Arguments based on reason: teleological Flashcards
Introduction
Posterior and inductive argument for the existence of God that was developed by Wiliam Paley and Aquinas.
Follows the line of thinking that the only reason there
is order and such complexity in the world is that God must have designed it with purpose in mind.
When the patterns and order throughout the universe are considered it is easy to understand the jump to believing the universe must have a purpose and thus was designed by a higher being.
The only being we know powerful enough to do this is God.
Aquinas’ fifth way: design
He presented his own form of the teleological argument in his five ways.
His fifth ‘way’ postulated that the whole of nature ( which works in harmony), points towards a grand designer. His argument can be broken down:
- we see that things that lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end; they achieve their end not by chance but by design.
- Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end unless it be directed toward that end by some being with knowledge and intelligent just as an arrow is directed by the archer.
- Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end;
- This being we call God
William Paley
English clergyman and philosopher (1743-1805) came up with arguably the most famous support for the teleological argument: Paley’s watch theory
Theory based around the logic of analogy. Uses inductive logic and argues that the world is similar to the design of a pocket watch; with its intricate workings the world could not just appear.
Everything within a watch works together so perfectly each tiny piece is an important part of the process. The watch had to have had an intelligent designer, someone who put all the mechanisms together.
Thus, he argued the world must have had an intelligent designer too. It is not possible for the world to just appear on its own, working the way it does with all it’s complexity and purpose.
What three observations is Paley’s argument based on?
- complexity: He goes into great detail concerning his observations about the complexity of the natural world. looks especially at the complexity of biological organisms and organs such as the eye. He also looks at the complexity of the laws of nature by which everything is governed.
- Regularity: He observes in particular the regularity of the orbits of comets, moons and planets and the regularity of the seasons of the year.
- Purpose: Observes that the machines we make are built for a purpose. The complexity and regularity of a watch implies it has a purpose, even if we don’t know what it is. our observation of the complexity and regularity of the world therefore implies that the world too has a purpose.
Criticisms and objections of the teleological argument
- Hume:
FROM ANALOGY: questioned success of analogy stated human inventions cannot be compared to living things. living things are organic in nature whereas man-made machines are mechanistic. Therefore safe conclusions cannot be drawn because analogies between the way the universe works and the way machines work are unsound.
FROM DESIGN: accepted the argument did have some merit and that there was evidence for order and design in the world. Even if we grant this there is no evidence that this was the god of christian theism. A lesser being could have designed the universe. Hume is using one of his guiding principles here : that a cause must be proportional to its effect. design is normally a feature of teamwork so no obvi reason to assume whoever designed this universe did it alone.
-(scale example)
FROM THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL: the existence of evil and imperfections in the world suggests a limited designer. He noted that Epicurus’ questions about the ‘inconsistent triad’ are still unanswered. The inconsistent triad refers to three statements about evil that Epicurus thought were inconsistent with each other.Hume comments: “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able,
but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”
DAWKINS:
FROM THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL: He argues that the universe is too disordered to have been intelligently designed. In his book ‘the blind watchmaker’ (1986) he stated that if there was a God then God must be blind as there is too much suffering that occurs in the world. Therefore if there was a designer they can’t be though of as intelligent if they cannot separate people from diseases or allow natural disasters.
Strengths and support of the teleological argument
- SWINBURN
THE SIMPLEST EXPLANATION: paley may be right to argue that the designer is the all-powerful christian God because this is the simplest explanation. He claims against Hume that the existence of an all-powerful God is simpler and therefore a better explanation of the appearance design of the universe.
He argues “simplicity is always the evidence for truth” - PALEY:
EVIL IS NECESSARY: argued evil may be unavoidable in order for the God to bring about good. This can be supported through:
- the free will defence: Freedom to choose between the highest goods and the highest evils means that there must be such goods and evils in the world
- The vale of soul making: Hick argues that evil is ‘soul-making’ because without evil we could never learn to love the good and that we wouldn’t develop as individuals. - F.R. TENNENT:
THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE: also known as the goldilocks principle. based up on the idea that everything is ‘just right’ for human development. e.g the way which gravity works and the earths climate. The world is so perfect for human life it could not have been an accident. Exact conditions for human life are so improbable that someone must have designed the world exactly to meet our needs. Thus he argues that only an intelligent designer could have created a universe so suited to human development, so God must exist as he is the only being capable of doing so.
