208 ARGUMENTS: MONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSThe argument from design is, in effect, an argument to the best
explanation – an argument that is intended to establish that, if we
follow the sorts of procedures we typically follow in making
probabilistic inference, we shall come to the conclusion that there is a
designer. But there obviously are other explanations of operative
functionality in natural objects – for example, that material particles
evolved over a long period in such a manner as to produce such items.
All that is required, the proposal is, is particles of the right sorts, laws,
and time. This sort of explanation of operative functionality in natural
objects is intended as well to explain there being human intelligence
capable of causing operative functionality in artifacts. Thus most of the
philosophically interesting issues raised by arguments from design have
to do with how to decide which, among a group of explanations, is best,
and how exactly to understand the relevant data and formulate the
theories relevant to explaining them. This sort of issue comes up again
in the final chapter on Faith and Reason.
The Teleological Argument
Another argument in the same family as the argument from design, but
different in what it begins with – the intelligibility of nature or the
possibility of science – and its straightforwardness as an argument to
the best explanation – is the Teleological Argument. As construed here,
it is a supplement to the Cosmological Argument. Here is one more
objection to the Cosmological Argument: what the conclusion of the
Cosmological Argument does (roughly) is to say that the universe of
dependent things is caused by the act of an intelligent divine agent; it
says that God, who might not have created anything, acted to create
dependent things. But then God’s action of creating might not have
occurred. So we are left, not with a being that might not have existed
but whose existence is really impossible to explain, but with an action
that might not have occurred; what’s the gain? – either way we stop our
explanation arbitrarily. One way of construing the Teleological
Argument – is not as an independent argument but rather as an answer
to this objection to the Cosmological Argument.
The Teleological Argument is often stated as an independent argument.
As stated here, it is a continuation of the Cosmological Argument, and
offers an answer to the present objection to that argument. Again, some
beginning definitions simplify the overall presentation.
D1 R is S’s sufficient reason for doing A = S does A for reason R, there
is no better reason for doing A than R, there is nothing better that