To observe design in the world as evidence for God's existence.

Offers evidence and attempts to persuade you to accept a certain conclusion.

debates and argues for God's existence, this is a religious argument.
-Based upon seeing purpose- teleo, or design in the world.

Teleological arguments aim to persuade believers and non-believers synthetically and a posteriori that God exists.

GOD OF CLASSICAL THEISM AND ABRAHAMIC RELGIONS

There must be a designer or being that has purposefully designed the world so that it has purpose.

The making and arranging of objects which are so incredible and intelligent that design and purpose can be seen within them.

The universe appears to behave in some regular way or follow certain rules or laws of nature, and physics.
Everything follows a temporal order and natures laws.
Therefore there is most probably a God who has put these laws into place/ motion and designed the world. This links to ARISTOTLE'S PRIME MOVER.

Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, offers '5 ways' in which God's existence can be demonstrated. THE 5TH WAY IS THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

"it is obvious that something without intelligence could not move towards an end... unless it was directed by a being with knowledge and intelligence just as an inanimate arrow is directed by an archer" -Aquinas, Summa theologica.

Everything in nature is teleological- has a purpose. Everything is driven towards an end. Nothing in the world happens by mere chance.- Prime Mover.
Aquinas agrees with Aristotle but believes that purpose comes from the Judaeo Christian understanding of God.

Things that lack intelligence and are sentient such as living organisms have an end purpose.

Things that lack intelligence cannot move towards their end unless they are directed by something with knowledge and intelligence.

Just as an arrow does not direct itself, it is directed by an archer.

By analogy- there must be some intelligent being that directs all unintelligent beings towards their end- This is God.

Analogy- it relies on belief that sentient beings lack intelligence. This idea is based upon the Christian principle developed by Aquinas' natural law theory in the heirarchy of law. If beings were not unintelligent, then Aquinas' 5th way is baseless.

Things do not always work or reach an end, or they do not seem to have an end. This would suggest that God is not perfect or omnipotent. -Dawkins

The idea that unintelligent creatures only reach an 'end' because of God's direction goes against the idea of free will, and suggests that sentient beings do not have autonomy.

How can inanimate objects be compared to living beings? The analogy is also flawed in that Aquinas unconsciously suggests that archers have intelligence and direct the arrow- which means that humans have intelligence because archers and human.

DARWINS THEORY OF EVOLUTION goes against this argument

EXISTENSIALISM E.G JEAN PAUL SATRE- There is no purpose in the world so no design to anything. Purpose is just a human made concept and is entirely subjective.

Whether or not you have seen the watch before, it is clearly different to the rock in nature and origin. Even if the watch is broken, there is still clear design. Paley does not focus on the quality of design. We would still identify design if we did not understand the watch.

If there are signs of contrivance, it is more likely that it has been made by a contriver. This appear to be designed in a specific and purposeful way suggesting that they have been contrived and designed.

He argues that the perfect aligning of the planets and the laws of gravity are so accurately in place that these laws of nature could only have been designed by an intelligent being such as God and could not have come about by random chance.

Order: we can see there are distinct orders and rhythms to nature like there are to the watch.
Complexity: The world is complex e.g several species like the watch.
Interaction: things in the world seem to interact with one another like the watch.
Purpose: Things act with individual purpose like the watch.

Criticised commonly held beliefs. He disagreed that the existence of God can be proved through NATURAL THEOLOGY
WROTE BEFORE PALEY

"A WISE MAN PROPORTIONS HIS BELIEFS TO EVIDENCE"

Many scholars in Humes time compared the world to a mechanism or machine with a designer. In 'DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION' Hume strongly disagreed with this idea.

Questions why we must see the world as a machine like entity and not a natural organic entitiy. Comparing the world or anything on earth to other things on earth does not create a valid analogy.

If we were to think of the world in a natural organic sense so compare it to an object like a cabbage, yes we can see intricate design in the cabbage, but we would not assume that the cabbage has a 'cabbage maker'. Why not assume the world is a product of natural organic activity such as the growth of a cabbage? This would mean there is no world maker like there is no cabbage maker.

Hume proposes the theory originally supported by Ancient Greek Philosopher 'Epicurus'. The Epicurean thesis argues that "The universe exists in a certain way due to the random movements of a finite number of atoms".

Hume uses this philosophy. Epicurus proposes the idea of infinite time as a possibility. In infinite time there is a huge but finite number of particles freely moving about. In infinite time, with a finite number of particles, they would go through every possible combination so it may look like design is imposed but it is actually a certain arrangement of particles that have been randomly stumbled upon over pure chance, over time.

A Modern example of this is the 'infinite monkey theorum', where hypothetically if a monkey was in a room with a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, it would eventually write a legible word or story out of pure chance on the typewriter.

-We cannot look at the effect and assume the cause of something if we do not know what it is. Just because we see apparent design or regularity, does not mean we can assume there is a designer.

We have nothing to compare the universe's design to as it is completely unique, therefore no analogy would be successful.

If there is a designer, why are there so many faults in the design? Swinburne attempts to skirt this idea.

The universe cannot be compared to a machine because it is unique and clearly not man-made like machines are.

Why do we assume that there is only one God/ creator? There could be multiple, there are endless possibilities. This points out how little we know about the universe and the huge conclusion we jump to when we say there is ONE creator, not multiple.

Who designed God? How did it come about? Logically, it would go back and back, under the infinite regression theory that has not been proved right or wrong like many things in the universe.

Human made things have a designer, but they are all made from pre-existing material. How is God able to design the world? You cannot conclude that the designer of an item also made the materials that it is made from- this limits Gods power. We can conclude that there is a worldly architect but not a designer of the universe.

'origins of the species' Darwin put forward his theory more commonly known as 'survival of the fittest'. Species develop in a purely random way, adapting to their surroundings. The creatures which are best adapted to their environment survive and those who are not, die out. Survival is a matter of pure chance. The idea that there is some greater plan, design or purpose behind the world is dismissed under this theory. The world of evolution is one of random chance, luck and survival.

A lot of what we see in the world is cruel, evil and contains suffering. The teleological argument highlights the problem of evil as if the universe was deliberately designed, so God cannot be a loving creator. The being is more likely malevolent not benevolent. "We would think of them as the worst kind of criminal"
However we could use Plato's cycle of opposites and Ireneaus' theodicy to show that evil needs to be experienced to see good.

Criticises Paley in that designers have a future purpose in mind but the world has not come about like this. 'The Blind designer' is evolution, evolution is a blind and unconscious process, and is the design we see. genetic mutation leads to diversity in nature. This is not what the teleological argument says. The analogy of the watch is weak because the watchmaker designed the watch with foresight and a future purpose in mind and the world has not come about like this.

Aesthetic principle- beauty can be recognised in some way by all people
Anthropic- It cannot just be a coincidence that the world is so intricately designed to cater for human survival.

Beauty is subjective and developed by personal taste rather than God given.
-Assumes that humans have most importance in the world and are superior creatures, however evolution argues that we evolved from apes.
Existentialism
Tennants arguments are a leap in logic- hume. Humans can observe beauty, but this does not mean it is God given.