The Argument From Design in Contemporary Thought

The argument from design or the teleological argument is the oldest and most popular argument for the existence of a supernatural designer in general and of the God of traditional theism in particular. Especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it became very popular and had most able and respected defenders among leading scientists, theologians and philosophers of the day. However, soon the argument had to face two forceful attacks coming from David Hume's direct philosophical criticisms in the later years of the eighteenth century, and that of the implications of Charles Darwin's works, nearly a century later. Since that time, the popularity of the argument has been in decline until the last twenty or thirty years when it has started to regain respectability in some scientific, philosophical and theological circles. It has found support in new scientific evidence and been reformulated, avoiding the traditional weaknesses, to meet the classical objections.