Arguments based on observation

• Natural Theology


  theology or knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation.
• human reason


  God given intellect
• Aquinas' Design Argument


  Teleological argument that states:

  purpose and complexity demand a designer

  - the universe is an intelligent design

  - it has complexity and purpose

  - therefore, an intelligent designer must be responsible for creation
• William Paley's design argument


  Analogy of the watch. Watch has so much design in it that you know it must be designed by an intelligent being.
• Aquinas' First Way (cosmological)

  The world is set in motion by God. World is set in motion and ever changing so must have had higher higher force acted upon it
• Aquinas' Second Way


  series of cause and effect requires an efficient cause. Infinite regress is impossible so so there must be a first cause 'which we call god
• Aquinas' Third Way


  argument from contingency - all beings are dependent on something else. Nothing in this universe is self-causing but something self-causing must have brought them into existence: a necessary being - GOD
• Principle of Sufficient Reason (Gottfries Leibniz)


  The principle that everything must have a reason to explain it. "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
• David Hume


  Scottish philosopher whose sceptical philosophy restricted human knowledge to that which can be perceived by the senses (1711-1776)
• Hume criticism of watch and universe comparison

  If we saw a watch on a Heath we would presume that it had been designed because it could not come about naturally, as design is not seen in nature. The purpose and design of a watch is obvious but the purpose and design of the universe is not
• Hume criticism (order doesn't = designer)


  Order in the world does not necessarily mean that someone must have had the idea of the design. We can't leap to the conclusion that there is a divine orderer.
• Hume criticism (order = essential)

  Order is a necessary aspect of existence because if the world were chaotic, humans would not survive. This order could have come about by chance. This supported by Darwin
• Hume criticism on cause and effect


  Cause and effect isn't as simple as Aquinas makes it appear. If we look at the world he cannot infer for sure that God is the cause of it.
• Hume criticism why God?


  If there is a creator why is it God? There is no evidence to suggest it is the Christian God.
• Hume Argument unique universe

  The universe is so unique that we cannot say what it is like or how it has come into being. We have nothing to compare it to, we don't know how universes are usually made.
• Hume's criticism on assumptions

  You cannot make great leaps and assume that B follows from A as proof, when there could be a variety of explanations.
• Bertrand Russell criticism of cosmological argument

  Just because every human being has a mother, doesn't mean that the human species as a whole has a mother. Just like because everything in the universe has a cause doesn't mean the universe as a whole needs a cause.
• Hume (universe without a cause)


  We can imagining something into existence without a cause is not a incoherent idea
• Elizabeth Anscombe criticism of Hume

  We can imagine a rabbit which had no prey a and just existed but that does not make it an actual possibility simply because we could imagine it.
• a posteriori argument


  an argument with premises that can be known only through experience
• Ockham's Razor


  states "when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation"
• Darwin's theory of evolution

  Species go through gradual changes over time and were not just designed by God the way they are today
• Anthropic Principle (F.R. Tennant)


  the theory that the universe contains all the necessary properties that make the existence of intelligent life inevitable
• Argument for chance


  The odds are always against us. The odds us being born exactly as we are etc so why can't the universe also be by chance?