Teleological Argument Flashcards
What are Hume’s criticisms of Aquinas’ argument?
The archer analogy is a weak bridge analogy
Great ship analogy -> may have many generations of trial and error. Could have also been the product of many hands. No evidence for the unity of the deity.
Why must there be a single ultimate cause? -> effects we observe in nature may be a cause of a wide variety of causes. Such as natural selection
HOWEVER: Swinburne said this is making it too complex, Occam’s razor-> can’t be applied to the universe though, could be many gods
Who thought that the universe was too complex and ordered to be random and lucky?
William Paley
What was Swinburne’s cumulative argument?
1) probability: theism is more probable than not, enhanced by evidence of design
2) providence: everything that we need to survive is provided for us in the universe, this suggests a provider and doesn’t reject the Big Bang theory
3) beauty/aesthetic argument: not necessary for our survival but exists anyway. Side effect of our capacity to think, this is evolutionary.
Describe the analogy of the archer
The archer must direct the non sentient object (arrow) towards the target (goal/purpose)
What was William Paley’s design argument?
Focused on purpose. Watch analogy-> a watch has a telos (purpose), therefore it must have had an artificer (intelligent designer) otherwise known as a watchmaker.
“Ordered (placed) to achieve a purpose”
All the parts of the watch must be working for it to work as a whole
Eye -> eye is very complex, needed an artificer
What book did Paley write?
Natural theology, 1802
Who challenged the design argument?
H
How was the teleological argument criticised?
If a house is faulty, can we blame the designer? -> Paley rejects this as he wasn’t concerned with the quality of design.
Poor use of analogies -> circulatory systems
Nothing to compare the universe too
How did Mill criticise Aquinas?
God wouldn’t be a nice governor. Why do we have bad things in the world if God is perfect?
Nature brutally kills us, OMNIBENEVOLENT????
Steven Fry would support
Female digger wasp lays eggs in a caterpillar, only paralyses doesn’t kill it
How does Richard Dawkins ‘blind watchmaker’ criticise Paley
If there was a watch maker, he would be blind, there are too many random occurrences
How does Darwin criticise Aquinas and Swinburne
Providence fails - world hunger, never enough food to go round
Survival of the fittest- Why should we have to compete to survive from a perfect God?
What does apogee mean?
We were created to do more than survive, supports the aesthetic argument
What was aquinas’ fifth way, briefly explain it
Argument on governance: if an object has been designed, it must have a purpose. When we observe a posteriori, we notice there are natural laws that everything in the universe follows. Following them leads to specific and unavoidable consequences (regularity of succession)
Not everything that follows them are sentient e.g. Salmon swimming up stream, therefore something must direct them. Aquinas used the analogy of the archer
