To what extent does Hume successfully argue that Observation does not prove the existence of God?
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Course
Arguments On Observation / Cosmological Argument
Institution
OCR
The essay received 39/40 when marked receiving an A* grade.
This essay writes on 3 of Humes challenges, 1 per paragraph, to Paley’s teleological argument, those being:
1. Questioning aptness of Paley’s argument.
2. Highlighting the Irrational Conclusion to believing in specifically a C...
To what extent does Hume successfully argue that
observation does not prove the existence of God?
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who criticised teleological arguments for the
existence of God in his works ‘Dialogues concerning natural religion’. The teleological
argument comprises of Paley’s design argument and Aquinas’ Fifth Way, respectively
holding that the design and purpose of all things in the world make the existence of
God evident.
Paley’s design argument looks at the intricacies and complexities of the objects within
the world and argues that this suggest the existence of a designer, God. Paley gives the
analogy of a watch maker saying - if we were to stumble across a watch, then we would
immediately posit the existence of a watchmaker due to the intricacy of cogs, the shape
of watch and the moving parts. But strangely, similar inferences are not made when
looking at objects in the natural world.
The first argument Hume puts forward against Paley is his questioning of aptness of
analogy. Through specifically, choosing a watch as his analogy, Paley’s conclusion must
come to there being a designer. Though what if he chose a better example, such as a
cabbage or even a rock? Hume argues that the world is more organic in nature,
therefore more resembling a cabbage in comparison to a machine. We may see that the
cabbage does retain some order though. It’s leaves fit together perfectly, but we do not
think of a ‘cabbage designer’. I think that Hume correctly challenges the watch analogy
as invalid to a certain extent to show the design of the world. His analogy is a machine,
despite the world being organic, and so his analogy complete mixes two distinct
material. However, developments in the teleological argument revalidate Paleys watch
analogy as fitting to show that the universe needs a designer. Martin Rees pointed to 6
physics constant that demonstrate a fine tuning of the universe itself. Lambda, which is
known as the cosmological constant, is believed that if it’s value were to be fractionally
changed either larger or smaller than it’s observed value, then the universe would
expand too quickly for starts and other life to exist. Just as a watch observed to be
meticulously assembled and coiled, it seems the universe and laws of physics were
similarly constructed and assembled together in a way. Therefore, I think that this
challenge that Hume puts forward is significantly weakened by the cosmological
constant, and I find that this is not a serious challenge to show that observation does not
prove the existence of God.
Humes second criticism of the teleological arguments holds that it is irrational to
conclude the exist of the Christian God from the teleological argument. Consider
Aquinas’ 5th Way, where Aquinas claims that the purpose and natural law evident
throughout the world is clear evidence of a purpose giver. Aquinas sees the
phenomenon of inanimate objects like trees seemingly moving to complete a common
telos, similar to an archer guiding an arrow to its target. Even if this is true, how does the
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