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The Teleological Argument: The Existence Of God

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The topic I am going to focus on is the existence of God. In this topic I will research into the teleological argument (argument from design) and what it shows about the existence of God. As God has all of these amazing qualities, it can only be understood that he was the designer of the world as only someone with such talents would be capable of designing the universe. The teleological argument was formed to prove that God exists. The idea is that God was the creator of the universe and he created everything with a purpose as well as all life being created with a definite goa however, many flaws are pointed to.
The word ‘teleological’ originally comes from the Greek word ‘telos’ which means ‘purpose’. God is described as being powerful (omnipotent), present everywhere (omnipresent), all seeing/knowing (omniscient), good (benevolent) and always existing (eternal). The world is a complex place and it makes sense that everything must have a purpose. The teleological argument suggests that someone has put everything in the universe in order and that the universe is too beautiful to have been created by chance, the divine creator must have been God.
For example, the bucket orchid. This plant has a very interesting, complicated method of pollination. It begins with the bee being attracted to a sugar it can smell from the …show more content…

Through science, it is clear that we have been born with many things that are not essential for our survival. For example, male nipples, our appendix and hair serve no specific purpose to us. Therefore, if god is perfect by definitions, why is the world full of imperfect design? If god was so amazing, he would not have made these superfluous, unnecessary things that we do not need; however he would also not have made these by mistake. Overall, this criticism is proving that a perfect being (God) would not make mistakes so he either is imperfect or does not exist at

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Natural Theology, written by Paley is an argument of the design of the universe. This paper argues that there is an intelligent designer who designed the universe. His argument is a posteriori and inductive because it is based on sense experience and conclusions were drawn from what our senses tell us. Paley’s argument is based on three fundamental observations: the complexity of the biological world, the regularity of the orbits of ‘heavenly bodies’ and of the seasons of the year and finally, the purpose of a designer seen in this complexity and purpose. To explain his argument, Paley compares the universe to a watch and uses analogies to explain his argument.

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The ontological argument is one of the three main arguments for the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. This argument is designed to appeal to rational rather than non-rational reasons for the existence of God. Rational reasoning can be identified through the use of reason, logic, argumentation, and our shared observations of the world, whereas non-rational reasoning is characterized by subjective religious experience. However, the ontological argument does not appeal to the logic consisting of our shared observations of the world because it focuses on the reflection of our own idea of God, therefore validating the cosmological argument to be a priori since none of it’s premises require empirical support. St. Anselm of Canterbury provided a renowned version of the cosmological argument around 1080 AD that establishes the existence of God by reflecting on our idea of Him.

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The Design Argument The question of whether God truly exists has been debated between believers and non-believers for centuries. Also known as the Teleological Argument, the Design Argument argued by William Paley states that there are so many intricate details and designs in our world that there must be a creator. In addition, it also argues that this world could not have been created by chance alone due to the characteristics that make it the perfect condition for human life to exist (Pecorino). In this essay, I will be giving a brief overview of what the Design Argument is, then providing evidence and reasoning in favor of the argument, then addressing the criticisms of the argument, then comparing both sides of the argument, then finally

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In this essay, I will set out to prove that Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause Argument does not show that God exists and the conclusion that God exists does not follow from the premises of the first cause argument. I do think that the conclusion is valid and could be sound/or has the potential to be, but the premises fail to provide the basis upon which to reach such a conclusion. Hence, I will be raising some objections to the premises and will try to disprove any counter-arguments that could be raised in its defense. This would be done by examining Aquinas’ First Cause Argument and trying to disprove it whilst countering arguments in its defense.

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Before restating the Anselm’s argument for the existence of God, it is important to understand who Anselm was and what might have compelled him to come up with the ontological argument for the existence of God. Anselm’s background information will be helpful in evaluating the validity and reliability of his arguments. Anselm was born in Italy in c. 1033. In 1063, he entered the famous monastery. In 1093, he moved to England, having been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

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There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction.

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Ever since the ancient and medieval eras of philosophy there have been debates amongst philosophers and theologians concerning the existence of, and attributes that should be ascribed to, the existence of God. In majority of religions around the world, this knowledge of ‘God’ exists; a being perceived as the supreme one, the creator of all. Now the term ‘God’, does not refer to any particular religious’ deities but a term that can cover everything from a perfect omnipotent being to something that can be considered quite ordinary (Dvorsky, 2016). Of the numerous philosophical arguments that have formed, the most well-known range from Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas’s similar cosmological argument which claims that there must be a reason for this

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St. Anselm and Descartes are known for presenting the first ontological arguments on the existence of God. The word ontological is a compound word derived from ‘ont’ which means exists or being and ‘–ology’ which means the study of. Even though Anselm and Descartes’ arguments differ slightly, they both stem from the same reasoning. Unlike the other two arguments on God’s existence (teleological and cosmological), the ontological argument does not seek to use any empirical evidence but rather concentrates on pure reason. The rationale behind this school of thought

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Argument for the existence of god is being proposed in several ways. Some based on science while some are about personal experience and some on philosophical arguments such as ontological arguments, first cause arguments, arguments based on deign, moral arguments. Each of these support conception. Ontological argument say that if you inculcate the idea of god , we can see him . There is a saying that “Nothing comes from Nothing but something comes from something”.

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In this argument we already assumed that there may be possibility that God exist and finally we reached where we started. So this argument does not give us the exact information about existence of God. There are many objections on this argument but still it is a powerful argument. In my opinion, this argument is not much satisfactory. It describes that existence is greater than imagination.

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