Comparing David Hume And Thomas Aquinas's Design Argument

Improved Essays
are directed to their end; and this being we call God. [9] As Aquinas’s clearly suggest in his fifth way argument, it is God who is the intelligent designer and allows the motion of celestial bodies to achieve an end. Not everyone agreed with Aquinas’s design argument. David Hume’s vividly objected Aquinas argument in his “Dialogues concerning Natural Religion”. Hume’s stated, “the point is made that postulating a designer of the universe raises the question of explaining how “a plan of the world” formed in the mind of the designer.”[10] The designer’s mind would have to have within it a structure at least as complex as the conjunction of fundamental laws and initial conditions. So the question surely arises: what designed the designer?[11]

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Thomas Aquinas is a Catholic saint that that is an immensely influential philosopher and theologian one of his argument is that God created an ordered natural world and God also created man's ability to use reason. For me yes it’s still logcal to believe in this account of Aquinas, as a person that came on a Catholic school in my high school days but on the society today many of the people didn’t use this God’s gift they will just think themselves on being in a higher ground because if you are higher than others you have the power, money and authority on what you want to do. They didn’t use it to have logical reason on the natural word basis that we should have a balance standing in our society.…

    • 131 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Teleological Argument for the Existence of God, also known as “Arguments from Design”, states that a designer must exist because the universe and living things exhibit marks of design in their order, consistency, unity, and pattern, and that designer is God. One of the analogies used for this argument is William Paley’s Watch Maker Argument. He gives the scenario: if you were to find a watch in an open field you would automatically assume that it was designed and did not just randomly form out of thin air. Based off this argument, if you agree that the universe and its inhabitants are designed in some way for a purpose, then there must be a designer responsible, which would be God. Believers in the Teleological Argument also argue that scientists and evolutionists are unable to explain how complex organisms such as the eye originated.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this paper I will analyze the argument of the “Fine-Tuned Universe”, describe what it means, show how an opponent would argue that intelligent design isn’t the best explanation, and also provide my own view on this argument from my theist view. Have you ever wondered how the universe got here? How everything perfectly fell into place, and how you’re here today? The Fine Tuned Universe argument may help you better understand. This argument is a version of the teleological argument, which is an argument for an intelligent creator, that basically suggests there are many very specific things that make life possible, and if any of these very specific things were to be altered, life as we know it would be highly unlikely to exist.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kalam’s Cosmological argument dates back to medieval Muslim philosophers. Kalam’s argument is an argument for the existence of the universe to the existence of God. William Kane Craig is promoting modern day versions, which attempt to overcome the problems of earlier versions. The differences and similarities between Kalam’s Cosmological Argument, Aquinas's and Paley's design arguments can be examined to determine that it has failed to overcome the difficulties present in Paley’s and Aquinas arguments.…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In other words, because human artifacts so closely resemble the more complicated universe a higher intelligent being must have created the universal for humans to model their intelligent design after. Hume, on the other hand, argues that the universe does not appear sufficiently similar enough to human design to support this premise. Additionally, there exist no other universes for us to compare this assumption too. Therefore, we cannot gain a definitive answer on whether the universe was designed by a creator or merely developed on its own. Finally, Hume argued, that the universe is as full of disorder as it is order, therefore the argument for a grand designer remains weak.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Much of the world believes that God is nonexistent. Much of society deems the splendor and majesty of creation to be nothing more than a coincidence. In A Designed Universe, author Robert C. Newman, Ph.D., covers four topics: The Right Chemistry, The Right Environment, The Right Universe, and finally, Explaining the Design. In those four sections, Dr. Newman describes the perfection of God’s creation, and how life would not exist had it been created even slightly differently.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    If the world has structure and order, there must have been a reason for it. Paley also argued for design qua purpose. He came up with an analogy of a watch on a heath: if someone were to find a watch on a heath, they would contemplate its intricate design and how there must have been a watchmaker involved in its creation. From this, one would notice the intricacies of the world and realise that that, too, must have been designed.…

    • 1395 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Paley's Argument Analysis

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Philosopher David Hume came up with several complications he had with the argument from design. One of his reasons that I wanted to explore was his belief that the argument is an example of the fallacy of composition. This objection claims that just because you know the cause of several individual events, you cannot make an assumption to define the group as a whole (class notes). This objection is powerful in that if all things that encompass the universe are contingent on something else, this does not mean that the universe as a whole is dependent on something else. While man-made objects must be built with a goal in mind, this does not provide enough evidence to say that the universe was necessarily built with a similar…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In an effort to argue for the existence of God, Saint Thomas Aquinas provides five cosmological arguments in his piece “The Existence of God”. The second argument he states examines causes and effects and looks to explain these series in regard to their beginning, or first cause (43:1-2). Aquinas says that the chain of causes and effects cannot go back to “infinity” (43:60) because when the first cause is taken out, so is its effect and every following effect (43:61). I find this claim plausible because this would mean that there would be no “caused” things in existence. Aquinas follows to say that “there obviously are such causes” (43:62) in existence, so the first cause must not have been taken away.…

    • 1238 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Cleanthes' argument from design for God's existence is not convincing. He compares two different ideas and thus, wrongly generalizes. He also commits a fallacy, and doesn’t meet the criteria necessary for the type of argument he offers. Although, a few potential strong points are present in his beliefs, like the improbability of chance, and the incomprehensible evidence of God, they are still not strong enough for His justification. Cleanthes through an a posteriori, inductive argument claims that since the presence of small machines (i.e. houses) implies human design, the presence of an even bigger machine (i.e. the universe) implies a human-like intelligence behind it as well as "the adapting of means to ends in natural and human machines…

    • 1357 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Now, we shift our attention to the core of this paper: The Design Argument. This argument focuses on the fact the our universe is fit for human habilitation and observation; it explores the fact that something must have planned an intricate design for our universe. it simply states that no matter how random we thing of the attribute the immediate cause of the universe - the big band thintoery to be, nothing in the universe came about by chance - there appears to be a reason or pupose for all of this. Evidence proves that “everything within the universe adheres to the laws of physics, and many things within it are correlated with one another in a way that appears purposeful” (Dvorsky, 2014). The question now is this; Who what came about this…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philosophy has produced many arguments about the origins of religion and implied different premises to the existence of God ever since Ancient Greek days and the father of all philosophers, Plato. Nevertheless, one of the most significant arguments many philosophers disputed was the teleological argument, also known as the argument from design. The teleological argument conveys that the physicality of the earth and universe as a whole is evidence of God’s existence. William Paley, an English philosopher during the 18th century, initiates the argument from design with the analogy of a watch and a watchmaker. He implies that the universe and its designer are exactly like a watch and its designer.…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Although the arguments set forth by these philosophers are considered the “most complete, forceful, and cogent presentation of the Cosmological Argument we possess,” there were skeptics that challenged the philosophers’ reasoning (Rowe 51). In particular, philosopher David Hume read the argument and attacked virtually every premise that was set forth. Humes divides his arguments into three main ideas, but focusing on his first and more prominent argument, Humes attacks the way the Cosmological Argument is structured. As stated, the Cosmological Argument creates the impression that there has to be a reason for everything, but Humes criticizes this reasoning by stating that existent beings do not need to have a reason or even a cause for their existence. For example, visualize a set of dominoes standing up that is ordered in a straight line.…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    What are the strengths of the teleological argument? The teleological argument is an a posteriori style of argument, also known as an empirical argument which uses the evidence using observations of the world through the five senses to argue the existence of God. The argument is based on an interpretation of teleology in which purpose or telos appear to exist in nature. The teleological argument suggests that, given this premise, the existence of a designer can be assumed, typically presented as God.…

    • 1587 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    St. Thomas Aquinas’s sees his conclusion as being correct with a reflection back to his premises because God is the reason that the world is intelligent. How else can these things be possible and have purpose behind them if they aren’t being guided by someone who has structure. In quote, he states “There therefore is some intelligence which directs everything in nature towards an end, and this we call God” (PBF 44). Aquinas is basically saying overall that nothing just ends by chance, but by someone that is necessarily able to end it, which is his God. As Aquinas states within his fourth reason, he says “therefore there is something which is the cause of being, of goodness, and of whatever other perfection that there may be in things (PBF 44).…

    • 1606 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays