¹ See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design (accessed 13 September 2013).

² Even in more academic circles this association is often taken as read. See, Shanks, Niall, God, The Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2004), 24ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reville, William, “Intelligent Design,”Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 96 no. 383, 257–270Google Scholar.

³ Dembski, William A., The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Behe, Michael, Darwin's Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), 42ffGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Cf. Kenneth R. Miller, “The Flaw in the Mousetrap: Intelligent Design Fails the Biochemistry Test,” Natural History Magazine, April 2002.

⁶ Cf. International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship, §70.

⁷ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I 2.3.

⁸ The alternative would be that the final cause pre-exists in some Platonic form or in a human or angelic intellect. A human or angelic intellect will not suffice because whatever determines the innate goal of a thing (as the Fifth Way intelligence clearly does) is the efficient cause of the thing itself. But only that which is itself Being (i.e. God) can be the efficient cause of the existence of something (Cf. Aquinas, Disputed Questions on the Power of God, q.III a.4). Moreover, if the intelligence were only a higher intelligence and not self-subsisting being, this intelligence would have potency and hence would itself have a final cause that it would need to be moved to by another (since nothing reduces itself from potency to act). So either way, the existence of final causality would lead us back to God. Positing of a Platonic Form, such as the ideal apple existing independent of any mind and guiding the development of the apple tree is problematic for reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay (cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Metaphysics, Book I, Lesson xiv).

⁹ Edward Feser, Aquinas (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009), 113. Cf. Crean, Thomas, God is no Delusion (San Francisco, Ignatius, 2007), 46Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The probabilistic character of design arguments is evident from what Alvin Plantinga (a champion of Intelligent Design) writes when he considers the possibility of the evolution of an eye by natural selection: “assuming that it is biologically possible, furthermore, we don't know that it is not prohibitively improbable (in the statistical sense), given the time available . . . that it is possible is clear; that it happened is doubtful; that it is certain, however, is ridiculous” (cf. “When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible,” Christian Scholar's Review 21:1 [September 1991]: 24Google Scholar).

¹¹ International Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, “Design Arguments for the Existence of God,” http://www.iep.utm.edu/design/ (accessed 5 September 2013). The same misconception is repeated when The Tablet assures us that “[i]t is this line of argument [Aquinas's Fifth Way] which is most damaged by the theory of evolution by natural selection” (see, http://www.thetablet.co.uk/page3.php?page=arguments-design-aquinas, accessed 17 September 2013).

¹² Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I 22.2 ad1.

¹³ Such a premise can be seen in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica entry for “evolution.” This states that “Darwin did two things: he showed that evolution was a fact contradicting scriptural legends of creation and that its cause, natural selection, was automatic with no room for guidance or design.” Quoted by Carroll, William E. in “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas,” Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 171 (4) 2000: 319–347Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I 22.4 ad1.

¹⁵ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I 75.4 ad2

¹⁶ It is worth noting that the rejection of formal and final causality that is inherent to the Intelligent Design approach has dramatic consequences in the realm of ethics since it makes an appeal to natural law as the standard of human morality impossible. This is because natural law starts from the premise that there is such a thing as human nature and that this nature has an inbuilt teleology against which actions can be judged as good or evil. Seen in this light, were Intelligent Design arguments to win the battle against their materialist adversaries this ‘victory’ would come at an intolerable cost.

¹⁷ Martin, C. F. J., Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I q.3 a.4.

¹⁹ Schönborn, Christoph Cardinal, Chance or Purpose: Creation, Evolution, and Rational Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 49Google Scholar.

²⁰ Phillip E. Johnson, one of the founders of the Intelligent Design movement accuses Christian Darwinists (who believe God's job is just to provide the material for evolution to shape) of exiling God “to the shadowy realm before the Big Bang.” However, as I have explained, it is hard to see how intelligent design does not likewise lead to some form of deism (cf. Howard J. Van Till/Phillip E. Johnson “God and Evolution: An Exchange,” First Things June 1993 http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/09/004-god-and-evolution-an-exchange-37). See, also: Avery Cardinal Dulles, “God and Evolution,” First Things, October 2007.

²¹ Edward Feser, “The Trouble with William Paley,” http://edwardfeser.blogspot.co.at/2009/11/trouble-with-william-paley.html (accessed 12 September 2013).

²² Martin, Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations, 182.

²³ See, Harris, Sam, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (London: Simon & Schuster, 2004)Google Scholar; Dennett, Daniel, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, (London: Penguin, 2006)Google Scholar; Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion (London: Black Swan, 2006)Google Scholar.