The Teleological Arguement: Has the truth of evolution destroyed it?

[James224]

It is said that we see things acting for a meaningful purpose and that therefore we must conclude that just like a car or a plane exists to serve an intelligent purpose set forth by a creator, so to we must say that the universe exists to serve an intelligent purpose set forth by some kind of unobservable creator.

Is this a valid conclusion if we also except the theory of evolution? Are they two mutually exclusive ways of viewing biological mechanisms?

This an issue i would like to see people discuss.

I’m not sure whether to say yes or no but evolution doesn’t destroy the Teleological Argument. You don’t have to know how a thing evolved to know what it’s purpose is. Teleology cannot be reduced to effecient causes.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Hoping that a thing is truth is another matter altogether. Why not hope that there is a merciful God? But why on earth hope that there is no God at all, merciful or otherwise?

There is nothing wrong with hoping that God exists; this is personal desire and preference. But if i wanted to persuade somebody else of Gods existence, i wouldn’t use my hope as an argument.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

You don’t have to know how a thing evolved to know what it’s purpose is. Teleology cannot be reduced to efficient causes.

How do you show that the world has a purpose without rejecting the natural theory of evolution. What do you mean when you say “teleology cannot be reduced to efficient causes”?

 

[James224]

How do you show that the world has a purpose without rejecting the natural theory of evolution. What do you mean when you say “teleology cannot be reduced to efficient causes”?

The Teleological Argument has to do with a series of causes including the first and final causes, effecient causes being the middle ones. So no matter how much is discovered with the Evolution Argument, at each stage of evolution, each thing has a purpose. For example, if your eyes evolved over time, the eye still has a purpose at each stage. DNA has information, etc but has no conscious. Maybe what you’re concerned about is the soul. As Aquinas said, every living thing has a soul but not necessarily an immortal soul. Of course, the first humans had immortal souls so, yes, I can’t reconcile evolution regarding immortal souls. I’m new at this philosphy.

How do you answer this? I like some of your posts. I feel like you’ve challenged us and have an answer and I would love to have your answer.

Thanks for your challenge!

 

[buffalo]

Is the claim that evolution is purpose driven?

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Is the claim that evolution is purpose driven?

In context of teleology? With the teleological lens, evolution’s regularities display an end goal of progression of life to a higher degree then the previous stage. Seems very purpose driven. Especially when the regularities are natural yet unintelligible/unconscious. Be it though they are natural, such orderly processes indicate design. Not absolutely provable, but neither completely deniable, up to the individual.

Or did I misread your post?

 

[TAquinas21]

There is no valid proof for the existence of God, therefore a believer should respect the position of the atheist to hold the position of non belief. The proofs of Aquinas and Anselm, and others, are all flawed arguments from the perspective of rigorous logic. These arguments are inspiring, interesting and worthy of study for historical perspective, and contemplative insight, but at the end of the day, they are flawed. They don’t work as a proof. I say this as a believer.

The cosmos itself, its vastness and awesome complexity can be referenced as “circumstantial evidence,” for God, perhaps, but this also is not compelling in itself. At the same time the arbitrary death, destruction, evil and suffering we see all around us is often cited by nonbelievers as evidence that there can be no God; this is not universally compelling either. Why is there something rather than nothing? That’s a good question. Some believers cite this fact as a basis for belief; but alas, this isn’t compelling either, from a logical or empirical point of view. Philosophers, logicians and theologians have pondered and analyzed this question of God, or no God, for thousands of years; and it will be debated for thousands more. William James, in his essay: The Will to Believe, articulated an argument for why it’s reasonable to believe. Google it, it’s well worth reading.

The reality of, existence of, or transcendent being of, God, is an undecidable proposition. It is not provable by deduction, or verifiable by observation or measurement. To this extent, it is also reasonable for an atheist to hold that there is no God. This is surely one of the most basic realities to come to understand as a mature person approaches the question of belief. Belief in God is a position that is embraced, not deduced, not based on observation. The believer and non believer stand at the great undecidable proposition, one has faith that there is a God, and the other has faith that there is not. If a person feels that there is insufficient “evidence” to believe in God – then don’t.

Then, there’s the question of what kind of God does the believer, believe in – is it the old man with the grey beard as depicted in European Christian art; is it the God of Islam, where no depictions are allowed? Is the God of the more Eastern flavor that may be more abstract, or involve multiple deities? Even among Catholics, who are perhaps thought of as holding a very uniform set of beliefs and concepts about the nature of God, actually hold a wide range of concepts in their minds. A person of a simple faith may have a God concept much different from the theologian/philosopher/scientist with multiple PhD’s.

Every person needs to construct his or her own worldview, and there are many sincere and authentic people on both sides of the issue of belief, or not. Belief or not, and the freedom to make that personal choice, is at the heart of a just and humane society, one that facilitates the well-being and thriving of the human spirit. There have been societies that have persecuted believers, and those that have persecuted nonbelievers. Each flavor of intolerance makes a hideously painful environment in which to live on many levels.

The important thing is to live an authentic life, we should seek a virtuous life, a productive life, and make a contribution in some way, consistent with our talents. For many people, belief in some sort of God is a part of their worldview, for others it is not. This debate has gone on for thousands of years, and I suspect it will go on for thousands more. People that get angry in this debate, I think, are acting out an emotion that preexisted the question of God or not. This debate is a great opportunity to “fight with your mind.” One mind doing battle with the other of opposing view.

One thing, in my opinion, that is worth the fight, is against religious opinion, that opposes well-founded science. Probably nearly all religions now accept that the earth is a sphere, and the earth and other planets orbit the sun. Not all have integrated scientific cosmology (universe is billions of years old), and that evolution is the process by which the human and other life forms came to have their present form. In the past few hundred years science has revealed much about the physical nature of the cosmos, and the fact that life evolves. Believers can embrace evolution, by merely crediting God for creating the evolutionary process, which is a stupendously wonderful and productive process. Their religious meditation can be enriched by the integration of scientific perspectives. Religion that promotes terrorism or the abuse of people in the name of religious practice should be opposed. Believers and atheists alike, can and do, work together to integrate the discoveries of science into society, with appropriate ethical thoughtfulness and discipline, and oppose violence and abuse done in the name of religion.

 

[benedictus2]

It represents evidence for creation by an intelligent being, or beings. However, the time scale involved suggests that none of these beings are either omnipotent or omniscient, else they’d not have taken quite so long…

How does something taking so long mean that the creator is not omniscient or omnipotent?

How does it preclude the possibility that He took so long just because He chose to do so?

 

[benedictus2]

There is no valid logical proof for the existence of God.

Then perhaps you would explain here why the proofs are not valid. Claiming so does not make it so.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TAquinas
**
If a person feels that there is insufficient “evidence” to believe in God – then don’t.**

This is rotten theology.

If a person doesn’t see sufficient proof to believe in God, he should still believe. Lack of cerebral evidence does not cancel out the need to believe if we are to be saved. Hope should always trump cynicism.

“The fool in his heart says there is no God.” Psalm 14

The fool in his heart who dies on his deathbed without repenting his sins is a lost soul. As a Catholic you must know this is Theology 101.

 

[buffalo]

In context of teleology? With the teleological lens, evolution’s regularities display an end goal of progression of life to a higher degree then the previous stage. Seems very purpose driven. Especially when the regularities are natural yet unintelligible/unconscious. Be it though they are natural, such orderly processes indicate design. Not absolutely provable, but neither completely deniable, up to the individual.

Or did I misread your post?

Indeed the observations that scientists call upon evolution to account for look teleological. That means materialistic evolution is impossible.

Dawkins - “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”

 

[James224]

There is no valid proof for the existence of God, therefore a believer should respect the position of the atheist to hold the position of non belief. The proofs of Aquinas and Anselm, and others, are all flawed arguments from the perspective of rigorous logic. These arguments are inspiring, interesting and worthy of study for historical perspective, and contemplative insight, but at the end of the day, they are flawed. They don’t work as a proof. I say this as a believer.]

I disagree. You’re right about Faith but not Thomisitc Philosophy. I disagree with your first paragraph. The existence of God can be demonstrated by reason alone. St. Thomas wasn’t interested in evolution and going back (like on a horizonal plane) before the Big Bang to prove God’s existence. Aquinas describes a series of causes he refers to as “Essentially Ordered Series” of causes which have to do with how things change here and now ( a veritcal plane). In this series, a thing is moved (changed) from actuality to potentiality by a previous cause (something outside itself) and this goes up to a first cause which moves all the other causes. This first cause has no potentiality but is only Pure Actuality. Aquinas refers to this cause as Pure Act which, by definition, is God. This is a rough explanation of only one of his proofs.

Empericism is only a discovery of another effecient cause ( a middle cause) and only sets back one step the same knowledge. It doesn’t answer the first cause. I would say with certainty that you or anyone else hasn’t proved the principles of science for yourself firshand. For example, to prove emperically that the sun is the center of the solar system, you would have to physically stand outside the solar system and view it with precision to tell if it is in the center. My point is, evolution is simply the naturalist worldview and, therefore, just as much a religion or belief as Christianity and creationism is.

 

[tonyrey]

It represents evidence for creation by an intelligent being, or beings. However, the time scale involved suggests that none of these beings are either omnipotent or omniscient, else they’d not have taken quite so long.

I’m surprised you have been caught up in the trend for quick results! Why should human notions of economy be related to the nature of reality? You might as well argue that the universe is too immense. But then it could be objected that the Creator’s power is limited because not only did He have to work fast but on a much smaller scale…

 

[sw85]

It is said that we see things acting for a meaningful purpose and that therefore we must conclude that just like a car or a plane exists to serve an intelligent purpose set forth by a creator, so to we must say that the universe exists to serve an intelligent purpose set forth by some kind of unobservable creator.

Is this a valid conclusion if we also except the theory of evolution? Are they two mutually exclusive ways of viewing biological mechanisms?

This an issue i would like to see people discuss.

Eh? No.

Evolution itself cannot be understand except in teleological terms. Otherwise it would not be meaningful to speak of evolution producing “adaptive” traits and “maladaptive” ones.

I don’t even understand how evolution could conceivably compromise teleology.

 

[sw85]

There is nothing wrong with hoping that God exists; this is personal desire and preference. But if i wanted to persuade somebody else of Gods existence, i wouldn’t use my hope as an argument.

I would expect you would use rational arguments, of which the teleological argument is only one.

Bear in mind the teleological argument is not to be interpreted on its own or in light of itself (or at least, I don’t think it ought to be). It should be understood in the context of the other Four Ways, which in my opinion establish God’s existence more authoritatively; this one merely fleshes out another aspect of His existence, chiefly, His intimate involvement with all creation and His omniscience.

 

[TAquinas21]

There is no rigorous proof that God exists, or has being, or is real. If there were it would be etched in the finest marble, cast in gold, and printed on T-shirts. We would memorize it in elementary school, and there would be no secular life at all. While the proofs are not logically compelling, they are inspiring. There may be a first cause, and that first cause may be God, only the proof doesn’t quite get you there. That said, it’s still reasonable to believe (William James). That belief when wrapped up in the “right” religious practices, tradition, ethics, a religious faith can deepen the meaning and dignity of human life. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

So once you have gotten past the question of belief, or not, and you have decided to believe, then what’s next? What system of thoughts, concepts, ethics and actions do we wrap around that basic belief? The decision to embrace belief does not define the nature of God in any detail, and does not in itself constitute parameters for living the human life. There may be thousands of religions out there that embrace belief in God, and perhaps hundreds of Christian denominations. But this is a Roman Catholic forum.

The Roman Catholic faith lays out what we are to believe. God is a Trinity comprised of Father, Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit, with a specific dynamic among the Persons within the Trinity. There is an Original Sin and a Fall of humanity, followed by a redemptive process rooted in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Mary was conceived without Original Sin (only human so conceived). Mary was a virgin her whole life, and Jesus was the only child she conceived, through the Holy Spirit, and without the aid of a male. Jesus was a real historical person, He really died on the cross, and really came back to life on the third day after His real death. He really ascended into heaven (body, too), which means Jesus is not buried somewhere on this earth. Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, not just symbolically represented. Priests have the power to bring about the real presence of Jesus in the form of bread and wine at the Mass. Priests have the power to forgive sins, or not, in the sacrament of penance. And, the Pope is infallible when speaking officially on issues of faith and morals. There really is a heaven, a purgatory and a hell, and justice is served, if forgiveness is not sought. There is a list of Cardinal Sins, and lesser sins, that we are to reject and avoid. There is also a list of virtues that we should seek.

Catholicism offers a pretty complete and sophisticated code of ethics formulated over a couple thousand years, that are rooted in the teachings of Jesus, and the Jewish tradition before Jesus, including the Ten Commandments. Aquinas and other philosophers and theologians integrated Greek philosophy and other insights into the Faith and added intellectual content to the tradition. This moral and ethical tradition outlines actions that are required, or prohibited, or permitted, in virtually every situation and scenario a human being can encounter. Marriage is heterosexual only (no gay marriage, ever), and lasts until the death of the man or woman. No abortion, no euthanasia, ever. We should intellectually, emotionally and spiritually engage life in accordance with the full letter and spirit of these parameters, supported by Scripture, tradition and the guidance of the Papacy.

If you want to sign up to be a Roman Catholic, the above is pretty much what you need to embrace. The Official Roman Catholic Catechism is far more complete. The Church claims to be the one true church, instituted by Christ to give grace. And at one time, there was no salvation outside of the Church, although this position seems to have softened up somewhat. If a baby dies and wasn’t Baptized, the baby goes to a place called Limbo, not hell, but not the full presence of God, either. This position might be softening, too. Maybe unbaptized babies do go to heaven. The Roman Catholic Church has the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, and this is where its authority springs from.

With this Divine foundation, is the Church capable of making a mistake? Infallibility dogma says – not in issues of faith and morals. In other areas, it surely has erred. Were the Crusades a good idea? Probably not. Was threatening Galileo with torture to recant claims of a heliocentric orbital system the right thing to do? In hind sight, not our finest hour. History shows that humanity has made some significant advances, where the Church was not up front leading. The Church helped form western culture, but at the same time, does western culture permeate the church with cultural artifact and cultural error?

Errors can be made in the form of commissions and omissions. Is the patriarchal character of western culture, that both permeates the Church, and is also carried by the Church, responsible for the subjugation of women? Are women subjugated at all? Is the ban against women serving as priests purely rooted in arbitrary cultural artifact? These are loaded controversial questions, that often spawn heated arguments. Surely, the Church is permeated by the errors and weaknesses of humanity, and it does evolve. Yes- even the one true Church instituted by Christ – evolves over time, like everything evolves over time. Some say it evolves scandalously slow and that it’s a ridge behemoth. In other ways, it stands as a pillar for truth and human dignity in a storm of debauchery and materialistic chaos.

If there are ten units of argument about the existence of God, there will be a million units of argument about the dogmatic tenants of Catholicism, and when you accept the dogmatics 100%, there will be another million units of debate on the issues that are allowed to be debated.

Ok – so you’re a believer on a Catholic forum. What are you going to do with that belief? If you’re a nonbeliever, what will you do with non-belief?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

There is no rigorous proof that God exists, or has being, or is real. If there were it would be etched in the finest marble, cast in gold, and printed on T-shirts.

It would take a few books to explain the proofs to somebody who would challenge the very nature of rationality and truth, especially when that person does not understand or respect the epistemological foundations of the argument. A t-shirt isn’t big enough. There are plenty of academic minds who know that the arguments our valid, and have successfully demonstrated that many of the so called flaws are really based on misunderstandings and straw-man, and at worst a rejection of rationality itself. That there is a community of people who fail to accept this or choose to ignore it is irrelevant to the fact that God as defined by his basic metaphysical attributes has been rationally demonstrated to exist necessarily.

I have explained the complications that get in the way of people accepting those arguments. So, instead of continuously asserting that we are wrong, maybe you should demonstrate in detail why the teleological argument and the first cause argument is wrong. Make a quote of the argument, and demonstrate a flaw in the syllogism.

 

[tonyrey]

If there are ten units of argument about the existence of God, there will be a million units of argument about the dogmatic tenants of Catholicism, and when you accept the dogmatics 100%, there will be another million units of debate on the issues that are allowed to be debated.

Forgive me for pointing out that ten-ants are not always dogmatic…

 

[TAquinas21]

We as Roman Catholics are not compelled to accept the proofs of Aquinas or Anselm, or others, as a valid as a basis for belief. We are only required to accept belief as given in our creed. Many people believe, and have been canonized, that have never heard of these proofs, and many saints probably couldn’t follow them even if they did. Acceptance of these proofs are totally unnecessary as a prerequisite to belief, and even less necessary to being a good Roman Catholic.

One flaw with the first cause argument, is that the idea of causation is imbedded in our intuition, a ubiquitous phenomenon in everyday life. We have evolved to work with the notion of cause and effect in our faculty of cognitive understanding. Ordinary causality is so fundamental that we would find it impossible to function without it. But, just because causality is an apparent ubiquitous phenomenon, that we must work with every day in our local world, that doesn’t mean causation can be extrapolated indefinitely back into the deep past, to a first cause.

To extrapolate causation to a first cause presumes we understand physics to an extent that we simply don’t. We don’t know if there was a beginning to the universe, or multiverse, at which “time” a first cause would have been applied. The physical universe may not have a beginning as such, and perhaps one day the science of physics will that shed light on that question. Not to worry, though, if there was no beginning as such, then God created a universe that had no beginning, since God created time and the very rules of causation, God is not constrained to play by the rules of time and causation, as we humans must in the phenomenon of everyday life.

Not that long ago, it was perfectly compelling based on intuition that the earth stood still, and the sun, our star, orbited around the earth. The Ptolemaic earth-centric planetary system was such a bed rock reality, for so long, that it got mixed up with the Church’s dogmatic teaching about the physical creation. It took a long time for the Church to come to grips with the idea that theological theories about physics can run into some embarrassing contradictions. At a time in the not so distant past, a person might have been executed by Church authorities for holding that the earth orbited the sun.

At the quantum level, causality and locality seem to break down. And at the Big Bang, scientists admit they haven’t a clue what space, time and causality are doing as a singularity explodes from a quantum mystery into a new universe. Physics is now seriously looking into the possibility of multiverses, where universes are “big banging” into existence all the time, and that there may be many universes coming and going infinitely, and many of them may have laws of physics operating within them that are different from ours.

So when we take our everyday, ordinary sense of practical cause and effect, and extrapolate it back to some unknowable “beginning,” we really don’t have the foggiest clue about what we are saying. The first cause argument is really theology trying to do physics.

Here’s another example where self evident reality was found to be wrong. It seems so obvious that we live in a 3 dimensional world of Euclidian geometry, of x, y, z axes and we have a fourth dimension of time. These dimensions of x, y and z seem extend infinitely on those three axes. However, Einstein’s general relativity showed that space bends, and Euclidian geometry does not hold. Space bends significantly into non-Euclidian geometries at relativistic speeds, and in intense gravitational fields near dense concentrated mass. Time flows at different rates as a function of relative speed of clocks, and as a function of near-by mass. The orthogonal x, y, z coordinates of Euclidian geometry doesn’t even hold exactly here on earth, it’s only approximately correct, close enough for most everyday calculations. Space is not Euclidian.

So I reject the validity of all the proofs, outright. Further, I think anyone seriously relying on them as a basis for belief is on shaky ground. The proofs are intellectually flawed. Belief in God comes from one thing, and that is grace. The human looks out into the universe, and into the eyes of people and into the complexity of the natural world, we sense the action and presence of God. Then following from that gift of grace, we seek wisdom, and try to live a virtuous life, and if we are Catholics, we try to live out a catholic way of life, in accordance with our talents.

 

[benedictus2]

We as Roman Catholics are not compelled to accept the proofs of Aquinas or Anselm, or others, as a valid as a basis for belief. We are only required to accept belief as given in our creed. Many people believe, and have been canonized, that have never heard of these proofs, and many saints probably couldn’t follow them even if they did. Acceptance of these proofs are totally unnecessary as a prerequisite to belief, and even less necessary to being a good Roman Catholic.

Did anyone say that we are compelled to accept these proofs? This part of your post is pointless.

One flaw with the first cause argument, is that the idea of causation is imbedded in our intuition, a ubiquitous phenomenon in everyday life. We have evolved to work with the notion of cause and effect in our faculty of cognitive understanding. Ordinary causality is so fundamental that we would find it impossible to function without it. But, just because causality is an apparent ubiquitous phenomenon, that we must work with every day in our local world, that doesn’t mean causation can be extrapolated indefinitely back into the deep past, to a first cause.

How about the unconditioned reality as proposed by Spitzer. This is a new take on causation.

We don’t know if there was a beginning to the universe, or multiverse, at which “time” a first cause would have been applied. The physical universe may not have a beginning as such, and perhaps one day the science of physics will that shed light on that question.

Scientific evidence so far points to the fact that our universe has spatial and temporal dimensions, so therefore there was a beginning of time.

Not to worry, though, if there was no beginning as such, then God created a universe that had no beginning, since God created time and the very rules of causation, God is not constrained to play by the rules of time and causation, as we humans must in the phenomenon of everyday life.

If there was no beginning as such then you are positing that the universe is eternal? You are saying that the universe is co-eternal with God?

Not that long ago, it was perfectly compelling based on intuition that the earth stood still, and the sun, our star, orbited around the earth. The Ptolemaic earth-centric planetary system was such a bed rock reality, for so long, that it got mixed up with the Church’s dogmatic teaching about the physical creation. It took a long time for the Church to come to grips with the idea that theological theories about physics can run into some embarrassing contradictions. At a time in the not so distant past, a person might have been executed by Church authorities for holding that the earth orbited the sun.

Well I was reading a conversation in a science forum and apparently you cannot prove heliocentricity so it means that geocentricity is quite valid and the guy who was writing was actually a heliocentrist.

At the quantum level, causality and locality seem to break down. And at the Big Bang, scientists admit they haven’t a clue what space, time and causality are doing as a singularity explodes from a quantum mystery into a new universe. Physics is now seriously looking into the possibility of multiverses, where universes are “big banging” into existence all the time, and that there may be many universes coming and going infinitely, and many of them may have laws of physics operating within them that are different from ours.

They are looking into the possibility of multiverses but so far they have no proof. All conjecture. So at this point in time, all you have claimed is conjecture.

So when we take our everyday, ordinary sense of practical cause and effect, and extrapolate it back to some unknowable “beginning,” we really don’t have the foggiest clue about what we are saying. The first cause argument is really theology trying to do physics.

Metaphysics is the term. Beyond physics.

So I reject the validity of all the proofs, outright. Further, I think anyone seriously relying on them as a basis for belief is on shaky ground. The proofs are intellectually flawed. Belief in God comes from one thing, and that is grace. The human looks out into the universe, and into the eyes of people and into the complexity of the natural world, we sense the action and presence of God. Then following from that gift of grace, we seek wisdom, and try to live a virtuous life, and if we are Catholics, we try to live out a catholic way of life, in accordance with our talents.

In rejecting the proof of causation, you ended up believing as if eternal multiverses are fact rather than fiction. Furthermore, even if multiverses do exist, they still have to start sometime.