OCR A Level Religious Studies Philosophy - The Teleological Argument

teleological

Looking to the end results (telos) in order to draw a conclusion about what is right or wrong

natural theology

drawing conclusions about the nature and activity of God by using reason and observing the world

sceptic

Someone who will not accept what others say without questioning and challenging

a posteriori

arguments which draw conclusions based on observation through experience

a priori

arguments that draw conclusions through use of reason

the design argument

- a posteriori

- inductive

- move from facts about the world to God

inductive

characterised by the inference of general laws from particular instances

the teleological argument

- looks at the end results (the world we see around us) and use it to draw conclusions

- when we look at the world we see order, beauty, purpose and complexity

- we cannot have arrived due to chance; there must be something outside of the universe that designed the world this way

Aquinas' design argument

- developed when Aristotle's work popular and developed his ideas so people didn't have to choose between Christianity and common sense

- wanted to show how faith and reason could work alongside each other

Aquinas' design argument

- God can be reached in 2 ways:

- revealed theology: God chooses to reveal the truth to people e.g. the Bible

- natural theology: reason given to us to reach God; we apply this to the evidence around us and can reach valuable truths

Aquinas' design argument

- last of 5 ways: design argument (summa theologica)

- nature has an order and purpose

- no non-living thing can have its own purpose e.g. sun

- analogy of arrow and archer: intelligent objects aimed towards a goal, with guiding presence of intelligent being (God). universe has direction and goal, enabled by God

Paley's design argument

- popular in 17th and 18thc; development in science meant lots of material to back up their point

- e.g. animals different to survive in different climate

- physicists discovering rules of governing forces, which appeared to work uniformly in different circumstances

Paley's design argument - the watchmaker analogy

- if we found a watch on a heath, we would assume it has a designer

- way part of watch works same as universe or body

- divine intelligence ordering this

- more we learn about world, more evidence for creator

- everything clearly designed with care and purpose

Paley's design argument - design qua purpose

- everything was designed for a purpose

- e.g. eye: has lots of intricate parts which work together to allow us to see, but it works as it has an intelligent designer who designed with the purpose of giving us sight - God

Paley's design argument - design qua regularity

- the order of the universe suggests a designer

- e.g. astronomy and Newton's laws of motion: the ordered way in which the planets move and the way they are held in their orbits by gravity could not have come about by chance

Critic: Hume - weak analogy

- not obvious to all how the world (watch) formed and for a purpose

- not right to draw comparisons between as watch and the world, as have different possible designers

Critic: Hume - order doesnt prove design

- we don't know for a fact that all order comes about because of an intelligent idea

- self sustaining order could have come about by chance

Critic: Hume - God

- no reason to suggest the creator (if one) is God

- could have been created by more than one God e.g. many people work together to make a watch

- God could have copied anothers ideas (demiurge)

Critic: Hume - universe

- unique

- unable to say what it is like, what it could be or how it came to be, because we don't have experience of another world

Critic: Darwin

- theory of evolution

- just because world complex, doesn't mean God created it

- natural selection: end of species

- apparent design could happen at random

Critic: Epicurus

- don't have another world to compare to

- any world would look like it is designed, as if not survival impossible

Critic: Mill

- we don't live in a good world

Critic: Kant

- causation a category go the mind to enable us to interpret world - causation phenomenon of world itself so cannot speculate it exists outside as means of brining it about

Critic: Voltaire

- God cannot be perfect if the world he made has moral and natural flaws

criticisms

- not everything has a purpose e.g. men don't need nipples: intelligent design fails with inefficient design

- watch made the world seem simplistic

- haven't witnessed start of universe, but we have with man made things

- know how man made things are made, but not nature

criticisms

- something other than a God could have created the world

- the world is flowed

- parable of the gardener: people always look for evidence to support their ideas and discount anything that hinders their beliefs e.g. see beauty of the world but ignore problem of evil

Supporter: Aristotle

- everything strives towards a purpose/ telos

- final cause

- e.g. ducks have webbed feet to swim

Supporter: Newman

- intelligent designer started evolution

- complexity and detailed process of evolution too difficult to be accidental

Supporter: Polkinghorne

- fine tuning

- each able to support carbon life forms: must be a creator to cause this

Supporter: Tennant

- evolution designed by God, pushed humans to be more intelligent

- anthropic principle: earth too perfect for life to be formed by chance

- aesthetic principle: humans only species that show appreciation for beautiful things

Supporter: Behe

- originally believed in evolution, ut converted to intelligent designer

- cells too complex to have formed/ evolved randomly

- Darwin explains complexity of cells but not where they came from