Summary Of Argument From Design By William Paley

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. With these definitions in mind, I can proceed with this paper. In this work, I will analyze Paley’s argument, provide an objection,

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

However, there are ways to apply the argument while working in favor with the science objection. The same quote used in the previous sentence also proves to be Paley’s saving grace “are framed and put together for a purpose”. Paley’s primary argument is that nature was designed by a creator, thus the laws of science could easily have been put in place by that creator according to Paley. Not only that, but the laws of science could have been purposely designed, like the framing or case of a watch, to hold nature together. Without the laws of physics, if the assumption that it was created by a designer holds, there would be absolute chaos in place of order. Clearly, the argument of science can be used both in favor and against Paley’s