Teleological Arguments
NameInstructorCourseDateTeleological argumentsTeleological arguments or design/empirical arguments that argue for the existence of God. According to these arguments, attempt to identify various empirical worldly features that point to evidence of intelligent design who’s best explanation can only be God. However there are those who object to the existence of an intelligent design. Some cite evolution as their basis while others ask if there was a god then why does evil exist. The argument of analogy supports teleological arguments of an intelligent being designer. A proponent of the analogy argument William Derham argued that some designs such as the vision of birds, the eye socket, the eardrum or the digestive system was evidence of an intelligent being thus inferring the existence of God.  Although there are those who oppose the analogy argument, such as David Hume’s argument, they do not have a sufficient explanation of who designed such intelligent things so the analogy argument is convincing for me.
William Paley’s watchmaker’s argument of the existence of intelligent design assumes that supposedly one should stumble upon a watch and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place. The same explanation for the watch could be used to explain a rock lying on the ground too. There are two features of a watch that give the indication to intelligent design. First, its function is valuable to an intelligent agent and second it could not perform its function unless it was intelligently designed according to its specifications. Darwin’s theory of the origin of species argues that evolution occurred as a result of complex biological organisms evolving over millions of years to simpler organisms through natural selection. In my opinion, although Darwin explains the process of evolution from complex biological organisms to simpler organism through natural selection, he does not explain the origin of these biological complex organisms and what if these complex biological organisms were intelligently designed for that purpose.