William Paley: The Indicator Of The Existence Of God

His second argument for design he makes a comparison between machines and humans saying that both are equally complex and it was built with a purpose in mind. If changes are made to the watch such as taking away an internal component that makes it runs, or the minute or hour hand, its purpose would suddenly change and it would no longer be a watch.

William Paley uses the invention of a watch as an analogy to the invention of the universe. He argues that if we observe the very complicated and detailed design of the universe we can see that there was in fact a maker. Paley argues that the complicated structure of a watch is enough prove that there was a watch maker just like the complicated structure of the universe is prove enough to show that there is universe maker. He also shows that the

I think that Hume’s claim that the design argument does not succeed in establishing what characteristics the designer has is valid. Paley’s design argument poses the existence of the watch on the beach as if the person who found the watch had no knowledge of what a watch was (Sober, pg. 55). If the person comes to the conclusion that it is more plausible for this unknown piece of machinery to have a designer than come together of random actions, then the person is coming to that conclusion without ever seeing or having observed a watchmaker. This can be seen as a direct analogy between the watchmaker and the watch and the universe and a creator. If the beachgoer in Paley’s argument had no knowledge of what the watch was, how would they know what a watchmaker 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.

The traditional God in the Judeo-Christian tradition is known to be as an “Omni-God” possessing particular divine attributes such as omniscient, which means he knows everything he is also omnipotent, or all powerful. God has also been said to be also he is omnipresence which means he exists in all places and present everywhere, however there are many philosophical arguments on whether if any of that is actually true or if there is a God at all. This paper argues that it is not possible to know whether the traditional God exists or not. While there have been philosophers such as Aquinas, Anselm, Paley and Kierkegaard who are for god and present strong argument, likewise philosopher like Nietzsche and arguments like the problem of evil both make valid point on why God isn’t real.

Paley’s writing, In Defense of the Divine Command Theory, discusses how we know we are commanded by God to perform an action. He also defines virtue what it means to be obligated to do something. I will explain how, according to Paley, we know when we are being commanded by God and why I do not think that the argument Paley gives is successful.

Paley's Argument For Intelligent Design and Its Criticisms Paley's teleological argument defends the idea of the existence of god through the idea of consistent and orderly design. Paley uses an example of finding a rock on the ground and then finding a watch. He argues that finding the watch, with all of its perfectly fit working parts, suggests an intelligent creator. In his argument, the watch is employed as an analogy for the universe.

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.

William Paley argues the existence of God by utilizing a watch analogy. Whereas, he observes the watch to create a visual when explaining the complexity of the birth of humanity and Earth. Therefore, in order for the Earth to be so complex in its maturity the creator had to be greater than the Earth. Paley begins his argument by presenting a scenario that if some individual walks upon a stone that is resting on the ground they would cursorily assume that the stone had been there since the beginning of time. Conversely, one could not assume that a watch was just recently placed on the ground. Reason being that the individual is likely to examine the interior areas of the watch. If the watch had any minor deficiencies it would lose its ability

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

Throughout history, humans have displayed beliefs in the existence of some sort of higher being. The existence of God gives an explanation of why the world is the way it is and is a reassurance for life after death. However, even believers of a deity find themselves questioning their own god, asking themselves, “If there is so much suffering in the world, how can God exist?” and this is understandable. Suffering is defined as the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. Theorists have attempted to answer this question, some arguing for the existence of God and some arguing against it, but there’s no real way to answer this question. After all, there’s no definite proof of God’s existence in the world. Two dominant arguments for the existence of

After considering several assumptions that one would make after observing the watch, Paley comes to the conclusion that “[the observer] would also reflect, that the maker of every watch before him, was, in truth and reality, the maker of every watch produced from it” (Paley 2010: 19). This inscribes the idea of a master watchmaker. Paley later makes a comparison between the watch and the human eye, through which he explains his view that the original powerful master “humanmaker” must be God, and there is no reason to deny his existence,

Biology professor Kenneth Miller’s central argument is that science should not undermine one’s faith in God. “Science itself does not contradict the hypothesis of God.” He makes this argument by stating that science explains the things that God has made and in doing so, trying to prove the existence of God through natural or scientific means does not make sense. Once the supernatural is introduced, there is no way to use nature, thus science, to prove or disprove its existence. Miller argues that science gives us the window to the dynamic and creative universe that increases our appreciation of God’s work. The central point of his argument is evolution. Creationists, of the intelligent design movement, argue that nature has irreducible complex systems that could have only arisen from a creature or designer. This theory is widely supported among devout believers in the Bible and God. Miller argues that if they truly believe this, completely ignoring hard facts and theories, then they are seeking their God in the darkness. Miller, a Christian himself, believes that this “flow of logic is depressing”; to fear the acquisition of knowledge and suggest that the creator dwells in the shadows of science and understanding is taking us back to the Middle Ages, where people used God as an explanation for something they have yet to or want

that if one asserts something then one must deny something. He then goes on by

This claim has influenced many people’s lives’. Millions and millions of people believe in one or multiple Gods. According to npr.org there are 2.2 billion people in this world that identify as a Christian. This means these people do believe there is a God. According to World bank, there are 7.4 billion people total. Using simple math, it is easy to tell there’s 5.2 billion human beings that do not identify our God as their savior. There are speculated consequences for each side of this.