The Teleological argument: Flashcards
(35 cards)
Teleological:
Any argument which is cast in terms of the end (telos)
What type of argument is this?
An a posteriori argument.
What does the existence of God based on observation argue?
The a posteriori argument of the existence of God questions whether or not God exists.
The First Vatican Council (1869-70):
Decreed (ordered) that it was possible to know the existsence of God by reason alone.
Developed by:
William Paley 1743-1805
Aquinas Fifth way:
Argues that things which lack knowledge, such as natural objects, act for a purpose. Objects are given a purpose.
Aquinas link with Aristotle:
Aquinas fifth way is an elaboration of Aristotle’s four cases, the final cause, which is Aristotle’s idea of the ultimate purpose of a thing. Aquinas fifth way focuses on the notion of purpose.
Purpose:
Refers to a state of mind. Humans have a purpose, but objects don’t. Aquinas gives an example of an arrow. An arrow doesn’t have a purpose within itself, but its archer creates a purpose for it.
Aristotle belief of purpose:
Aristotle assumes in his physics and biology that everything in the universe has a purpose, and this is clearly reflected in his teleological argument.
Modern Biology view on purpose:
Would say that God doesn’t have a purpose to exist. Disagree with Aquinas.
AO2 on Purpose:
God has given humans a purpose to exist, God has given humans freewill, knowledge and the duty to procreate for the future Christian or Islamic nation. Science have used the posteriori evidence of God’s existence and justified it by giving a non-religious answer. For example, the big bang, was an event which proves the existence of God, according to many Abrahamic believers. Yet, science has used physics as its greatest defence to explain how the world was created. Leaving the unanswered question of who triggered the first move of this big bang. Because, surely atoms would have needed some kind of force to have moved it and the only believable answer, in the context sciences big bang theory, would be that God started the big bang and that God exists.
Design Argument:
Any argument which attempts to demonstrate that patterns in nature are understandable only when it is referenced to a ‘cosmic designer’. Paley’s argument is the most famous one along with his watch analogy.
Who was Paley deeply influenced by?
Isaac Newton (1642 -1727)
William Paley’s watch analogy:
- Analogy remains valid if we’ve never seen a watch before. A watch is a different origin to a rock, a rock is a natural object.
- Even if the watch didn’t work perfectly, just as the world seems to function imperfectly, there is still enough evidence to prove that there’s a watch maker.
- We would know there’s a watch maker despite its imperfection or broken watch.
Simpler explanation of the watch analogy:
Paley compares the world to the watch, and states that ‘such design could not have come about by chance, something must have made it fit together. There must be a watchmaker’, which contrasts nature, whose causes are easily accounted for an offspring. E.G. a rock caused by wind, erosion.
What does Paley highlight?
Paley draws on Enlightenment era of science, which was deeply influence by Isaac Newton. Paley had highlighted the complexity of the human brain, where millions of cells coordinate, and the wing of a bird, which is perfectly and precisely engineered to allow movement through the air, and flight.
The purpose of the watch analogy:
The purpose of the watch analogy is to show that there is clear evidence that there must be a watchmaker, and those who are in deniable of there being one are fools. The same with the existence of God, there is clear evidence that God exists and created this world, however there are some who disbelieve this, which concludes onto them being fools.
David Hume’s Criticism:
Hume’s identified 3 clear issues:
- Aptness of analogy.
- The Epicurean Thesis.
- Argument from effect to cause.
- Aptness of analogy:
A watch is a machine and machines have machine makers. If we consider a perfect cabbage, realistically, we couldn’t and wouldn’t correlate this back to the cabbage maker.
AO2 on Aptness of analogy:
Paley had already stated the different origin of the watch by comparing it to a rock which is a natural object. This watch analogy is used as a metaphor providing the realisation that if we can acknowledge that there’s a watch maker, then surely we can acknowledge that there is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient being known as God who created us humans. Paley had never considered the idea of finding the watch maker, he made it clear that there’s an awareness of a watch maker being the creator of the watch.
- The Epicurean Thesis:
Questions whether such a stable order could arise at random. If something could display order without being made to do so by a ground designer, we would have an alternative way of explaining the phenomenon. In other words we can think of every way a thing could have existed and who created it.
AO2:The Epicurean Thesis:
Although it is true that we can think of every other possible being that could have made such a thing to exist. Then it would be a matter of condensing the list and considering which one has provided enough evidence to prove its existence. For example, with dinosaurs or aliens existing, no human has ever seen a dinosaur or alien to know how they look or whether they have existed. However, evidence provided from fossils has proven that dinosaur had existed. No clear evidence has been provided to officially prove that aliens have existed or currently exist.
- Argument from effect to cause:
Hume’s gives an example of scales. We can see one side, which is in the air, so we know the other side is heavier without seeing it.
AO2: Argument from effect to cause:
The argument from effect to cause considers on what makes logical sense, for example, in the human body, the white blood cells, blood cells, egg cells and sperm cells all know of their role, it makes sense to consider the idea that these cells were ordered and structured to perform certain roles to ensure that the body functions correctly, in terms of this argument, it makes logical sense state that these cells have been monitored by the creator of the human body. Which is God.