Teleological argument

===Plato and Aristotle===
Plato's ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'' is presented as a description of someone who is explaining a "likely story" in the form of a myth, and so throughout history commentators have disagreed about which elements of the myth can be seen as the position of Plato.<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|132}} Sedley (2007) nevertheless calls it "the creationist manifesto" and points out that although some of Plato's followers denied that he intended it, in classical times writers such as Aristotle, [[Epicurus]], the [[Stoicism|Stoics]], and [[Galen]] all understood Plato as proposing the world originated in an "intelligent creative act".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|133}} Plato has a character explain the concept of a "[[demiurge]]" with supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work.

Plato's teleological perspective is also built upon the analysis of ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' order and structure in the world that he had already presented in ''[[Republic (dialogue)|The Republic]]''. The story does not propose creation ''[[ex nihilo]]''; rather, the demiurge made order from the chaos of the cosmos, imitating the eternal Forms.<ref>Brickhouse, Thomas, and Nicholas D. Smith. 21 April 2005. "[http://www.iep.utm.edu/plato/ Plato]". ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. Retrieved November 12, 2011.</ref>

{{blockquote|text=Plato's world of eternal and unchanging [[Theory of Forms|Forms]], imperfectly represented in matter by a divine Artisan, contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic [[Weltanschauungen]], of which [[atomism]] was, by the 4th century at least, the most prominent {{omission}} This debate was to persist throughout the ancient world. Atomistic mechanism got a shot in the arm from [[Epicurus]] {{omission}} while the [[Stoics]] adopted a divine teleology {{omission}} The choice seems simple: either show how a structured, regular world could arise out of undirected processes, or inject intelligence into the system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hankinson |first=R. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwfy-n5IWL8C |title=Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-19-924656-4 |page=125}}</ref>|author=R. J. Hankinson|title=Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought}}

Plato's student and friend Aristotle (c. 384 – 322 BC), continued the Socratic tradition of criticising natural scientists such as [[Democritus]] who sought (as in modern science) to explain everything in terms of matter and chance motion. He was very influential in the future development of classical creationism, but was not a straightforward "creationist" because he required no creation interventions in nature, meaning he "insulated god from any requirement to intervene in nature, either as creator or as administrator".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|204}} Instead of direct intervention by a creator it is "scarcely an exaggeration to say that for Aristotle the entire functioning of the natural world, as also the heavens, is ultimately to be understood as a shared striving towards godlike [[actuality]]".<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|171}} And whereas the myth in the ''Timaeus'' suggests that all living things are based on one single paradigm, not one for each species, and even tells a story of "devolution" whereby other living things devolved from humans, it was Aristotle who presented the influential idea that each type of normal living thing must be based on a fixed paradigm or form for that species.<ref name=sed/>

Aristotle felt that biology was a particularly important example of a field where materialist natural science ignored information which was needed in order to understand living things well. For example birds use wings for the purpose of flight.<ref name="HistAnimI2">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.1.i.html#223 |title=History of Animals |at=I 2}}</ref> Therefore the most complete explanation in regard to the natural, as well as the artificial, is for the most part teleological.<ref name="Nussbaum1985">{{Cite book |last=Nussbaum |first=M.C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ISD05P7TcOAC&pg=PA60 |title=Aristotle's de Motu Animalium |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-691-02035-8 |series=Princeton paperbacks |page=60,66,69–70,73–81,94–98,101 |lccn=77072132}}</ref> In fact, proposals that species had changed by chance survival of the fittest, similar to what is now called "[[natural selection]]", were already known to Aristotle, and he rejected these with the same logic.<ref name="Nussbaum1985" /><ref name="PhysI2">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.1.i.html#130 |title=Physics |at=I 2 (¶15)}}</ref><ref name="PartsAnimI1">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/parts_animals.1.i.html#100 |title=Parts of Animals |at=I 1}}</ref><ref name="Ross2004">{{Cite book |last1=Ross |first1=D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=651Bg2-8xsEC&pg=PA80 |title=Aristotle |last2=Ackrill |first2=J.L. |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-415-32857-9 |page=80}}</ref><ref name="HullRuse2007">{{Cite book |last1=Hull |first1=D.L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aZOgg-x4UyIC&pg=PA174 |title=The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology |last2=Ruse |first2=M. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-521-61671-3 |series=Cambridge Companions to Philosophy |page=174 |lccn=2006025898}}</ref> He conceded that monstrosities (new forms of life) could come about by chance,<ref name="PhysII8a">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#530 |title=Physics |at=II 8 &nbsp;(¶2)}}</ref><ref name="PhysII8b">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#585 |title=Physics |at=II 8 &nbsp;(¶5)}}</ref> but he disagreed with those who ascribed all nature purely to chance<ref name="PhysII8c">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#604 |title=Physics |at=II 8 &nbsp;(¶8)}}</ref> because he believed science can only provide a general account of that which is normal, "always, or for the most part".<ref name="PhysII8">{{Cite book |last=Aristotle |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html#522 |title=Physics |at=II 8}}</ref> The distinction between what is normal, or by nature, and what is "accidental", or not by nature, is important in Aristotle's understanding of nature. As pointed out by Sedley, "Aristotle is happy to say (''Physics'' II 8, 199a33-b4) without the slightest fear of blasphemy, crafts make occasional mistakes; therefore, by analogy, so can nature."<ref name="sed" />{{Rp|186}} According to Aristotle the changes which happen by nature are caused by their "[[formal cause]]s", and for example in the case of a bird's wings there is also a [[final cause]] which is the purpose of flying. He explicitly compared this to human technology:
{{blockquote|text=If then what comes from art is for the sake of something, it is clear that what come from nature is too {{omission}} This is clear most of all in the other animals, which do nothing by art, inquiry, or deliberation; for which reason some people are completely at a loss whether it is by intelligence or in some other way that spiders, ants, and such things work. {{omission}} It is absurd to think that a thing does not happen for the sake of something if we do not see what sets it in motion deliberating. {{omission}} This is most clear when someone practices medicine himself on himself; for nature is like that.|author=Aristotle|source=Physics, II 8.<ref>Sachs translation (1998), ''Aristotle's physics; a guided study'', 2nd ed., pages 67–68.</ref>}}

The question of how to understand Aristotle's conception of nature having a purpose and direction something like human activity is controversial in the details. [[Martha Nussbaum]] for example has argued that in his biology this approach was practical and meant to show nature only being analogous to human art, explanations of an organ being greatly informed by knowledge of its essential function.<ref name="Nussbaum1985" /> Nevertheless, Nussbaum's position is not universally accepted. In any case, Aristotle was not understood this way by his followers in the Middle Ages, who saw him as consistent with monotheistic religion and a teleological understanding of all nature. Consistent with the medieval interpretation, in his ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'' and other works Aristotle clearly argued a case for there being one highest god or "[[prime mover theory|prime mover]]" which was the ultimate cause, though specifically not the material cause, of the eternal forms or natures which cause the natural order, including all living things.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}} He clearly refers to this entity having an [[active intellect|intellect]] that humans somehow share in, which helps humans see the true natures or forms of things without relying purely on sense perception of physical things, including living species. This understanding of nature, and Aristotle's arguments against materialist understandings of nature, were very influential in the Middle Ages in Europe. The idea of fixed species remained dominant in biology until Darwin, and a focus upon biology is still common today in teleological criticisms of modern science.