The Teleological Argument Lesson Objectives: What is the Teleological Argument for God’s existence? Evaluate the Teleological Argument.

The Teleological Argument This is the argument of design. It is also known as the argument of design and purpose. It is argued that there is evidence of design and pattern in the world all around us. Look at the complexity of a flower - can it really be an accident?

William Paley 1743 - 1805 A priest in the Church of England. Wrote the book, Natural Theology

Paley’s Argument … Imagine you were on a desert island…

Accident or Design? The Human Body… A sneeze can reach speeds of over 100 mph One blood cell takes 60 seconds to travel around the human body. Every square inch of human skin contains twenty feet of blood vessels. Humans shed and re-grow outer skin cells every 27 days. That’s 1000 new skins in an average lifetime

If removed from the body the small intestine would stretch to a length of 22 feet. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. The average human produces enough saliva in a lifetime to fill two swimming pools. There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being On average women say 7,000 words a day while men only manage 2,000.

What’s wrong with the Teleological Argument? Even if the universe is full of great design does that prove there is only one God? Even if God did design the universe how do we know He is still here? Even if there is evidence of good design does that mean God is good? Is there evidence of bad design?

Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882 Wrote the book, The Origin of Species Theories of Evolution and Natural Selection

Evolution Species evolved and changed over millions of years to adapt to their surroundings Competition to survive propelled this process - the survival of the fittest Not design but an evolution of species

Which argument is the most convincing? Everything shows evidence of design. Nothing has been designed but rather evolved from primitive cell structures. Maybe God designed everything and then it began to evolve?

“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selections, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Charles Darwin “The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity” Richard Dawkins