Give an account of the design arguments from Aquinas and Paley.
- Give an account of the design arguments from Aquinas and Paley.
The Design Argument is perhaps one of the most well known arguments for the existence of God, this may be down to the wealth of philosophers that developed their own versions, or the sometimes simplistic nature of the argument which, initially, states that a designer must exist since the universe and living things exhibit marks of design in their order, consistency, unity, and pattern. As an ‘a posteriori’ argument it uses empirical evidence from our natural world in order to prove our world is ordered, consistent, united and patterned. The teleological argument fits true to our human nature which frequently observes these marks, perhaps even when it is not there.
Although the design argument is generally attributed to Paley due to his analogy, his own approach is greatly influenced by St Thomas Aquinas, and even those before him, such as Plato, Aristotle and Socrates who all formed their own versions of a teleological argument. Aquinas in particular was the main driving force of the teleological argument before Paley. The argument forms the fifth of Aquinas’ five ways. He looked at the universe qua regularity, in that he looked at design in relation to the order and regularity in the universe. Aquinas stated that everything worked to some purpose or other. Aquinas pointed towards inanimate objects such as the sea or the sun, which must have purpose. Aquinas believed that because these inanimate objects cannot have a mind of its own or any rational powers, they must have been directed to this purpose by some external power. Aquinas formed his own teleological analogy in his summa theologica of an archer, where the archer is pushing the arrow towards the bullseye, its final ‘end’. Beings that lack rationality tend towards an end only if they are directed by something that has rational thought and intelligence, just as an arrow is directed by an archer. The archer of the universe, according to Aquinas, is God.
