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Descartes And Paley's Argument Analysis

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Descartes, and Paley suggest that we can know God and that he is within our understanding. Throughout the readings they describe and argue how we can now the existence of God and the attributes that are associated with him. However David Hume would refute these claims saying through his dialogues more specifically through a character named Philo that we cannot know the attributes or even for that matter the existence. During this paper I will analyze Descartes and Paley’s arguments in comparison with David Hume’s arguments that we cannot know these things. In Paley’s argument he says that if we saw a rock lying on the ground and someone said that rock had always been there that is conceivable, whereas if a watch were lying on the ground that answer would no longer be acceptable. If we look closely at the watch then it is …show more content…

He further elaborates on this watch saying that even if you had never seen a watch made or known someone to make it you would still recognize that the watch had a creator. Also the watch at times may go wrong, even if this happens it still does not prove that the watch does not have a creator. Further that the watch has parts whose functions are unknown this still does not determine that the watch does not have a creator. Ultimately what this argument comes down to is that the watch is an analogy for the universe and or human beings. All of these things he attributed to the watch is in like fashion attributed to the universe. Hume’s response to this is through is character Philo, Philo said that we should not judge the attributes of god on something like Paley proposes. Philo argues that we cannot judge the entirety of the universe on one single part of nature because nature has an infinite number of springs of principle. Also that we cannot base God on our

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William Paley was a well known theologian in the 19th century responsible for surmising the existence of “an intelligent creator by design.” His argument, built up to and stated on page 29, Chapter III, paragraph 1 in sentence 1 is as follows: “for every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature”. Before diving into the meaning behind this, there are terms to be defined. By contrivance, Paley means artificiality, or to have been made. A watch, as easy as it is to grasp, is simply the mechanism on your wrist that tells you the time of day.

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Weaknesses of the Argument Paley gives the example of the watch being complex, so it must have a creator. Things can be complex, without having a designer, for example a snowflake. If we were created by an intelligent designer, then why are we not perfect? If God created us, then why do babies die young? Why do natural disasters kill millions and millions of people?

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Paley argued that things such as a watch is complicated, meaning in order to be functional it has many pieces that are made to fit together and was made for a sole functional purpose, that is to tell time, Unlike Aquinas argued that it must have a maker who created something with intelligence

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As mentioned Pike’s argument against Hume begins by organizing Philo’s argument in a manner that can be analyzed in a logical manner. Philo’s argument is essentially split into three statements as follows: “(1) The world contains instances of suffering. (2) God exists-and is omnipotent and omniscient. (3) God exists-and is perfectly good” (Pike 182). As mentioned by Pike, Philo seems to have successfully created an instance of an inconsistent triad, meaning that any combination of the two statements can be true, but the discluded statement must be false (Pike 182).

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William Paley’s argument from design starts off with a man seeing a watch on the side of the road. The argument is whether or not someone designed the watch, or if the watch randomly just showed up there itself by random chance. He makes an analogy of watches and humans. He says that since there is a designer that made the watch, there must be a designer that made us humans. The reason that he compares watches to humans is that is because they are both complex and have parts that work very well together.

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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

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Hume on the other hand can only confirm what has already happened, being that is the most truthful and logical

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