Hume, David - Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Cast (in order of appearance)

Pamphilus - narrator, though not unbiased, eventually endorses Cleanthes's views as nearer to the truth

Hermippus - Friend of Pamphilus, to whom he retells his discussion with the others

Demea - orthodox religionist, though drawn to skeptical arguments

Philo - skeptic, views on religion unclear, possibly Hume

Cleanthes - Deist, proponent of natural religion, echoes Newton

 

Goal: Show that all arguments proving God's existence (especially the so-called argument from design), or establishing anything about his nature, were empty.

• However, it is difficult to determine what Hume thought the take-home message of all this was.
  
   

• Introduction - Frame Narrative Pamphilus to Hermippus
  • Pamphilus begins by discussing the respective merits and shortcomings of writing philosophical texts apodictically or in dialogue form.
    • He claims that any issue of philosophy which is obscure and uncertain, like natural religion, and in which "human reason can reach no fixed determination with regard to it" almost necessarily leads to conversational or dialogic treatment.
    • The joining of opposite opinions, where one position cannot be decisively proven, leads "to the two greatest pleasures of human life: study and society."
    • Nothing is so obvious as the existence of God, but nothing is so disputed as His nature, attributes, etc.
  • Then turns to recount the dialogue between, Cleanthes, Philo, and Demea
• Part I
  • Dialogue opens on the question of whether natural religion should be the first or the last topic in a youth's education
  • Demea argues that it is best to show students the falsity of all philosophy before introducing them to the study of natural religion, earlier on though they should be taught simple piety
  • Philo radicalizes Demea's program and claims that student's should be taught the extreme limits of human reason before they approach attempts at natural religion
  • Cleanthes, however, disagrees with Philo, who, according to him, is trying to "erect religious faith on philosophical skepticism."
    • He questions whether anyone is actually as skeptical in real life as they claim to be in philosophical debate.
  • Philo responds in a number of ways:
    • He argues that though one cannot entirely suspend judgment in practical matters, some measure of the skepticism cultivated in philosophy is retained when one returns to ordinary life.
    • Admits that one is forced to act and reason in ordinary life and that many matters in philosophy are not that far removed from ordinary life so one can make conclusions about them. Ordinary life and reasoning, however, are closely connected with experience.
    • But argues that natural religion is far removed from ordinary life and reasoning and that it more likely that reason's abilities have been exceeded in this domain that in any other. After all, in this area we are dealing with matters with which we have no experience. So skepticism in this domain is more proper than in ordinary life.
  • Cleanthes responds:
    • Questions how skeptics can except reasoning and evidence in scientific matters, but question them in religious matters. Also claims that the distinction between ordinary life and more obscure matters is arbitrary, it is the same reason that operates in both.
    • Remarks on the strange union of faith and skepticism
  • Philo claims that the relationship between faith and skepticism, on the one hand, or dogmatism, on the other, is an opportunistic and apologetic one. Faith, more precisely, priests will ally with whichever will make them better able to dominate others at any particular time.
  • Cleanthes responds to Philo that it is natural that men use whatever tools will best defend their doctrines. Moreover, the confirmation of religion is the best mark of the truth of philosophical principles.
• Part II
  • Demea objects that it seems from Cleanthes remarks that he is defending religion against atheists. No one denies God's existence. What he is denying is knowledge of God's nature. Quotes Malebranche in support of negative theology.
  • Philo agrees with Demea and adds:
    • That God exists is self evident because nothing exists without a cause, the original cause of the universe is called God.
    • However, we can know nothing about his attributes because:
      • Our ideas reach no farther than our experience
      • We have no experience of divine operations and attributes
      • Therefore, we have no ideas of divine operations and attributes
    • (It should be clear that the above are in tension with one another, Hume does not believe that we can know that 'nothing exists without a cause' because our knowledge is limited by our experience)
  • Cleanthes articulates the argument from design
    • Nature, in its order and adaption of means to ends, resembles a man-made machine
    • Using the rule of analogy, since the effects resemble each other, the causes must resemble each other too. A mind created the machine and a mind created the universe.
    • Though the cause of nature will be proportionally greater than the cause of a machine: divine mind: human mind
  • Demea objects to two aspects of the argument:
    • It sets up resemblance between God and man
    • It is a posteriori so it only yields probabilistic certainty, an a priori argument, like those used by theologians in the past, delivers demonstration and absolute certainty
  • Philo argues that to the extent that effects are different, the rule of analogy is weakened and, therefore, one can be less and less certain about the similarity of the causes. Man-made machines are very different than the universe, thus the analogy is very weak, and one cannot be very certain about the similarity of the causes.
  • Cleanthes argues that the similarity of the universe to a man-made machine is closer than Philo admits. He points to the "order, proportion, and arrangement of every part."
  • Philo now argues against both Demea and Cleanthes:
    • He defends Cleanthes against Demea's objection to a posteriori argumentation. He basically makes the Humean point that before we have experience we don't know anything and anything is just as likely as anything else. Only through having experience with matter do we come to learn that order, organization, etc., are found in material objects that have been caused by an intelligent being, that they don't arise in matter spontaneously.
    • He argues against Cleanthes that
      • Reasoning by analogy from objects in the universe to the universe itself is fallacious. "But can a conclusion with propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference?"
      • Why should thought be the cause of the universe just because it is the cause of man-made machines, the universe has many other examples of cause-effect relationships?
      • We have yet to experience order arising without an intelligent artificer, but our experience is very small in comparison to the whole universe. It might be that it does arise so.
      • More generally and directly, "when two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I can argument from experience. But how this argument can have place where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain."
• Part III
  • Cleanthes replies to Philo:
    • Stresses that the resemblance of two effects, notwithstanding their order of magnitude, suffices to enable the argument from analogy.
    • Uses thought experiment of talking and procreating books to extend the argument from design to encompass human reason - surely this must be evidence of a designer
    • Poetically urges Philo to consider the order and fineness of human anatomy
  • Demea replies to Cleanthes
    • Argues that even his thought experiment of talking and procreating books is not similar enough to the case of the universe and God - God's way are not our ways
    • Using Cleanthes's type of argument from design is to succumb to anthropomorphism
    • Excurses on negative theology, how different we are from God
    • (Note that Demea is not really on the same page as Philo - he derogates the senses as a source of knowledge, whereas Philo, in Humean fashion, believes that it is our only source of knowledge.)
• Part IV
  • Cleanthes questions Demea's negative theology, essentially asserting that the Divine nothingness that is left from this approach is no different from the view of skeptics and atheists.
  • Demea replies by pointing out how the anthropomorphism implicit in Cleanthes's argument from design contradicts the 'perfect immutability and simplicity' that theists affirm of God.
  • Cleanthes bites the bullet and acknowledges that radical simplicity is not compatible with intelligence, which is modeled on that of human intelligence. But claims that insisting on radical simplicity entails atheism. As long as we are going to call God intelligent, we have to do with less than radical simplicity.
  • Philo argues back against Cleanthes
    • Cleanthes's view would label almost everyone but himself an atheist, this would undermine the argument from the universal consent of mankind to God.
    • Shows some of the negative results of his eschewing Divine simplicity in favor of intelligence. If he believes that the Divine Mind, or Intelligence, is not simple, then there will have to be some cause for the order of the Divine Mind. No progress has been made in trying to figure out what caused the order, we just moved from material order to divine-mind order. We are still going to need some simple cause.
  • Cleanthes responds that he is not concerned with finding causes of causes. There are ultimate causes that cannot be explained by anything else. "I have found my Deity; and here I stop my inquiry."
  • Philo remarks that, true, one has to be content with unexplainable causes at some point, but often this at a point that has some sort of explanatory pay-off. Scientists move from particular causes to more general causes and stop there. They don't usually stop with particular causes. In contrast, "an ideal system [the Divine Mind], arrange of itself, without a precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a material one which attains its order in a like matter; nor is there any more difficult y in the latter supposition than in the former."
• Part V
  • Philo continues to show problems with Cleanthes's approach
    • Cleanthes principle is that 'Like effects prove like causes' a corollary to this is that 'the liker the effects are which are seen and the liker the causes which are inferred, the stronger the argument.' And vise versa.
      • But if this is true, to the extent to which we discover that nature is more wondrous and magnificent than human artifacts, the argument is actually weakened.
        • The effects become less and less similar, thus undermining the argument
  • Cleanthes objects that this is not true, all of these new discoveries are just new instances of 'art and contrivance,' that is that they are not less like human artifacts, they only differ in degree.
  • Philo now moves in with more objections:
    • According to Cleanthes we could never say that God is infinite. We only know of God from his finite effects, finite effects do not license an infinite cause.
    • We could also never say that God is perfect. Human being see imperfections in the world. One could perhaps construct an a priori argument to show that God is perfect and that his work must be perfect, however, limiting oneself to a posteriori arguments one could not get from observations of the world to a perfect creator.
    • Moreover, even if the world was perfect that would not necessarily mean that God was, he might just be a perfect world-maker.
    • Also, how could we say that God is one, it could be that a bunch of gods got together to make the world, like in human productions.
      • It cannot be objected that this is to multiply causes for no reason, because we have no reason to think that all the attributes necessary to make a world are or could be contained in one being.
    • Furthermore, while we are anthropomorphizing….and on and on….
    • Basic idea is that reasoning from the effect to the cause only gives us a finite creator and then we can say whatever we want, all bets are off.
  • Cleanthes bites the bullet. If Philo wants to go off on all these flights of fancy that is fine with him. As long as the hypothesis of design in the universe is affirmed the foundation of religion is secure.
• Part VI
  • Demea responds with horror. Why should we worship the type of God that could be possible on this minimalist foundation.
  • Philo presses further objections against Cleanthes
    • On Cleanthes principles or one similar to it, that "where several known circumstances are observed to be similar, the unknown will be found similar, one could easily claim that the universe is an animal and that God is the soul of the world. Indeed, the world seems more similar to an organism than an artifact.
      • Moreover, it is consistent with ordinary experience that there should be a mind without a body, therefore God should have a body - the world. If you insist that we cannot reason from ordinary experience, then the underlying rationale of your argument falls away and you should embrace the idea of the absolute incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature.
  • Cleanthes responds cautiously
    • The resemblance between the world and an animal is defective in some respects, it is more similar to a vegetable.
    • Philo's theory implies the eternity of the world
      • However, he has an empirical argument from the localization of species of trees against that hypothesis: How is it possible that trees that could thrive in Europe region never developed there, but existed in another, if the world is eternal? There would have had to be some sort of convulsion to destroy all vegetation in Europe.
  • Philo responds that
    • Cleanthes do not have an argument against some such convulsion having occurred.
    • Philo affirms that he does think that there is an eternal principle of order in the world, albeit one that involves continual revolutions and alterations.
      • He then seems to imply that no other explanation for the universe is necessary.
      • God or gods seem to be superfluous explanations, they do not ultimately explain anything.
• Part VII
  • Philo continues to press his arguments:
    • The universe more resembles an animal or a vegetable therefore its cause should resemble that of an animal or a vegetable; the world is therefore more likely to have come about through procreation or vegetation than reason or design.
      • Furthermore we have more experience of animals and procreation and vegetables and vegetation than human's operating on matter on the basis of design and reason. Why select this small bit of experience for the analogy as opposed to opening up all of our experience?
  • Demea objects against Philo's arbitrary hypotheses
  • Philo acknowledges that all along his goal has been to show that we actually have no data from which to reason about the creation of the world, it being entirely different than generation within the world. But if we are going to reason about the world ,jumping to the analogy of human design and reason is mere prejudice, we have other examples that are more widespread in our experience.
  • Demea presses Philo to elaborate about how this universal vegetation or procreation would go.
  • Philo responds with classic Humean arguments about how reason, generation, vegetation, and instinct are just names that we use to label powers that we don't actually understand.
  • Demea argues that positing a universal vegetation or procreation only pushes the question back further, what accounts for the design in the vegetation or procreation. Once again, we are back to a Divine designer.
  • Philo responds that
    • There doesn't need to be a designer of the universal vegetation or procreation. Just as one tree gives rise to another tree without designing it, so too the universe. To assume that there must be a designer is to beg the question.
    • Just as Cleanthes could not answer what the cause was for the Divine reason and intelligence and argued for ultimate explanations, he can do so to. He just fixes on generation.
    • Also, his analogy is tighter than Cleanthes.
    • Further, if Cleanthes wants to insists on a designer for the universal vegetation or procreation, he can insists on some sort of vegetation or procreation as the cause for Divine reason.
  • Cleanthes basically admits he can't answer Philo but accuses him of sophistry.
• Part VIII
  • Philo responds that it is not because he is so clever that his is able to come up with all of his objections, but because of the particular subject matter. Basically what he is saying is that here is little to control speculation in these issues. He proposes that the world might be simple made up a of a number of finite particles going through the finite number of arrangements in an infinite amount of time.
  • Demea objects that this would assume that matter could acquire movement without a first mover.
    • (In the Cartesian system matter does not move itself, therefore many religious Cartesians left a role for God as the first mover of matter.)
  • Philo responds that
    • A priori matter moving itself or needing to be moved by something else are equally probable hypotheses. We need to look at experience to see what is the case.
    • Why not suppose that there is an constant amount of movement eternally present in the universe?
      • Weaves together a cosmogony in which the universe is in eternal flux until it falls into some pattern of stability and order. The world is somewhat stable and that is why we perceive order, there is no explanation above and beyond that. If it did not have order it would not subsist.
      • This holds as much for the universe as it does for animals. If there was no order at all in animals they would not subsist, it is not that they have so sort of designer.
  • Cleanthes responds but what about order in animals above and beyond what is necessary for their continual existence?
  • Philo responds that
    • Yes, there might be problems with his theory, in these areas all of the theories are problematic.
    • Cleanthes has the deeper problem because his approach, which is based on analogy, directly goes against experience. In our experience, experience comes before mind, ideas come from without and effect thought. But Cleanthes theory has mind acting on matter, without matter acting on the mind, which we never encounter.
    • Holes can be found in every religious system, the best thing to do is to be a skeptic and withhold judgment
• Part IX
  • Demea now tries to shift away from the inconclusive a posteriori argumentation:
    • Proposes that we use a priori arguments for God's existence. This would be better as through it we could show God's infinity and unity, things we couldn't show a posteriori, as discussed above.
    • Offers the classic argument for a first cause or first reason
  • Cleanthes responds:
    • It is a fallacy to try to demonstrate a matter of fact a priori.
      • Nothing is demonstrable unless its contrary implies a contradiction.
      • But nothing that can be conceived implies a contradiction.
      • Anything that can be conceived to exist can be conceived to not exist.
      • Therefore, one cannot prove a priori that something must exist.
    • Necessary existence either does not have a meaning or none that is consistent
    • Further, why couldn't the material universe be the necessary existent, stop the chain early.
    • Further, an eternal chain of causes and effects would not need a first cause, it would just be eternal, each one causing the next
      • Objecting, yes but what causes the whole chain, is misguided, there is no whole chain, there is just one cause causing the next
  • Philo raises the possibility that the world just is the way it is on account of necessity.
    • He also raises the issue of how little religious succor individuals derive from a priori reasoning.
• Part X
  • Demea stresses that everyone feels within themselves the truth of their religion and connects it with it use as a resource amid the ills of life.
  • Philo joins him in discussing how human misery draws out the religious feeling in people. But then moves the conversation through a consideration of natural evil to social evil.
  • Cleanthes interjects that he himself does not feel human misery in himself.
  • Philo, on the basis of these reflections, formulates the classic argument from evil.
    • Argument from evil
      • God is good
      • God is all powerful
      • Evil exists
    • More locally he uses it to challenge Cleanthes's position that God's attributes can be conceived anthropomorphically. Can we say God is good, in a sense that meshes with what we call human goodness, if he allows such evil?
    • Proposes instead seeing God's attributes as infinitely perfect but incomprehensible.
  • Cleanthes notes that Philo isn't really agreeing with Demea in his religious mysticism. He is really trying to undermine all religion, why should we worship a Deity who lacks a moral attributes.
  • Demea replies that
    • Cleanthes is wrong for mistaking a discussion of man's evil for an attempt to undermine God's justice.
    • All the evil in the world is balanced out by goodness in other parts.
  • Cleanthes responds that
    • Demea's apologetics have no support, there is no evidence of all this goodness that is supposed to outweigh the bad.
    • The only way to affirm God's goodness is to deny that there is as much human misery as he has been suggesting.
  • Philo responds that
    • Even if pleasure is more frequent than pain, its intensity is greater
    • Questions Cleanthes attempt to found religion on such an uncertain basis as the happiness of mankind
    • Even if there is more pleasure than pain in the world, this is not what we would expect from an infinitely good and powerful God, why isn't the world even better?
    • Even if we could prove that there is more pleasure in the world then pain, we could never argue from that that God is infinitely good, the cause assumed is greater than the effect it is trying to explain
• Part XI
  • Cleanthes responds to Philo and Demea
    • Infinity is not something we can really comprehend, so if we assume that God is infinte we don't really have any object for religion.
    • As long as we think that God is infinitely good and infinitely powerful, it is impossible to reconcile him with any amount of evil in the world
    • Therefore let's just suppose that God is finitely perfect
  • Philo responds that
    • If an individual did not have an commitments and just worked from experience he would not even infer on even a finitely perfect being as the cause of the universe. The world is not what we would expect if we considered beforehand what a world created by even by a finitely good and powerful being would create.
      • The world is not strictly speaking incompatible with having such a creator, but it s not what we would infer on the basis of experience.
    • The evils of the world are based on four unnecessary causes coming together:
      • The pain that results from hunger and thirst
      • The conducting the world on the basis of general laws
      • The weakness of powers and faculties in the every being
      • The inaccurate workmanship of all the springs and principles of the great machine of nature
        • Basic point here: "If the goodness of the deity (I mean a goodness like the human) could be established on any tolerable reasons a priori, these phenomena, however, untoward, would not be sufficient to subvert that principle, but might easily, in some unknown matter, be reconcilable to it. But let us still assert that, as this goodness is not antecedently established but must be inferred from the phenomena, there can be no ground for such an inference while there are so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might be so easily have been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on such a subject."
    • There are four hypothesis concerning the first causes of the universe
      • Endowed with perfect goodness - the mixed experience cannot prove this
      • Endowed with perfect malice - the mixed experience cannot prove this
      • That they are opposite and have goodness and malice - uniformity and steadiness of nature speaks against this
      • That they have neither goodness nor malice - this is the most probable
  • Demea now freaks out as his former ally in the fight for an incomprehensible God has become a heretic
  • Cleanthes rips Demea for being so stupid not to have realized this before
  • Philo re-expresses how apologetic literature will change itself constantly to fit the times
• Part XII
  • Demea leaves
  • Philo unexpectedly launches into a an extended discussion of the order and design that "strikes everywhere the most careless and most stupid thinker."
    • (There is obviously a lot of reasons to think that Philo is being slightly disingenuous when claiming the mantle of the design argument now.)
  • Cleanthes joins in now that Philo has finally seems to be agreeing with him. He mentions that perhaps one could suspend judgment for a little while, but that this is not possible in the long-term.
  • Philo continues to articulate views almost entirely contrary to that which he voiced earlier:
    • He describes the analogical relationship between art and an artificer and the universe and a creator.
    • He then argues that much of the dispute between the theist and the atheist is merely verbal, one calling the orderer of nature an original principle the other an original intelligence.
    • He also, even more disingenuously, mentions how it is OK that God's moral attributes are not evident from his effects, as we already know that his absolutely and supremely perfect.
    • He explains that while he cherishes true religion, he attempts to destroy vulgar superstition.
  • Cleanthes responds that he disagrees on the last point, in light of the rewards stored up in heaven, it is better to have corrupted religion than no religion at all.
  • Philo contests that corrupt religion is better than no religion by claiming that it is responsible for much misery throughout history.
  • Cleanthes responds that this is only when religion "act as a separate principle over man" as opposed to cultivating morality.
  • Philo responds that
    • All religion will be like that as long as it is not rational and philosophical.
    • He also questions whether religion ever has the moral effects that Cleanthes claims for it.
    • Philosophers have no need for the motivation that comes from religion to act properly, while the masses tend to only be drawn to religion that will divert them from moral deeds. They will want a religion of meaningless superstition instead.
    • Indeed, the vulgar religion can even motivate the zealous to act directly against moral principles.
  • Cleanthes cautions Philo not throw out good philosophical, true religion with the bad.
  • Philo responds that most people are only motivated out of fear to embrace vulgar religion.
  • Cleanthes replies that that is true but that religion often comforts people.
  • Philo replies with a number of comments about emotion, religion, and true worship:
    • Fear and terror are the primary emotions behind religion, most of the other, positive sentiments involved in it come from philosophy.
    • Most of the time when people are cheerful they do not concern themselves with religion, but with sociality.
    • Religion might give rise to joy, but fear is still primary. Religious joy might then lead to excessive enthusiasm, which only paves the way for more despair.
    • It doesn't make sense to have such religious terror. It is based on an absurdity and an inconsistency:
      • Absurd to believe that God has human passions; moreover, the need for praise from us.
      • Inconsistent to think God has this passion but not another, lack of concern for the opinions of those inferior to him, us.
    • Only knowledge of God is true worship.
    • The whole of rational theology is that "the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence."
      • But this statement "affords no inference that affects human life."
    • One should merely assent to it and await revelation to take one further.
    • That is why being a philosophical skeptic is good preparation for being a Christian.
  • Pamphilus concludes by ranking the participants in terms of the probability of their principles: Cleanthes, Philo, Demea