Teleological Argument for the Existence of God
Teleological Argument for the Existence of God The teleological argument for the existence of God is based on the premise that the world has within it intelligent purpose and order and this leads to the conclusion that there must be a supreme designer. One form of the argument is based on the machine like qualities within the world that suggest that there was some ultimate designer who organized all the complex parts, just as man would a machine. The second form is based upon the complexity of the world and the natural laws which govern it. While both forms of this argument present a case for the existence of God, both run into many problems for those that try to defend it. William Paley puts forth the teleological argument in his Natural Theology where he likens the world to a watch. If one were walking along and randomly found a watch lying on the ground one would conclude that it must have been made by some being with purpose and intelligence. His reasoning is that just as all the mechanical parts of a watch have a purpose, so too does the world and this leads one to believe just as the watch has a designer so too must the world. He argues that, like a watch, these parts in nature have an intelligent design and work
With this explanation the objection to the teleological argument brought upon by Darwin's theory of evolution is overcome, but even Swinburne admits that while the objection is overcome, the argument is still not very convincing, because the instances in which nature makes machine making machines is rare. One cannot postulate that without order in the universe as it is now that there would be chaos, there would still be order, just not the same order found now. These independent qualities within each object would react with each other regardless what kinds of laws governed them. These natural laws that Swinburne speaks of are all relative to one another. This argument based on spatial order considers the probability that such complex order could occur randomly without design. I could compare it to other objects and realize that it must have been created because not only is it complicatedly designed; there is no evidence of it existing naturally. Another seemingly convincing counterargument to the teleological argument for the existence of God comes from Darwin's theory of evolution. Even if one could imagine I universe where light did not reflect off a mirror, light would still interact with the mirror in some way. For even if the fundamental characteristics of the universe itself were different there would still be order, not by design, but out of necessity. The complex order in the universe is a characteristic of the relations between the parts or objects within the universe. If the machine miraculously turns out 10 consecutive aces of hearts, the fact that this is the only scenario that the person would be alive to contemplate it doesn't change the fact that this happened despite its very low probability. in a way that have a purpose, but in nature this design is more complex and on such a scale that the designer would have to be equally knowledgeable and powerful, like God. If I had never seen a watch before and found one on the ground I would conclude that it was designed because I had never seen any other objects like it. One cannot watch a hair growing and learn much about man.
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