William Paley's Argument For The Existence Of God

Paley's analogy is strong because of his metaphor of the watch to explain the universe and the existence of an intelligent designer. The weak part of this analogy is that the watchmaker as evidence can be produced in the physical form; the universe maker as evidence cannot be produced in physical form. Trying to prove the factual existence of a universe maker is hard. It's almost like proving that I believe that Seattle Washington exists. Seattle is actually a real place, a real city, in which

The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde: Charles Darwin’s revolutionary idea of evolution sparked dramatic debate in the scientific and, most especially, religious communities, as well as inspiring a new wave of thought in the minds of the world. There was also plenty of controversy, particularly from the many believers of creationism during the Victorian Age. But by denying creationism with his own theories, Darwin “made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena”, and as a result, initiated a “powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution” whose effects last to this day. Its profound impact meant that “nearly every field of social and cultural life was affected by the idea of evolution.” Darwin’s idea of natural

After reading The Teleological Argument, William Paley’s conclusion is straightforward and can be stated in just two words: God exists. His entire argument is based on a watch and is used as a means to prove God’s existence. As simple as a watch may seem, Paley describes its complexity and claims that a higher power had to have created its intelligent design. But how does he know that God designed the watch and a man didn’t? Paley argues that we have never seen a watch been made and that we are all incapable of designing something so unique and intelligent; therefore, we can conclude that something greater than us must have created it. However, before he claims who or what designed the watch, Paley says that we all can agree on at least one

This a posteriori argument for design comes from the desire to make a second case for God. The first was the ontological argument, or cosmological argument, which attempts to use pure reason to

The existence of God has been a huge issue for many years. The main McCloskey's issue with the idea of God is the presence of many evils in the world. McCloskey implies that the "proofs" of the existence of God cannot establish a factual evidence which supports the existing argument of whether there is God or not. Some proofs explaining the existence of God should be dismissed because they are not valid. Such proofs include teleological and ontological. A proof is an unquestionable, factual statement that directs an argument to the final product and is based on a level of scientific factualness. The existence of the world is no guarantee for believing in the existence of a certain being (God). The cosmological and design only offer points and arguments towards the existence of God, but the

Paley simply responds to this by saying that something doesn’t have to perfect to show that there was a designer.

According to Samuel Clark’s argument, things exist the way they are in order to show the existence of God. All things need an explanation for their existence according to Aristotle. For instance, why the earth is spherical, why different places experience different climatic patters, why different geographical areas have different time zones and why do creatures that are in found in different places have features that enable them survive in such conditions. These considerations lead to a belief that there must be a cause for the universe (Rowe 67). At the same time, this cause needs to be extremely perfect for the universe to align itself in its current manner. Something has to come from something. This is because nothing produces nothing; hence

According to William Paley’s argument in “The Teleological Argument" everything was created for a specific purpose. Paley uses the watch and mentions its maker to compare the creation of the world and God. In order to explain why certain objects have a specific design and purpose, Paley uses the watch to develop this idea. According to Paley, the watch has many intricate parts which contribute not only to the overall design but to the overall function of the watch. This can be compared to God and how he created each individual to serve a purpose. Paley mentions that the watch is intricate and complex, which can mean that the creation of the world is also a complex and difficult concept. Even though the creator of the watch is unknown, someone

When Paley begins to explain there being a purpose and function of the watch, which is clearly to tell time, he is also not able to identify as to what the exact purpose and function of the universe is. Paley leaves this issue with the renowned “because I said so”, leaving readers to feel as though they have no choice but to agree. Not only does Paley leave his arguments open-ended, but he also leads himself right into the hole of contradiction.

The Teleological argument was created by William Paley, human artifacts are products of intelligent design for purpose. The universe resembles these human artifacts. Therefore, the universe is probably a product of intelligent design. But the universe is vastly more complex and gigantic that a human artifact. Therefore, there probably is a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who designed the universe (Pojman 32). Paley is famous for his watch argument. He placed his foot on a stone and wondered how it got there, he answered that it has always been there. Then he found a watch on the ground and knew that it had not always been there, it had been put together piece by piece for a purpose. The watch must have been made by someone in some point in time, who put it together for a specific purpose. The watch exits as a work of nature just as the universe does. If there is an intelligent designer that made the watch for a purpose, then there must be an intelligent designer that created the universe for a purpose, which is the main idea of his argument (Pojman

This is a common point of disagreement between pro-evolutionists and anti-evolutionists. The irreducible complexity argument from anti-evolutionists states that complex structures like the human eye cannot arise from a process of natural selection and evolution alone. This is because if you take parts away from the eye it fails to function, leading one to conclude the eye must have been made in one act of creation by a supernatural intelligence, the same way a watch would have had to be made from start to finish by an intelligent watchmaker with the intention of an end-goal which would be the final watch itself. Half a watch, or three-quarters of a watch would serve no practical purpose.

Francis Schaeffer and James W. Sire present a views of the universe that reflects judeo-scripture in their works. They describe the ideas that God created the universe to be good, and that God continues to oversee and Shepard all that lies within it. God did not simply form the earth with aimless intentions. He had an eternal detailed plan for all He created and would create, and all that He made had a good and holy purpose. In Genesis in Space and Time, Schaeffer conveys it as, “A doxology of all creation-everything glorifying God on its own level” (56). Realizing the Lord's objective when establishing the universe offers perspective to those within it, and allows them to understand how glorifying Him will always be critical. God continues

Paley analogy states “Imagine you live on a desolate desert island and one day you come across a watch, by looking at it and examining, the intricate and complicated mechanisms you would conclude that it was designed by an intelligent designer.” There is some value to his analogy, therefore what Paley is saying is that if we were to find a watch we haven’t seen before, we would be able logically conclude by what we have seen on the watch, it was therefore made by an intelligent designer. Also it concludes the natural world manifests the same interrelation of its parts as a watch. So, we can conclude that an intelligent designer makes the natural world and that designer is God. In addition, the teleological argument displays the flaws in the infamous theory of

Given the fact that the nature of the warring personalities are significantly different, the clashing of ideas with regard to the theory were inevitable. Charles Darwin’s claim was that organisms went through several processes that made them what they are now or the principle of natural selection, whereas, William Paley’s argument is that organisms were created as they were by one “creator” which is God. The former’s claim is more inclined to the principle of evolution while the latter’s argument mainly centers on “natural theology” and the “designer

When working in the science fields there are many obstacles a person of faith may face. The biggest of these is the controversy over the concept of evolution and how the world came into being. Atheists and evolutionists are always trying to find ways to disprove God with science. However, after spending several years learning about how nature and chemicals work together to form our world it is hard for me to imagine that all of it came into existence without a creator.