Summary Of Argument From Design By William Paley

*Paley: argument from design:

The world did not begin on its own. In William Paley’s Argument from Design, he examines the existence of the world and god’s role in its existence. He claims that the world was created by something or someone, as it couldn’t have been created on its own. It must have some sort of intelligent or intentional designer.

In the argument from design, the world must have been created by an intelligent being. It could not have been created otherwise. Paley argues this when he analyzes the existence of world, corresponding with god’s purpose in its existence. He claims that “there must have existed, at some time, or [an]other, an artificer or artificers who formed [the world] for the purpose which we find it actually

To support this, Paley offers an example which I find interesting and also synonymous with a philosophical analogy of god during the 1800s. He explains that a watch, created complexly with its moving parts and its multiple purposes, also must have an intelligent creator, a watchmaker, in order to exist originally. Let’s consider this for a minute. If I were to somehow find a watch lying in the middle of nature, complex as it is, the first thought in my mind wouldn’t be that it was there naturally. Instead, the first thought upon discovering the watch would be that someone or something had made the watch. Let’s first analyze the construction and structure of the watch. The watch is made of multiple gears, springs, and also metals. The construction and organization of the gears and springs inside the watch, which make it work, are so complex that it is impossible for the metals, the materials of the watch, to have organized themselves and formed together in the shape of the watch, not without the guidance of a being who already knew what they intended to make. To explain, in order for the watch to have been created, it would have needed an

In this case, that would be the watchmaker. Let’s consider this scenario. The watch is considered an item that before now, didn’t exist, which means that there was someone who already knew about the watch in order for it to exist. That is where the watchmaker comes in. Paley uses the watchmaker to signify someone who had an idea of what the watch was, how it was made, what materials it needed in order to be made, and what it it was used for. Otherwise the watch wouldn’t exist at all. In the same way, Paley argues that the world must have had a creator who already knows what the world is, in order for it to exist, otherwise it would not be here presently. All that would exist would be the materials needed for the product, so to speak. In this case, if the world did not exist, then only the materials need to construct the world, scatter about the universe, would exist. God is portrayed as the watchmaker in this sense, which corresponds with how philosophers, and perhaps Christians, understood him during the time. Instead of being a direct influence in the affairs of mortals, God exists in the role of the intelligent designer who had a preimage of the