What Is Paley's Argument For The Existence Of God

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

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.

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.

The question of whether God exists pervades the study of philosophy, with both sides providing substantial arguments that appear believable upon first reading them. However, delving below the surface of such arguments shows holes in the reasoning of these philosophers. Though I would like to believe in the existence of God, after seeing the arguments for God's existence thoroughly discredited, I am not entirely sure what to believe.

Natural theology refers to truths known about God when reflecting on nature, environment and living organisms in the world. William Paley was born in seventeen forty-three, and he got ordained as an Anglican priest in the year seventeen sixty-seven-a year later he became a professor of theology at Cambridge University. He believes that the design of creation in living things stands as a prime indicator of the existence of God in our society. Paley argues that in the perfection or imperfection of nature and machines are attributed to a creator and the capability to reproduce is as a result of a supreme being. In the case study that illustrates his belief he asks the reader to imagine a scenario; when crossing a heath, you come across a watch on the ground. To this effect one observes that all its parts have been designed to achieve the desired purpose of measuring time; an intellect would not think its existence is by chance but the work of a talented artisan.

A watch embodies all appearances of intelligent design. It has purpose, a certain disposition or instruction. It is a complex object; all parts are needed for it to fulfil its purpose and we could not substitute any of these parts. It is made of a specific set of materials; we do not find smelted gold or blown glass naturally occurring in nature. The watch also has a regular motion. All these properties and dispositions a watch personifies show it is a creation and not just a naturally occurring object. The same is said about the human eye through analogy. This is the reason William Paley chose to use the watch as well as the human eye to highlight his argument for design in his work Natural Theology, (1802). The teleological argument he puts forth is one we can know empirically through observation. It is not the purpose of the argument to fully convince us that the argument is correct in every way. The purpose is to offer the audience a logical and suggestible conclusion. However the argument

Skeptics and believers alike encounter a variety of questions about Christianity. Whether those questions are the person’s own or are asked of them by someone else, the exploration of how to answer questions about faith, the Bible, and a Christian worldview is often a defining factor in what an individual believes. Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism attempts to answer these questions thoroughly and completely in order to convince the skeptic and affirm the believer.

I don’t feel that Paley’s analogy of the watch was a problem, because he is showing how intricate all the parts to the watch are and how similar the watchmaker is to God. If the watch had a part misplaced it wouldn’t work. Take our oxygen away or our plants and trees, and see what happens to us. God has created a very sophisticated system that involves everything good in the world. There are no mistakes that were created by God, because then the system wouldn’t work. If the watch has some part misplaced it won’t work. I also believe he is say that finding a watch instead of a rock could be God’s way of enlightening him. For example, the fact that you find the watch and investigate it, could bring you to a knowledge of something bigger than

Finishing the book, a reflective sense of enjoyment is around the experience, after already taking the time to delve deeper into the questions of the Christian faith. Overall, The Case for Faith was an enjoyable read having taken the time to address the major objections that non-believers commonly hold, arguing the validity of faith in the Christian Religion. Meanwhile, the use of direct investigative style when recounting interviews conducted thoroughly continued to engage the viewer in its writing, remaining dynamic in its delivery of philosophical questions offered by Lee Strobel and those he works with. Thus, the addition of thought provoking questions that plague those who may have doubt in their faith are introduced to proofs that enforce their

Natural Theology is the theological field which teaches that one can see the proof for a divine creator in Nature. This is why the entire title of William Paley’s most famous work is Natural Theology, or, Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, collected from the appearances of nature. That is quite a mouthful so scholars typically just shorten it to Paley’s Natural Theology. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and analyze the work Natural Theology. William Paley is an immensely important figure in Christian Philosophy whose arguments are known even to laymen.

Paley’s philosophical position for the existence of a deity can be summarized by the following statements. 1. Humans are made for a purpose. 2. If humans are made for a purpose, then there must be a creator behind that purpose. 3. Therefore, there is a creator. (1, 2, 3 MP) His reasoning for this is by comparing humans as a whole to a machine. Just like a watch, which has intricate parts that work for a grander design of telling time, so too does the eye for seeing (Feldman, 1994). The watch, Paley argues could not possibly have just came into being to fulfill the specific purpose which it presently does. According to Feldman (1994), this still points to a creator who designed its purpose and knew of its function. Even if it replicated itself

Another argument can made regarding the existence of god is morals. What is right? What is wrong? Are morals objective, or subjective? If morals are objective, something must have put it there, that thing being god. You can argue and say that morals are objective and are there by a god, and if we all were to suddenly die, the morals we went by would still exist. In that case, the only thing that makes an act morally wrong is what god prohibits you from doing it. Is killing wrong because god prohibits it, or does god prohibit killing because it is already wrong? Now you can also argue that morals are subjective and that whatever you do is right according to you. But if morals are subjective, then god does not exist. We create morals

It is here that he rejects the existence of a God

Perhaps the most important question in life someone can ask there self’s is, whether or not god exists. From the video “Does god exist” Quentin Smith, a graduate of Western Michigan University says, “All the galaxies were once compacted together, and the big bang theory is when all the matter in the galaxies just blew apart. And the mystery, according to science laws, is there can be no cause of this initial explosion.” Although there can be countless allegations someone can make to refute this known fact, I believe, through my experiences, that this is true. Thus, leading me to believe there is an unimaginable force that contains space that must have been able to expand our universe into what we see today. “God is at liberty to create, whatever state of the