Summing up the previous article, what it intends to say is that "evidence" is semiotic, which is to say it is one thing pointing to or speaking of another. For example, the "smoking gun" points to the killer, but is not the killer himself. That being the case, the atheist's demand for "evidence" commits them to certain assumptions, specifically the intelligibility of the universe. In other words, if God exists, then something about the universe ought to point to God's existence, without it itself being God.
Now, the intelligibility of the universe - the intelligibility itself - points to an ordering principle that makes the universe intelligible. At a fundamental level, something about the universe coordinates with intelligibility, coherence, order. This ordering principle is what is termed Logos in Christian philosophical theology (and although Logos is much more than merely a principle, it is at least a principle). Therefore, the intelligibility of the universe implies Logos, i.e. God. The dilemma this presents to the atheist is that for the atheist to attack the intelligibility of the universe as evidence of an ordering principle, which is to say Logos, would be for him to attack the principle by which scientific inquiry proceeds. Either he admits Logos, and therefore God, and proceeds with scientific inquiry, or he denies the Logos and therefore science, since science proceeds as a consequence of the principle of intelligibility, which is to say the Logos, which is presupposed in all rational empirical inquiry.
Moving forward, and regarding the order in the universe signifying the Logos, an objection based on multiverses would not be sustainable. Multiverses don't help the atheist, rather the multiverse proposal would merely kick the can down the road. In the argument from semiosis, a multiverse theory would not work since the mathematics which seeks to justify such a theoretical construct necessitates that the mathematical laws imply an overarching integrating principle (i.e. Logos) which would make such transuniversal calculations and conclusions possible. In other words, not only are such mathematical laws not empirical, but themselves point to Logos.
Regarding a comparison with the teleological argument, it would also be fitting to distinguish the semiological argument from the teleological argument in that atheists will typically object to telos in nature, whether biological or otherwise, but they cannot object to order in nature, or its significance, lest they deny the possibility of scientific inquiry. It does not seem that chaos would be a strong objection here, either, in that entropy is a scientifically intelligible phenomenon, and is even a field of study in science, having laws of entropy which govern such phenomena. Such laws, then, again signify Logos.
The semiotic nature of the empirical thus seems to be a key aspect of the argument, for it means that the atheist is already using the material of the universe to point to something that is not immediately empirical, thus putting a wedge in their empiricism, a wedge between what they see and the laws that they infer from what they see, a gap that gives room for the theist to accuse them of inconsistency if they finally attempt to deny Logos.
-Fr. Joshua Schooping
