Does God exist? THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN

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Does God exist? The Teleological Argument

INTRODUCTION:

In the previous episode we considered the Cosmological argument for the existence of God.

THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT:

In today’s episode we will consider the Teleological Argument, also known as the argument from design. The argument goes like this:

Premise 1:

Every design had a designer

Premise 2:

The universe has highly complex design

Conclusion:

Therefore, the universe had a designer

THE FINE-TUNING OF THE UNIVERSE:

Anthropic constants:

1. Oxygen level:

2. Atmospheric Transparency:

3. Moon-Earth Gravitational Interaction

4. Carbon Dioxide Level:

5. Gravity:

6. Expansion rate:

7. Jupiter:

8. Rotation of the earth:

THE FOUNDATION OF LIFE:

We not only see this kind of precise fine tuning in terms of the initial conditions at the big bang, but we also see this kind of fine tuning at the foundations of life. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft says it like this:

“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created”

Initial and new life forms:
Think about what that means. You need the code from DNA for life to have originated. You also need new DNA code in order for new life forms to exist. So, if you need the digital code from DNA for the initial life to exist then the code from DNA could not have resulted from evolutionary processes.

Where does the information come from?
This begs the question: Where does the information come from? Well as Dr Meyer pointed out, in our uniform and repeated experience (Which is the basis for all scientific reasoning), all specified information—that is to say, functional information that produces a specific result—comes from a mind or an intelligence.

Explanation for fine tuning:
What is the best explanation of these precise realities? There are only three options.

Physical necessity:

Chance:

Intelligence:

SUMMARIZE:

To summarize, we have looked at evidence from the anthropic constants as well as the information encoded in the DNA molecule that indicates that the universe is designed. Anytime we see design, like a watch or a car, we know there is a designer. And anytime we see specified information like “Roland loves Jo-Ann” we know that there is an intelligent source—a mind—behind it.

CONCLUSION:

So what have we learned from the first two arguments for the existence of God? From the cosmological argument we have learned that the universe has a cause, and that cause is extremely powerful. Form the Teleologic argument (The argument form design) we have learned that the universe has a cause, and that cause is extremely intelligent. It seems Isaac Newton was right.

FORECAST:

In the next episode we will consider the Moral argument for the existence of God. We will be considering whether morality (right and wrong) is subjective or objective and how that relates to the existence of God.

That’s it for today, and until the next time, remember, the truth matters and so do you!