Interesting to note after over 600 pages you have at last acknowledged teleology has a [infinite] regress problem. Nevertheless there is a particularly and exceptionally nasty infinite regress problem, unavoidably embedded by teleology's very own definition, that is not present elsewhere. As teleology is in actuality a philosophy and not scientifically based, it takes only the simple counter view of uncaused cause to defeat ID/Creationism/Teleology's inelegant idea completely. An uncaused Universe has neither a problem of existence nor infinite regress, and has the advantage of a scientific basis . ID/Creationism/Teleology are as a fact , constrained by their own pre-conclusion of cause by definition. They are all the same fake argument, pretending to be looking for cause, while blind siding the question begging of... what then... caused the cause.
Quotes by Tele: It's unclear to me why infinite regress is a problem Really, still? There are some respected theorists who posit multiple universes - even an infinite number. that does not mean one causes another. Therefore, the intelligence that designed life on earth Hold it !!!! What is that "intelligence that designed life on earth" exactly? That pretend make-believe intelligence of ID/Creationism ? may itself have been designed earlier by an intelligence that came from one of those "multiple universes." you are suggesting intelligence needs intelligence to design intelligence. You still don't see the infinite regress problem ... Honestly?? It in turn may have been designed by another intelligence, ad infinitum. which makes intelligence no more than a cause which itself needs a cause. A particularly unnatractive facet of ID/Creationism/Teleology, makes a rather ridiculous suggestion itself , that as intelligence is required to cause , so at each level , intelligence is having to be more intelligent than the previous in order to cause it. The Alice in Wonderland of cleverer and cleverer...
I see you once again using narrow definitions to serve your athestic driven purpose. Causation is not the same as an intent to cause. We see a car crash into a building killing someone inside. We may say the car striking the person was the cause of death at a functional level, but we don't say the car is what caused the death, we usually place the real cause of death on the driver of the car, the one who possessed intention. The car is without intention, without cause, simply a mechanical function. Causation without intention, design without intention is actually the position of the atheist as they argue against God, however theses atheists incorrectly assume that creation by God must be with intention, as they are drawing on their own human experience of action or creation always with intention as the driver of their actions. Behind every human action is a desire, and every desire is born of a condition in which something is missing, something is not complete. The motivation of man is desire, where God is desire-less by nature. So why does God act? Why does God create? God doesn't act on intentions to fulfill any desire. That is impossible. God by definition is complete, pure bliss, without desire, without cause, without intention, without motive. There is only God and God's own nature to create, no intention to create involved, no desire to be fulfilled. There is no creation for a purpose of fulfillment of any desire, there is only God and God's own nature, and God's own nature is to create. God creates and designs by virtue of God's nature alone... There is no purpose in the actions of God the way we define purpose, as purpose is a means to an end, and God which is beyond beginning or end, would only be action on His own nature, not attempting to fill any purpose. As is always the case, the atheist argues from the level of his own experience as an incomplete being, and then projects that incompleteness onto their concept of God. It would be as if a part were thinking about what it would like to be a whole value rather than a fractional value by imagining just being a bigger part, a bigger fraction...but would never have the experience of a whole value.
Of course, however the force we call Nature is simply an expressed power of God, not separate from God, a nature of God, an agent of God's own nature...we can imagine the end of Nature as we can imagine an end to the physical world, but it is logically impossible to imagine that there is not a totality. The totality of all being God by definition. A completely empty condition is still a totality just as much as a completely full condition is a totality. God is empty of any desire, because God is complete. Nature is just an expression of an aspect of God's nature. Nature is complete, but is like an infinite set, an infinite set being complete in itself, yet limited by the fact that it is not a totality. Infinity as we understand it is defined, can be defines, and thus and has boundaries. An infinite set can be bracketed, can be thought of as separate from different infinite sets. God cannot be bracketed, as there is nothing outside of God to create brackets to define God as separate from something else. What you will fail to grasp, or are too stubborn to admit is that every aspect and every power of God is whole and complete in itself, just as nature is whole and complete and doesn't need anything else...at the same time that nature is both whole and complete, it is just a power of God, not the totality of God. We as humans can't actually understand what being complete is, because our nature itself is not complete as we experience separation from God, separation from completeness, and we desire more and more, we desire to be complete, we actually desire to be one with God, even if a person is an atheist, he desires to be complete, and God is complete. By the way, my ID is not creationism.