Design argument Flashcards
The DA is described as …………. and …………
A posteriori
inductive
List the 4 main sholars
Tennant
Aquinas
Swinburne
Paley
What is proportional observation?
We can learn a lot about God from what he created. Paley suggests for God to create such intelligent design he must be omnipotent.
Describe Paley’s anaology
MECHANISTIC compares the watch to the world as he infers from design that both exhibit diverse functions for an overall purpose.
Design qua purpose is associated to?
PALEY
AQUINAS
What 3 words describe Paley’s analogy
Paley argued, exhibits the same order, complexity, and purpose
all the small adaptations in nature were for Paley, proof of a ……
Providential designing intelligence
What is the Archimedean perspective and who criticised this?
we observe the world as its inhabitants but we view a watch from the outside.
HUME
What is Paley’s quote about the watch analogy?
Paley- ‘several parts are framed and put together for a purpose’.
Who does Lacewing support and what does he say?
Lacewing- ‘This coordination, the detail and intricacy of interrelations between parts,suggests planning- a plan that follows a purpose’.Supports Paley
What does Dawkins say about Paley’s watch analogy?
‘The only watchmaker in nature is the blind force of physics’.
Who do Wilkinson and Campbell support?
Wilkinson and Campbell support Hume ‘by choosing a machine as our analogy, we have already determined the outcome we want’.
What does Hume say about anthropomorphism?
Hume- doesn’t tell us anything about the nature of the designer. If effects resemble causes the world suggests an inferior deity ‘ashamed of his lame performance’.
Hume an empiricist and sceptic- the analogy doesn’t support the God of classical theism but rather an anthropomorphism view of God.
2 describing words for Hume
Empiricist and sceptic
What is transcendent
The problems of evil and suffering: a watch can break down and become faulty and the world can too. We are less competent than the designer and therefore do not understand all the mechanisations of the world. God of Classical Theism is transcendent we cannot understand a timeless, non-corporeal being.
What does Mill and Dawkins say?
Mill, empiricist, evil in the world does not support a benevolent God. God not worthy of worship and Dawkins would say God is a sadist who enjoys spectator sports. God of classical theism has omnipresence, unlike Hume, who suggests the God may have moved on.
What does A.J Ayer and Hume say?
Hume- We have priori knowledge of watches but not of worlds, this is the only world we have experienced. A.J Ayer we have limited experience of design. Unless we can say what the world is like without design, we cannot claim that the world is designed.
Why is Paley’s an unsound analogy?
Mechanistic unsound analogy according to to Hume. Analogical argument drawing on something we know and something we don’t know, Hume suggests the world and the watch are two completely different things. Comparing the universe to a carrot you would suggest self-regulation.
How can you draw an analogy between that that which is limited and imperfect to that which we claim is unlimited and perfect.
What is a criticism of Aquinas?
Darwin and evolution- intelligent life has evolved from primitive organisms through ‘survival of the fittest’. Follows Occam’s razor.
Hume- epicurean hypothesis our world evolved from random chance. Evolution is not heading anywhere so it can’t fulfill God’s plan. e.g. Monkeys left with a typewriter would type out a Shakespearean sonnet as one of the random possibilities in time.
What does Flew say in response to Hume?
Flew questioned the validity of monkeys typing out the Shakespearean sonnet, the world needs a multitudinous number of factors.
What does Swinburne say in response to Humes several deity
Doesn’t follow Occam’s razor
What does Aquinas say about non rational beings?
Non-rational beings work towards a goal, something must be directing them to do so. Such behaviour patterns rarely change and lead to the best result. This result is beneficial (there must be a purpose to them). The end is achieved designedly not fortuitously (by chance).
What is the Aquinas quote
An example is the plant by acting in the same way it obtains the best result. This plant lacks knowledge and has therefore been directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence and this being is God. God is the ‘guiding hand’.
What is beneficial order and what is the criticism of this?
Things in the universe work towards an end or purpose, this could not have happened by chance because the objects themselves do not acquire the intelligence to work towards an end or purpose consequently non-rational beings are directed by intelligence, God. Therefore God is the explanation of beneficial order.
However can we assume that God is the cause for order e.g. could be evolution.
