Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Teleological Arguments
TELOS = end goal/purpose
ALL inductive (Use a posteriori knowledge and make use of empirical
evidence
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Synthetic propositions may also be used
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Based on 5 principles - ORDER, BENEFIT, PURPOSE, SUITABILITY FOR
HUMAN LIFE and APPEARANCE
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These arguments are all fine-tuning arguments and they all assume that there
is only one God
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● States that because non-rational beings/bodies act in a way that is
BENEFICIAL to them (with an end goal or PURPOSE), and these behavioural
patterns rarely change, there must be a rational being that is controlling them
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● Uses the analogy “as the arrow is directed by the archer
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● Issues: a posteriori/empirical knowledge can be misinterpreted as it is
subjective, the analogy is unsound as a man-made item (an arrow) cannot be
compared to natural item (the Universe), makes an inductive leap so is
disputable
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● He stated that if you found a watch upon a heath you would know that it did
not just come to be, due to its complexity
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● We could argue that the universe also exhibits ORDER, PURPOSE and
DESIGN (this same complexity) and therefore there must be a universe
designer
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● Criticisms: Hume argued that this analogy is unsound because a watch
(mechanical) is not similar enough to the Universe (natural/organic) for it to
work
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● Hume also argued that perhaps “like causes DO NOT have like effects” (this
was an assumption that Paley was working on) - The creation of the universe

is not necessarily similar to the creation of a watch
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● This idea may also suggest that perhaps there were lots of “trial” universes
before ours (as watchmakers have many trials before they make the perfect
watch) - would an omnibenevolent God really do that?
● Issues: A posteriori/empirical knowledge can be misinterpreted as it is
subjective, Natural selection also gives a reason behind how species develop
(rather than having a designer)
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This theory is often called the “Goldilocks argument”
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● This is because a being must have created these aspects of the universe in
the first place
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● Issues: assumption that the world was created for humans (arrogance), could
just be down to chance, Evolution explains the world’s conditions
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● God created the world for aesthetically pleasing beauty, which shows his skills
and handicraft as an intelligent designer
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This lacks chaos, which humans find displeasing
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This is unnecessary and so cannot be a result of natural selection
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● FR Tennant stated that: 'Nature is not just beautiful in places; it is saturated
with beauty
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● Richard Dawkins summed up the argument by saying: “How dare another
human being make such beautiful music/poetry/art when I can't? It must be
God that did it
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However he also understands that this
single argument is weak, but argues that a combination of arguments (like the
cosmological arguments and evidence from mystical experiences) makes this
idea more believable
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● Humans’ opportunity to do good as well as the existence of consciousness
also signals that the universe was created by an intelligent designer
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● Swinburne accepts Natural selection, which makes his argument more
believable than Paley’s (despite their similarities)
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Intelligent Design (Michael Behe and the Discovery Institute)
● States that certain features of the universe cannot be explained by chance, so
these features are best explained by an intelligent cause
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● Strengths: there is evidence of intelligent design all around us: it is an easy
theory to believe
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Also does state the nature of this designer, or whether there is
more than one
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