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world over the centuries the effort to
craft a perfect bulletproof argument for
the existence of God has taken many
forms there was the ontological argument
of Anselm
there were the four cosmological
arguments of Aquinas and they still have
their supporters but many modern
philosophers feel that they're simply
too flawed too inconsistent with our
scientific understanding of the universe
to be convincing today but there was a
fifth argument posited by Thomas Aquinas
and it was popularized several hundred
years after his time and late 1700s by
the English Christian philosopher
William Paley and this argument for
God's existence is still around today -
in fact it's one of the most popular
it's known as the teleological argument
you may know it as intelligent design
to make his case for the existence of
God William Paley gave us what's known
as an argument by analogy this form of
inductive argument invites us to
consider a particular state of affairs
let's just call it situation a about
what we're already likely to have
certain beliefs and then likens it to
situation B with which we are less
familiar the idea is that in the
interest of consistency whatever
conclusions we've drawn about a we ought
to draw about B as well you could make
an argument by analogy about anything
but Paley used it to talk about God in
what's known as the watchmaker analogy
he asked us to imagine what we would
think if we found a watch on the ground
did we imagine that the watch simply
appeared randomly spontaneously on its
own or would we see the complexity of it
and notice that its parts seemed to come
together in a particular way in order to
accomplish a goal if so wouldn't we
think that the watch must have been made
by someone on purpose Haley was arguing
that the teleology demonstrated by a
watch would lead us to conclude that it
was designed by an intelligent creator
with a particular end in mind Helio
ethical means goal-oriented or
purposeful and we can easily pick out
the teleology zuv man-made objects got a
bug here as an example it was created
with a particular teleology in mind it
was designed to hold a liquid without
leaking it's got a handle put here
deliberately in such a way that human
fingers could easily fit into it and
it's composition is such that it will
keep the liquid inside warm without
burning the hand that holds it you
wouldn't assume that a coffee cup would
simply come to be exhibiting such
perfect design for its particular
function without someone having created
it that way on purpose so in the same
way that the teleology of a cup implies
the existence of a cup maker and that of
a watch implies the existence of a
watchmaker Paley saw teleology in the
world and assumed from that God's
existence he continued to the analogy by
comparing a watch to a living organism
look at the complexity of the human body
heart and lungs working together
producing sweat to keep ourselves from
overheating transforming food into
energy
we're just generally amazing all around
look at how elements of the natural
world operate according to complex laws
that sustain a beautiful natural harmony
Paley said that this couldn't possibly
just have happened any more than the
design of a pocket watch could just have
happened there must be a designer
if you accept this analogy then you
agree with Paley that just like the
purposefulness of a watch compels us to
believe in a watchmaker the
purposefulness of the world compels us
to believe in a
world maker God and you might think this
is a fantastic argument it might even be
what motivates your own belief in God
there are lots of people who say things
like sunsets and babies show them that
there must be a designer god but some of
you probably aren't buying it and you
know what to do arguments are refuted by
counter arguments so when you want to
refute an argument by analogy you offer
a diss analogy basically you demonstrate
that situation a and situation B are
dissimilar enough that the analogy
doesn't actually work so to object to
Paley we have to identify a way in which
elements of the natural world like human
bodies are relevantly dissimilar to
watches when we're talking about a watch
an objector might say it obviously had a
creator after all we can take it apart
and see clearly how the gears fit
together and move the hands that keep
time but there's so much in the natural
world that isn't understandable in the
same way for instance why would God have
designed our eyes to have a blind spot
tailee responded that it doesn't matter
whether we can understand how something
was created the point is simply that it
was he might point out for instance that
I actually don't understand the inner
workings of my phone but I still know it
had a Creator whether or not I
understand how it was created is beside
the point
next objection some parts of nature's
seemed to be without purpose a blind
thought obviously doesn't have any
function and neither do nipples on a man
Paley's response here was just because
you don't know there's a purpose it
doesn't mean there isn't one but this is
a problem too because his whole argument
for believing in God is that you should
look at the world and see purpose so if
we see some things in the world that are
working great and really seem to have
complexity and definite use and others
that don't that's a flaw in his argument
what's more the absence of any obvious
purpose in things can lead people to
start searching for purposes effectively
making them up for instance I can find a
purpose for this finger I can use it as
a nose-picker
it would make a good one it's just the
right size to really get in there and
dig around but was my finger designed to
pick noses probably not 20th century
British philosopher Bertrand Russell
made fun of this purpose finding
tendency by pointing out that you could
look at a bunny and form the belief that
God gave it a fuzzy white tail so
hunters would have something to shoot at
the point is if we're the ones inventing
purposes rather than recognizing ones
that are inherently there then we're the
real creators of purpose in the world
not God basically if you believe that
God made eyes for seeing then you also
have to believe that he designed fingers
as nose-pickers and rabbit tails as
bull's-eyes and blind spots as ways for
us to get in the car accidents so the
counter-argument here is we don't
just get to pick and choose and say god
designed the stuff we want him to have
designed and not the other stuff rather
than searching for dis analogies another
way Paley's argument has been countered
is with an alternative explanation for
condition B Haley says that bodies are
purposeful and from there concludes that
the purpose had to have been put there
by an intelligent creator but another
explanation for how bodies came to have
the complexity and functionality they
have today is natural selection and
random mutation we can concede that the
existence of a designer God helped make
sense of the origins of the world in a
pre-scientific age but now we have a
perfectly good scientific explanation
for how the complexity of the world came
about so who needs a watchmaker when you
have evolution by natural selection
another objection to Paley's case came
from the 18th century Scottish
philosopher David Hume who pointed out
that if were to take the analogy
seriously we'd need to conclude that the
Creator that Paley posits seems to make
a lot of mistakes and not just blind
spots like how about hurricanes or why
would he make bodies with certain
tissues like in the breast prostate or
colon that are so incredibly prone to
cancer why would he make umbilical cords
that could wrap around a baby's neck why
would he make butterflies have to wait
for hours in mobile for their wings to
dry as soon as they come out of their
chrysalis making them easy prey for
predators human pointed out that the
world is chock full of stuff that looks
cruel ridiculous impractical and
contrary to life a flawed world he said
implies a flawed creator now the
development of evolutionary biology over
the past couple hundred years has taken
a pretty heavy toll on the teleological
argument but it still has many
supporters and their method for
defending their view is a good model for
the way the Socratic method is supposed
to work when opponents raise objections
to your theory you need to either reject
it or modify it in a way that responds
to those objections so supporters of the
teleological argument set out to modify
and strengthen their view here are a
couple moderate responses contemporary
British philosopher Richard Swinburne
gives us a modern teleological argument
with a twist of probability he says that
even if there's another possible
explanation for the universe we should
go with the explanation that's most
likely to be true and he says that it's
simply more probable that God designed
the world then that it came about
through the pure chance of evolutionary
processes likewise another class of
modern defenses of the teleological
argument are collectively known as
fine-tuning arguments these arguments
accept the Big Bang and evolution as
scientific truths but they maintain that
for the evolution of life to occur it's
most likely that God set up the precise
conditions that it required rather than
than coming
by accident after all if earth were just
a little closer to or farther from the
Sun if the composition of the atmosphere
was slightly different if the content of
our oceans was something other than what
it is life would have never taken root a
lot of people think these modernized
arguments have more going for them than
Paley's did this is partly because these
types of teleology have moved from
making assertions about certainty to
making claims about probability which
seemed easier to get right and to defend
objectors will counter by saying that
the problem with these arguments is you
can't really make a probability claim
when you only have a sample set of 1 if
we had multiple earths that we could
examine we could see how likely any
particular adaptation is or how unique
the conditions for life are then we
would know if it were likely or unlikely
to happen without God but we can't know
that at least not now because we can
only access this one world where we know
that things evolved as they did thus the
counter-argument goes swing burn and
other modern teleology
are right to recognize that if things
were slightly different than life maybe
wouldn't have evolved or what have
evolved very differently but that is
wholly different from claiming that it's
unlikely to have happened in the first
place
so today you learned about the
teleological argument objections to it
and responses to those objections and
the responses to the responses to the
objections but we've spent an awful lot
of time talking about God's existence so
next time let's consider what God is
like if it exists this episode is
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