Design Argument For The Existence Of God

and to do it to the best of their abilities. This also leads on to the

William Paley and David Hume’s argument over God’s existence is known as the teleological argument, or the argument from design. Arguments from design are arguments concerning God or some type of creator’s existence based on the ideas of order or purpose in universe. Hume takes on the approach of arguing against the argument of design, while Paley argues for it. Although Hume and Paley both provide very strong arguments, a conclusion will be drawn at the end to distinguish which philosophiser holds a stronger position. Throughout this essay I will be examining arguments with reference to their work from Paley’s “The Watch and the Watchmaker” and Hume’s “The Critique of the Teleological Argument”.

This essay will not review all of the objections as this would result in overlap and repetition. The Argument from Design argues that the universe was designed by an intelligent designer, God and no further evidence is required to prove their existence. It compares Items in nature

During the 1800th century, William Paley, an English philosopher of religion and ethics, wrote the essay The Argument from Design. In The Argument from Design, Paley tries to prove the existence of a supreme being through the development of a special kind of argument known as the teleological argument. The teleological argument is argument by analogy, an argument based on the similarities between two different subjects. This essay purposefully attempts to break down Paley’s argument and does so in the following manner: firstly, Paley’s basis for the teleological argument is introduced; secondly, Paley’s argument is derived and analyzed; thirdly, the connection between Paley’s argument and the existence of a supreme being is made; and

William Paley’s teleological argument (also known as the argument from design) is an attempt to prove the existence of god. This argument succeeds in proving that while existence was created by an aggregation of forces, to define these forces, as a conscious, rational, and ultimately godlike is dubious. Although the conclusions are valid, the argument makes several logical errors. The teleological argument relies on inductive reasoning, rendering the argument itself valid, but unsound. The argument fails to apply its own line of reasoning to itself, resulting in infinite regression. Beyond the scope of its logical flaws, the arguments content lacks accurate comparisons. The argument hinges on a

Although explicated on many occasions and by many different authors, the teleological argument for the existence of God provides the best springboard from which to launch contemporary convictions of faith. In the revised edition of his earlier The Existence of God, Richard Swinburne constructs a solid outline that reveals the exact structure of the teleological argument. He presents both forms of the teleological argument , holds each under the light of skeptical review and then provides insight and defense that allows for careful philosophical review.

As a teleological argument, Paley’s argument for the existence of God can be distilled as: (1) everything has a purpose, (2) creators define a thing’s purpose, so (3) therefore everything has a creator. After making his argument, Paley refutes eight common objections to his argument including the objections that not witnessing an object’s creation means it was not created and that imperfection of creation means that there was not a creator.

While theology may take God 's existence as necessary on the basis of faith, or discovery, many philosophers have thought it’s possible to prove by reason that there must be a God. The teleological argument, also known as the argument from design simply states that a designer must exist since the universe and living things display elements of design in their order, consistency, unity and pattern. It is based on observations of the order in the universe and the natural world, to conclude that it is

Using the example of a flawless watch in the sand that must have come from a watchmaker it continues on to explain that there is a purpose in the world. There must be an intelligent design that created the right conditions to support life on earth. However complex the world may be though it is possible that the universe is a result of the perfect goldilocks conditions and can be explained naturalistically. The world is not so perfect because of pain and suffering. Natural disasters are a daily occurrence and if God was all of the Omni’s and created the world perfectly they wouldn’t occur. The world does not have to have a intelligent being behind it all it could be a result of just right conditions. The teleological argument cannot be proven to be true but neither can the counterargument. It cannot be known for certain if there is an intelligent being that created the universe with a purpose or if it’s just a result of the perfect goldilocks

This argument contends that an intelligent designer of the world does exist, and structured the universe so that most natural things fit together for a clear purpose. We can recognize that things in nature seem to be made for specific reasons that are too fortunate to be accidental. For instance, we observe that giraffes have extremely long necks and conveniently eat from the tops of trees. We can also identify that planet earth is just the right distance from the sun and moon to sustain human life. If either of these things were less ideal, there would be drastically worse outcomes for the giraffes and humans on earth. The harmony we witness in nature compels the belief in an intelligent designer.

The teleological argument explains that there is a probability of an existence, a probability of a purpose, or design and that the cause has to be of an intelligent designer. McCloskey also states that what lacks in any knowledge cannot be moved towards an end, and if so, only by some being with the ability of having the knowledge and the intelligence like an arrow directed by an archer. (Evans & Manis p. 77-78)

A good illustration is “If you want to build a computer system, all the information that goes into that system must come from a higher source of information: a computer designer and a software engineer” (Anderson, Catalucci, and Jeanson). DNA is the most complex information there is and evolutionists would say the way we got this complex information is through an unguided evolutionary process or mutations, but mutations actually take information from DNA! Additionally, information cannot come from nonliving materials like rocks or gas. Thus, the intelligent Designer must be the ultimate source from which all information comes. Additionally, life does not come from nonlife. Even if scientists were to prove life can come from nonlife in a laboratory and their experiment worked then they would still prove themselves wrong because they would then serve as the Intelligent Designers. In conclusion, Intelligent Design is a science that builds upon all we know. For example, if I were to find a watch in the forest I would know by prior observation there must be a watchmaker. I believe this can be applied to our complex

Another popular argument for the existence of God is the teleological argument, more commonly known as the Design

Firstly, we shall focus on the Design (or to use its philosophically technical term, the teleological argument). There are numerous variants of the Design argument, however we shall be focusing on Paley’s version (reference 1) of this theory. Paley’s version of the Design argument is based upon the idea that by looking around at certain features of the world (for example an inanimate object like a rock or say a living creature like dolphin or a person like myself) and theorising that they are too complex and intricate to randomly just manifest. They must have been created by a higher, more intelligent power and thus, if this is accepted as being so, then this proves beyond doubt that God exists.

The idea of God has been one of the most debatable issues since the dawn of humanity and with it guided as well as deluded most lives in the pursuit for the truth. The impacts springing from the notion of God has from time memorial changed history, inspired more poetry and music including philosophy more than anything else, imagined or real. Peter Kreft once concluded that “The idea of God is either a fact, like sand, or a fantasy like Santa” (Lawhead, p. 334). Over the cause of time, different arguments have surfaced within and without the philoshophical boundaries in an attempt to either explain the reality of the non-existence of a God. A few of these claims include the, cosmological argument, the teleological argument and the problem of evil. However, although both arguments are insufficiently conclusive in their arguments about God, the cosmological argument seems to speaker quite louder than the rest and thus forms the basis of this paper: it generates the conclusion that God exists based on fundamental considerations about the cause of the world and why there is something rather than nothing.