TELEOLOGICAL Flashcards
What are Teleological Arguments concerned with?
The end result of something, which in this case is the universe.
What type of arguments are they?
A posteriori. Observing apparent design.
What are the two parts of the Teleological Argument?
- Design qua regularity.
2. Design qua purpose.
What does design qua regularity mean?
Looks at design in relation to the order and regularity in the universe.
What does design qua purpose mean?
Looks at the evidence of design in relation to the ways in which the parts of the universe appear to fit together for some purpose.
Which of Aquinas’ Ways is the Teleological Argument?
Fifth.
What does Aquinas’ Teleological Argument aim to show?
That the universe is being directed towards a telos.
What is the empirical fact Aquinas begins his argument with?
That everything in the world is adapted to fulfil its function.
What does Aquinas argue about us as humans being able to understand the greatness of God?
Although we have our everyday language to talk about God, we cannot fully understand the greatness of God because God is so perfect.
How did Paley demonstrate design qua purpose?
Analogy of the watch.
What is Paley’s analogy of the watch?
A man stumbles across a watch on a heath. He concludes that its purpose is to measure time. Due to the complexities of the watch, it had to have come about with the help of a ‘watch maker’.
What did Paley conclude?
That an external agent must have imposed this order on the whole universe and all of its elements and this agent is God.
What are Hume’s two criticisms?
1) To speak of design is to imply a designer.
2) The world is ordered, though it is very possible it came about by chance.
What did Hume argue about a team of lesser God’s?
There is nothing to suppose there is only one creator - there may be a team of lesser Gods who built the world.
What did Mill argue against the Teleological Argument?
He looked at the world and the rules it went by and concluded that it was filled with cruelty, violence and unnecessary suffering.
Why does Darwin’s theory of evolution show a weakness in the argument?
Shows that rather than design things are the way that they are because of evolution.
What does Swinburne state in support of the teleological argument?
Accepted the Anthropic Principle and that the universe is law-governed.
Give a weakness of the teleological argument.
Darwin’s theory of evolution.
What did Aquinas use the example of an arrow to demonstrate?
If we saw an arrow flying towards a target, we would know that someone must have aimed and fired it. Everything in nature is moving towards a goal by God.
What does Paley argue about us not being able to see the watch being made?
We do not have to see the watch being made in order to realise there must have been a maker.
What is ‘Natural theology’?
The name given to attempts to demonstrate the existence of God.
What can ‘Natural Theology’ direct people towards?
Evidence of the existence of God in the world around them.
What did Paul write about natural theology in his letters to the Romans?
“God has made it plain to them.”
What can we look at as evidence of an intelligent designer?
The ways in which different plants and animals have special features which adapt to their environments.
What was a key goal for Aquinas?
To show how faith and reason could work alongside each other.
What does Aquinas’ Fifth Way argue?
That nature seems to have an order and purpose to it.
What did Aquinas write in Summa Theologica about knowledge?
“We see that things which lack knowledge.”
What does Paley argue in Natural theology about the evidence of an intelligent designer?
“We have no reason to fear, therefore, our being forgotten.”
What was Mill looking at in his criticism?
How nature was fundamentally flawed and what this showed about the apparent designer.
What quotation can you use from Mill to support the flaws of the world?
“nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature’s everyday performances.”
What does the design of living creatures show for Socrates?
Evidence of foreknowledge.
What is Aquinas’ Archer and Arrow metaphor used for?
Regularity of Succession.
What did Hume use to explain design?
Fallacy of Composition - treating a distributed characteristic as if it were collective.
What theory is based on a children’s story?
Goldilocks principle.
What does F.R. Tennant state about the beauty of the world?
Suggests that the world has been ‘fine-tuned’ to allow human life to develop (the anthropic principle).
What does Darwinism suggest?
Natural selection as an alternative explanation for apparent design.
Why did Dawkins believe the analogy of the watch was a bad one?
Order will be part of any world, because without it the world would not survive.
