Paley's Teleological Argument For The Existence Of God
The existence of God has been a popular and yet ongoing debate for many years now. There are many arguments that argue for God’s existence just as there are many arguments against God’s existence. This paper will argue for the proof of God’s existence according to William Paley’s teleological argument.
The teleological argument is often described as an argument which stems from either design or intelligent design, but this can be considered as misleading. According to the creators of the book Introducing Philosophy the teleological argument can be defined as an argument that attempts to prove god’s existence due to the intricacy and design of nature (Glossary, p.617). A good way to describe the teleological argument is by looking at the universe. …show more content…
The next premise that I would like to point out is that the world is made of such intellectual design that it serves an intelligent …show more content…
What is a fallacy anyway? A fallacy can be defined as a common error in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim (The OWL at Purdue). One of the biggest fallacies that a person may point out within a teleological argument is that of saying that simply because a certain thing serves a particular purpose, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was specifically designed to serve that particular purpose. For example, we know that the universe is intelligent enough to sustain human life, therefore the universe must have been designed specifically for sustaining human life. One could call this a fallacy and argue that rather than saying that the universe was intelligently designed to sustain human life, human life was intelligent enough to evolve in order to live in a universe that was capable of sustaining such intellectual
The teleological argument is often described as an argument which stems from either design or intelligent design, but this can be considered as misleading. According to the creators of the book Introducing Philosophy the teleological argument can be defined as an argument that attempts to prove god’s existence due to the intricacy and design of nature (Glossary, p.617). A good way to describe the teleological argument is by looking at the universe. …show more content…
The next premise that I would like to point out is that the world is made of such intellectual design that it serves an intelligent …show more content…
What is a fallacy anyway? A fallacy can be defined as a common error in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim (The OWL at Purdue). One of the biggest fallacies that a person may point out within a teleological argument is that of saying that simply because a certain thing serves a particular purpose, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was specifically designed to serve that particular purpose. For example, we know that the universe is intelligent enough to sustain human life, therefore the universe must have been designed specifically for sustaining human life. One could call this a fallacy and argue that rather than saying that the universe was intelligently designed to sustain human life, human life was intelligent enough to evolve in order to live in a universe that was capable of sustaining such intellectual