teleological sheet

The Teleological Argument

Scholar	Arguments	Quote/s	Strengths	Weaknesses
Thomas Aquinas	the 5th way: there are beings without knowledge that act for ends if a being without knowledge acts for an end, then it must be because it is directed by a being with knowledge and intelligence therefore, there must be a being with knowledge and intelligence…God	“some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”
William Paley	‘design qua purpose’ ‘design qua regularity’	“…the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction and designed its use.” “the contrivances of nature far surpass the contrivances of art in the complexity, subtility, and curiosity of the mechanisms.” “the hinges in the wings of an earwig and the joints of its antennae are as highly wrought as if the creator had nothing else to finish.” “every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature.”
Richard Swinburne	the complexity of the universe makes it difficult to believe that there is not a designer at work ‘fine tuning’ argument: the earth is too finely tuned to be as it is on its own whilst science can explain how genetic mutations have occurred, it cannot explain why they have worked out in our favour	“The very success of science in showing us how deeply orderly the natural world is, provides strong grounds for believing there is an even deeper cause for that order”
David Hume	see note “Hume, Swinburne & Others”
John Stuart Mill	see note “Hume, Swinburne & Others”	“Either there is no God or there exists an incompetent or immoral God"
Richard Dawkins	see note “Hume, Swinburne & Others”	"Evolution has no long term goal. There is no long term target, no final perfection to serve as a criteria for selection... The criteria for selection is always short term, either simply survival or, more generally, reproductive success. The 'watchmaker' that is cumulative natural selection is blind to the future and has no long term goal."