Design argument Flashcards
What is the philosophical categorization of the design argument?
A posteriori and inductive.
How does the design argument prove god?
Order and purpose evident within the universe show that the universe is more then likely to have been created by an intelligent being.
What is paley’s analogy of the watch?
If you walked upon a heath and found a rock, you would not question how it got there, but if you found a watch, you would question what it was doing there as it is clear the watch was designed and has a purpose.
What does the watch analogy prove?
Design qua purpose- in the same way the watch has purpose, things within the universe appear to have purpose. Deign qua regularity- in the same way that the watch has regular mechanisms and workings, the universe appears regular and ordered. The watch has a watchmaker, so the universe must have a universe maker- god.
What is aquinas’ 5th way?
The grand designer- within the universe, unintelligent life seems to move towards some sort of end goal- an acorn will always grow into an oak and not a beech, this couldn’t happen without an intelligent designer to move beings from their state of potentiality to actuality.
What analogy does aquinas use in his 5th way?
The arrow and the archer, without the archer to guide it toward its purpose, the arrow is just a piece of wood. The same is true for unintelligent life which needs god to guide it toward its purpose.
Give four of Hume’s criticisms from ‘dialogues on natural religion’
- You can know nothing about cause from effect, just because the universe has things within it that have been designed, does not mean it has. 2. We have experience of watches being made, but not of universes, so can say nothing meaningful about it. 3. Like causes create like effects, would it not be more logical to posit a male and female creator god? 4. The analogy is stronger the more alike the two things are, the natural universe is nothing like the mechanical watch, it would be better to compare it to something else natural like a carrot.
How does Swinburne argue for design?
Using Ockham’s razor he argued from probability, when joined with the other arguments for god’s existence, the design argument significantly raises its likelihood.
Explain ‘regularities of co presence’
- Swinburne accepts evolution as the cause of complexity in the world, but argues that it follows particular laws to take place. 2. To survive, organisms have to exhibit spatial order. 3. Nature acts as a human making machine, we in turn produce machines that produce more machines. 4. In the same way that there is a creator of machines, there is a creator of nature- god.
Explain ‘regularities of succession’
- There is temporal order in the world, the laws of nature are so absolute that we can use them to predict the future. 2. The best explanation for this is an intelligent designer, human consciousness, intelligence and questioning are best explained by a god who created us with free will though a long process of evolution.
What is Tennant’s anthropic principle?
Goldilocks principle- the conditions for the creation of the universe were so perfect to create our universe, yet the chances of this happening by chance are so low, this and the balance of forces within the universe are best explained by an intelligent designer.
What is the difference between the strong and weak anthropic principles?
Weak- because we are here, the universe must have the properties necessary for human life. Strong- it was necessary for the universe to have the properties it did, it was intelligently constructed and couldn’t have come about in any other way.
What is the difference between theism and deism?
Theism- god interacts with us personally. Deism- god finely tuned the world and left it to operate and evolve for itself.
What is an abductive argument?
Reasoning which produces a hypothesis from observation using the simplest/most likely explanation, used by Tennant and Swinburne.
Give three points against the anthropic principle
- Assumes humans are so special that the whole of creation was leading up to them- any successful species would assume this. 2. Order is in the eye of the beholder, the way that planets drift, collide and die could be seen as pointless. We may be seeing order where there is none. 3. Was it necessary to have billions of years of experimentation just to create humans?
