William Paley, the theologist, argues that God is The Creator of the universe. In this paper, I will argue that William Paley’s argument fails due to not everything has a maker, not everything made was made for the purpose it holds, and because if the universe has a universe maker, then the universe maker made everything in the universe.
In William Paley’s analogy in, “The Watch and the Watchmaker”, he addresses a situation in which if someone sees a rock on the ground, you would not assume it just appeared there all of a sudden. “In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would
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it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer” (Paley 199). You would think that this rock was made by someone or something which is why it came upon you. He relates this situation also to a watch. If a watch were placed in a time period that watches were not around, or even thinking about being invented, someone would wonder what it was. This watch must have a watchmaker according to Paley. Paley explains that the design and details of the watch are intricate and therefore must have some kind of intelligent designer (Paley 199). He does not assume that the watch is just placed there out of the blue, but accepts that someone made it and took time and effort. This he relates to the universe which, because the universe is so complex and intricate, then it must have a designer and it must have a maker. According to Paley, everything has a maker.
I do not agree with this because not everything has a set maker. Even the objects that do have a maker, may have more than one. I know some objects that are made have many different makers, so in that case who would be considered the maker of that object or would we just consider the object to have many makers? Even if someone makes something like a table, it is not just a man who makes that table. That table is also made from tools and wood (if a wooden one), but then those tools must have a maker and the tree supposedly has a maker. But then again if the tools have a maker then what exactly made those tools? This seems to be a never-ending cycle of makers, but we never know when the first maker came about. If everything has a maker, then how was the first thing on earth ever made? Evolution seems to be the only way in my mind I can think of how the life of humans, animals, and earth all together came about. As for the things that I believe do not have a maker, Paley’s argument fails due to this. For example, if the universe was made by a universe maker AKA God, “The Creator”, then what about things like clouds. Some days, clouds appear in the sky and some days they do not. If clouds appear in the sky one day after they were not in the sky, did the universe maker put those clouds there for that one day? Since natural things like trees grow and clouds appear some days and not others, the universe maker would be very busy making …show more content…
those things all the time. If the watch has a watch maker, then that means trees have tree makers, but trees are grown from a seed that are watered and require sunlight. They do not just appear one day; they do have some substance that makes them but they take time and it requires many things to make a tree. Paley’s argument fails because if the universe has a universe maker, then everything in the universe would already be made. If this were true, then everything would already be made which cannot be since we have a future and the universe is developing new things every day. This would mean that the watch in the analogy he referenced would not necessarily have a watch maker. Since we know the watch obviously has a maker and designer, does not mean we know for sure that the universe has a universe maker. The universe could not have been made over night along with everything in it. This also goes for a watch, the watch was not made or deigned overnight, it takes time. Things are designed with purpose so it takes a while to figure out how everything will work and where certain things will be placed. To say that the universe is comparable to a watch is not accurate because the universe is a lot more than what a watch is. Everything within the universe, we assume, has a certain purpose which is meant to do something specific in which it was made for. This could not be so simple to relate it to a watch. Yes, things that are made generally have a maker but just because something has a maker and a designer does not mean it relates to the universe and God being The Creator. Some things that are made for one purpose do not always come out in the end with the same purpose they are intended for. For example, a trunk, made for storing objects may not be used for that purpose, but may be used for something like a coffee table instead. Even though it does have a purpose and it does have a maker and designer, it does not fall into Paley’s argument because something designed is meant for a specific purpose and not everything ends out that way. “Specifically, Paley points out that the watch exhibits an irreducibly complex organization that was obviously constructed to perform a specific function” (Gregory). As Gregory agrees, nothing can be altered or changed for Paley’s argument to be accurate in his premises. I am a person who does not believe in God. I do not believe that God created us one day and do not believe he created the universe. I believe in science and evolution and that humans were created over time from some species we probably do not even know about yet. I think there must be something more than just God and that maybe there is a higher power but that does not change my opinion that God did not create us. “The fundamental answer is that, if biological mechanism is true, living organisms would have emerged if chance had brought the right components together in the right structure. If it be said that this is very improbable, the answer is that only an infinitesimal proportion of the matter known to science, is alive; one would therefore argue from the known facts that the circumstances leading to life must be exceedingly improbable, since they occur so rarely” (Russell). If God was real, I can’t help but ask myself why people get sick and why people die, even if they are good people who have done nothing wrong. If God was real, and is The Creator, why would it not help the homeless and the abandon babies left alone to die. “But if man, who is himself an animal, is capable of effective intensions, why should one supposed that this is something entirely new in the universe rather than that is has always been to some extent, however slight, characteristic of living things” (Krutch)? God does not show itself to me and if there is a God then I do not think half of the bad things in the world would happen day to day. I cannot see how there would be this many issues in the world if there is a God watching over us unless God just created us like some people assume and just left us alone after we were created and unless God’s job is now done now that humans are alive. In addition, people were created by two other human beings.
A baby does not just appear from a mother even though a mother gives birth to a baby, a father is also required. Paley says in his first premise, that humans are the products of some kind of intelligent designer (NOVA). I do not agree with this because humans are not designed, they are made. A mother cannot pick the way her child comes out because if she could she would have a perfect child with no illnesses, if born with one. In this case I cannot see how God could have created this baby if the baby was actually created by its mother and father. Some women cannot even have children, which raises a question of, if God really existed, why can this woman who deserves one and wants one so badly not have a child? It is almost like people are being punished for no reason but why would they be if they are not bad people? This connects to the fact that people are much more complex than regular everyday objects that man can make with a machine. The human body is always changing and forming new things about it. We encounter diseases and cures for those diseases that are always evolving. The brain is so detailed and intricate it could not possibly be designed the way Paley is saying the universe was designed. It could be that this is the universe that won and it is the one hundredth one that was made but no one will ever know that. Since we did not see the universe being made, we cannot truly say that it was even made at all
which would mean it does not have a maker and the universe along with everything else could have made itself. We know the universe we have today and I cannot see how it could possibly just happen from a thing that some people believe in. Therefore, I do not agree with William Paley’s argument that the universe has a universe maker which is apparently God, The Creator. I do not think that something that no one knows what it is, God, could possibly make everything in the universe. People have their own ideas on what to make and how to make them so “God” cannot be the one who gets credit for someone else’s work. God did not tell the person to make the watch that was designed and made, that person made the decision on their own. There is a possibility that a very religious person said they made something because God told them too but it does not mean that actually happened. They could just be imagining the situation and therefore made something because of God even though they were the real creator. Works Cited Gregory, T. Ryan. “The Argument from Design: A Guided Tour of William Paley's Natural Theology (1802).” SpringerLink, Springer US, 24 Oct. 2009, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12052-009-0184-6. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017. KRUTCH, JOSEPH WOOD. “If You Don't Mind My Saying So.” The American Scholar, vol. 32, no. 2, 1963, pp. 275–280. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41209094. “NOVA.” The Teleological Argument, www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/intro_text/Chapter%203%20Religion/Teleological.htm. Paley, William. “The Watch and the Watchmaker.” Philosophy of Religion, pp. 199–200. Russell, Bertrand. “Mind.” Mind, vol. 35, no. 137, 1926, pp. 72–80. New Series, www.jstor.org/stable/2249394.
Have you ever wonder how the universe was created? Some people believe in the Earth creation by the Supreme Being, some believe in the scientific explanation of Big Bang explosion theory. Every civilization in the world has its own story of how things are created. Each story reflects how people see and think the world at their time. In this essay, I am going to compare two myths of how man was created – the creation tale of Mohawk Tribe and the Hebrew Bible creation story. There are a lot of similarities as well as differences between these legends. While some differences between the two tales are the development of the stories and the meaning behind the stories, the similarities between them is the concept of creationism.
The ability to compare the universe to a watch allows for familiarity, which is what I believe draws agreement and acknowledgement of his argument. It is thought that, as humans, we have at least one person in existence that is aware of how to put together a properly functioning watch, and we know that a watch needs to be put together intelligently. Given Paley’s reasoning he presents that the world is also intricately made which creates a parallel between a watch in the universe, giving individuals a sense of familiarity. As such, it naturally follows that there ought to be a universe maker, or God, who appears to be the only one capable of doing such a thing. Primarily, my concern is that the intelligent maker must be God; Paley merely assumes that the reader agrees and gives no further insight on why the creator must be God. Furthermore, he assumes the universe works without proof or any real knowledge which seems a rather fatal flaw. It is irresponsible to believe that the universe works the way we assume to fulfill our desire to explain the existence of God, similar to Mackie’s objection to the cosmological argument (Mackie 171). I do not believe Paley’s argument survives Hume’s objection due to the necessity of experience. He merely uses analogy to justify his claim; the only difference is that he has experience with a watch and none in regards to the universe. Again, he is
That thing in the Dumpster--and he refused to call it human, let alone a baby--was nobody's business but his and China's. That's what he'd told his attorney, Mrs. Teagues, and his mother and her boyfriend,and he'd told them over and over again: I didn't do anything wrong. Even if it was alive, and it was, he knew in his heart that it was, even before the state prosecutor represented evidence of blunt-force trauma and death by asphyxiation and exposure, it didn't matter, or shouldn't have mattered. There was no baby. There was nothing but a mistake, a mistake clothed in blood and mucus. When he really thought about it, thought it through on its merits and dissected all his mother's pathetic arguments about where he'd be today if she'd felt as he did when she was pregnant herself, he hardened like a rock, like sand turning to stone under all the pressure the planet can bring to bear. Another unwanted child in an overpopulated world? They should have given him a medal. (623)
Many of us know that a watch indeed does have a designer, but what if we had never seen a watch made before or known of anyone capable of such design? Lacking this knowledge, Paley argues, should raise no doubt in our mind that the object must have a designer. Even if the watch told the wrong time most of the time, Paley says that the intended purpose of the watch to tell time is still obvious. Paley says we should still conclude that the watch ...
The teleological argument begins by stating a special kind of argument, an a posteriori argument. An a posteriori argument is an argument based on the knowledge of experiences encountered in the world. For Paley, the a posteriori argument is established as he imagines himself nature walking, only to stumble upon a watch: a pocket watch, whose function is made visible through a transparent glass and made possible through gears and springs. Paley retrieves the watch and questions how such an object came to be in the middle of vegetation and is easily intrigued to reflect about the nature of the watch. Let us reflect about the physical attributes of the watch. Imagine for a second that the body of the watch was covered in highly polished gold metal and in the middle of its body laid a transparent glass. The glass lets us see two disproportionate metallic rods whose ends are encrusted with small diamonds. Apart from ...
However, with genetic engineering this miracle of like is taken and reduced to petty “character creation” picking and choosing what someone else thinks should “make them special”. An unborn child that undergoes genetic treatments in this fashion is known as a designer baby (“Should Parents Be Permitted to Select the Gender of Their Children?”). By picking and choosing the traits of a child these designer babies bear similarities to abortion, choosing to get rid of the original child in favor of a “better” one. It is also unfair to deprive a child of their own life. By removing the element of chance and imputing their own preferences, children become treated more as an extension of their parents than as living beings with their own unique life. Parents could redirect a child’s entire life by imposing their wishes before they are even born, choosing a cookie cutter tall, athletic boy over a girl with her own individual traits, or any other choice that would redirect a child’s
Dr. William Lane Craig supports the idea of existence of God. He gives six major arguments, in order to defend his position. The first argument is quite fare, Craig says that God is the best reason of existence of everything. He gives the idea, that the debates between all the people, cannot reach the compromise, because the best explanation of the reasons of existence of everything is God, and nothing can be explained without taking Him into consideration. The second argument of Craig is from a cosmological point of view: he says that the existence of the universe is the best proof of the existence of God. Because, the process of the creation of the universe is so ideally harmonious, that it seems impossible to appear accidentally. The third argument is about the fine tuning of the universe. The universe is designed in such a way that people always have aim of life, and the life of people and the nature are interconnected. The fourth argument of Dr. Craig is about the morality: God is the best explanation of the existence of the morality and moral values in people’s lives. The...
When it comes to choosing an argument for the existence of god I believe that Paley’s argument of creation and design is the best for proving that god does exist. In his argument Paley is suggesting that if we were to look at the world around us, we could easily come to the conclusion that it was not created by pure chance but, by a creator (a designer). Paley uses a watch and a rock in order to explain his argument. He mentions how if there was a watch on the floor and we have never seen it before, we would easily come to the conclusion that the watch could not have been made by pure chance but, some kind of intelligent design was put into it. He argues that when we look at the rock we do not so easily see the design, but it does not mean
There are many who say that the preborn child is just a mass of tissue, a part of the woman's body. If this were the case, then no one would have any reason to o...
The cosmological argument is the existence of God, arguing that the possibility of each existing and the domain collected of such elements in this universe. The inquiry is that 'for what reason does anything exist? Why as opposed to nothing? In this paper, I will explain for what reason does everything need cause? Why is God thought to be the principal cause?
Paley’s analogy came about from the concept of a stone. He encountered this stone during his walk and wondered how it came about (Paley, 1802, 196). He applies the idea that since a designer must have created this stone, this designer must have created other things just like how a watch is created by a watchmaker. His analogy for a watch and its watch maker becomes his key argument because he argues that you cannot come to a conclusion that a stone was formed by a natural process, just like how when you look at a watch it has a watchmaker (Paley, 1802, 96). When comparing it to a stone, Paley says someone must have created it.
He had two different approaches to how the universe was created. Paley compared a watched the way the universe, he thought the world was like a machine it must have a des... ... middle of paper ... ... nthropic Principle’ believed that ‘Nature produces living beings but with fine tuning that is found in the universe; life could just as easily not developed into earth’ I think that this quote is trying to say that the universe has been developed by evolution and was created by God, a designer.
Because of the recent technological advances in genetic engineering, parents could have the choice not only to pick and choose their children’s physical appearances, but many personality traits and talents as well. As amazing and unreal as this seems, for some people a chance to create their baby’s characteristics is a dream come true. Parents can build almost every aspect of their child, taking away the faith most people have in God. The belief that He created man, makes designing and choosing characteristics in a child seem to belittle God. Altering a child‘s genetic makeup also takes away from the idea of a baby being a miracle from God because people would have the choice to change and design possibly any aspect of their child. Parents choo...
There are different viewpoints on the question “what is the universe made of?” I think that both science and religion offer their own explanation to this topic and they sometimes overlap, which creates contradictions. Therefore, I do not agree with Stephen Jay Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial, which claims that there is a fine line separating science from religion. That being said, I think the conflict between science and religion is only in the study of evolution. It is possible for a scientist to be religious if he is not studying evolution, because science is very broad and it has various studies. In this essay, I will talk about the conflict between religion and science by comparing the arguments from Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins. I argue that science and religion do overlap but only in some area concerning evolution and the cosmic design. Furthermore, when these overlaps are present it means that there are conflicts and one must choose between science and religion.
In this essay I discuss why there is proof that there is a supernatural being known as God, who has created everything we know and experience.