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Intelligent Design Argument Analysis

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Advertising for Aquinas: How confusion of Intelligent Design and the Fifth Way cast doubt on the existence of God Whether there is a God or not is a question that has vexed the minds of people and philosophers a like. It would make sense then that many philosophers over the years have investigated and tried to answer this question, and have proposed many solutions to it. One way that they have tried to prove the existence of God is through teleological arguments, or arguments that explain the purpose or directive goal of something. One of the best examples of a teleological argument is given by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Fifth Way for the existence of God. This argument is found in the first volume of his Summa Theologica goes as follows: …show more content…

This is because it is often mistakenly classified as an intelligent design argument, arguments which are easily defeated by Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. An intelligent design argument being an argument in the vain of William Paley’s teleological (watch maker argument) which argues that the universe is the product of an intelligent designer based on the complexities of the human form which he believed could have only been created by an “intelligent design”. However, the Fifth way of Thomas Aquinas is not an argument for intelligent design. His argument is, in fact, an argument for causality of the universe. This type of argument is one which argues that the universe acts towards an end and since it acts towards an end there must be a supreme being which set it towards that end. This is plainly seen in Aquinas’ own example of an Archer firing an arrow down range towards its …show more content…

From this it is then reasonable to conclude that this causality was set in motion by a supreme being which is God. This argument answers the question of whether or not there is a God far better than the intelligent design arguments of William Paley. For, Paley’s argument easily invalidated by modern science because it argues that simply because there are complex features that can’t be explained by nature and that there are further complex forms in the universe then there must be a God who created the

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