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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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The design argument in theology is often immediately
identified with the “argument from design,” i.e., the
argument that from evidences of intelligent planning
found in the world one may reasonably infer the exist-
ence of a purposeful Intelligence responsible for the
world. Logically, however, the full design argument
(or teleological argument) must be seen as more com-
plex in structure, since the argument from design itself
rests on the controversial premiss that there are sig-
nificant similarities between objects in nature (or nature
taken as a whole), on the one hand, and objects intelli-
gently contrived by man for some purpose, on the
other. Only after somehow supporting this preliminary
analogical basis, which, if formalized, amounts to an
“argument to (not from) design,” can one properly
even begin to move on “from” design to invoke the
theoretical need for a deity as cosmic Designer. His-
torically both aspects have appeared in theological
speculation, although more explicit attention has usu-
ally been paid to the move from apparently purposeful
natural phenomena to a divine Purposer than to the
logically prior question of the actual presence of pur-
poseful design in nature.