Teleological

• Teleological argument


  • Attempts to demonstrate existence of God through the evidence of order & purpose around us.
  • The complex, purposeful features of the world point to a divine intelligence who designed those features.
• Natural Theology


  Drawing conclusions about the nature & activity of God by using reason & observing the world.
• Romans 1:19-20

  Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power & divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
• A key goal for Aquinas was to show that reason and faith worked alongside each other.
• Name of book that Aquinas wrote his five ways in?

  Summa Theologica
• Aquinas - example of arrow

  • An arrow flying towards a target must have been aimed and fired by someone.
  • In the same way, the world around us & the purposiveness of inanimate objects conclude that the guiding hand of God must be behind it.
  • Therefore, everything in nature which is moving but has no intelligence must be directed to its goal by God.
• Paley


  Not only is everything carefully designed, but it is designed for a purpose. Everything is designed to an infinite degree of care.

  • This is not just evidence of intelligent design but of God's care. If God cared about the design of an insect then surely people can be confident that God will care for them too.
• Socrates


  With such signs of living creatures, can you doubt that they are the work of choice or design?
• A posteriori argument


  Gains knowledge from design in the world to infer/prove the existence of God.
• Design qua Purpose


  Everything is designed for a reason or purpose otherwise it would not be designed in the first place
• Paley - Watch analogy

  Watch is..

  1. complex
  2. intricate piece of machinery
  3. shows workmanship
  4. all cogs are perfectly intertwined
  5. all parts work together to reach purpose - Conclusion If any parts were shaped differently, then watch wouldn't work. All parts re assembled together by a designer for a purpose.
• 'Every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the work of nature.' - Paley

  • Eye
  • Wings of birds
• Cicero


  'What could be more clear or obvious when we look up to the sky and contemplate the heavens, than that there is some divinity or superior intelligence ?'
• Design qua regularity - Paley


  • Design of universe shows regularity, routine & consistency.
  • Eg. rotation of planets in solar system & how they obey same universal laws.
  • This cannot come by chance.
  • Conclusion - External agent must have imposed order on universe. That external agent is God.
• 'Everything operates as to a design. This design is from God.' - Aquinas
• Design qua regularity - Aquinas

  1. Objects follow natural laws = have telos
  2. Objects perform in this way efficiently because they were designed.
  3. Everything that is designed must have a designer.
  4. Conclusion: Everything in the world is directed by someone to reach its telos.
  5. "This being we call God." - God makes all things reach their telos.
• Aquinas' metaphor of an arrow

  1. The arrow hits a target even though it is inanimate.
  2. The archer (animated) shot the arrow.
  3. Things in the world follows a natural order.
  4. God caused the natural order.
• What does the archer represent?

  The archer & arrow show 'regularity of succession'.

  Certain laws lead to certain results being achieved.
• X Dawkins 


  "No purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."

  Blind watchmaker

  God is a blind watchmaker because of the moral evil that exists in the world, it shows flawed design.
• Hume 


  • Order doesn’t imply design, chance is still an option (Dawkins says that evolution gives the appearance of design).
  • Order is a necessary part of the Earth, without it, Earth wouldn’t have survived.
  • We can’t go from an effect to a greater cause. If like effects have like causes, then an imperfect world implies an imperfect creator.
  • The watch analogy is too vague - World is not a machine, its more organic.
• Epicurean Thesis - Hume


  • The universe is made up of a finite number of particles moving freely in infinite time in all possible combinations.
  • Apparent order in the universe may thus be randomly explained.
• Darwin -Evolutionism


  Eye is not designed that way but it is mutations of millions of years.

  Not evidence of design but of chance as mutations happen randomly.
• Stephen Fry


  • When asked what he would say if he ended up in heaven said that he would question God on flawed design/ evil like cancer & insects that burrow into the eyes of children.
• Mill


  Concluded that God was omnibenevolent & not omnipotent
• Clark


  Paley fails to account for the problem of suffering.
• Anthropic principle - Tennant

  • God designed the evolutionary process so it would create an environment in which intelligent life could exist. (supports both evolution and Designer God).​
• Aesthetic Principle - Tennat

  • Humans possess the ability to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings – to enjoy art, music and literature.​
  • Yet this is not necessary for survival (e.g. not important in evolution)​
  • Therefore evidence of a Divine Creator not natural selection.​
• Dawkins

  • uses memes against aesthetic argument.
  • Family is the social group = survival of genes
  • Humans appear to have appreciation of beauty but it is part of the survival mechanism.
• Dawkins - Memes

  • A term he has invented to refer to the unit of cultural inheritance.
  • ‘Memes’ are ideas that are operated by natural selection.
• Swinburne


  • Accepts anthropic principle but doesn't conclusively prove God exists, rather makes it more probable.
  • God chose to create orderly universe, so evolution can be part of design.
• Newton


  The design of the thumb alone convinced him of God’s existence. Newton’s laws support the idea of there being something behind it all, planning it.​
• St Francis of Assissi


  Argued that through his experience of beauty in the world, this was the path to God.​
• Natural Selection


  • Darwin believed it left space for God.
  • Taylor - Nature plans ahead for needs of human & animals. Evolution needs a mind to impose it.
  • Behe - Evolution can't produce organisations of parts. This irreducible complexity points to designer but he assumes that each part of a system has always been part in that system.
• Vardy


  • says Mill came to a conclusion that limits God.
  • Mill makes assumption that imperfect world shows a limited designer.