Arguments For The Existence Of God: William Paley’s Design Argument

Question 1

What is Paley’s design qua purpose?

Answer 1

A concept that argues the combination of complexity and purpose of natural objects and beings is best explained by an intelligent designer.

Question 2

What is Paley’s famous analogy to illustrate the concept of design qua purpose?

Answer 2

The Watch & Watchmaker Analogy

If you came across a watch, rather than a rock, on a heath, you would assume it had a designer.
The intricate formed parts to produce a motion and a purpose - could’ve have come about by chance or been there forever.
The watch has complexity & purpose.

Question 3

Paley

Answer 3

“Every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature.”

Question 4

What are the other analogies that is pointed out to illustrate Paley’s argument?

Answer 4

Th human eye, wings of a bird, fins of a fish.

• Examples of complexity fitted together to perform a purpose.

Question 5

What does Swineburne claim that arguments by analogy are?

Answer 5

He claims arguments by analogy are ‘common in scientific interference’.

Question 6

What is Hume’s objection to analogy in the design argument?

Answer 6

“Like effects do not always have like causes”

He argues it doesn’t follow, from the similarity of the two effects, that they must’ve had similar causes.

It doesn’t follow that the cause of the universe must be like the cause of a house/watch (man made effect), a designer.

Question 7

“Is there any basis for he inference to an intelligent designer”

Answer 7

J. Hick
Philosophy of Religion

Question 8

What does Hick suggest about the nature of the universe and how it came about?

Answer 8

That order was inevitable & it would eventually emerge from the constantly changing arrangements of atoms.

& that the universe goes in and out of periods of chaos and order, only by chance is our existence in a period of order.

Question 9

“But inspect a little more narrowly these living creatures…How hostile and destructive to each other!”

Answer 9

D. Hume

Is the universe that ordered?

Question 10

T/F
1. Paley’s argument is not inductive.
2. Paley uses an analogy of an eye to support his argument.
3. Natural theology is based on facts, special or divine revelations & experience.

Answer 10

1. F - it uses an analogy.
2. T - how superbly it is adapted for vision.
3. F - excludes special/divine revelations.

Question 11

Short answer Q’s
1. What are the three observations of the world Paley bases his argument on?
2. What approach was used in Paley’s argument?
4. Why is Paley’s argument teleological?

Answer 11

1. Complexity, Regularity & Purpose.
2. Natural theology - hence the name of his book Natural Theology (1802).
3. ‘A posteriori’ describes knowledge based on experience or observation (empirical evidence).
4. Because the purpose of the world is heavily considered.