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3. THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
This is also a causal argument, and is really but an
extension of the preceding one. It may be stated in the following form: The world everywhere
reveals intelligence, order, harmony, and purpose, and thus implies the existence of an
intelligent and purposeful being, adequate to the production of such a world. Kant regards this
argument as the best of the three which were named, but claims that it does not prove the
existence of God, nor of a Creator, but only of a great architect who fashioned the world. It is
superior to the cosmological argument in that it makes explicit what is not stated in the latter,
namely, that the world contains evidences of intelligence and purpose, and thus leads on to the
existence of a conscious, and intelligent, and purposeful being. That this being was the Creator
of the world does not necessarily follow. “The teleological evidence,” says Wright,[A Student’s
Philosophy of Religion, p. 341.] “merely indicates the probable existence of a Mind that is, at
least in considerable measure, in control of the world process, — enough to account for the
amount of teleology apparent in it.” Hegel treated this argument as a valid but subordinate
one. The Social Theologians of our day reject it along with all the other arguments as so much
rubbish, but the New Theists retain it.
4. THE MORAL ARGUMENT.
Just as the other arguments, this too assumed different forms.
Kant took his startingpoint in the categorical imperative, and from it inferred the existence of
someone who, as lawgiver and judge, has the absolute right to command man. In his estimation
this argument is far superior to any of the others. It is the one on which he mainly relies in his
attempt to prove the existence of God. This may be one of the reasons why it is more generally
recognized than any other, though it is not always cast into the same form. Some argue from
the disparity often observed between the moral conduct of men and the prosperity which they
enjoy in the present life, and feel that this calls for an adjustment in the future which, in turn,
requires a righteous arbiter. Modern theology also uses it extensively, especially in the form
that man’s recognition of a Highest Good and his quest for a moral ideal demand and
necessitate the existence of a God to give reality to that ideal. While this argument does point
to the existence of a holy and just being, it does not compel belief in a God, a Creator, or a
being of infinite perfections.
5. THE HISTORICAL OR ETHNOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
In the main this takes the following form:
Among all the peoples and tribes of the earth there is a sense of the divine, which reveals itself
in an external cultus. Since the phenomenon is universal, it must belong to the very nature of
man. And if the nature of man naturally leads to religious worship, this can only find its
explanation in a higher Being who has constituted man a religious being. In answer to this
argument, however, it may be said that this universal phenomenon may have originated in an
error or misunderstanding of one of the early progenitors of the human race, and that the