Analysis Of Paley's Teleological Argument

1446 Words6 Pages
. According to beliefs and people everywhere different view points form. As we explore, God in the Western belief there are three main components omnipotent meaning all powerful, omniscient meaning all knowing and lastly omni benevolent meaning all good. The properties are important in understanding the concept of God and him achieving things we may not think plausible. As we begin to construct a debate for and against the concept of a designed universe we will incorporate many sides of the argument in order to construct a more valid analysis of the issue. We will look at William Paley’s Teleological argument and the issues of chance and design. . By looking at this argument critically we will first form and understand the argument…show more content…
We must take into account that we cannot just think because the universe is so complicated it must be designed who is to say natural processes couldn’t have done it or the Evolutionary theory is responsible for everything we know. A big problem with Paleys argument is how he connected purpose and design. By stating that everything is designed within the universe is to say everything was designed for an exact purpose and vice versa. For example, in the case of the watch it may not just serve the purpose for time it could be used for something else, the universe therefore cannot be compared to these components of design and function plausibly. The main point is that objects can serve many purposes for example a coffee pot holding down a piece of paper. Objects can serve many purposes even though they may have not been designed that way. As we look at the Reed example of the Chimpanzee eating the bugs off of the stick we must really stop and think about this situation and whether this stick is the product of function or complexity. A main problem of the argument that the Reed example testifies against is the idea that design and purpose are linked. The stick just happened to act as a good eating utensil however, had to be pulled out of the ground and forced against its original stance. Another example is a fruit such an apple we could say that the designer created this apple for source of food however it could also be eaten because its actually tastes good or is good for our health. This argument states that the apple was taken off the true to best suit the need, of becoming food because it tastes good. Therefore the apple suited the purpose of what was needed from it. Many items could be used for purposes that best suit them, and this does not take intelligent design. We use these examples in order to
Open Document