created by a God of classical theism.