Richard Swinburne The Design Argument

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(b) 'The design argument shows the existence of God is probable'. Comments on this view. (9)

My belief is that although the design argument seems successful in some respects, some of its claims are flawed, so God’s existence is improbable. Because the argument as a whole is inductive there is always a chance that the conclusion that is made is not going to be true; however it seems that supporters of the teleological argument are making too much of a ‘leap’ between the proposition that there is apparent design, and the conclusion that the designer must have been God.

Richard Swinburne’s theories to support the existence of God is that by a process of deduction God must exist, because that is the easiest explanation. Swinburne employs Ockham’s …show more content…
Just as Dawkins proposes in the God Delusion, it could be that we look for a father figure for support and to seek answers to the philosophical questions we come up with in our desire for knowledge. There can be no conclusive evidence, only faith, in God; however, as Jocelyn Bell Burnell insinuates, empirical evidence for or against God simply becomes void when you actually experience the numinous feeling within religious congregations. Perhaps then, God’s existence can only be proven to those with preexisting faith when they feel His presence with inner belief; to non-believers, they can never find God through empirical evidence. Dawkins’ idea that God, or the river sprites, might as well not exist could be applicable to science as well, depending on which side you support. We know as much about the origins of science and why the laws of science are the way that they are as we do about similar features of God, therefore, we cannot say conclusively that one is better than the other; the nonbeliever would just opt in favour of science rather than in God because they do not possess that inner emotion, and science appeals more to
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