Teleological argument

=== British empiricists ===

The 17th-century [[Dutch people|Dutch]] writers [[Lessius]] and [[Grotius]] argued that the intricate structure of the world, like that of a house, was unlikely to have arisen by chance.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Franklin |first=James |title=The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8018-6569-5 |location=Baltimore |pages=244–5}}</ref> The empiricist [[John Locke]], writing in the late 17th century, developed the Aristotelian idea that, excluding geometry, all science must attain its knowledge ''a posteriori'' - through sensual experience.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Claiborne Chappell, Vere |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f28fFbiohXMC&q=locke+a+priori&pg=PA163 |title=The Cambridge companion to Locke |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-521-38772-9 |pages=161–164}}</ref> In response to Locke, Anglican Irish Bishop [[George Berkeley]] advanced a form of [[idealism]] in which things only continue to exist when they are perceived.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dicker, Georges |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XBqQXI3JGeEC&q=teleological+argument+berkeley&pg=PA260 |title=Berkeley's Idealism: A Critical Examination |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-538146-7 |page=260}}</ref> When humans do not perceive objects, they continue to exist because God is perceiving them. Therefore, in order for objects to remain in existence, God must exist omnipresently.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=George Berkeley |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/ |access-date=November 17, 2011 |author=Downing, Lisa}}</ref>

David Hume, in the mid-18th century, referred to the teleological argument in his ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]''. Here, he appears to give his support to the argument from design. John Wright notes that "Indeed, he claims that the whole thrust of his analysis of causality in the Treatise supports the Design argument", and that, according to Hume, "we are obliged 'to infer an infinitely perfect Architect.{{'"}}<ref>Wright, JP., in Traiger, S., ''The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise'', John Wiley & Sons, 2008, p.&nbsp;12.</ref>

However, later he was more critical of the argument in his ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]''. This was presented as a dialogue between Hume and "a friend who loves sceptical paradoxes", where the friend gives a version of the argument by saying of its proponents, they "paint in the most magnificent colours the order, beauty, and wise arrangement of the universe; and then ask if such a glorious display of intelligence could come from a random coming together of atoms, or if chance could produce something that the greatest genius can never sufficiently admire".<ref>Pomerleau, WP., ''Twelve Great Philosophers: A Historical Introduction to Human Nature'', Rowman & Littlefield, 1997, p. 215.</ref>

Hume also presented arguments both for and against the teleological argument in his ''[[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]]''. The character Cleanthes, summarizing the teleological argument, likens the universe to a man-made machine, and concludes by the principle of similar effects and similar causes that it must have a designing intelligence:
{{blockquote|text=Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great-machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man; though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument ''a posteriori,'' and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.<ref name="Hume1779" />}}

On the other hand, Hume's sceptic, Philo, is not satisfied with the argument from design. He attempts a number of refutations, including one that arguably foreshadows Darwin's theory, and makes the point that if God resembles a human designer, then assuming divine characteristics such as omnipotence and omniscience is not justified. He goes on to joke that far from being the perfect creation of a perfect designer, this universe may be "only the first rude essay of some infant deity... the object of derision to his superiors".<ref name="Hume1779">{{Cite book |last=Hume |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E7dbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA111 |title=Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion |publisher=[[Sine nomine|s.n.]] |year=1779 |isbn=9781843271659 |edition=The Second |location=London |page=111}}</ref>