Personally I am not a religious person and I don't believe philosophy has a lot to contribute to religion overall. I spend 14 years growing up in the church, very much as a part of that community: going twice a week, my parents sometimes taught church classes, praying over dinner, the whole 9 yards. Anyway, even after years of being brought up with that set of values and beliefs there was always just this disconnect for me. Even from the time I was a small child faith just isn't something I was interested in. It was like even though all these people around me that I looked to to teach me how to do everything else in my life were telling me that this was the right thing I didn't see any type of proof of or anything to make me believe it with absolutely no doubt. Natural theology looks at faith in a similar way, essentially disregarding it. With natural theology there are no miracle and divine teachings, simply explanations of theology based on things occurring naturally in the World.
To me both the cosmological and contingency arguments as well as the design argument just aren't convincing. The cosmological argument makes assumptions and jumps to conclusions like "there must be an uncased first cause, therefor God exists" no real explanation or proof, just therefor God exist. Some people believe in aliens or the big bang, etc. those could also be seen as uncaused 1st causes to people who have faith in them. It's basically like saying that I believe in something so since that's what I believe in and I have faith in it, that's what it is. To me this is just ridiculous.
With the design argument, I don't even think it's a good analogy. I understand the idea that the World is complex but I don't know why this seems to mean that something has to have created it. I feel like you could argue that the universe is so vast, detailed, and complicated that there's no way one person or thing was able to make all of that just appear. What sounds more plausible? The idea that one person/being could create the universe, with all it's functions, and everything in it? Or the idea that one person/being did not create the universe and everything in it but that these things have naturally occurred and evolved due to free will and the way different organisms and chemicals interact with each other? To me the second one just makes so much more sense. In reality the universe is nothing like a watch - it cannot be duplicated and pumped out by the thousands. It cannot be broken, bought, sold, or held in your hand; it is extremely complex and unique. Even if the analogy made sense it still doesn't prove who or what is was that created the World. Again they just jump to it being God because of their faith, so again I find it to be ridiculous. Also, the argument that one perfect specimen designed the universe and everything in it contradicts itself; there are MANY disasters, tragedies, faults, and design errors (like global warming and world hunger for example) all throughout the Universe and certainly all over the World. A perfect designer would have created a perfect design. Using their strategy of reasoning: since the design is clearly not perfect, you can assume the designer was clearly not perfect, which means it obviously wasn't God who they believe to be perfect. In my opinion philosophy, which is considered a social science, is in conflict with the ideas behind faith and some kind of divine and perfect God.
To me both the cosmological and contingency arguments as well as the design argument just aren't convincing. The cosmological argument makes assumptions and jumps to conclusions like "there must be an uncased first cause, therefor God exists" no real explanation or proof, just therefor God exist. Some people believe in aliens or the big bang, etc. those could also be seen as uncaused 1st causes to people who have faith in them. It's basically like saying that I believe in something so since that's what I believe in and I have faith in it, that's what it is. To me this is just ridiculous.
With the design argument, I don't even think it's a good analogy. I understand the idea that the World is complex but I don't know why this seems to mean that something has to have created it. I feel like you could argue that the universe is so vast, detailed, and complicated that there's no way one person or thing was able to make all of that just appear. What sounds more plausible? The idea that one person/being could create the universe, with all it's functions, and everything in it? Or the idea that one person/being did not create the universe and everything in it but that these things have naturally occurred and evolved due to free will and the way different organisms and chemicals interact with each other? To me the second one just makes so much more sense. In reality the universe is nothing like a watch - it cannot be duplicated and pumped out by the thousands. It cannot be broken, bought, sold, or held in your hand; it is extremely complex and unique. Even if the analogy made sense it still doesn't prove who or what is was that created the World. Again they just jump to it being God because of their faith, so again I find it to be ridiculous. Also, the argument that one perfect specimen designed the universe and everything in it contradicts itself; there are MANY disasters, tragedies, faults, and design errors (like global warming and world hunger for example) all throughout the Universe and certainly all over the World. A perfect designer would have created a perfect design. Using their strategy of reasoning: since the design is clearly not perfect, you can assume the designer was clearly not perfect, which means it obviously wasn't God who they believe to be perfect. In my opinion philosophy, which is considered a social science, is in conflict with the ideas behind faith and some kind of divine and perfect God.
Krista, this is an insightful post. The design argument was more convincing when Paley made it, that is, before we had a competing explanation in the nineteenth century with evolution.
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