OCR Religious Studies (H173, H573): Philosophy of Religion Revision Notes - 3 The Existence of God - Arguments Based on Observation
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G571 - AS Philosophy of Religion
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Oxford A Level Religious Studies for OCR
These revision notes for the new OCR Religious Studies A level cover Arguments for God based on Observation. They cover the teleological and cosmological argument including criticism and development from various scholars and evaluation of the arguments. They are detailed and are to an A* standard
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3: The Existence of God - Arguments Based on Observation
A posteriori Knowledge gained after birth through sense experience
Inductive Where the premises support the conclusion but do not lead logically to it. Even if the
argument premises are true, the conclusion could be false without any contradiction
Synthetic The truth or falsity of the statements used to form the argument depend on evidence
statement which has to be collected
The An a posteriori argument which is cast in terms of the end (telos) or purpose of things. The
Teleological argument for the existence of God from the evidence of order, and hence design, in
Argument nature.
Aquinas' 5th He believed that natural objects act for a purpose without intelligence. The end that
Way they achieve is by design not by chance and things are directed to this end by an
(teleological intelligent designer i.e. God.
argument) The arrow analogy - for an arrow to reach its destination it must be directed by an
archer. Things in the natural world follow natural laws even though they have no
intelligence, there must be a God directing them in that way.
William Paley He used the analogy of the watch and the stone. A man walking in the wilderness
comes across a stone and a watch. The stone is nothing special but the watch has been
intricately designed for a purpose and so it is fit for that purpose. The watch must have
had an intelligent designer. In the same way, intricacies exist within nature that could not
have come about by chance e.g. the eye or the existence of gravity. This means there
must be an intelligent designer i.e. God
Arthur Brown Believed that the ozone layer is particular evidence for design because it absorbs
harmful radiation that would otherwise harm/kill all living things on earth
Frederick Believed that the best evidence for design could be seen in the way the universe
Tennant supports intelligent life and the anthropic principle (The anthropic principle is a
philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with
the conscious and sapient life that observes it). He also developed the aesthetic
principle - the theory of evolution does not explain why humans feel love and
appreciation of art, music, beauty and literature. Tennant believed that this capacity for
joy was put in us by our designer i.e. God
Richard Believed in the fine-tuning argument - the world is too finely tuned to exist on its own -
Swinburne science cannot explain why all these occurrences happen in our favour. He believed
that science can only use laws to explain phenomena but it does not explain the laws
themselves - these just are. He believed that the simplest explanation is that they were
given a purpose by an omnipotent being.
Ockham's 'all things being equal, the simplest answer is probably the best answer'. It is more likely
Razor that there is a creator than the world came about by chance?
Objections to Modern biology and Darwin's theory of evolution would argue that somethings have no
the significant purpose - it is merely chance
Teleological Even if we see a purpose for something that purpose is not necessarily innate.
Argument Some things don't have a good purpose.
Hume's The existence of an intelligent designer would require explanation every bit as much as
Objections to the existence of the world does; so the design argument does not offer any real
the explanatory gain.
Teleological He challenged the design argument because of the problem of evil.
Argument
The Epicurean The theory that the universe is made of a finite number of particles moving freely in
Thesis (Hume's infinite time - apparent order could be randomly explained e.g. monkeys in a room full of
objection) typewriters for eternity would eventually create the works of Shakespeare and the Bible
Effects to He argued that we cannot jump from the limited evidence in this world (the effect) to an
Cause infinite, all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God (the cause). The design of the universe
(Hume's not only does not ground claims about the traditional attributes of God but in fact lends
Objection) support to the claim that, if the universe had a designer, it is a quite different sort of
being than we ordinarily take God to be. It is an 'inductive leap of logic' to go from
limited evidence in this world to the God of classical theism.
The aptness of A watch is a machine so it will have a maker - however, natural things do not necessarily
Analogy have one. By choosing a machine, Paley already determined the conclusion he wanted.
(Hume's Furthermore, watches (or his example of a ship) are designed by many people so what's
Objection) to say that the universe isn't designed by many Gods or perhaps an apprentice God.
(Hume lived before Paley so this was a general criticism not of Paley specifically)
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