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 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.
             There are a few problems with Paley's analogy, some of which were put forth by David Hume even before Paley wrote his article. In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion he argues that the comparison between human made things and the natural world is a faulty analogy. He argues that one cannot compare the two because the world is much more different than a watch or a house. Hume gives the example of a hair growing. One cannot watch a hair growing and learn much about man. Likewise one cannot learn much about the world by loo...