TELEOLOGICAL

Question 1

What are Teleological Arguments concerned with?

Answer 1

The end result of something, which in this case is the universe.

Question 2

What type of arguments are they?

Answer 2

A posteriori. Observing apparent design.

Question 3

What are the two parts of the Teleological Argument?

Answer 3

1. Design qua regularity.

2. Design qua purpose.

Question 4

What does design qua regularity mean?

Answer 4

Looks at design in relation to the order and regularity in the universe.

Question 5

What does design qua purpose mean?

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

Which of Aquinas’ Ways is the Teleological Argument?

Answer 6

Fifth.

Question 7

What does Aquinas’ Teleological Argument aim to show?

Answer 7

That the universe is being directed towards a telos.

Question 8

What is the empirical fact Aquinas begins his argument with?

Answer 8

That everything in the world is adapted to fulfil its function.

Question 9

What does Aquinas argue about us as humans being able to understand the greatness of God?

Answer 9

Although we have our everyday language to talk about God, we cannot fully understand the greatness of God because God is so perfect.

Question 10

How did Paley demonstrate design qua purpose?

Answer 10

Analogy of the watch.

Question 11

What is Paley’s analogy of the watch?

Answer 11

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’.

Question 12

What did Paley conclude?

Answer 12

That an external agent must have imposed this order on the whole universe and all of its elements and this agent is God.

Question 13

What are Hume’s two criticisms?

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

What did Hume argue about a team of lesser God’s?

Answer 14

There is nothing to suppose there is only one creator - there may be a team of lesser Gods who built the world.

Question 15

What did Mill argue against the Teleological Argument?

Answer 15

He looked at the world and the rules it went by and concluded that it was filled with cruelty, violence and unnecessary suffering.

Question 16

Why does Darwin’s theory of evolution show a weakness in the argument?

Answer 16

Shows that rather than design things are the way that they are because of evolution.

Question 17

What does Swinburne state in support of the teleological argument?

Answer 17

Accepted the Anthropic Principle and that the universe is law-governed.

Question 18

Give a weakness of the teleological argument.

Answer 18

Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Question 19

What did Aquinas use the example of an arrow to demonstrate?

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

What does Paley argue about us not being able to see the watch being made?

Answer 20

We do not have to see the watch being made in order to realise there must have been a maker.

Question 21

What is ‘Natural theology’?

Answer 21

The name given to attempts to demonstrate the existence of God.

Question 22

What can ‘Natural Theology’ direct people towards?

Answer 22

Evidence of the existence of God in the world around them.

Question 23

What did Paul write about natural theology in his letters to the Romans?

Answer 23

“God has made it plain to them.”

Question 24

What can we look at as evidence of an intelligent designer?

Answer 24

The ways in which different plants and animals have special features which adapt to their environments.

Question 25

What was a key goal for Aquinas?

Answer 25

To show how faith and reason could work alongside each other.

Question 26

What does Aquinas’ Fifth Way argue?

Answer 26

That nature seems to have an order and purpose to it.

Question 27

What did Aquinas write in Summa Theologica about knowledge?

Answer 27

“We see that things which lack knowledge.”

Question 28

What does Paley argue in Natural theology about the evidence of an intelligent designer?

Answer 28

“We have no reason to fear, therefore, our being forgotten.”

Question 29

What was Mill looking at in his criticism?

Answer 29

How nature was fundamentally flawed and what this showed about the apparent designer.

Question 30

What quotation can you use from Mill to support the flaws of the world?

Answer 30

“nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature’s everyday performances.”

Question 31

What does the design of living creatures show for Socrates?

Answer 31

Evidence of foreknowledge.

Question 32

What is Aquinas’ Archer and Arrow metaphor used for?

Answer 32

Regularity of Succession.

Question 33

What did Hume use to explain design?

Answer 33

Fallacy of Composition - treating a distributed characteristic as if it were collective.

Question 34

What theory is based on a children’s story?

Answer 34

Goldilocks principle.

Question 35

What does F.R. Tennant state about the beauty of the world?

Answer 35

Suggests that the world has been ‘fine-tuned’ to allow human life to develop (the anthropic principle).

Question 36

What does Darwinism suggest?

Answer 36

Natural selection as an alternative explanation for apparent design.

Question 37

Why did Dawkins believe the analogy of the watch was a bad one?

Answer 37

Order will be part of any world, because without it the world would not survive.