The teleological argument is one of the five arguments for the existence of god. It attempts to prove gods existence by using our experience of the world or universe around us. This makes it a posterior in nature. Teleological arguments can essentially be broken down into two main types pre Darwinian and post Darwinian. We shall focus on pre Darwinian as these are the most traditional of these two arguments. Further sub division of teleological arguments can be identified in the guise of design qua regularity and design qua purpose. It is within these areas that we the find the thinking of two philosophers Aquinas(13thC) and paley (19C).

The teleological design argument gets its name from the Greek word telos which mean end, goal or purpose it is this end or purpose that both Aquinas and paley are looking for that will suggest the existence of a divine creator. We will begin by outlining Aquinas fifth way from the governance of things or the design qua regularity argument. Aquinas observed the universe and concluded that everything in it must be working in some kind of order. In particular he noticed that natural bodies (flowers or insects) behaved in a regular way. For example a daffodil flowers every spring time he then goes on to notice the fact that these natural bodies lack intelligence, by this he means they are not conscious of there own movement. A daffodil does not know that it is spring time but flowers unconsciously. He concludes that as they lack the intelligence to think of there own movement therefore the movement or regularity comes from somewhere else. He suggests than the movement does not occur ‘fortuitously but designedly’ by this he means that there regularity has not come around by sheer chance but something else has caused the flower or natural bodies to obey a regular pattern. Aquinas then goes on to suggest that ‘as an arrow is directed to a mark by an archer’ so too is the movement/regularity of things directed by being with intelligence. The analogy of the arrow and the archer is used by Aquinas to demonstrate the link between god a creation. For Aquinas this intelligence that proves regularity of movement in the universe is god. This is the conclusion of Aquinas design qua regularity argument

Paley’s design qua purpose argument has a different feel from Aquinas as he first focuses on outlining a hypothetical situation and then drawing conclusions about the nature of existence. From this hypothetical this is the essence of any analogy. The analogy begins with paley asking us to imagine us crossing a wasteland and “pitching your foot against a stone” if you were to pick up this stone that you have found, he suggest that you would not immediately question where the stone came from, as there would be nothing remarkable about it. But if you continued to walk across the wasteland and pitched your foot against and old fashioned pocket watch you would not be able to dismiss the watch as you did the stone. Paley argues this is because of the complexity of the watch. The cogs wheels and counter weights in the watch on closer inspection would demonstrate this complexity. Moreover if the pieces of the watch were placed in any other order, the watch wouldn’t fur fill its purpose of telling the time. Paley states that on discovery of this watch you would have to speculate a designer due to the complex nature of the mechanism and its obvious purpose of telling the time.

Using similar logic paley continues his analogy by moving onto his observations of the universe or world around us. In particular paley focuses on the human eye to demonstrate complex city and purpose. Paley observed that the human eye was made up of different complex components the cornea iris ect. And the coming together of these parts could not have come about by sheer chance alone as it is to complex. He suggests that just as in the case of the watch with its clear complex city and purpose we must conclude a designer of the eye as its clear purpose is seeing. If the eye was put together in any different order it wouldn’t see or would only have partial sight either case would see it failing its overall purpose, to see. This designer or provider of purpose is for Paley the god of Christianity.