William Paley's Telleological View On The Existence Of God

573 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Examine the teleological argument for the existence of god as presented by paley

In this essay, I will outline William Paley’s argument of teleological view on the existence of God, and show that while his analogy of the watchmaker is possible, it is not plausible. The teleological argument is the argument from design; that because the universe has a purpose in its order, there is rational evidence for trusting in the existence of a God. The universe and all biological organisms that inhibit it is so complex that the only explanation, Paley infers, is there is an even more complex, intelligent designer that created it. Paley argues that everything has been designed to fulfill some function and the regularity and behaviour of the universe is due to the creator that intended it to function in that specific manner. He uses an analogy of a watchmaker to deepen the understanding of the intelligent designer. Paley says, imagine one day you are walking and come across a stone. One would immediately assume the stone had been in that position for the entirety of its existence (Paley, p. 116). Then, suppose a watch was found on the ground in the same manner as the stone;...

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Argument From Design By William Paley

    673 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Paley nothing happens just because. Everything has a purpose and a function. For example, this watch shows evidence of design so therefore, anything that shows of design likely has a

    Read More

  • The Argument from Design, by William Paley

    1096 Words  | 3 Pages

    The teleological argument begins by stating a special kind of argument, an a posteriori argument. An a posteriori argument is an argument based on the knowledge of experiences encountered in the world. For Paley, the a posteriori argument is established as he imagines himself nature walking, only to stumble upon a watch: a pocket watch, whose function is made visible through a transparent glass and made possible through gears and springs. Paley retrieves the watch and questions how such an object came to be in the middle of vegetation and is easily intrigued to reflect about the nature of the watch. Let us reflect about the physical attributes of the watch. Imagine for a second that the body of the watch was covered in highly polished gold metal and in the middle of its body laid a transparent glass. The glass lets us see two disproportionate metallic rods whose ends are encrusted with small diamonds. Apart from ...

    Read More

  • Richard Wilbur, God, and Christianity

    1908 Words  | 4 Pages

    A recurring theme in the poetry of Richard Wilbur is one of God and Christianity.  Biblical references can be found throughout his work, even in poems that have little to do with religion.  However, this theme is quite prominent as there are several poems contain more than passing references. Wilbur provides in these poems ideas that Christians can identify with, either in the Christian lifestyle or straight from the Bible.

    Read More

  • The Cosmological Argument and the Mystical Argument

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    8- McDermid, Douglas. "God's Existence." PHIL 1000H-B Lecture 9. Trent University, Peterborough. 21 Nov. 2013. Lecture.

    Read More

  • Paley's Argument From Design Argument

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Teleological argument, given by William Paley in 1802 states that there is a “Designing Creator”, and that everything in this world has been designed to fulfill some sort of function. He bases this argument using a traditional time piece, a watch, as an analogy. Paley states that the watch, unlike a stone or a rock, could not have been placed or created by accident, and that the existence of a watch is proof that there must be a watchmaker. He compares this watch to the existence of the universe, stating that the universe itself is proof that there is some sort of designer present, and like a watch (but unlike a rock or stone) could not have been created by accident. He then continues to state that further evidence of a God can be found in the supposed “regularity” of the universe. Paley claims that due to the universe behaving in a very apparent manner, while retaining boundaries (Newtons laws of motion, etc) that this is a very apparent display of a God having rule over a very mechanical universe. Now Darwin on the other hand was a large

    Read More

  • The Proof of the Existence of God

    1421 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Proof of the Existence of God There are many arguments that try to prove the existence of God. In this essay I will look at the ontological argument, the cosmological. argument, empirical arguments such as the avoidance of error and the argument from the design of the. There are many criticisms of each of these that would say the existence of God can’t be proven that are perhaps.

    Read More

  • Creationism, Evolutionists Among Other Theories

    1427 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stenger, Victor. J. 2007. God: The Failed Hypothesis—How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. New York: Prometheus Books.

    Read More

  • The Design Argument For The Existence Of God

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    He had two different approaches to how the universe was created. Paley compared a watched the way the universe, he thought the world was like a machine it must have a des... ... middle of paper ... ... nthropic Principle’ believed that ‘Nature produces living beings but with fine tuning that is found in the universe; life could just as easily not developed into earth’ I think that this quote is trying to say that the universe has been developed by evolution and was created by God, a designer.

    Read More

  • God And The Origin Of The Universe Chapter 1 Summary

    1684 Words  | 4 Pages

    Anum Munaf Dr. Caryn Voskuil PHIL-1301-83456 23 April 2017 Response Paper: Chapter 2 In Chapter two “God and the Origin of the Universe” of the book “Problems from Philosophy”, written by James Rachels and Stuart Rachels, a very interesting and contentious topic has been discussed. It is about the belief that God exists in this universe or not and this universe is created by God or it has been developed by chance. Rachels with the help of distinct types of arguments tried to prove that God exists in this world and the universe is created by some intelligent designer. At the beginning, he gave the results of recent Gallop poll and Pew Research Center polls to explain that how many people are religious and how many are non-religious.

    Read More

  • The Universe: The Design Argument by William Paley

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many of us know that a watch indeed does have a designer, but what if we had never seen a watch made before or known of anyone capable of such design? Lacking this knowledge, Paley argues, should raise no doubt in our mind that the object must have a designer. Even if the watch told the wrong time most of the time, Paley says that the intended purpose of the watch to tell time is still obvious. Paley says we should still conclude that the watch ...

    Read More

  • William Lane Craig Does God Exist

    677 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dr. William Lane Craig supports the idea of existence of God. He gives six major arguments, in order to defend his position. The first argument is quite fare, Craig says that God is the best reason of existence of everything. He gives the idea, that the debates between all the people, cannot reach the compromise, because the best explanation of the reasons of existence of everything is God, and nothing can be explained without taking Him into consideration. The second argument of Craig is from a cosmological point of view: he says that the existence of the universe is the best proof of the existence of God. Because, the process of the creation of the universe is so ideally harmonious, that it seems impossible to appear accidentally. The third argument is about the fine tuning of the universe. The universe is designed in such a way that people always have aim of life, and the life of people and the nature are interconnected. The fourth argument of Dr. Craig is about the morality: God is the best explanation of the existence of the morality and moral values in people’s lives. The...

    Read More

  • Aquinas’ Cosmological Arguments

    1633 Words  | 4 Pages

    The teleological. The first three ‘ways’ are different variations of the cosmological. argument. The syll The Cosmological argument is developed around a distinction between that which has a necessary existence and that, which is contingent. A thing that has necessary existence must exist in all possible worlds.

    Read More

  • The Role of Science, Ethics, and Faith in Modern Philosophy

    3618 Words  | 8 Pages

    ABSTRACT: Curiously, in the late twentieth century, even agnostic cosmologists like Stephen Hawking—who is often compared with Einstein—pose metascientific questions concerning a Creator and the cosmos, which science per se is unable to answer. Modern science of the brain, e.g. Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind (1994), is only beginning to explore the relationship between the brain and the mind-the physiological and the epistemic. Galileo thought that God's two books-Nature and the Word-cannot be in conflict, since both have a common author: God. This entails, inter alia, that science and faith are to two roads to the Creator-God. David Granby recalls that once upon a time, science and religion were perceived as complementary enterprises, with each scientific advance confirming the grandeur of a Superior Intelligence-God. Are we then at the threshold of a new era of fruitful dialogue between science and religion, one that is mediated by philosophy in the classical sense? In this paper I explore this question in greater detail.

    Read More

  • An Argument for the Existence of God

    2339 Words  | 5 Pages

    This paper's purpose is to prove the existence of God. There are ten main reasons that are presented in this paper that show the actuality of God. It also shows counter-arguments to the competing positions (the presence of evil). It also gives anticipatory responses to possible objections to the thesis.

    Read More

  • Bertrand Russell and Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Arguments on God's Existence

    595 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this paper I will be exploring two arguments on the topic of the existence of God. In particular, I will focus on Saint Thomas Aquinas’s efficient causation argument for God’s existence and an objection to it from Bertrand Russell. After an analysis of Aquinas’s argument and a presentation of Russell’s objection, I will show how Russell’s objection fails.

    Read More

More about William Paley's Telleological View On The Existence Of God

Open Document