Metaphysics of god - Teleological Argument Flashcards
What is the teleological argument?
AKA the desgin argument. Aims to prove the existence of god based off the design of the natural world being so intricate and full of order and purpose, it must have a designer, that designer being god.
What’s Paley’s design argument from spatial order/purpose?
Paley imagines himself walking along some grass and passing two objects - a rock and a watch.
He asks both times how these objects got there and concludes the rock came from nature and could’ve been there forever.
But he notices the watch has such a complex design that reaches a specific purpose, it must’ve been made by someone with knowledge and not nature.
Our world is more complex and intricate than this watch, so it also must have a designer as it couldn’t have come about naturally.
what’s paleys argument from regularity of the universe?
Our universe is so perfectly ordered and fine-tuned it couldnt have come about by chance e.g if earth was slightly closer to the sun we wouldnt be able to exist or if gravity was slightly weaker the universe wouldnt exist. This must’ve been calculated by an intelligent being to design such regularity and perfection for existence. This intelligent designer must be God.
What is the problem with Paley’s analogy based on Darwin’s evolution?
Theory of evolution of complex organisms suggets things being perfectly fit for a purpose can come from nature. Over the years, these adaptations and advantages become so advanced in response to changing enironments, itll eventually produce a feature that is so perfect it seems to have been designed, but is instead just necessity.
Darwin’s evolution example
Giraffes having long necks can be explaied without a designer - genetic mutation cause giraffe to have a neck 1cm longer than the others, thus it reaches the most food and likely to survive and produce offspring, reproduces giraffes that also have longer necks - repeat this until you have giraffes now with long necks.
What is Hume’s teleological argument? - argument from analogy
cleanthes
posteriori argument for existence of an intelligent designer- Fitting of means to an ends in human design (fittings the parts of a watch to tell the time) is similar to fitting of means to an end in the natural design (fittings of parts of an eye to see)
Similiar effects have similar causes
The causes of human design are done by intelligent minds
Therefore, the cause of design in nature is also an intelligent mind
What’s Hume’s argument against analogy?
philo
As Philo, points out the problems between the design of human made objects and nature. We have no experience of the universe or things in nature being designed by minds like we do with human made objects. we cant make big generalisations such as the universe being designed simply based on the design of a human eye (a very small fraction of human design) and so little to conclude there’s a universe designer.
Humes argument against analogy - What does the universe more resemble?
Human made objects have a clear design and purpose (watches) - biological things like vegetables and plants are results of vegetation and have more organic causes. Using analogy, the universe is better compared to the unconciousness process of generation rather than the design of a mind.
Whats humes argument against spatial order? - Spacial disorder
despite the perfection of spatial order, there’s also faults, flaws and disorder in the world that, if God did actually design the world, wouldnt exist.
If there is a designer, then it must not be omnibenevolent or omnipotent if such disorder was designed within the world, suggesting its not God.
Hume’s disorder argument - what are some examples of disorder?
inhabitable or empty spaces in the universe - these things don’t have a purpose, perhaps our world (a small fraction of the universe) just happened to have such order/purpose.
Natural disasters, hurricanes etc, are causes of destruction and chaos, suggesting the designer isnt good.
Animals and humans have bodies that suffer pain and illness suggests the desiger isnt that loving.
Whats humes argument of causation?
It takes many instances (constant conjuction) of an event following another to know that one thing causes the other (e.g you infer causation through being told that if you hit one pool ball against another one, it’ll make it move and you can observe this multiple times without fail to know this is true.) Constrast this with something that happens once - hearing someone sneeze when you sip a drink. This doesnt mean everytime you sip a drink, someone will sneeze. You can’t infer causation from a single instance.
Humes causation argument applied to teleological arguments
the creation of the universe only happened once and can’t be witnessed again. Knowing that to have knowledge of causation we have to have multiple instances, we can’t link the creation of the universe with a designer off the one instance it was created - no one witnessed it either.
Swineburne’s argument from design - what are spatial order and temporal order?
Spatial order - laws that exist in nature e.g the eye being perfectly adapted to see things
Temporal order - Law of nature e.g forces of nature like gravity being perfectly formed for sustaining life.
What’s swineburnes argument of design?
(temporal order)
Swineburne can accept that evolution explains how complexity can arise from nature without a designer however we cant explain temporal order in the same way. Unlike spatial order, they cant be given scientific explainations as to why they are the way they are, only assume. With the absence of this scientific knowledge, the best example for temporal order is a personal one. We apply person reasoning everyday (the building is there because someone built it) So by analogy we can explain the laws of nature are the way they are because they were designed and that is god.
swineburns desgin argument - what are examples of temporal order?
Law of gravity is so specific to sustainting life - it allows galaxies to form, then planets and then life. If gravity was a little stronger, planets wouldnt form. How do we explain how this law of nature is like this?
