The Teleological Argument
Examine the fundamental concepts of the teleological argument
The foremost concept of the teleological argument revolves around the idea that the world is designed, suggesting that there is evidence of design in the universe to prove God’s existence, hence it argues a posteriori. The argument holds inductive reasoning, specific examples in the universe are generalised to maintain a broad conclusion. The argument promotes the idea that the world is too complex and well ordered to have been produced by chance or random change. The word ‘teleological’ derives from the Greek word ‘telos’, therefore the argument concentrates on the idea of purpose and order in the universe.
A first concept of the teleological argument is the argument from purpose. …show more content…
This is the argument that the universe appears to behave according to some order or rule. Paley used evidence from astronomy and Newton’s laws of motion and gravity to prove that there is design in the universe. Paley considered the motion of the planets in our solar system. The relationships between the planets and the effect of gravity could not have come about without an intelligent designer at work otherwise the fact that things obey uniform laws would just be the result of chance. The teleological argument was used by Thomas Aquinas in the fifth of his five ways. He thought that the regularity in the universe shows design, which he referred to as ‘Design qua regularity’. When you look at the natural world, it is apparent that everything in it follows natural laws, regardless of whether it is intelligent. Some external agent must have imposed order on order on the natural world, and this agent is believed to be God. The archer analogy shows that an arrow cannot travel unless it is directed at its purpose or goal by something that thinks. Thus, everything in the natural world that does not think for itself is directed to its purpose by something that is intelligent - this something we call …show more content…
This is the most recent development of the teleological argument known as the anthropic principle. The argument claims it is well known that our existence in this universe relied heavily on variables remaining constant and proposes that even the slightest change in the composition of matter would have made the world unfit for humans to develop. The extraordinary probability that all these variables were aligned so perfectly in our favour tells scientists that it is unlikely to have happened by mere chance, but there must be the existence of a designer that has fine-tuned the universe for our existence to cater for our specific needs. This principle was developed by F.R Tennant who supported the existence of a divine designer. He believed that it would be possible to imagine a disorganised world in which no rules applied. However, the universe is not chaotic and was designed in such a specific way to enable the evolutionary process to construct perfect conditions in which intelligent life could
The foremost concept of the teleological argument revolves around the idea that the world is designed, suggesting that there is evidence of design in the universe to prove God’s existence, hence it argues a posteriori. The argument holds inductive reasoning, specific examples in the universe are generalised to maintain a broad conclusion. The argument promotes the idea that the world is too complex and well ordered to have been produced by chance or random change. The word ‘teleological’ derives from the Greek word ‘telos’, therefore the argument concentrates on the idea of purpose and order in the universe.
A first concept of the teleological argument is the argument from purpose. …show more content…
This is the argument that the universe appears to behave according to some order or rule. Paley used evidence from astronomy and Newton’s laws of motion and gravity to prove that there is design in the universe. Paley considered the motion of the planets in our solar system. The relationships between the planets and the effect of gravity could not have come about without an intelligent designer at work otherwise the fact that things obey uniform laws would just be the result of chance. The teleological argument was used by Thomas Aquinas in the fifth of his five ways. He thought that the regularity in the universe shows design, which he referred to as ‘Design qua regularity’. When you look at the natural world, it is apparent that everything in it follows natural laws, regardless of whether it is intelligent. Some external agent must have imposed order on order on the natural world, and this agent is believed to be God. The archer analogy shows that an arrow cannot travel unless it is directed at its purpose or goal by something that thinks. Thus, everything in the natural world that does not think for itself is directed to its purpose by something that is intelligent - this something we call …show more content…
This is the most recent development of the teleological argument known as the anthropic principle. The argument claims it is well known that our existence in this universe relied heavily on variables remaining constant and proposes that even the slightest change in the composition of matter would have made the world unfit for humans to develop. The extraordinary probability that all these variables were aligned so perfectly in our favour tells scientists that it is unlikely to have happened by mere chance, but there must be the existence of a designer that has fine-tuned the universe for our existence to cater for our specific needs. This principle was developed by F.R Tennant who supported the existence of a divine designer. He believed that it would be possible to imagine a disorganised world in which no rules applied. However, the universe is not chaotic and was designed in such a specific way to enable the evolutionary process to construct perfect conditions in which intelligent life could