The Teleological Argument is also called the Argument from Design. One of the most popular forms of the argument was first given by William Paley (1743-1805). His argument depended upon analogy, and most subsequent forms of the argument continued this dependence upon analogy in one way or another. A variation of Paley's argument follows:
A Walk in the Countryside
You and a friend go out into the U.S. countryside. Your friend tells you he has found a fishing spot in an area that no man has been to since the Indians lived there more than 200 years ago. You walk into the woods and push through heavily overgrown bushes on your way to the site. After about 20 minutes, your friend tells you that you are almost there. You are thinking that this is certainly a hard place to get to, and are not surprised that it has been 200 years since anyone was here.
Then you look down, see something shiny, and bend over to pick it up. It is a watch. A Mickey Mouse watch, to be exact. You say to your friend, " It may have been as long as 40 or 50 years since someone has been here, but it certainly has not been 200 years."
Now, why would you say that? You are in essence calling your friend a liar! Or at the very least, you are saying he has been misinformed.
You say that because you have just stumbled upon one of those self-evident truths we discussed earlier. This thing you have found has a complex design and you know, without anyone having to tell you, that someone designed it and someone manufactured it. This particular watch has a specific design that you can pinpoint as having been designed by the Disney Company, and manufactured sometime between @1950 and now.
What would you think if your friend replied to you, "No. That watch grew there all by itself, out of whatever minerals, etc. were already there in the dirt! It must have happened that way, because I know that no one has been here in more than 200 years."
Throughout our lives, our repeated experiences have validated the self-evident truths:
Anything that has complexity and specificity in its design requires that there be an intelligent designer.
And, the more complexity and specificity in the design, the more knowledgeable and intelligent the designer must be.
Paley's argument can be summarized:
- A watch shows complexity in design (lots of gears, springs, etc) and a specific purpose for that design (keeping time).
- The world shows and even greater complexity (myriad complex organisms, all fitting together in a complex ecosystem), and evidence that it has purpose (an environment specifically suited to Man).
- Therefore, if the existence of a watch implies a watchmaker, the existence of the world implies an even greater intelligent Designer (God).
Build me a house
Now let's assume I want to build a house. I have the land where I want to build it, and I have a hazy, sort of picture in my mind of what I want it to look like. Usually, an intelligent person, who doesn't happen to be either an architect or a builder, would not attempt to build a house himself .... unless it is for his dog (then he might attempt it if he was handy with tools). Before one builds a house, he will usually search for an architect to design a house to match the picture in his mind, or search through ready-made plans until he finds one he likes. Then he hires a builder, who in turn will hire subcontractors for specific tasks during the construction process.
But. I'm going to do it differently! I don't need an architect. I've got the picture in my mind, right? So, I'm going to just buy all the materials, stack them at the building site. I am quite sure that the building will grow right where I want it to, all by itself! The only question I have is how long it will take before it's ready to move into.
What do you think? Will my house grow in a year? Two years? Longer? ..... How about 100 years?
Of course, it is self-evident that the answer is NEVER. A house is a complex design, and a complex structure, and that complexity has specificity - the various parts serve specific functions.
Designs with complexity and specificity require a designer.
Structures with complexity and specificity require a builder.
But, wait. What more complex design is there than the human body? It is certainly a lot more complex than a watch or a house. And what about animals, and all the other designs and structures on the earth? And not only the designs themselves, but what about the design of how all the animals and plants relate to each other - the ecosystem? Evolution would have us believe that each of the individual designs grew all by itself, with no designer and no builder, out of nothing but the raw materials of chemicals, heat, and water. Evolution would have us accept that the entire complex interraction of every animate and inanimate thing on earth ... and in the universe ... is just random accident: there really is no design per se; the specificity just "happened".
This contradicts everything our experience tells us about how complex designs come into being! So, what evidence does evolution have to base this theory on?
As shown in the pages on evolutionary theory, believing in Evolution requires a suspension of plain common sense, and the necessity of ignoring quite a lot of scientific evidence, as well as a much larger leap of faith than believing in a Creator God.
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