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TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT # (AQUINAS, DARWIN AND DAWKINS, WILLIAM PALEY, JOHN…
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Key philosophers:
Supporters: St. Aquinas, William Paley, Richard Swinburne
Critics: David Hume, Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill #
Telos=purpose, so this argues for Gods existence on basis of things having been designed for a purpose #
Is a posterior argument, starts from looking at apparent design
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- When you look at the natural world you can see everything follows natural laws (even if they're not thinking beings)
- If think follow natural laws they do well have a goal or purpose
- However, if a thing cannot think for itself it doesn't have any goal/purpose unless it is directed
- Conclusion: Everything in the natural world that does not think for itself heads towards it's goal or purpose because it is directed by something that does think = God
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E.g Planets orbiting the sun have regularity, and obey universal laws
Couldn't have happened by chance must have had an external agent to impose order on the universe
Agent = God
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Example: Female digger wasps, kills grasshopper from inside out
The state of the world, can this suggest a designer??
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Idea that things are not designed and they become better by themselves (evolution). Can be proved by science
Criticism: Dawkins suggest that idea of original sin and fall are dangerous, irrational and contrary to science
Evolutionary biology rejects Adam and Eve, say humans evolved from animals that were unable to make moral choice
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Seems irrational, does it really suggest a loving God? Should humans want to be like him?
Augustine: 2 errors in reasoning...
Hasting generalisation = He couldn't attain perfection, therefore all human kind is damned/unable to
Non-sequitur = He argues that original sin follows on from the fall but without make sufficient links between 2, making direct link
Steven Pinker = fall is a superstition within Christianity, regarding others/cultures
This leads to fuel war (Crusades) and violence (Witch hunt), opposite of what Jesus seemed to attend
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- Humans don't have sufficient knowledge/experience of the creation of the world
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- Cannot compare a watch maker and a designer of the universe
- Could be an accident, are designers needed? Our world could be a prototype may be a perfect world else where
- Watch made by something, doesn't take into account natural objects
- Bad analogy to compare it too a machine as the world is natural, more likely it was grown than manufactured
- Appears designed but is not, if it didn't seem well designed then it wouldn't be here for us to look at