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Conclusion: From Teleology to Theology, and Back Again

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Abstract

This brief concluding chapter looks back on the results of the previous chapters, and reflects on how they might be further developed within a wider theology of nature. Some would see the development of a new philosophical design argument that is compatible with evolution as a boon, but others would see it as removing the question of design from the knowable realm studied by the sciences to the murky realm of metaphysics. However, as long as the thesis of scientism, the idea that the sciences are the only or always the best way to gain knowledge, is rejected, then it seems that understanding the design argument as a philosophical argument should not yet imply its irrationality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Quoted in Murray (2011, 3, 145).

  2. 2.

    Adam 483. Quoted in Zagzebski (2012, 116).

  3. 3.

    Quoted in Pearcey (1998, 84).

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Correspondence to E. V. R. Kojonen .

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Kojonen, E.V.R. (2021). Conclusion: From Teleology to Theology, and Back Again. In: The Compatibility of Evolution and Design. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69683-2_6

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