Teleological argument

=== Islamic philosophy ===
Early Islamic philosophy played an important role in developing the philosophical understandings of God among Jewish and Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages, but concerning the teleological argument one of the lasting effects of this tradition came from its discussions of the difficulties which this type of proof has. Various forms of the argument from design have been used by Islamic theologians and philosophers from the time of the early [[Mutakallimun]] theologians in the 9th century, although it is rejected by fundamentalist or literalist schools, for whom the mention of God in the [[Quran|Qu'ran]] should be sufficient evidence. The argument from design was also seen as an unconvincing sophism by the early Islamic philosopher [[Al-Farabi]], who instead took the "[[emanationist]]" approach of the [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonists]] such as Plotinus, whereby nature is rationally ordered, but God is not like a craftsman who literally manages the world. Later, [[Avicenna]] was also convinced of this, and proposed instead a cosmological argument for the existence of God.<ref>{{Citation |last=Goodman |first=Lenn Evan |title=Avicenna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=779JPlxYtGoC&pg=PA63 |page=63 |year=1992 |publisher=Cornell university press |isbn=978-0801472541}}</ref>

The argument was however later accepted by both the Aristotelian philosopher [[Averroes]] (Ibn Rushd) and his great anti-philosophy opponent [[Al-Ghazali]]. Averroes' term for the argument was ''Dalīl al-ˁināya'', which can be translated as "argument from providence". Both of them however accepted the argument ''because'' they believed it is explicitly mentioned in the Quran.<ref>{{Citation |last=Abrahamov |first=Binyāmîn |title=Kitāb al-Dalīl al-Kabīr |year=1990 |editor-last=Abrahamov |editor-first=Binyāmîn |chapter=Introduction |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SYqKHJFAhr8C |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-9004089853}}</ref> Despite this, like Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, and Al-Farabi, Averroes proposed that order and continual motion in the world is caused by God's intellect. Whether Averroes was an "emanationist" like his predecessors has been a subject of disagreement and uncertainty. But it is generally agreed that what he adapted from those traditions, agreed with them about the fact that God does not create in the same way as a craftsman.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kogan, Barry S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lAyv0Ayy-R0C&q=teleological+argument&pg=PA240 |title=Averroes and the metaphysics of causation |publisher=SUNY Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-88706-063-2 |pages=240–243}}</ref><ref>Belo, Catarina. 2007. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=b4Nii9xOmTYC Chance and Determinism in Avicenna and Averroës]''. Leiden: [[Brill Publishers|Brill]]. p.&nbsp;194.</ref>

In fact then, Averroes treated the teleological argument as one of two "religious" arguments for the existence of God. The principal demonstrative proof is, according to Averroes, Aristotle's proof from motion in the universe that there must be a first mover which causes everything else to move.<ref>[[Carlos Fraenkel|Fraenkel, Carlos]]. 2012. ''Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza: Reason, Religion, and Autonomy''. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=2wYgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA199 199].</ref> Averroes' position that the most logically valid proof should be physical rather than metaphysical (because then metaphysics would be proving itself) was in conscious opposition to the position of Avicenna. Later Jewish and Christian philosophers such as [[Thomas Aquinas]] were aware of this debate, and generally took a position closer to Avicenna.