The Teleological Argument

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  • Created by: Lilydavis
  • Created on: 23-05-19 15:45

The Teleological Argument

Advantages

  • Tennant said that there must be a designer because of the 'Anthropic principle' (the universe is designed in a way that allows life to grow) and the 'Aesthetic principle' (humans can enjoy beauty, art etc, which is not vital to survival).
  • Harold Morowitz argued that "the universe would have to be trillions of times older, and trillions of times larger, for a protein molecule to have occurred by random choice" (so there must be a designer).
  • God is the only logical explanation and the reasoning behind this uses empirical principles.
  • Arthur Brown examined the ozone layer and how it is the exact thickness to filter UV rays and protect life. He states that this could not have happened by chance and argued that it shows evidence of design.

Disadvantages

  • In 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' (1750), Hume argues; the world is far from being harmonious, we have a lack of experience, there could be many Gods and that we can't know if the universe is actually complex as we have nothing to compare it to.
  • Epicurean theory - given enough time, even is a random chaotic universe, order will develop.
  • Natural selection gives the appearance of design - Dawkins; "the temptation to attribute the appearance of design to actual design is a false one".
  • Just because there are gaps in our knowledge we shouldn't fill them with God - this is lazy and unscientific
  • JS Mill - "Either there is no God or there exists an incompetent or immoral God".

Evaluation

While many advantages of the theory point to the fact that it is very unlikely for the universe to have developed by chance it is still possible - when compared to the millions of planets that are unable to sustain life it is reasonable to suggest that at least one of these will be able to (our planet). Therefore I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives as arguing that our imperfect world was designed has many logical flaws.

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