Teleological Argument for the Existence of God Essay

4) through the scattering of an abundance of palaeoliths and eoliths at the Piltdown sites. Hinton is suspected to have planted the eoliths because he had not only examined the gravel locations prior to the Piltdown man discovery—and “would have known that the Piltdown gravels were too high in the succession to have contained eoliths” (Gardiner, 2003, p. 10)—but he had also become closely associated with several eolithophiles (Arnold et al., 1998). Thus, this provided Hinton with the access and resources to successfully authenticate the Piltdown gravel pit with material culture. Hinton’s motive was ultimately to indict Woodworth in the hoax; therefore, by planting the artifacts together this would draw attention to their controversial co-occurrence, as they do not occur together, and reveal the forgery drawing speculative attention toward Woodward and Dawson. It was Hinton’s intention that the artifacts would spur contention about the validity of the site; however, the findings did not provoke such a result. Unfortunately, Hinton’s intended elaborate joke was taking too long to be exposed. In an attempt to accelerate the discovery of the hoax, Hinton planted a ‘cricket bat’ fossilized from elephant bone at the Piltdown II site (Thomson, 1991). The reasoning behind the ‘cricket bat’ lay in the fact that Woodward had been referring to the Piltdown man as

Lastly, his fourth argument assumes that things can be created by matter therefore if other things say otherwise it would be disregarded (Paley,

In Paley's analogy he compares a watch to the world and human existence. He states that the watch must have been carefully designed by a watchmaker in order for it to exist. Paley supposes that humans and our universe must have been designed by a greater power because of the careful design. He states that the more complex the design the more likely for flaws to occur. He uses this to explain why people become ill, commit immoral acts, and death. Hume challenges Paley’s analogy saying that our world is so complex that anything made by humans will never be comparable to the complex design of the universe. He suggests that if there were a creator, it would not be something our minds be able to perceive or imagine. Also, Hume argues that a watch

The famous William Paley has a different ontological argument within his text Natural Theology. The title of the reading gives insight to the theory, which focuses on something called natural design. The writing is based on an intricate and extensive analogy between the man made and the natural. For instance, Paley describes a man made watch in great detail. This intense detail sets the notion that each piece must have been put in place by someone, whom we can infer is a watchmaker. He then compares this to the intricacy of nature, which must have been made by a supreme diety. Such complexity could not have come about by chance. Only the most

Having introduced Paley's main a posteriori experience, the following paragraphs will describe and justify Paley's reasoning for using such argument to describe the existence of a superior being.

William Paley's argument for the existence of God is an important aspect of the Design argument, which argues that the universe is being directed towards an end purpose due to the a posteriori (subject to experience) evidence of an intelligent designer, who is God. This is because it is perhaps arguably the most famous version, and the theory which modern-day theories for the Design argument are built upon.

Paley’s made his argument using an analogy to prove the existence of god, using a watchmaker analogy and to image if we found a watch on the ground and could it have been possible for the watch to simply appear randomly, spontaneously on its own. Paley was arguing that the teleology demonstrated by a watch would conclude that it was designed by an intelligent creator with a particular end in mind. While Aquinas has a design argument of his own ,the Teleological argument focuses on the condition that allows for life in the universe to only occur when certain fundamental physical constants are within a very narrow range if one of many fundamental constant are off slightly, then the universe would be unfit for the development of matter and life. Since these things are so finely tuned it appears an intelligent designer may have been involved in making sure these things happened so life could occur that designer Aquinas believes to be

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

He states that the universe and all of its working complexities points to the existence of an intelligent creator. There are several alternant and contradicting beliefs to Paley's assertions. Some call into question the validity of the analogy itself. Others say it is an incredibly far jump to assert the existence of a god through the universe since the universe and its workings are so undiscovered by humanity. Paley addresses many of these alternant arguments in his essay.

If you look at the delicate fabric of a leaf; well balanced and with the purpose of breathing for the plant, it can only convince you of the existence of God. The pecking order of the animals also show a pre-planned hierarchy of animals. It is a well-balanced system that resembles the gears of a watch. The world and universe have natural laws. Things depend on the effects of other things. There exists a cooperation in the universe that can only be contributed to intelligent

Take a moment to think about the world around you and all of its beauty. From the ever flowing Mississippi River, to the ledges of the mighty Grand Canyon, or even to the peak of Mt. Fuji there is an immense amount of things on this Earth that are so incredible it is hard to believe science and chance created these magnificent things. So what is the best explanation for these occurrences? I believe that these occurrences scream of an intelligent designer which also leads us to the existence of God. First I must explain what an argument for design is and then we will look at Paley’s Watchmaker Theory to give us better insight on this argument. Then I will point

the sun will one day plunge us into darkness if its heat has not dried

The Teleological Argument is concerned with reason as to why the world functions in a orderly manner is ‘orderly the same as ‘apparently purposeful’? What’s the difference? The argument is an a posteriori argument which begins with looking at the natural world and Paley uses his watch analogy to attempt to prove the existence of God. There are two aspects to Paley’s argument – regularity and purpose. I think it’s worth setting the scene with mention of both.

As for Paley’s theory he believes that nature must have a designer and that the designer is God, he believed we all have a purpose and everything that we do has purpose. Paley says that with our abilities to create artifacts that resemble the universe then there has to be a creator of the universe and everything that is in it. Either nature or some of its parts have design like properties they show evidence of being

Throughout the course of this essay we shall examine two of the major philosophical arguments for the existence of God. The arguments that we are going to focus on shall be the Design argument and the Ontological argument. We shall compare, evaluate and discuss both the Design (or teleological) argument for the existence of God and the Ontological Argument for the existence of God, as well as highlighting philosophical criticisms of both theories too. By doing so, we shall attempt to draw a satisfactory conclusion and aim gain a greater understanding of the respective theories and their criticisms of each theory.