Arguments for Gods Existence

Question 1

Based on Observation

Answer 1

Teleological

Question 2

Socrates

Answer 2

“With such signs of forethought in the design of living creatures, can you doubt that they are the work of choice or design?”

Question 3

William Paley

Answer 3

Analogy of a watch. If one was crossing a heath and found a watch on the ground, as opposed to an ordinary stone, one would assume, due to the complexity, intricacy, demonstration of workmanship and the way the parts interact to tell the time, that someone had designed it.
Transfers this analogy to a human eye, the wings of a bird, the fins of a fish. They are all engineered for a purpose, to do something, and so there must be something that designed them.
Transfers the eye to the universe. The complexity and intricacy etc of the world shows evidence of a designer.

Question 4

Design qua Purpose

Answer 4

The world shows pattern and organisation to such impressive degree it must point to the existence of a creator who designed it. Everything is designed for a reason or a purpose otherwise it would not be designed in the first place.
Anything designed must have a designer.

Question 5

Cicero

Answer 5

“What could be more clear or obvious when we look up to the sky and contemplate the heavens, than that there is some divinity or superior intelligence?”

Question 6

Design qua Regularity

Answer 6

Design in the universe showing regularity, routine and consistency. Looked at by Paley in terms of the rotation of the planets in the solar system and how they obey the same universal laws. This could not have come about by chance. An external agent must have imposed order on the universe as a whole and on its many parts.

Question 7

Aquinas

Answer 7

“Everything operates as to a design. This design is from God.”