Aquinas’ version was arguing from design qua regularity. He believed the world has to be designed because of the overall order of the universe that couldn’t have come about by itself or by chance, so therefore an intelligent being must have set in place, and the being must be God. In contrast, Paley believes someone designed the world because everything
• In the same way, if we look at the world we can infer a design because of the way in which things fit together for purpose. Design qua regularity • The second part of Paley’s argument is design qua regularity • Paley pointed to the rotation of the planets in the solar system, and how they obey the same universal laws, and hold their orbits because of gravity. • This couldn’t have about by chance. • He concluded that an external agent must have imposed order on the universe as a whole, and on its many parts, and that this agent must be god! Conclusion • The argument makes basic assumption that there is order and design in
Global warming is the change in climate due to the greenhouse effect. The sun may be the source of heat to our planet, but if it wasn’t for the greenhouse effect our planet would have an average temperature of 1 degree Fahrenheit, which is not warm enough for some life (National Geographic, 2007). When the heat from the sun comes through the atmosphere a majority of the heat is absorbed in the surface of the earth. The heat that is not absorbed reflects off the earth’s surface and is then sent towards our atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation. Our atmosphere stores gases, known as greenhouse gases, like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane gas, fluorinated gases, and nitrous oxide.
William Paley, "The Teleological Argument" (Natural Theology) William Paley in his Natural Theology argues for the existence of God based on the complex design of the universe. A question that has betroubled all philosophers. First this being a teleological argument one must explore the meaning of such an argument. A teleological argument is the argument for the existence of God from the evidence of order, and hence designs, in nature . As Paley explains, just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watchmaker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker.
With this premise, Pareley introduces the connection between the watch and our universe. He explains clearly that if a watch needs a designer, surely the universe should need one to. He justifies the existence of God through this watch argument, so he proceed with this argument from analogy: our world is like a watch, and watches require watchmakers, so our world must have an intelligent "watchmaker" as well namely, God. In the other hand David Hume has objections about this argument, one of the objections who really caught my eye was when he said that God is not perfect which is contradictory to the nature of God. (Since he derived a contradiction from the premise, the premise itself must be false).
He said in his 5th way that our knowledge of God did not come from God’s revelation – revealed theology, but from our observation of God’s creation – natural theology. He argued that dull matter cannot be self-ordering, so the order in which we see in the universe must be the result of an intelligent designer, and this designer must be God. He used the archer analogy to demonstrate this idea of design. He said that an archer aims towards a target, as would a designer towards the universe to create order. A further philosopher who put forward a version of the Design Argument is William Paley of the 18th century.
The argument is one of a posteriori, arrived by observation of the world. The basic premise of the argument is that given the perceived complexity, order, and purpose of the universe, one can infer that it must have been created by some intelligent designer. This designer is what we acknowledge to be ‘God.’ The Teleological Argument is most often used to prove the existence of ‘God,’ although in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion “the question is not concerning the being but the nature of God” (Bratman 93). The Argument of Analogy is most often used to explain and support the Teleological Argument. Cleanthes chooses to compare the world to a machine.
The design argument outlines that the world has been designed, and therefore requires a designer. This designer, has to have been God because he is the only being that has the power and will to do so. This argument is a posteriori because it bases it’s argument on observations within the Universe. It is also an inductive proof because it has more than one possible conclusion. There are a few ideas that support the idea of the world being designed, one of them being Aquinas’s Fifth Way.
The Ontological argument is set up to prove God exists in reality by justifying it as a priori, which in this instance means that God is understood to exist in reality even though Anselm has not witnessed God himself. He still understands there to be a God. Since Anselm can establish an understanding, he claims he can prove that God does dually exist in both reality and in the understanding. St. Anselm presents the first premise of the Ontological argument as follows, Every being that exists, exists in the understanding or in the reality or both. (Perry, p.78) Based on the foundational beliefs of Rene Descartes, we already know that ‘I think’ and ‘I exist‘.
Nuclear power contaminates water supplies. Around the country, there has been cases of water contamination with radioactive substanves. The worl of mining materials used in some nuclear plants, like uranium and titanium, run a very high risk of water contamination to near rivers, streams, and ground water supplies. This would not be good. It would harm more than it would help.