Teleological Arguments for God's Existence. First published Fri Jun 10, 2005; substantive revision Sun Oct 3, 2010 Some phenomena within nature exhibit such exquisiteness of structure, function or interconnectedness that many people have found it natural—if not inescapable—to see a deliberative and directive mind behind those phenomena. The mind in question, being prior to nature itself, is typically taken to be supernatural. Philosophically inclined thinkers have both historically and at present labored to shape the relevant intuition into a more formal, logically rigorous inference. The resultant theistic arguments, in their various logical forms, share a focus on plan, purpose, intention and design, and are thus classified as teleological arguments (or, frequently, as arguments from or to design). Although enjoying some prominent defenders over the centuries, such arguments have also attracted serious criticisms from a number of major historical and contemporary thinkers. 1.
Introduction 2. 2.1.1 Humean objections. The Teleological Argument by WilliamPaley. William Paley, "The Teleological Argument" The Reading Selection from Natural Religion. What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is not so much that all religious arguments are by Cleanthes reduced to experience, as that they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable of that inferior kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a thousand times; and when any new instance of this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference. The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event; and a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after. But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty.
After having experienced the circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it takes place in Titius and Maevius. Richard.Dawkins.The.Blind.Watchmaker.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume - Full Text Free Book (Part 2/2)