Outline the key ideas of the Teleological argument and identify at least two if its strengths.

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Outline the key ideas of the Teleological argument and identify at least two if its strengths.

The teleological argument (also called design argument) is an a posteriori argument from the order in the universe to the existence of God. The name “the teleological argument” is derived from the Greek word teleos, meaning “end” or “purpose”. When such arguments speak of the universe being ordered, they mean that it is ordered towards some end or purpose. The suggestion is that it is more plausible to suppose that the universe is so because it was created by an intelligent being in order to accomplish that purpose than it is to suppose that it is this way by chance.

The argument states that if one uses one’s senses to look at order, such as gravity and the motion of the planets, which exists in the world, it is likely that one will accept that there is a designer God who created the world and gave it this order. Thus, the argument is both a posteriori, based on experience, and inductive, containing a conclusion that we are likely to accept if we believe the premises to be true.  Although the argument was one of Aquinas’ five ‘ways’ in his book, Summa Theologica, the most famous version of the Argument from Design was put forward by William Paley in his book Natural Theology, and therefore, this essay will focus mainly on Paley’s version of the argument.  

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The main structure of the argument is centered around the view that whenever we see things made by people which are in a pattern or are complex in order to work well to achieve a goal, it is clear that this thing had an intelligent designer, as purpose does not arise by chance. Then, if you were to apply this logic to nature, it is evident that there are many things that work well to serve a purpose, for example trees and their intake of carbon dioxide. The natural world, according to the argument must then have an intelligent ...

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