Teleological argument

=== Watchmaker analogy ===
[[File:WilliamPaley.jpg|thumb|[[William Paley]] popularized the "watchmaker analogy" used by earlier [[natural theology|natural theologians]], making it a famous teleological argument.]]
{{main|Watchmaker analogy}}

The [[watchmaker analogy]], framing the teleological argument with reference to a timepiece, dates at least back to the Stoics, who were reported by Cicero in his ''[[De Natura Deorum]]'' (II.88), using such an argument against [[Epicureans]], whom, they taunt, would "think more highly of the achievement of [[Archimedes]] in making a model of the revolutions of the firmament than of that of nature in creating them, although the perfection of the original shows a craftsmanship many times as great as does the counterfeit".<ref>{{Citation |title=De natura deorum |url=https://archive.org/details/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft |year=1933 |publisher=London W. Heinemann}}, translated by H. Rackham. This is discussed at Sedley p.&nbsp;207.</ref> It was also used by [[Robert Hooke]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hooke |first=Rober |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0DYXk_9XX38C |title=Micrographia |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-486-49564-4 |page=2}}</ref> and [[Voltaire]], the latter of whom remarked:<ref>[[Étienne Gilson|Gilson, Étienne]], trans. 2009. ''Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution''. [[Ignatius Press]]. p. 126.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Voltaire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ai8HAAAAQAAJ&q=point+d%27horloger&pg=PA9 |title=Les cabales,: oeuvre pacifique |publisher=Oxford University, s. n., 1772 |year=1772 |isbn=978-1-165-51896-8 |page=9 |author-link=Voltaire}}</ref>

{{Verse translation|L'univers m'embarrasse, et je ne puis songer
Que cette horloge existe, et n'ait point d'horloger|The Universe troubles me, and much less can I think
That this clock exists and should have no clockmaker.}}

[[William Paley]] presented his version of the watchmaker analogy at the start of his ''[[Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity|Natural Theology]]'' (1802).<ref>{{harvnb|Paley|1809|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A142&viewtype=text&pageseq=7 1].}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=[S]uppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think...that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for [a] stone [that happened to be lying on the ground]?... For this reason, and for no other; namely, that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, if a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it.}}

According to [[Alister McGrath]], Paley argued that "The same complexity and utility evident in the design and functioning of a watch can also be discerned in the natural world. Each feature of a biological organism, like that of a watch, showed evidence of being designed in such a way as to adapt the organism to survival within its environment. Complexity and utility are observed; the conclusion that they were designed and constructed by God, Paley holds, is as natural as it is correct."<ref>{{Cite book |last=McGrath, AE. |url=https://archive.org/details/darwinismdivinee00mcgr |title=Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2011 |page=[https://archive.org/details/darwinismdivinee00mcgr/page/n109 94] |url-access=limited}}</ref>

Natural theology strongly influenced British science, with the expectation as expressed by [[Adam Sedgwick]] in 1831 that truths revealed by science could not conflict with the moral truths of religion.<ref>[[Janet Browne|Browne, E. Janet]]. 1995. ''Charles Darwin: vol. 1 Voyaging''. London: [[Jonathan Cape]]. {{ISBN|1-84413-314-1}}. p. 129.</ref> These natural philosophers saw God as the first cause, and sought secondary causes to explain design in nature: the leading figure Sir [[John Herschel]] wrote in 1836 that by analogy with other [[Physical law|intermediate causes]] "the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process".<ref name="hersch">[[John van Wyhe|Wyhe, John van]]. 2007. "Mind the Gap: Did Darwin Avoid Publishing His Theory for Many Years?" ''[[Notes and Records of the Royal Society]]'' 61:177–205. {{doi|10.1098/rsnr.2006.0171}}. p. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A544&pageseq=21 197].</ref><ref>[[Charles Babbage|Babbage, Charles]]. [1838] 2002. ''[[Ninth Bridgewater Treatise|The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise]]'' (2nd ed.), edited by [[John van Wyhe|J. van Wyhe]]. London: [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]. pp. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A25&pageseq=232 225–27].</ref>

As a theology student, [[Charles Darwin]] found Paley's arguments compelling. However, he later developed his theory of [[evolution]] in his 1859 book ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'', which offers an alternate explanation of biological order. In his autobiography, Darwin wrote that "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered".<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1958|pp=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1497&pageseq=61 59], [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1497&pageseq=89 87].}}</ref> Darwin struggled with the [[problem of evil]] and of suffering in nature, but remained inclined to believe that nature depended upon "designed laws" and commended [[Asa Gray]]'s statement about "Darwin's great service to Natural Science in bringing back to it Teleology: so that, instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology."<ref name="SMiles">Miles, Sara Joan, "[http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Miles.html Charles Darwin and Asa Gray Discuss Teleology and Design]", ''PSCF'' (2001) 53: 196–201.</ref>

Darwin owned he was "bewildered" on the subject, but was "inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance:"<ref>Darwin, Charles. 1903. ''[[More Letters of Charles Darwin]]'', edited by [[Francis Darwin|F. Darwin]]. New York: [[D. Appleton & Company]]. p. 252, quoted in Miles, Sara Joan. 2001. "[http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Miles.html Charles Darwin and Asa Gray Discuss Teleology and Design]". ''[[Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith]]'' 53:196–201.</ref>
{{blockquote|text=But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I shd wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed.}}