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Evidence for God #1: Natural Theology

Jason Song

Updated: Sep 16, 2019

This is the mother of all arguments in apologetics. Natural Theology is also known as the Teleological Argument. Simply put, there is an overwhelming evidence of order or design in nature pointing to the designer. Many philosophers of the past, including Sir Isaac Newton, Rene Decartes, William Paley, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, used the "watch and watchmaker" example to illustrate this point.

David Hume ( 1711-1776) argued, however, that (1) world creation is vastly more complex than making a watch, thus (2) the analogy falls short because it's comparing apples and oranges, and (3) even if there was a designer, it may not be the Judeo-Christian "God." The most legitimate of the three objections is #3, but one can find persuasive arguments for the Christian God in Ravi Zachariah's Jesus Among Other Gods. Plus, there are a lot of world religion comparison charts floating on the Internet that point to the supremacy of Christianity over other religions. Hume's points #1 and #2 are typically dismissed as trivial criticism in semantics.


Richard Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker, also argues that (1) biology is far more complex than "watch making," and adds that (2) millions or billions of years of evolution should make living things appear designed due to mutations causing improvement, and (3) watchmaker analogy begs the questions, "Who created the watchmaker?" William Lane Craig responds to #3 that such a question is infinitely regressive and, thus, illogical. Dawkins and other atheists obviously disagree.


For Dawkin's points #1 and #2, recent developments in nanotechnology reveal that even the most simple cell structures show intricate design or complexity. Look up irreducible complexity explained by Michael Behe and William Dembski, as well as plenty of material from the Intelligent Design movement (the Discovery Institute, Stephen Meyer, Doug Axe, Jonathan Wells, etc.).


One major problem for Dawkins is that his claimed evidence against design is only from biology, his field of expertise. Yet, Dawkins has been dismissed by more serious researchers in his field as a rather "poor" spokesperson who is closed-minded and not representative of those who view biology as just one branch of science. Check out 500 scientists who disagree with Darwin's theory of evolution. Also, in contrast to Dawkins, many physicists and cosmologists reason that there's just an overwhelming evidence of design in the universe. See my Evidence for God #2: Cosmological Argument for more on this.


In Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein turns the table on Dawkins (Dawkins is usually the aggressor who flaunts his know-it-all attitude). One can also search for "Richard Dawkins stumped" on Youtube to view a clip in which he is unable to answer a simple question (stumped is putting it mildly).


It's interesting to note that Antony Flew, arguably the world’s most famous atheist who even rattled C.S. Lewis, abandoned atheism due to the growing and, in his own words, undeniable evidence for design in biology. See his book, There is a God. One might also benefit from viewing Illustra Media's DVD titles Unlocking the Mystery of Life and the Privileged Planet, as well as other titles such as Flight, Water, and Metamorphosis (check out the collection of their trailers).


Simply put, the Teleological Argument states that complex and intricate design evident in the universe and nature points to the Creator/Designer.


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