Teleological

• A posteriori


  Evidence from sense experience
• Inductive


  Empirical evidence to build a probable conclusion
• Premise


  A statement that helps to build a conclusion
• Design - complexity


  The laws of nature, which given everything, are so complex they cannot be here by chance.
• Design qua purpose


  A watch tells the time. An eye sees. The fact that they achieve what they are supposed to do means this cannot be chance.
• Design qua regularity.


  Planets move in harmony in the same way all the parts of a watch move together. This cannot be chance.
• Analogy


  A comparison of two different things that are similar in some way: like the world and a pocket watch.
• Natural Theology


  The knowledge we can have about God and his attributes simply through using reason, apart from revelation.
• Inference


  A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning
• Telos


  A Greek word meaning purpose, goal or end.
• David Hume


  Scottish philosopher whose sceptical philosophy restricted human knowledge to that which can be perceived by the senses (1711-1776)
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion


  Hume's book in which his 3 characters debate key philosophical questions
• Philo


  The character in Hume's dialogues most likely to represent Hume's personal views.
• Cleanthes


  The character in Hume's dialogues who puts forward a version of the design argument (comparing the world to a machine).
• Inductive leap


  A process in which the conclusion of an argument moves beyond its stated evidence - Hume accused the teleological argument of this.
• Anthropomorphism


  The attribution of human characteristics or behavior to god - Hume accused the teleological argument of this.
• Biological


  Hume argued that the analogy didn't work because the world was more like a vegetable than a machine.
• Epicurean hypothesis


  Hume argues that, for all we know, matter/energy might be everlasting, just changing form over time. If this is the case, then eventually, matter/energy will fall into an ordered arrangement - it's just a matter of time. So, Hume concludes that it is possible that order could come about by chance.
• Evil and suffering


  Hume argued that if we take the analogy to its conclusion then it supported an evil designer more than the God of Classical Theism because of all the suffering in the world.
• Richard Dawkins


  Wrote The Blind Watchmaker in which he argues that evolution is enough to explain the appearance of design in the world - no need for God!
• Richard Swinburne


  A philosopher who supported the design argument by saying it is more likely in terms of probability that God created the world than it just being random - he drew upon Occam's razor and the Anthropic Principle
• Anthropic Principle


  The theory that the universe contains all the necessary properties that make the existence of intelligent life inevitable - this cannot be chance.
• H.H.Price


  Drew a distinction between belief in and belief that.
• God is outside the universe so therefore it is possible that he created the universe
• Flawed analogy as it is a category error as comparing the universe and the creation of a watch is incomparable to humans