Teleological argument

=== Argument from improbability ===
{{further|Problem of the creator of God}}
[[Richard Dawkins]] is harshly critical of intelligent design in his book ''[[The God Delusion]].'' In this book, he contends that an appeal to intelligent design can provide no explanation for biology because it not only [[begs the question]] of the designer's own origin but raises additional questions: an intelligent designer must itself be far more complex and difficult to explain than anything it is capable of designing.<ref name="dawkins2006" /> He believes the chances of life arising on a planet like the Earth are many orders of magnitude less probable than most people would think, but the [[anthropic principle]] effectively counters skepticism with regard to improbability. For example Astronomer [[Fred Hoyle#Rejection of Earth-based abiogenesis|Fred Hoyle]] suggested that potential for life on Earth was no more probable than a [[Boeing 747]] being assembled by a hurricane from the scrapyard. Dawkins argues that a one-time event is indeed subject to improbability but once under way, natural selection itself is nothing like random chance. Furthermore, he refers to his counter argument to the argument from improbability by that same name:<ref name="dawkins2006" />

{{blockquote|text=The argument from improbability is the big one. In the traditional guise of the argument from design, it is easily today's most popular argument offered in favour of the existence of God and it is seen, by an amazingly large number of theists, as completely and utterly convincing. It is indeed a very strong and, I suspect, unanswerable argument—but in precisely the opposite direction from the theist's intention. The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does ''not'' exist. My name for the statistical demonstration that God almost certainly does not exist is the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit.

The creationist misappropriation of the argument from improbability always takes the same general form, and it doesn't make any difference {{omission}} [if called] 'intelligent design' (ID). Some observed phenomenon—often a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the universe itself—is correctly extolled as statistically improbable. Sometimes the language of information theory is used: the Darwinian is challenged to explain the source all the information in living matter, in the technical sense of information content as a measure of improbability or 'surprise value'… However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.

{{omission}} The whole argument turns on the familiar question 'Who made God?' {{omission}} A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us to escape. This argument... demonstrates that God, though not technically disprovable, is very very improbable indeed.<ref name="dawkins2006" />|author=Richard Dawkins|source=''The God Delusion''}}

Dawkins considered the argument from improbability to be "much more powerful" than the teleological argument, or argument from design, although he sometimes implies the terms are used interchangeably. He paraphrases St. Thomas' teleological argument as follows: "Things in the world, especially living things, look as though they have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer, and we call him God."<ref name="dawkins2006">{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&pg=PA103 |title=The God Delusion |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Co. |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-618-68000-9 |pages=103, 136–138, 162–166 |lccn=2006015506}}</ref>

Philosopher [[Edward Feser]] contends that Dawkins fundamentally misunderstands the teleological argument, particularly Aquinas' version, and refutes a [[straw man]].<ref>[[Edward Feser|Feser, Edward]]. 2008. ''The Last Superstition''. St. Augustine Press. p. 111.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2010-03-26 |title=The New Philistinism |url=https://www.aei.org/articles/the-new-philistinism/}}</ref>