The Teleological Argument – Traditional arguments of Aquinas and Paley By the end of this lesson you will: * Know why the teleological argument is an inductive argument Have learnt Aquinas’ Teleological argument, his concept of governance and the archer and arrow analogy Have understood how the Teleological argument is different to the Cosmological argument

Spec Check Teleological Argument Challenges St Thomas Aquinas’ fifth way – concept of governance; archer and arrow analogy. William Paley’s watchmaker analogy – analogy of complex design. F R Tenant's anthropic and aesthetic arguments – the universe specifically designed for intelligent human life. David Hume – problems with analogies; rejection of traditional theistic claims; designer not necessarily God of classical theism; apprentice God; plurality of Gods; absent God Alternative scientific explanations including natural selection The effectiveness of the Teleological Argument Is the Teleological argument persuasive in the 21st Century? Are scientific explanations more convincing for the design of the universe?

Thomas Aquinas – Fifth way in Summa Theologica ‘The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly’

Thomas Aquinas – Fifth way in Summa Theologica ‘Noe whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exist by whom all natural things are directed towards the end; and this being we call God’

Reciprocal Reading Your group will EITHER get Aquinas – fifth way OR Paley’s watchmaker – analogy of complex design Reader: reads a paragraph aloud at a time Summariser: summarises at the end of each paragraph to help the scribe Scribe: makes notes on each paragraph to help the speaker feedback to the class Speaker: feeds back to the rest of the group

Feedback – Aquinas’ Fifth Way He argued that something that lacks intelligence cannot move by its own accord. For example, a pen isn’t intelligent, and can’t write an essay by themselves, so us (as intelligent beings) must guide the pen to write an essay Aquinas himself used the ARCHER ANALOGY (an arrow can’t reach its target by itself) An intelligent being must control everything Every natural thing has a purpose, which is God given – i.e. bees in their colonies . This is known as a telos For Aquinas, God is the only logical explanation for the governance of the world This makes it an inductive and a posteriori argument

Feedback – Paley’s watch William Paley was a 18th Century Archdeacon who ‘modernised’ the teleological argument At this time there were many ‘scientific’ and natural discoveries as people were travelling the world and seeing new things He argues that if you saw a stone, you wouldn’t question whether it was designed. If you stumbled across a watch – you would conclude it had been designed. He states that you should also question how the stone got there – how was it designed?

Feedback – Paley’s watch Everything in the universe is designed to perfection – this can’t have been random For example, he uses the human eye as an example of an extremely complex and amazing design – it has vision, but also eyelids and eyelashes to protect it. Watches need an intelligent watchmaker, so therefore the natural world need an intelligent designer – therefore God must be intelligent He develops Aquinas’ argument further by stating that the designer must also be Omnibenevolent. This is because the tiniest detail is found in the tiniest animals like an ant Also, Paley states that even if a watch had a flaw, we would still assume it was designed – therefore even natural bodies with a flaw are still designed

Quiet Reading Time Now we will read pages 16 to 18 independently. 1. Why did Aquinas suggest it was necessary to suggest a guiding intelligence behind the natural workings of the universe 2. Write Aquinas’ analogy of the archer in your own words 3. How did Paley compare the stone and the watch? 4. How is Paley’s argument different to Aquinas’?

The Teleological Argument – Traditional arguments of Aquinas and Paley By the end of this lesson you will: * Know why the teleological argument is an inductive argument Have learnt Aquinas’ Teleological argument, his concept of governance and the archer and arrow analogy Have understood how the Teleological argument is different to the Cosmological argument

F.R Tennant – Modern Versions of the Teleological Argument By the end of this lesson you will have: * Understood the Tennant’s ‘ANTHROPIC’ and ‘AESTHETIC’ teleological arguments. * Learnt the differences between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ versions of the Anthropic Principle.

Re-Cap Design A Posteriori Arrow Intelligence Inductive Regularity Telos Governance Omnibenevolence Stone

Natural Selection as a criticism of the traditional Teleological Arguments In pairs, read page 27 to discover what exactly Darwin’s theory of evolution is.

F.R Tennant Tennant is a MODERN scholar or ‘contemporary’ Wrote PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY Tennant’s work stems from DARWIN’S evolution theories, a theory which hadn’t been discovered when Aquinas and Paley were writing their theories Tennant argues that evolution coincides with the PROBABILITY of a designer God. 1866-1957

Anthropic Principle Anthropic = as relating to humans. Tennant developed, not invented, the anthropic principle. The Anthropic Principle Using the information in the clip you have just watched, how would you explain what is meant by ‘The Anthropic Principle’? Anthropic Principle = the argument that the natural laws of the universe have been ‘fine-tuned’ to allow human life to exist.

Anthropic Principle There are three premises for the anthropic principle. These can be found on page 18 of your textbooks. 1. The very fact that the natural world in which we live provides exactly the things that are necessary for life to be sustained 2. The fact that the natural world in which we love can not only be observed but holds itself up against rational analysis from which it can deduce its workings 3. The fact that the process of evolution has led to development of intelligent human life Thus, human life is GOD’S PLAN!!

Tennant’s Evidence REN Rationality - The world holds itself up for rational analysis from which we can deduce its workings. Evolution – The process of evolution, through natural selection, has led to the development of intelligent human life – to the degree that intelligent life can observe and analyse the universe that it exists in. Necessities for life- The world in which we live provides precisely the necessities for life to be sustained.

The List – All true sciency facts! Any closer to the Sun, we’d burn to a crisp. Any further away and we’d freeze. If the Moon wasn’t exactly where it is, or it was a different size or had a mildly different orbit… we’d be flooded by the tides. To get our Sun, two perfectly balanced forces must exist. The Strong Nuclear Force and the Weak Nuclear Force. A little less of the strong, everything would be hydrogen. A little more of the strong, all hydrogen would become helium.

Evolution Contrary to popular belief, evolution does not invalidate God as designer. The Anthropic Principle claims that Darwin’s theory of evolution can coexist with the existence of God. The Anthropic Principle claims that evolution is part of God’s plan and is simply a matter of ‘fine-tuning’.

Brendon Carter The term ‘Anthropic Principle’ was first coined by British astrophysicist Brendon Carter in 1974. He proposed a ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ Anthropic Principle.

Weak Anthropic Principle “We must be prepared to take into account the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers”. We exist because the universe has produced the conditions for life to evolve. We couldn’t observe the universe if such conditions didn’t exist.

Strong Anthropic Principle “The universe (and hence the fundamental parameters on which it depends) must be such as to admit the creation of observers at some stage.” It is necessary for the universe to have these conditions. The universe was ‘constructed’ and could not have come into existence in any other way. The universe was designed with the ultimate purpose of producing human life.

Tennant’s Conclusion Tennant supports the Strong Anthropic Principle. He says that the universe had a designer and there is a HIGH PROBABILITY that this is God. So many laws of physics are in place for no apparent reason except for our existence. British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose calculated that the odds that a fine-tuned universe could have accidently evolved are 1 part in 10 to the power of 10 to the power or 123. As Penrose puts it, that is a “number which it would be impossible to write out in the usual decimal way, because even if you were able to put a zero on every particle in the universe, there would not even be enough particles to do the job.”

John Polkinghorne (1930 -) Read the information on Polkinghorne (p77). Discuss his ideas with your ‘elbow buddy’! Any questions?

Write up Answer question 3 on page 50 using the PEEL paragraph structure. Make sure you use specialist vocabulary.

Aesthetic Argument Read the information about Tennant’s aesthetic argument from p72 of your workbook and answer the following questions: What does ‘aesthetic’ mean? How do humans differ from other species? Why does Tennant believe this appreciation for beauty to be the result of a loving God? Copy the quote below. Highlight/underline a part of it to learn, ensuring that you understand and could explain it in an essay. “Nature is not just beautiful in places; it is saturated with beauty – on the telescopic and the microscopic scale. Our scientific knowledge brings us no nearer to understanding the beauty of music. From an intelligibility point of view, beauty seems to be superfluous and to have little survival value.” (F.R. Tennant, ‘Philosophical Theology’.

Proof of God’s existence? Do you think the Anthropic or the Aesthetic principle can prove that God exists?

Challenges against Inductive arguments By the end of the lesson you will have: Re-capped your previous knowledge of criticisms against inductive arguments Learnt the two basic arguments against inductive arguments Applied our knowledge to an AO2 essay structure

Re-Cap What is an inductive argument? What is the cosmological argument? What is the teleological argument?

Recap starter- pick at least 4 words from the selection below & explain them! Blue = 1 point each (ALL) Red = 2 points each (MOST) Black = 3 points each (SOME) Hume’s fork Dawkin’s ‘flawed design’ Hume’s ‘weak analogies’ Darwin’s theory of evolution Hume’s chaos theory Hume’s absent designer Hume’s many builders Mill’s evil and suffering Kant’s restricted experience

David Hume’s ‘God of Gaps’ Think, Pair, Share What ‘gap’ in inductive arguments do you think Hume is referring to? Why is the ‘gap’ in an inductive argument essentially problematic? What sort of knowledge doesn’t have ‘gaps’? TASK: Try and write in your own words what you think the ‘god of gaps’ criticism might be

Anthony Flew’s ‘Leaky Bucket’ Many proponents of inductive arguments use their ‘cumulative’ nature as a key strength Cumulative = increasing or increased in quantity, degree The Cosmological, and particularly the Teleological, arguments are cumulative because the more we learn about the world, the more evidence we see of both cause and design Swinburne argued that the arguments, particularly when placed together, accumulate to show that God’s existence is likely

Anthony Flew’s ‘Leaky Bucket’ Think of a bucket holding lots of water You may have 1, 2, 3 or even 100 buckets with lots of water However, if the buckets leak or have holes in them, you will never be able to have a complete bucket of water

Evaluation for T.A ‘The T.A is a convincing argument for the existence of God’. Assess this view Use page 105 of your blue workbook and choose 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses to evaluate. Do you think these are good or strong points? Could any of the strengths or weaknesses be used for both the C.A and the T.A?

Strengths/Weaknesses Cosmological It satisfies the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ Can we not just say that the universe is there and that is the end of it? Russell states ‘there is a universe and that is all’ Ex-Nihlio, nihlio fit – out of nothing comes nothing. There MUST be a cause. J.S Mill said It is contradictory to say that the universe can’t be infinite but God can be. The Kalam argument is compatible with science – both agree the world has a beginning +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Essay Planning In groups, use page ?? of your essay planning booklet to try and plan at least 3 paragraphs for the question: ‘Inductive arguments are convincing arguments for the existence of God’. Assess this view

Topic re-cap Create A3 mind maps OR revision cards to re-cap what we have learnt so far Cosmological Arguments for the existence of God Teleological Arguments for the existence of God Challenges against inductive arguments