William Paley was the creator of the teleological argument. He believed that an intelligent designer has had to create the universe for such a purposeful thing could not have just come to be. But how could one prove this? He validated his beliefs by using an analogy of a watch and a watchmaker. In the case of Paley's argument, the watch was to represent the universe and the watchmaker was to represent the creator of the universe.
Paley begins his argument by describing two scenerios in which he comes across a stone and a watch. If someone was to ask him where the rock came from, he may say that the stone could have been there for a very long time. However, if he encountered a watch on the road, he would not give the same response he gave about the rock; "...why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first?" (90) This is due to the intricate design and sole purpose of the watch. One could not believe that the watch came to be on its own and that the mechanics behind the movement of this object was the result of the components of the watch coming together on it's own.
[...] Philo is a sceptic and argues that man is not witness to the design of the universe so cannot say that it was designed. When we look at a watch we can say that its creation was witnessed. Hence the analogy with a watch is misleading. Furthermore, the analogy is even more misleading due to the fact that our knowledge of the universe is radically incomplete. We see order in our corner of the universe but there may also be chaos in other parts of the universe. [...]
[...] There is tremendous physical suffering that cannot be discounted on grounds of free-will. The suffering is not chosen and is not wanted. If someone is burning to death in a house fire then the argument for free-will seems to miss the point that there is no free choice being made here. Freedom to suffer admittedly means something slightly different but it still seems to be a swerve whereby the designer God has still done the right thing. Yet we humans seek to obliterate physical pain, disease and suffering. [...]
[...] Using the example of the watch and the watchmaker, Paley made eight arguments for the existence of a superior being. Firstly, he believed that regardless of one's knowledge on how the watch was made, one would still assume that the watch had an intelligent designer. Secondly, he mentions that if we were to find a flaw with this watch, we would still assume that it had an intelligent designer because of the implied purpose of the watch. Paley mentions that a machine does not have to be perfect in order to display that it had a creator. [...]
[...] The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung says that there is an archetype for God. If this is the case then there is a want biasing) to believe and stand up for an all-powerful and all-loving God. Thus this weakens the theist's argument. However we cannot say that there is no God just because there is a bias in the theists mind. Indeed, Paley would argue that if there is an archetype for God then God put it there through design. But in this essay we argue with Hume that the evidence is weak. [...]
[...] We can try and figure out how it works (as Einstein did so) but we cannot say how it came to be. So Philo/Hume reject theism partly on the grounds that it is a huge leap of faith to say that the universe derived from the creation of an all- seeing/all-loving personal God. Hume clearly sees Paley's teleological argument as a wild guess. He ponders why he didn't guess that many gods created the universe. (polytheism). Paley sees the teleological argument as one that ‘implies' things. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
