Reconsidering the Place of Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God in the Light of the ID/Evolution Controversy

Br. James Dominic Rooney, OP

Abstract: Prompted by questions raised in the public arena concerning the validity of arguments for the existence of God based on design in the universe, I explore traditional teleological argument for the existence of God. Using the arguments offered by Thomas Aquinas as fairly representative of this classical line of argumentation going back to Aristotle, I attempt to uncover the hidden premises and construct arguments for the existence of God which are deductive in nature. To justify the premises of Aquinass argument, I begin by presenting an argument to justify the existence of final causes, with a focus on answering questions about the biological implications of these causes for evolutionary theory. Then, I attempt to construct two teleological proofs for the existence of God. Finally, I offer some implications of this reasoning for the contemporary disputes over ID/evolution in education.

ecently, a great deal has been made of the controversy between faith and science, particularly by such authors as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and others. One of the most visible expressions of this has been one of the aforementioned authors chief targets: the intent to teach Intelligent Design or creationism within a school biology curriculum. Similarly, the question has arisen about the extent to which anything like Intelligent Design (ID) might be called a scientific study at all, or whether it is entirely a product of revealed religion. I do not intend in the scope of this paper to discuss the controversy itself or its secular implications. Rather, I intend to ask a simpler question concerning the extent to which one might admit some truth to the class of arguments which seem to be at stake in ID and other fine-tuning arguments. These are often called teleological and are taken by many contemporary leaders of the new atheism movement to comprise the core of modern arguments for the existence of God.1 While I do not believe the latter is true, it does prompt the question as to whether teleological

2010, American Catholic Philosophical Association, Proceedings of the ACPA, Vol. 83

228

Reason in Context

arguments are in fact valid. I will attempt to establish, first, that there is teleology in natural entities on both an intrinsic and extrinsic level. Second, I will argue for the existence of God on the basis of teleology and examine how the character of teleology in nature could lead to that conclusion. Lastly, I will address questions associated with teleology, specifically to the extent to which teleological metaphysics ought to enter into the realm of scientific explanations in biology or physics. I will accomplish these goals through examining the classical teleological arguments given by Saint Thomas Aquinas and their metaphysical assumptions. Saint Thomas Aquinass famous five ways is the first and most obvious place to begin inquiring into his teleological argumentation. The first three ways all take causality as their starting points: the first begins with moving causes, the second with efficient causes, and the third with existential causes (necessity and contingency). The fourth and fifth proofs are more complicated, but these latter proofs also begin with Aristotelian notions of causality. Ignoring for the purpose of brevity the nature of the fourth cause, the fifth proof is of immediate concern to us. This proof follows thus: 1. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end . . . 1.1 This is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. 2. Hence, it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. 3. Now, whatever lacks intelligence cannot move toward an end, unless it is directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence . . . 4. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.2 This proof immediately strikes us as what would seem to be the argument implicit in ID arguments, that design requires a designer. Whereas contemporary arguments very often take as their starting point complexity, Aquinass argument is not an argument for a supreme designer but instead based on final causality teleologyin nature.3 There are two levels to the teleological argument that Aquinas makes: proving the existence of teleology in natural but unintelligent entities (the first premise), and proving that the existence of teleology entails an intelligence (the second premise). Beginning with the justification of the first premise, the question as to whether teleology exists at all, we might begin with an examination of how Aquinas supports this premise in his other works. Thomas borrows many terms and concepts from the metaphysics of Aristotle, including the Aristotelian doctrine of the four causes. While Thomass arguments for teleological causation are drawn from the arguments Aristotle proposes in both the Metaphysics and the Physics, I will focus entirely on Aquinass own argumentation for the existence of final causes. One of the clearest places Thomas argues for the existence of final causality is the Summa

Reconsidering Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God 229

Contra Gentiles, III, 2. Follwing Aristotle, Aquinas argues that any account of activity, power, or motion (and of any entity which possesses certain powers or produces effects) requires this sort of causal explanation. So in the case of a power of an entitysay, the potential of this animal to seethe very notion of potentiality requires a potentiality toward a particular actualization of that potential.4 If we admit principles of activity in the most general sort of sense, such as causes, each of these causes is a principle of activity toward any number of definite ends. Taking the Aristotelian examples, a formal principle produces certain structural features and functions of the entity in question. The material principle has a suitability for the support of certain formal functions and structures. The efficient principle is the source of an agents movement to educe something from a state of potentiality to actuality, and hence is determined toward a particular end. Modern notions of causality are most often associated with efficient causes, but it is conceivable that other explanatory accounts would fit under the above three causes. Whether there is merely one of these ends is another question that needs to be considered. Removing the question of intelligent agents, irrational entities such as rocks and so forth are moved to one definite end as well. We might begin by saying that the sort of causal movement in change that happens in each entity is analogous to a vector, having a speed, an origin (or subject), and a direction. The direction of any efficient cause is principally what we call a final cause. Aquinas argues that if there were no determined single end of an efficient causeno direction, if you willthen no movement or change would result.5 One might similarly say that if any entity were determined to an infinite number of actions, then this entity would never actthere would be no reason for the entity to act thus rather than any other of those infinite number of other acts. The final cause gives a sufficient reason as to why this agent is acting in this way, rather than that way.6 If we were to presume, then, a model of causality where only efficient causes were presentagencies and forcesall of these needs to be determined toward a particular end and hence requires as part of its explanation the presence of that end. I hope to offer below a more rigorous argument based on this assumption of efficient causality which more clearly establishes, even in this account, a notion of final causes. The special character of the question about establishing the existence of final causes is that it requires a different sort of argument, as evinced by the above discussion. The existence of final causes cannot be the subject of a demonstration in the purest sense, where one can derive the conclusion from established premises this is because they are presumed in any account of activity or agency whatsoever, assuming that what Aquinas and Aristotle say is true. Instead, such an argument must be along the lines of a strong dialectical argument which shows that all other causal explanations either presume final causes (possibly under a different name, for instance) or fail to explain the phenomenon adequately in some way. As a consequence, while I cannot exhaustively refute all objections, I wish to address one objection in particular: the question of how final causality would be necessary to any modern account of evolutionary biology.

230

Reason in Context

While I do not want to lay out a complete account of teleology in evolutionary biology, the explanation of natural selection on a teleological basis is an obvious problem for anyone arguing for the existence of teleology today and, as such, needs to be at least addressed. One feature of this criticism of teleology on the basis of evolution is very often an misinterpretation of teleology as a whole, usually understanding teleology to entail a over-arching purpose. A more concise criticism, however, critiques the notion of teleological causality in adaptation, holding that teleological explanation necessarily entails holding that function is the final cause because of which one biological trait was chosen over another in natural selection.7 In other words, seeing teleology as a Lamarckian picture of evolutionary biology, where particular traits develop because they are useful to the organism. However, this seems, as many authors tend to point out, to contradict the general scheme of natural selection. So John Maynard Smith in The Theory of Evolution notes that selection acts so to maintain, rather than to change, the adaptations of a population.8 Selection is, generally, an a posteriori endeavor which, as Lewontin points out, does not include foresight, and there is no theoretical principle that assures optimization as a consequence of selection.9 Thus, put bluntly, biological traits, functions, organs, etc. are not there because of their functions. They are there because of their developmental histories.10 This latter remark might already be answered by appeal to our previous argumentation for the existence of final causes. Even if we were to assume that there exist only efficient causes along the line of a developmental history, the existence of an intrinsic determinate principle of the efficient cause along with a determinate ordering (time or something like this) implies the existence of one determinate end to the development of that organismin other words, a final cause. Thus it seems that even a deterministic universe that admitted only efficient causes must be bound, logically, to admit deterministic ends as final causes. The argument is that [1] an agent is a determinate cause, [2] there is a determinate causal procession, and thus [3] where there is a determinate origin and proceeding, there is a determinate end. Thus, even deterministic efficient or moving causality seems to require this vector in order to be explained. To return to the evolutionary problematic as a whole, this argument will still probably not answer many of the particular problems we have already pointed out in reconciling how teleological accounts fit with natural selection in evolutionary theory. As a prelude, however, we might examine the recent prominent evidence that highlights that natural selection may not entirely be a posteriori. A recent account of evolutionary theory, Evolution in Four Dimensions, has highlighted aspects of current biological systems that seems to entail goal-seeking non-random mutations. So, for example, non-random mutations take place as pressure from the environment on an organism, leading to reorganization of the genetic code. While some of these mutations do not seem to be function-based, but could be accounted for as a pathological function of the organisms deterioration (such as UV rays causing mutagenic effects in skin cells), some of these do seem to entail some measure of non-randomness that might entail an inherited trait in the organism to adapt to

Reconsidering Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God 231

particular environmental stresses (such as the genetic codes adaptation as a result of immune system pressures).11 The conclusion, relevant to our account of the state of the debate, is that natural selection does not seem to be entirely blind to function.12 At least some traits seem to be selected on the basis of functionality to the survival of the organism, as well as the fact that some mutations are non-random as adaptations themselves. This evidencethat there might have been evolved adaptations which developed for a functionis not, however, the last word. The dispute over the interpretation of the above phenomenon is immense, and should not be taken lightly. In all reality, these non-random goal-seeking adaptations, if they exist, need to be granted existence alongside the theory of natural selection as a whole. Most likely, they are both partial elements of a holistic theory of evolutionary development. As such, the character of evolutionary development on the basis of natural selection, a posteriori, still seems to require an explanation. At first glance, this does not seem to be amenable to a particular teleological explanation. No function in particular was selected on the basis of its function. In fact, one of the most common occurrences is the acquisition of a trait which was part or a byproduct of another function, but which remains in later species to serve different or many other functions.13 One example is the vertebrate jaw, which arose from the support of gills in primitive fish. This jaw eventually became co-opted for feeding purposes and eventually maybe even hearing. Thus, Daniel Dennet, no lover of teleology in evolutionary accounts, writes: Selection itself can only filter, at best supporting the conditional: if the appropriate sort of variation is generated, it will be selected.14 This, I will argue, is in fact a teleological explanation for the acquisition of these functions and natural selection as a whole is very much a teleological account. While an organism may not seem to be acquiring traits for the particular function they will serve, this acquisition does exhibit end-seeking behavior. So I propose that natural selection is a negative teleological explanation. Traits are selected against rather than explicitly for, and this is subsumed under a greater teleological aegis of persistence and survival, as those traits adapted against either provide a counterproductive or non-existent functional benefit to the existence of the organism, individually or as a species, in response to their environmental pressures. The persistence or survival of the organism or the species, as a whole or individually, remains as the lowest common denominator, the telos of the systemthe organic substanceand, as such, subordinates the particular functions of organs or traits to the overall good of the organism. As a clear example of how this functions in an evolutionary system, we find in Dawkinss The Selfish Gene the claim that early genes were selected on the basis of their persistencetheir keeping in existence and survival.15 Similarly, in Maynard Smith, Just as a husbandman selects from his stock as parents of the next generation those individuals which seem to him best to meet his requirements, so in nature those individuals best fitted to survive in the given environment are selected as parents. This is the process of natural selection.16 The above might serve as a preliminary insight into how final causes are necessary explanatory tools in contemporary evolutionary biology, but so far we have only

232

Reason in Context

shown there to be what might be called intrinsic final causes. These causes explain the activity of this organism or entity as it is determined to an end. However, there is another element of teleology that is seen as over-arching ends of a whole process of movement among entities. I will call this extrinsic teleology and define it, more specifically, as the relationship of one entity ordered toward another in a system of final causes. To distinguish from intrinsic teleology, which makes the activity of the individual subject the locus of explanation, extrinsic teleology is the orientation of one entity toward another. I will argue that if we admit the existence of intrinsic determinate ends on the part of natural entities, this implies that they do possess extrinsic ends. So in the order of natural entities, the achievement of their intrinsic end cannot be achieved without reference to accidental and extrinsic perfections. For example, a plant requires certain accidental perfections, such as growth, reproduction, and nutrition, to function toward its definite end as a living entity of the particular genus. These, in turn, refer to exterior entities or ends which assist them in their own growth and lifesunlight, water, nutrients. Extrinsic teleology is this orientation of natural entities toward other entities and toward ends outside of their own being. So, the plant requires the extrinsic agency of sunlight in order to attain its intrinsic goal as a living organism. This is only inductive, of course, but it illustrates the claim being made quite clearly. To formulate the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic teleology as I have been explaining it, I believe we can draw a more general metaphysical conclusion by referring to the metaphysical categories of actuality and potentiality: 1. Any entity which is in a state of act, acts for a determinate end. 2. If it is in act, the entity possesses an intrinsic and determinate principle of action. 2.1 But if there is also an determinate order of proceeding, then there is a determinate end. 3. But if an entity has any (simple or complex) potentialities toward action, the actualization of these potentialities is the determinate end. 3.1 Potentialities are always potential for a particular sort of actuality and an movement is always from a state of potentiality toward one of act. 4. But this end must be outside the agent, 4.1 as something which is in potency cannot simultaneously be in act at the same time and in the same respect (per PNC). 5. Therefore, an entity which has any states of potentiality necessarily also is determined to an end outside of itself. 6. Thus, extrinsic teleology is necessarily present in any entity or substance which is in a state of potentiality. Having proven (at least for the purposes of this paper) that teleological causes exist in nature, I intend to propose two different teleological proofs for the existence of God. As metaphysical, these arguments both entail an position which assumes

Reconsidering Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God 233

teleological causes in entities, but ask why such a order should exist at all. The first of these proofs is a more obvious proof which might be called a teleological version of the unmoved mover argument from Aristotle. Then, after establishing the more obvious, I believe we will be in a better place to examine the arguments for the (relatively) less obvious position of whether one might argue, on the basis of the teleology alone, for the existence of an ordering intelligence which disposes natural entities as a whole (the universe) with extrinsic final causes. The first is a more Aristotelian argument for the existence of a first mover in the order of final causality. A recent work by Dr. Monroe Johnson makes a case that this might, in fact, be an Aristotelian argument for the existence of God as first mover.17 A similar argument is made by Saint Thomas as an answer to the question as to whether all ends of entities find their ultimate end in a single end, God (and thus he doesnt employ it directly as an argument for the existence of God).18 It follows thus: in every ordered series of ends the ultimate end must be the end of all preceding ends. For instance, if a potion is mixed to be given a sick man, and it is given in order to purge him, and he is purged in order to make him thinner, and he is thinned down so that he may become healthythen health must be the end of the thinning process, and of the purging, and of the other actions which precede it. But all things are found, in their various degrees of goodness, to be subordinated to one highest good which is the cause of all goodness. Consequently, since the good has the essential character of an end, all things are subordinated to God, as preceding ends under an ultimate end. Therefore, God must be the end of all things.19 Based on our own prior discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic causality, I believe we could integrate those conclusions into a single chain of argument that would argue much along the lines above for the existence of a prime final cause in the order of extrinsic final causality: 1. We see in nature that entities have final causes; these are either intrinsic or extrinsic. 1.1 A final cause is intrinsic where the end is the entitys own perfection as a particular sort of entity. 1.2 A final cause is extrinsic where the end of the entity entails realizing an end outside of its own being, acting as an end for something else. 2. Insofar as natural entities are seen to have an intrinsic final cause, the achievement of this end entails extrinsic causes. 2.1 That is to say, the good or end of this entity entails use of some other entity. 2.1.1 Perfecting accidents and entities flourishing with the aid of another (plant with sun) are clear examples. 3. Thus, intrinsic teleology entails extrinsic teleology. 3.1 For extrinsic teleology (per 1.2) is nothing other than one entity serving as the end for another entity.

234

Reason in Context
4. These beings are thus ontologically dependent on the extrinsic entity as the end for their intrinsic perfection. 4.1 For, the achievement of the end is nothing other than the actualization of potentiality in the entity. 5. But nothing can be reduced from a state of potentiality unless by something already in act. 5.1 For nothing can be in a state of potentiality and actuality in the same time and at the same respect (via PNC). 6. Thus, no entity can actualize its own contingent intrinsic end, but must receive its perfection from something else already in a state of ontological perfection. 7. But this cannot proceed to infinity. 7.1 For, then, no thing would have ontological perfection (this is absurd, via 1). 8. Therefore, there must be a prime cause in the order of final causality which is purely actual in the order of perfection; and this we call God.

The second proof for the existence of an intelligence which orders these intrinsic/extrinsic final causes must proceed with a slightly different order of argument. The one below is that which St. Thomas gives in the Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei: 1. Every agent acts for an end, since all things seek the good. 1.1 Now for the agents action to be suited to the end, it must be adapted and proportionate to it, 1.1.1 and this cannot be done save by an intellect that is cognizant both of the end and of its nature as end, and again of the proportion between the end and the means: 1.2 otherwise the suitability of the action to the end would be fortuitous ... 2. Now that which acts of natural necessity cannot determine its end: because in the latter case the agent acts of itself, 2.1 and when a thing acts or is in motion of itself, there is in it to act or not to act, to be in motion or not to be in motion, 2.2 which cannot apply to that which is moved of necessity, since it is confined to one effect. 3. Hence everything that acts of natural necessity must have its end determined by an intelligent agent.20 The key to the above argument is the contrast between intelligence and chance events. Chance events, for Aquinas and Aristotle, fail to be real causes on their own terms, but only exist per accidens. This cannot account for the real influence, as proven earlier, of ends upon agents, moving them toward a particular activity.21 If we take

Reconsidering Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God 235

it simply, chance is the intersection of various agents moving toward different ends, presuming a notion of final causes which come into conflict. Similarly, chance is not able to explain what happens regularly or for the most part, but only exceptional cases of intersecting ends, for Aquinas.22 Chance fails to explain, then, for Aquinas why agents act for ends which are suitable for themselves, among themselves being the key element. To reconsider this metaphysical principle in light of the duality of efficient and final cause and the notion of vectors in changing processes which I offered above, the first cause in the order of final causes must explain the sufficient reason why entities are ordered one to another in both intrinsic and extrinsic final causal relationships. The first cause needs to order other entities along a vector which, as the first cause, it itself determines. But chance is contingent in that each chance event refers to a prior cause or set of causal relationships and hence cannot be applicable to the first cause. Thus, this first cause needs to measure these relationships. To establish this, Aquinas argues that when efficient causal changes happen, these imply a movement on the part of the changing entity from a state of potency to actuality, and a possession of actuality by the agent which is imparted to the changing entity. But these obviously need to coincide, as this implies an actualizing power on the part of the agent which really causes the change in the subject. But this change to a state of act is nothing other than a perfection of the being of the changing entity, as this is what is appropriate to its powers.23 Thus, a natural entity which is moved to a definite end cannot thus be moved merely by chance, but by some impressed tendency toward a suitable end. As intelligence is the only sort of thing which can grasp the suitability of an act to an endthis cause needs, as I explained above, to per se measure the final and efficient causes of one entity to anotherAquinas concludes that an intellect need exist as that which impresses all creatures with this tendency toward suitable ends. If we wanted to establish this second proof in the scope of the earlier chain of logical argumentation, we could take some of the above De Potentia argument, integrate it with the earlier argument from extrinsic final causality, and thus argue for an intelligence as necessary to ensure such an ordering of intrinsic and extrinsic teleological causes. It follows: 1. All agents act for ends. 2. But the agents action must be suited toward its end. 2.1.1 This follows as all movement toward an end is an actualization of the potentiality of that entity and perfects the activity of that entity. 2.2 It must be both adapted and proportionate to that end. 3. But this cannot be accomplished except by an intellect in the case of unintelligent entities. 3.1 For an intellect is cognizant of the end both per accidens and per se. 3.2 If no intellect directed action of non-intelligent agents, the action would be per accidens and thus by chance.

236

Reason in Context
3.2.1 For chance is not a per se, but only a per accidens cause. 3.2.1.1 Occurrences are said to be chance when the effect which occurs happens otherwise than the determinate end of the agents action 3.2.1.2 But this is nothing other than referring to a cause outside of the agent in question to explain its particular disposition. 3.2.1.3 But the first cause is not determined by another; otherwise, it would not be the first cause 3.3 Thus, the first cause must be a per se cause of the ordering of final ends and must measure the order between what it causes and the end of those causes. 3.3.1 This entails grasping the measure of a particular entity as both a cause and as having ends 3.3.2 But this action is an activity only proper what we call intellection. 4. Therefore, the first cause is an intellect which orders all entities to their ends.

As Wippel notes, this argument fails to establish the uniqueness of this intelligence directly (that there is only one such intellect), but it could do so if we expanded the argument to show that this same intellect needs to also be the efficient cause of all other natural entities.24 So, while these proofs leave a great deal unestablished, there is also potential for fuller explanation which could eliminate some of those problems. However, the justification of the existence of this ordering intellect is necessarily primary to any exposition of attributes or other elements in a clarifying explanation. And, thus, I wish to offer some responses to common objections to these arguments. One objection to the above argument is that there must be some other option for the dichotomy presented between intelligence and chance, in other words, some type of cause that grasps the suitability of agents to ends per se, but which is not intelligent, thus disputing 3.3.2. If such a cause did exist which grasped the suitability of ends, I would, however, be inclined to think that we would still call it an intelligence, even if it were radically other than that intelligence to which we are accustomedGod. Another objection, along the lines of recent evolutionary arguments, is to object that evolutionary processes produce suitable ends to agents without intelligence, but purely from chance. However, this fails on two levels. First, the argument given above would show that all entities on the most basic metaphysical level require suitability of agent to end, and not merely in the realm of biology. These causes refer to a prime cause which needs to select per se, but evolution is clearly per accidens and hence cannot be a suitable referent for the origin of ordering of causes as whole. Connected to this problem is that this view presumes in large part what it wishes

Reconsidering Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God 237

to deny, by accepting evolution as an example of chance and thus presuming prior causal determination outside of the system. It accepts that the mechanism by which these traits are selected is what I have called negative teleological ends. In other words, the selection of suitable traits or functions in this picture is not really chance, but remains teleologically ordered in a more holistic sense. Evolutionary process as a whole could not create final causality, but assumes it in order to be a coherent explanation. Hence, it leaves the question undetermined as to why such an ordering of efficient and final causes should exist in the first placeand it is this latter question which the above two teleological arguments attempt to answer. There is another objection which presents a problem to the above teleological arguments. This claim would be that there need be no first intellect but that there are instead an infinite regressive series of ordered causes, each ordering the other without any primary intelligent principle. This objection, I believe, has already been answered in part by the fact that the existence of the tendency toward an end cannot be explained by further contingently ordered entitiesto paraphrase Fr. Coplestons reply to Russell, an infinite number of sheep does not a chocolate bar make. We can refer to the fact that a contingently ordered entity can only exist as contingent if there is a prior determining cause, as the secondary entity only possesses the tendency to an end insofar as the prior entity orders it. Without the ordering cause, all secondary contingent entities could not have these intrinsic determinationsex nihil, nihil fit.25 There are two final objections that come from an unexpected camp and thus merit a special mention. Philosophers sympathetic to Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle might object to the analysis I present in this paper as, first, presuming the existence of natural kinds, as when I argue that organisms have certain functions that proceed to a final end. Their retort is that modern materialist scientists would no doubt argue that animals and other things that Aristotelians would argue have a substantial form are no more than the ontological equivalents of artifacts. On this view, animals are merely a certain collection of atoms or, more richly, biochemical processes. I, however, believe that possessing even this reductionist view of biology commits one to a basic belief in final causality. These philosophers or scientists would be holding a position akin to the materialist objection above, where each chemical process, even taken as a deterministic individual unit, will have its own final endeach chemical process has a certain function or expressed activity which will play out over time, based on its own particular causal powers. As a consequence, I believe such philosophers would also logically have to assent to the account of teleology I give as well as the arguments for the existence of God based on that account. The second objection that arises from Thomists and Aristotelians is whether the account I give falls into precisely the camp of the ancient Greek Empedocles, whom both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas critique. The objection here is that my account of teleology fails to be authentic to the vision of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle in that it is only negative, whereas Aquinas and Aristotle both held that there are positive teleological ends in animate life-forms. Empedocles argued that the different species began to exist by accident, as different parts of ox and men

238

Reason in Context

(for example) came together at random and the ones that remained were merely the result of chance as these were fit to survive. I argue, however, that Thomas Aquinas answered Empedocles in the same way I answer natural selection. Aquinas, in his commentary on Aristotles Physics, cites Empedocles arguments against final causality. Namely, Empedocles argues that final ends do not need to exist as the entire process could be explained by chance parts coming together, the unfit dying off, and leaving animals that can survive.26 Aquinas discusses Aristotles four answers to Empedocles. The first answer that Aristotle presents is that the very existence of error in nature, as in the case of monstrous offspring which Empedocles describes, is a sign that there is an art or design followed by nature. In fact, Aquinas says the following directly against the case of the monsters of Empedocles: For if such things were not able to arrive at some end and final state of nature so that they would be preserved in existence, this was not because nature did not intend this [a final state], but because they were not capable of being preserved. For they were not generated according to nature, but by the corruption of some natural principle.27 My answer, like any good Thomist, is to make a distinction. If we read all four of Aristotles answers, it becomes clear that each answers an objection that there is no end to the nature of an organism in the order of generation. This is to say that Empedocles denies that the generation of living organisms pursues any end. On the contrary, Aristotle and Aquinas argue that there must be an inherent principle in, for example, a seed such that it brings about the development of the seed into a mature plant of the type from which it was begotten. The difference between evolutionary biology and Aristotles answers is that Aristotle assumes a static conception of the natural kinds, more or less, and does not intend to address why there are some species rather than others. Instead, he is concerned with order in generation of offspring within a given species. This is to say that he is defending the existence of final causes on the level of ontogeny or direct generation and development into maturity of a given type of organism. The argument I present for reconciling natural selection with teleology lies, instead, on the level of phylogeny, or how species become different. Phylogenic development is, on natural selections view, accidental. However, ontogeny remains untouched and continues to be a clear case of positive teleology where there is a given principle in the seed which proceeds toward expressing an end (the flourishing of the organism, for example). Negative teleology, as I understand it, is parasitic on an positive teleological orientation of an organism or entity, which I argued in the first half of that section must exist in all organisms because of determinate natural principles. So negative teleology expresses, as Aquinas did, that there was a frustrated natural end to a given organism in that it fails to survive and express its functions. But an end cannot be frustrated if it did not exist. Therefore, there must be ends in nature. On the basis of the above arguments, we might end this paper by asking to what extent such teleological explanations should enter into scientific accounts of natural entities. The contemporary controversies over ID and evolution seem to make this a hot topic, with the teaching of ID in schools already prompting litigation. As I have already pointed out, I believe this is slightly misplaced enthusiasm. Contemporary scientific accounts of evolution already seem to require the explanatory power of final

Reconsidering Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God 239

causes, whether they admit them to exist or just accept them implicitly. One might only insist that philosophy of science would continue to investigate the nature of these causes as they enter into biology and to take this as at least one theme among others in its study of organic life. The existence of a prime cause in the order of teleology, however, stands outside of the realm of biological explanations of organisms. That first cause is a properly philosophical and metaphysical object of study, as it pertains to all entities and not merely biological organisms. It would thus have no special place in a biology curriculum as opposed to other studies of natural entities and would even presume to an extent the veracity of evolutionary accounts. This being the case, it seems that the metaphysical account of God would have a proper place in a philosophy class and not in a biology textbook. But this controversy might be, in fact, a hidden opportunity. Public education could benefit from a renewed emphasis on holistic education in the liberal arts, including the wide-spread introduction of classes in logic and philosophy to the curriculum. The teaching of a philosophy of religion class which would address these claims in a public school could be a suitable compromise between parties, without prejudicing the debate one way or another, or introducing properly theological elements of revelation and scripture. The teleological arguments for the existence of God seem to be based in solid metaphysical arguments for the existence and nature of final causes. Further, these might be a fruitful source of discussion in philosophy today and ought not be immediately discounted in contemporary discussions about the existence of God. Finally, the use of teleology in a scientific explanation does not merge science with philosophy. Instead, only by the clear and continued delineation of the domains of metaphysics and science can both branches of study benefit in a mutually enriching relationship.

Notes
1. For a particular source, see The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and his discussion of the problem of design, starting on 137. 2. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Dominican Fathers of the English Province (New York, NY: Benzinger Bros, 1947), I.2.3, respondeo. 3. John Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 2000), 480. 4. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. V. Bourke, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), III.2.2. 5. Ibid., III.2.3. 6. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 482. 7. Robert Cummins, Neo-Teleology in Functions: New Essays in The Philosophy of Psychology and Biology, ed. Cummins, Ariew, and Perlman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 164.

240

Reason in Context

8. John Maynard Smith, The Theory of Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 51. 9. Gould and Lewontin, The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: a Critique of the Adaptationist Programme in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, Vol. 205, No. 1161, The Evolution of Adaptation by Natural Selection (Sep. 21, 1979):581598. 10. Cummins, Neo-Teleology, 162. 11. Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 8788. 12. Ibid., 102. 13. Ibid., 320. 14. Daniel T. Dennett, Evolution, Teleology, Intentionality in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16.2 (1993): 289391. 15. Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene, third edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),1718. 16. Maynard Smith, The Theory of Evolution, 44. 17. Monte Ransome Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 258. 18. Summa Contra Gentiles, III.17.5. 19. Ibid. 20. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei, trans. English Dominican Fathers, (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1952), 1.5. 21. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 483. 22. Ibid., 482. 23. Summa Contra Gentiles, III.3.10. 24. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 485. 25. A further proof, possibly with more persuasive force to those who deny this claim, would be to take the first teleological proof I have offered (a terminus of final causes) and connect that with an account from natural theology which shows that the first cause must be intelligent and/or immaterial. This would fairly clearly rule out, on an ontological level, a great deal of possible objections. 26. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Physics, trans. Richard J. Blackwell, Richard J. Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963), #253. 27. Ibid., #263.