Teleological Argument (Aquinas)

[Ponder This]

What do you think of "the 5th Way" of Aquinas? Summary and explanation of the argument (from Wikipedia):

Summary

We see various objects that lack intelligence in the world behaving in regular ways. This cannot be due to chance since then they would not behave with predictable results. So their behavior must be set. But it cannot be set by themselves since they are non-intelligent and have no notion of how to set behavior. Therefore, their behavior must be set by something else, and by implication something that must be intelligent. This everyone understands to be God.

Explanation

This is also known as the Teleological Argument. However, it is not a "Cosmic Watchmaker" argument from design (see below). Instead, as the 1920 Dominican translation puts it, The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world.

The Fifth Way uses Aristotle's final cause. Aristotle argued that a complete explanation of an object will involve knowledge of how it came to be (efficient cause), what material it consists of (material cause), how that material is structured (formal cause), and the specific behaviors associated with the type of thing it is (final cause). The concept of final causes involves the concept of dispositions or "ends": a specific goal or aim towards which something strives. For example, acorns regularly develop into oak trees but never into sea lions. The oak tree is the "end" towards which the acorn "points," its disposition, even if it fails to achieve maturity. The aims and goals of intelligent beings is easily explained by the fact that they consciously set those goals for themselves. The implication is that if something has a goal or end towards which it strives, it is either because it is intelligent or because something intelligent is guiding it.

Five Ways (Aquinas) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It's a tight argument.

Perhaps there's someway to dig into: What is intelligence?
Part of the idea seems to be that intelligence sets things in an ordered way, but intelligence is also capable of scrambling things.

For example, if I were to take a sentence and encrypt it, the point of the encryption is that the result does not have apparent regularity.

Or. let's say I want to go exploring, but I can choose to go in any direction... picking a direction at random.
If I were exploring space, then maybe I'd go over to the moon for a bit or loop around Mars and return to Earth or some other seemingly random path. Even supposing that my path is in some ways contrained by forces, my chosen path does not itself exhibit regularity... does it?

 

[F1fan]

You aren't understanding me.

Existence requires order, as nothing can exist in chaos but chaos.

Yet the singularity before the Big Bang lacked order, and it existed.

Nothing can form, and stay formed. Nothing recognizable can manifest in chaos but abject chaos. Chaos IS nothingness. Differentiation, and thereby SOMETHING happens when some recognizable order forms against the backdrop of the meaningless nothingness of abject chaos.

Chaos means nothing. You're writing about ideals as if you are God yourself. But nothing you write is from observation or knowledge. It's just your imagination.

There are no possibilities without there being some impossibilities for them to stand out against.

More of your imagination. The possibilities of an acorn is defined by nature. Impossibilities mean nothing. You can spend a whole day writing a list of impossibilities for acorns, but nature won't.

Why is this so? None of us knows. It would appear to be a cognitive rule even the gods couldn't break.

More of your need to hold a confusing view of nature.

But we already know that stuff has not always existed. At least we presume to know that.

Who says?

Those are the only real questions worth asking. Everything else is just auto-mechanics. It's functionally useful, but basically selfish and kinda wimpy.

Yeah, it's odd that those who say they are seekers of truth really just want significance and meaning.

You don't seem to understand how curiosity works. Or why it's such an important gift to humanity.

Inventing false answers to questions that have no answers isn't any sort of gift. Curiosity isn't served by flawed thinking and baseless belief.

Yet you seem to be quite annoyed by it. To the point that you really want to ignore any question that you cannot certainly answer.

I'm fine with uncertainty. What is it you think I'm annoyed about? Being honest with myself? Not needing false answers?

 

[Tomef]

Sorry. I'm not sure I understand you. What is an alternative explanation and for what?

What is it you don’t understand? It’s an obvious point.

His argument is that there must be an intelligent designer. In the absence of better scientific knowledge, that made sense at the time. Now, it doesn’t.

 

[Heyo]

A teleological argument argues for the existence of the supreme intelligence (responsible for the order/design/purpose in the world). Other attributes require some further proof...



Exactly. Aquinas's argument is not about intervention. It's about inherent goal-directedness of things.

I have no problem with Deists, I consider them atheists (as they are not theists). Their hypothetical god has its work done before it could contradict any laws of nature, and they don't (and can't) demand any privileges.
I still think the idea is simplistic and gives agency to something that doesn't need it, but it isn't dangerous.

 

[Koldo]

Exactly. Gravity itself doesn't explain this goal-directedness.

What goal-directedness?

 

[PearlSeeker]

Why does anything 'exist'?

This is the question of another group of arguments - cosmological arguments. A teleological argument is not concerned with this question.

 

[PearlSeeker]

But that's just like pareidolia.

In pareidolia, the colouration on the piece of toast or whatever really is what it is, and it may really look like Jesus or whatever, but there's an erroneous inference of intent or design behind it.

The mentality that says "this planet's orbit is really ellipsoidal; God must be responsible" is not that different from the mentality that says "the stain on the side of this gas station really looks like the Virgin Mary; God must be responsible."

The 5th way is abou how things happen with regularity. For example when you heat a piece of toast bread to certain temperature it becomes crunchy... Meaningful pictures on the surface are not a regular result - they have nothing to do with natural laws.

 

[PearlSeeker]

His argument is that there must be an intelligent designer. In the absence of better scientific knowledge, that made sense at the time. Now, it doesn’t.

Scientists have discovered and studied examples of regularity and order in nature and have gained some knowledge but that doesn't explain why things happen this way.

 

[PearlSeeker]

It's a tight argument.

Perhaps there's someway to dig into: What is intelligence?
Part of the idea seems to be that intelligence sets things in an ordered way, but intelligence is also capable of scrambling things.

For example, if I were to take a sentence and encrypt it, the point of the encryption is that the result does not have apparent regularity.

Or. let's say I want to go exploring, but I can choose to go in any direction... picking a direction at random.
If I were exploring space, then maybe I'd go over to the moon for a bit or loop around Mars and return to Earth or some other seemingly random path. Even supposing that my path is in some ways contrained by forces, my chosen path does not itself exhibit regularity... does it?

Yes, intelligence can do this but the 5th way comes from simple and obvious examples of final causality in nature.

 

[Brickjectivity]

We see various objects that lack intelligence in the world behaving in regular ways. This cannot be due to chance since then they would not behave with predictable results. So their behavior must be set. But it cannot be set by themselves since they are non-intelligent and have no notion of how to set behavior. Therefore, their behavior must be set by something else, and by implication something that must be intelligent. This everyone understands to be God.

Teleological arguments are fallacious. The above argument is an example. It does not follow from: "Because things lacking in intelligence behave in regular ways." It does not follow that there is behavior at all. Calling it 'Behavior' is an innacurate choice of words to claim that there is a setter of physical behavior. The argument fails because it is a "What else could it be?" argument. It could be other things.

In the case of regular ways observe that any two long items next to one another and agitated with random energy will tend to combine. The longer and the closer they are the more likely it is. All things we know of in the universe of any level of complexity can be explained as a consequence of this one thing. It is not a proof that all things are a consequence of it -- only that they can be explained by it. 'Can be explained' falls short of 'Proves' just as the OP argument which claims to be teleological is fallacious. There is, to my knowledge, always an alternative to any teleological approach.

 

[PearlSeeker]

What goal-directedness?

In nature. Some examples were mentioned:
The moon orbits the earth.
A struck match generates fire.
An acorn grows into an oak tree.

"The concept of final causes involves the concept of dispositions or "ends": a specific goal or aim towards which something strives. For example, acorns regularly develop into oak trees but never into sea lions." (Wiki)

 

[ratiocinator]

No, because I don't presume to expect otherwise.

So the intelligence that created the order in the universe, needs another intelligence to create the order required by the first, and that needs another intelligence, and so on off to an infinite number of intelligences getting ever more complicated and ordered.

Seriously?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The 5th way is abou how things happen with regularity. For example when you heat a piece of toast bread to certain temperature it becomes crunchy... Meaningful pictures on the surface are not a regular result - they have nothing to do with natural laws.

Both are examples of the unjustified idea that apparent order necessarily implies deliberate intent.

Look - if you want to argue that a thing is designed, go right ahead. But inferring that "regularity" implies design just doesn't work.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Teleological arguments are fallacious. The above argument is an example. It does not follow from: "Because things lacking in intelligence behave in regular ways." It does not follow that there is behavior at all. Calling it 'Behavior' is an innacurate choice of words to claim that there is a setter of physical behavior. The argument fails because it is a "What else could it be?" argument. It could be other things.

In the case of regular ways observe that any two long items next to one another and agitated with random energy will tend to combine. The longer and the closer they are the more likely it is. All things we know of in the universe of any level of complexity can be explained as a consequence of this one thing. It is not a proof that all things are a consequence of it -- only that they can be explained by it. 'Can be explained' falls short of 'Proves' just as the OP argument which claims to be teleological is fallacious. There is, to my knowledge, always an alternative to any teleological approach.

The above was a summary from Wikipedia. Here is how Aquinas phrased it:

“The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”​

​

"Behave" has different meanings. It doesn't always mean a person directing own conduct. It can also mean acting as Aquinas mentioned. An example from Merriam Webster dictionary:

"testing how various metals behave under heat and pressure."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In nature. Some examples were mentioned:
The moon orbits the earth.
A struck match generates fire.
An acorn grows into an oak tree.

"The concept of final causes involves the concept of dispositions or "ends": a specific goal or aim towards which something strives. For example, acorns regularly develop into oak trees but never into sea lions." (Wiki)

Do you understand how literally insane this sounds?

It's also ridiculously chauvinistic to the point of being factually wrong. You - or the author of that wiki article - see acorns and oak trees, but don't give a second thought to the acorns that don't grow into trees. So you make a statement like "acorns regularly develop into oak trees," ignoring the fact that ~9,999 out of 10,000 acorns don't do this.

The order that you cite to support your claims is fictional. Your limited perspective ignores all the disorder around you, and then you make false assumptions from this about the natural world.

 

[PearlSeeker]

There is, to my knowledge, always an alternative to any teleological approach.

What alternative is there to explain "telos" (goal-directedness) in nature?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What alternative is there to explain "telos" (goal-directedness) in nature?

Hubris.

This idea of "goal-directedness in nature" seems to come from two underlying thoughts:

- when the consequence of an event is important to me, those consequences are universally significant.

- processes that don't produce results that I care about are universally insignificant.


If you're willing to just be open-minded and approach the universe as it is without imposing your own values on it, the idea of "goal-directedness" just disappears.

Edit: there's no rational way to get from "X happened" to "the universe was trying to make X happen" without bringing a whole host of assumptions into it. Those assumptions - i.e. the foundation of the idea of "goal-directedness in nature" are unnecessary.

 

[ratiocinator]

What alternative is there to explain "telos" (goal-directedness) in nature?

The "goal seeking" we see in living things is understood and explained by evolution, with no need for intelligence at all. I'm not even sure what goals you think rocks, planets, stars, and so on, have. There is certainly regularity in nature, but I see no goals.

 

[PearlSeeker]

So you make a statement like "acorns regularly develop into oak trees," ignoring the fact that ~9,999 out of 10,000 acorns don't do this.

"Regularly" doesn't mean every acorn. When acorns grow they grow into oak trees. Or do they grow into sea lions? Pointing to a goal means the goal is set (even if it's not reached).

In the OP I cited the whole summary, where the next sentence explains this:

"For example, acorns regularly develop into oak trees but never into sea lions. The oak tree is the "end" towards which the acorn "points," its disposition, even if it fails to achieve maturity."

 

[RestlessSoul]

Or they could be set by non-intelligent forces of such nature such as gravity.

But why are there natural forces, why is there order in the universe, and how and why did that order give rise to conscious observers capable of questioning it?