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Paley's Argument Analysis

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Recommended: Outline of the design argument

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. He says that the designer for humans is God. I think the analogy does a great job of showing that humans have a designer, but I disagree with the argument that it shows that God created us.
Paley asks you to imagine that you have never …show more content…

It basically just throws God in without even talking about him. The argument does a great job at showing that there is a creator, but does nothing to explain about God. Once you believe that there is a designer then it opens up many doors by diving into the topic of God and maybe doing research. What makes more sense to believe in God is actually trying to learn about God. If you learn about the Judeo-Christian God, you’ll find out that he wants to be known. You’ll find out that he created us in his image and we can bring him glory. You’ll find out that God wants to have a relationship with you and that he loves you. It’s from these types of situations that you actually will believe in God, not from analogies that Paley uses that says that God is the creator by because of a comparison that he uses between watches and humans. He gave no evidence about the characteristics of the Judeo-Christian God and just basically said he proved God is real. Analogies like this do a good job at making you believe that there is a designer, but you have to do more to actually believe that the designer is God. To say right off the bat that you believed in God because of this analogy would not make much sense. If you tried to convince somebody that God was real you’re going to have to dive deeper into the conversation than this watch analogy. One of the reasons that lead me to believing in God is how complex we are. To think that we as humans came about as a result of chance does not make sense one bit. That being said, I’ve always believed in a designer, but it wasn’t always that I believed that God was the designer. There was more that I had to do to come to that

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The conclusion, thus, is that Nature was created by intelligent design. This argument is the centerpiece of Paley’s “Argument from Design”, as he spends the previous two sections deliberately lining the specifics of a watch, the clear order a watch follows, and that there must be a creator for a watch. In this section, he puts forward an analogy that nature is like a watch in that both have specific orders and contrivances which thus mean that both were created by an intelligent

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Paley simply responds to this by saying that something doesn’t have to perfect to show that there was a designer. Another problem with this argument is that things in a watch (or a universe) contain different parts that look like they have no function, so these parts are somewhat proof that he universe wasn’t designed. Paley replies to this by saying that just because we do not know the function of something it doesn’t mean that it has no function, Paley looks at different parts of the watch (or universe) and from this he decides that it must have been

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Hambourger’s argument from design argues for the existence of god based on the perceived evidence of deliberate design in the world/universe. To further elaborate on the concepts he uses, Hambourger uses three main concepts; determinism, chance, and mere hap. Hambourger’s argument from design claims that though many things occur by chance, there are some things which we cannot simply accept to have happened by chance, and must therefore have some common explanation in the causal chain of events connecting the two events. For instance the universe is created by many states of affairs coming together. If some slight changes had occurred, the end result could have been vastly different than it currently is.

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He introduces the idea with a game, a simple wager of " heads or tails". However, in his game, one side of the coin represents the belief that God exist, while the other means that God does not exist. What we bet on in Pascal's Wager is also more than your ordinary school yard gamble with higher stake. In this wager, betting our entire lives, as well as the infinite beyond which we live on this

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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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Within the argument that the author is fighting for he fails to provide a solid point by using the logical fallacies Ad Hominem. This fallacy is defined as Attacking your opponents' character or personal traits instead of engaging with their argument. The author implies that people who do not believe in God do not have a moral compass and therefore should not have a right to speak on the issue of abortion because god has created

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If you grant this argument as valid, and are consequentially moved to choose to believe in God through reason, you are now meet with the obstacle of convincing yourself to believe. Pascal says that in this case you should not try to convince yourself by trying to further prove God’s existence, but instead you should observe those who have

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The blind watch maker analogy that was presented is brilliant. Creationists, use their own version of the watchmaker argument saying if you were walking down a beach and you found a watch you could assume there was a designer. But when it comes to talking about existence, physical reality, and life, It’s a little different. The analogy at first glance seems to work but then you realize that even metaphorically speaking it’s an equivocation fallacy.

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In this he questions the attributes of God that are traditionally used to describe him. He claims that there is a lack of foundational evidence to prove that God is not only the creator of the universe but is the All Mighty God that he is described as (Speaks). Rather than Hume arguing that Paley’s argument is false, he focuses heavily on if God even exists or if he is the higher figure that he is painted as. Another argument that can be used against Paley is the theory of the Big Bang Theory.

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He also refers to the cosmological argument to show that God is an all-powerful being who created the universe out of nothing. Furthermore, he claims that suffering in the world is moral in the sense that suffering inflicted on innocents is genuinely evil. Without a God, there would be no objective morals, thus, evil proves God’s existence, as things would not be considered good or evil without a God (Craig, p. 126). In conclusion, evil proves God’s existence and thus the question as to why God permits evil does not work to disprove His existence.

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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.

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As he goes into depth on his opinion of the existence of God with each point he gives and their explanations, it is clear to see that his “five ways” argument is persuasive and valid. With his helpful and insightful thinkings, it is evident that God does very much exist and is the all powerful being that created the universe around us. I also agree that this first cause argument on the cosmological argument is a sound argument and that God is the “something” outside the universe that is responsible to explain the existence of the

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“Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human

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