Introduction

I have been asked to survey the history of the argument from design. This presents something of a challenge since the argument from design has a long and winding road with many interesting turns and occasional "dead end" signs along the way. In this brief time we will have to content ourselves with an aerial survey of the landscape it has traveled. But perhaps even that will be instructive for our purposes. I will move chronologically through its formulations, challenges and reformulations up to its contemporary forms. Concluding comments will ask what is at stake theologically in this whole effort.

The argument from design should be distinguished from its close relative, the cosmological argument. Why is there something and not nothing? The existence of the cosmos as a whole is contingent it is not self-explanatory, it does not by careful examination reveal to us its own necessity. An argument for the existence of God may be posed on the ground that something exists.

The argument from design works from what exists. The world evidences order, adaptation, directionality - design. Therefore it is argued an intelligent designer must have brought it into being. This argument gets the name teleological from the Greek word telos that means "end" or "goal". Teleological order entails the notion that processes or structures are fitted to bring about certain results - in that sense "designed." (Alston 1967, p. 84).

Contributed by: Dr. Anna Case-Winters