The Theory Of The Design Argument

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 chapter was consumed of arguments trying to answer how the universe was created, is there a god, and is god the one who created the world we live in and everything it offers, and what if god wasn’t the creature of the universe, does god exist at all? The argument of design stated that everything had to have been created by an intelligent designer. It argued that earths wonderful features could not have just happed out of the blue, they had to have had an intelligent designer, they had to have been created by god. The Best-Explanation Argument stated that intelligent design was much more reliable than pure chance. The Same- Evidence Argument stated that the universe is made up of parts that work together to accomplish something, so we can conclude that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. The Natural selection theory was

Firstly, Paley concentrates in the process leading to the creation of the watch. The process for creating a watch is very systematic and involves knowledge of mechanical engineering, a trade known to few men. Yet, it is not necessary to know the inner workings of the watch to use it on a daily basis: it is only necessary to understand the relationship between the position of the watch's hands to the sunrise and sunset of day. Paley concludes that even though he could not create a watch, some supreme being could create such watch. In other words, anything that shows evidence of creation has a creator and such creator exists or has existed at one point in time.

He setups the argument up with a brilliant idea. Whereas, when an individual observes a ship, they formulate the idea that the carpenter who constructed the ship is profoundly knowledgeable and complex. However, an individual surprisingly finds out the carpenter is wholly opposite from their prior idea of the creator of the ship. Correspondingly, assume the human body and Earth is resembling the ship. Hume goes on to say that the creation of the earth may have had multiple creations, many useless trials made, and the constructing continued with trial in order. Furthermore, the Earth could have had several designers and each designer could have mocked the previous designer. Moreover, each designer was probably unlikely to be heavily intellectual. Equally important, in order for the watch and the ships construction to be so unique the creator had to be greater than unique. Hume objection testes the idea that Paley suggest that the creator of the universe is not a remarkable intelligent being. The creator of the universe may have fed off the intelligence of the creator before. The argument presents this to show that creator of the ship is not a remarkable intelligent being and the creator likely utilized ideas from people prior to their creation. Likewise, the creator of the earth utilized ideas from people prior to their creation of the universe. Whereas, the creator did not develop their own construction which weakens their intellect on creating a complex Earth and human body. In order to create the two, one has to be an remarkable intelligent being packed with

William Paley has a similar logical gap in his “Argument from Design,” but he attempts to address this issue in “Chapter V.” Previously in this argument, Paley attests that the nature of humans and their parts implies a designer. From the discussion in class, Paley’s argument can be organized as follows:

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume challenges the existence of God by presenting three different arguments from the perspectives of three philosophers. First is that of the fideist, Demea, who presents the weakest argument. The reader is quickly aware that this perspective is the least believable according to Hume. Although Hume quickly dismisses the idea of faith as a basis for the existence of God, he uses faith as a wedge in the attempt to break apart the argument of for intelligent design presented by the second character Cleanthes. A majority of the Dialogues is dedicated to this cause, as the strongest argument is from the perspective of intelligent design. The third character, Philo, is the skeptic wielding the pickaxe, and believed to be the voice of Hume, has the most difficult time dismantling this concept. By the end of the dialogue, it is unclear as to the true position that Hume is taking concerning natural theology. It is my understanding that Hume would accept the existence of God through the perspective of natural theology, if it were not deterred by the misuse of a Deity through organized religion as a means to control the masses. Because of this misuse, it is understandable why Hume remained a skeptic (at least publically) for the duration of his life (Craig 486-512).

The Design Argument attempts to explain that the presence of purpose in an object requires a designer. The universe as well as all living beings is founded on complexity. The complex order of parts that has a function is in itself evidence of purpose, of a maker. The Design Argument states that because certain biological features seem to be designed, they must have an intelligent designer. Hence the appearance of something designed marks a designer. An example of an object that exists due to something else is a watch. A watch needs a watchmaker, just like a house needs a house builder. Everything that has come to exist needed to have a constructor with a motive in mind.

The first strength of the design argument for the existence of God is that it argues that God is the best explanation for the apparent design in the universe. The only evidence needed is one to simply step outside, for it is clear to see aspects of the universe that are perfectly adapted to fulfil their function: such as the roots of trees. The argument is strong because all around us is evidence of purpose, order and suitability for human life. There is evidence of deliberate design all around us that are greater than the works of humanity can ever achieve, and this clearly points towards an intelligent, personal and infinitely greater designer. This designer is God.

Arguably the most famous design argument was proposed by philosopher William Paley who used the analogy of a watch and a watchmaker to illustrate his point of view. He claimed that a watch was created with many interconnected parts which moved together in very specific and precise motions to allow for its intended

Quite simply put, the first objection to the Argument from Design doesn’t account for the possibility that the intelligent designer has a higher understanding of the universe and can also understand why and how things work better than humans can. Also, it doesn’t take into account that the designer could have created the universe and placed processes such as evolution and natural selection in place as part of the universe during its creation. The intelligent designer could have created those natural processes in order to serve a specific function such as changing a species to help it to survive in the world that the intelligent designer changes on a regular basis. It could also be said that the intelligent designer could have created the universe, set these processes in play, and allowed the universe to set its own path using laws of science and natural processes to set its own course and control its own destiny. The Argument from Design says that if something is complex then it must have an intelligent designer.

The designer designs the blueprints however since everything is a design, the designer themselves also must have a blueprint meaning something has to have designed the designer. This is where the argument starts to make its rapid decline. A designer can be anyone or anything, due to this it means it also doesn't have to be God. There are also designs that have many many flaws. Humans can drown, get cancer, need sleep, starve, and

Philo’s arguments in “Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” against the argument from design demonstrate a decisive use of skepticism that challenges not only the complexities of a

In order from an argument to be deductive, the argument is required to follow a particular pattern that thus makes the argument valid. For “the argument from design” this can be formatted using what is classified as categorical syllogism- a form of argument that essentially follows a pattern of asserting if two objects are similar, and another object is similar to the first of the two objects, then all three objects are the same. To be exact, “the argument from design” states that “Some things in nature are design-like. Design-like properties are not producible by (unguided) natural means. Therefore, some things in nature are products of intentional design “ (Ratzsch, 2005). What this is attempting to assert is that design-like qualities such as cognition and body parts with clear uses are not able to be created by accident. Such complex structures in a life form would require for a being to generate, design, and synthesize such ideas. Thus, through valid logical thinking, it can be asserted that believing in God is logical and

Hume couches his concerns about theological inference as emanating from problems with drawing an analogical design inference. Since this is not the only type of argument in natural theology, we must now consider Hume’s reasons for rejecting other arguments that support the existence of a creator deity. Hume never makes a clear distinction between what Immanuel Kant later dubbed ontological and cosmological arguments, instead Hume lumps them together under the heading of arguments a priori. Note that this is not as strange as it might first appear, because although cosmological arguments are now uniformly thought of as a posteriori rather than a priori, this was not the case in Hume’s day. It took Hume’s own insights about the a posteriori nature

A watch cannot comprehend the idea of being made but this does not mean that there was no