If you are prepared to read some serious waffling, then please continue. At the moment I’m trying to finish my psych essay (which, as you can see, isn’t happening so productively) and I’m arguing that most of the psychological theories that we have about love are teleological (new word for me too!)
Teleology is when you explain a phenomenon, like love, by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes. (Note: please don’t confuse the definition with the theological one, which is “the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world” – thank you New Oxford American Dictionary!) Teleological isn’t all bad, but it isn’t all good either. For example, Anna caught the bus because she wants to get to uni. This tells me that my aim was to get to uni; that’s my purpose. You can answer questions like ‘why did you catch the bus?’ but you can’t answer questions like ‘why did you catch the bus and not the train?’, with the info given. There’s just no info provided for the cause of me choosing to catch the bus, or even why I needed to get to uni.
So the question is, then: is the Bible (the explanation of the existence of our world – woah, I just realised that this post might entail a huge chunk of waffling!) teleological? Does it only tell us about God’s purposes by its account and not the causes behind them?
Ahh…well, looks like this won’t be a huge waffle after all as my eyelids are just about closed, so I’ll have to type up the next bit soon! But just in case you’re curious, the answer is no, and I shall try to write up why.
And incase you’re asking: “Anna, dude…why are you even wasting your time on such a fruitless topic?”, I’ll say that it’s because if the bible is not just mere teleology, then that means it probably is one of the only explanations of our world that is adequate! I know that’s a real big claim, and I can’t really make it because I haven’t read everything ever written in the world, but I think the bible is at least an adequate explanation of the world, if not more.
life matters 
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