Teleological arguments for the existence of God - Model essay stem

Teleological arguments for the existence of God
40 marks
OCR A-level religious studies




Teleological arguments look at the end results of creation – the world around us – and uses it to
draw conclusions. These are a posteriori arguments, looking at God as an explanation for our
experience. Examples of order and complexity suggest a creator outside of the universe who has
designed the world with purpose; the world is too complex to have arisen by chance.
Aquinas believed the natural world provided a lot of evidence for Gods existence. He tried to see
how the works of Aristotle were compatible with Christian thought. Like Aristotle, he was a strong
believer in telos, where everything exists for a purpose. He used the analogy of the arrow to explain
how, like an arrow reaches its target because of the archer directing it there, everything in the world
reaches its telos by God. He noticed that everything in nature is constantly changing; unintelligent
things must be directed by an intelligent being so they can fulfil their telos – ‘not fortuitously, but