Teleological argument

[CJK]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

• 1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
  2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
  3. God is that intelligent being.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

[Curious]

It could work for a watch but then all watchmakers would be considered as gods since no definition of god has been put forward in the argument other than the ability to make a complex thing (ie. a watch). If the watch exists then the watchmaker must also exist. Proving the watch could not be made naturally would be considerably harder than actually finding the watchmaker who would admit to making the watch.

I believe you are refering to William Paley's analogy. The one problem here is that your observation is irrelevant to the conclusion. I look at a mechanical pen and state that it is complex. So what? It sounds like your using Okham's Razor to get an easier answer to the problem of complexity. Then again, anyone can use Okham's Razor as they wish if you think about it.

The very first step of the proof is an assumption that has no evidence or real logic behind it. Why is it too complex? Since this question cannot be answered the rest fails. And even if it did, step four makes another disastrous assumption that God is this intelligence. Why not other intelligent life forms? Aliens could be smarter than us but you would never hear an ID advocate admit that this could be the designer.

My point here was not to support the theory of intelligent design, but the contrary. The initial argument assumed that there was a level of complexity unattainable in nature. I give the watch as an example that could, given our current understanding of science, be attributable to intelligent design. Given our current understanding, the universe leads to no such obvious conclusion. If it is unknowable whether an object is naturally evolved or intelligently designed, then it would seem sensible to at least attempt to ascertain if such a designer might exist and if so then question him about it. In other words, if God created the universe, then it would be easier to find proof of this (at least on a subjective level) than to attempt to prove that the universe is unevolvable through purely natural processes.
Having said that, even if the watch was deemed to be unevolvable by purely random or naturalistic processes, that does not discount the possibility of these processes producing an entity with a sufficient understanding of geometry to invent a watch itself. If nature at least starts the process, then the possibilities are endless. Even impossibly complex systems could be created in theory.