teleological

• What does teleology mean?

  Teleology stems from the Greek word "Telos" meaning 'end' or 'purpose'. It is an argument for the existence of God to suggest that there is order or purpose to the world. End results. The teleological argument is also known as the design argument. It is based on observation of the apparent orderm design and purpose. Goldilocks earth -> how the earth is just right.
• An inductive argument is seen as supplying strong evidence for the truth of its conclusion
• An observational argument is evidence gained from observing the world
• St. Thomas Aquinas:

  • Wrote about the Teleological in his Five Ways "Quinque Viae"
  • Aristotle had just been rediscovered by Europeans, and Aquinas was a key thinker who thought it was necessary to find out if Christian thought and Aristotle could link together
  • Key goal was to show how faith and reason could work alongside each other
  • He believed God could be reached in 2 ways, either revelation or human reason
  • If we applied reason to the world around us, we can reveal truths
• Aquinas' Teleological (design) argument:

  • Out of his Five ways, the 5th way was the teleological argument
  • Nature has order and purpose, yet, it might not even have a mind
  • A river knows to flow to the sea, yet it doesn't know it has this purpose as it doesn't have a mind
  • Shown with his archer analogy 🏹: an arrow hitting a target has the purpose of hitting the taget, however, it is the archer that pushes the arrow for its purpose
  • The Archer is God

  
• William Paley:

  • During the 1700s and 1800s, science was expanding
  • Shows how animals and plants are designed for certain areas
  • William Paley was the Archdeacon of Carlisle
  • Natural Theology (1802) he produced his teleological argument
  • the Pocket Watch Analogy 🕰️: Walking in a heath, if you see a rock, you think nothing of it, however, if you come across a pocket watch in the heath, you would look upon its intricate and precise parts an know it was designed. Think of the pocketwatch as the world, our world is so precise that it too must be designed by God
• Although both believe in the Teleological argument, Aquinas believes in the argument to design, whereas Paley believes in the argument from design.
• David Hume:

  • Scottish philosopher -> sceptic
  • challenged and questioned beliefs
  • Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

  -> Cleanthes is for the design argument

  -> Demea is for the cosmological argument

  -> Philio argues against both arguments

  • 23 years before Paley's well-known analogy
• Humes 1st Teleological criticism:

  • a world with a 'great' design, means there must be a 'great' designer
  • Hume argues that this implies an Anthropomorphic concept of God which is inconsistent with the notion of perfection
  • the world argues that due to the world being imperfect, there must be an incompetent designer
  • the world is imperfect and finite, suggesting it was not made by an all-perfect God
• Humes 2nd Teleological criticism:

  • order is necessary part of the world's existence
  • world looks designed, as if the world was chaotic, we couldn't survive
  • impossible to show that God created order, could come from chance
  • Hume believed that there wasn't a design, it is a series adaptations from animals that make the world look ordered ->> 80 years before Darwins natural selection theory
• Humes 3rd Teleological criticism:

  • organic and mechanical
  • comparing the world to machines doesn't make sense
  • universe's apparent purpose is rather more internal and organic than external and mechanical
• Hume's scale analogy: it is used to show that we know the affect but not the cause of something
• John Stuart Mill:

  • Utilitarianism
  • Nature and the Utility of Religion
  • He said ~> 'nature is guilty of serious crimes which she goes unpunished'
  • If there is a designer then he is cruel and incompetent due to the atrocities that humans and animals go through cause of natural disasters
• Darwinist Challenges to the Teleological argument:

  • evolution and adaptation
  • Theory of Natural Selection
  • those with the best characteristics survive and reproduce
  • Darwin couldn't believe that a God designed the world as the Ichneumonidae lay their larva into the living caterpillar which has been paralysed but is left alive
• Richard Dawkins criticism of the Teleological argument:

  • he is a biologist, who supports Darwin by arguing that random mutations in DNA give rise to variation in the world ~~>illusion of design
  • selfish genes survive, DNA and the universe doesn't care about people -> just survival
  • Male birds show natural selection well ->> male birds like peacocks are usually brightly coloured as it allows them to attract females, although it makes them obvious to predators
  • If a God did design, to Dawkins it seems there would have been multiple deities as seen with a cheetah and gazelle
• Swinburne and the Fine Tuning argument:

  • Swinburne argues that science can't give a satisfactory answer
  • Science assumes the laws of nature
  • It can’t say where they come from or why they are the way they are, because all scientific explanations presuppose laws
  • Swinburne believes that the most probable answer is most likely to be correct
  • The more evidence, the more likely that the universe was designed