The problem of God s cognoscibility in David Hume

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "The problem of God s cognoscibility in David Hume"

Samson Cunningham
6 years ago
Views:

The problem of God s cognoscibility in David Hume Djalma Ribeiro The Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711-1776) wrote a book about knowledge called An Enquiry Concerning Human

1 The problem of God s cognoscibility in David Hume Djalma Ribeiro The Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume ( ) wrote a book about knowledge called An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding where he defends the thesis that all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones (*). For Hume, all our ideas come from our sensitive impressions, understanding the impression as a current perception and the idea as an image it leaves behind, and the difference between both resides on the fact that the former has greater strength and liveliness than the latter that is a pale and weaker copy of the former. The liveliest thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation. With this the philosopher contraposes the theory of innate ideas. According to the philosopher, even the power that our thought has to break the limits of nature and of reality and to take us, in one instant, to the most distant regions of the universe and even beyond - to the extent that we even imagine that there is nothing that the power of thought cannot reach such power is nothing but the simple faculty of the intellect of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. (*) TN - Quotes from the book were extracted from the E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders, therefore the page numbers referring to the Portuguese version were not added. Ciberteologia - Revista de Teologia & Cultura - Ano VI, n

2 According to Hume, in the mind there is a principle of connection that makes possible the association of various thoughts or ideas. We can observe this principle even in our dreams, as they do not proceed entirely at random but in a connection between the different ideas. Hume distinguishes three principles of connection between the ideas: that of Resemblance, that of Contiguity of time or space and that of Cause and effect; From this he says that the idea of God, conceived as an infinitely intelligent being, good and wise, emerges from the reflections we make about the operations of our mind, whose qualities are increased to an unlimited degree. Hume affirms, thus, that our idea of God is anthropomorphic. Hume wrote two works in which he deals specifically with God and religion: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) and the Natural History of Religion (1757). In both he applies the principles of his radical empiricism. In Natural History of Religion, the philosopher deals with the origins and causes that produce the phenomenon of religion, from its effects on the human being s life and behaviour to the cyclical variations between polytheism and monotheism. In this work, Hume distinguishes himself as a pioneer in the analysis of religion as a pure manifestation of the human nature, without presupposing the belief in the existence of God; hence the title of the book. In this work he defends the argument that all popular religions originate from the most primitive and basic human passions, and from natural instincts such as fear and hope. Thus, Hume contraposes an earlier conception according to which religion originates from an effort to rationally understand the universe. Since the work does not deal specifically with the knowledge of God or of His existence, let us leave it for a future occasion and analyse here the work that deals more specifically with the nature of God, i.e. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, an essential work to understand Hume s ideas on religion and about the way we know God. In it we find five characters: Pamphilus, Hermippus, Cleanthes, Demea and Philo. The most important ones are the last three who participate actively in the discussion. Cleanthes defends the traditional Theist point of view and the argument of design; Demea, proposes an a priori version of the cosmological argument; whereas Philo is skeptical and defends the suspension of judgement in questions of religion. Ciberteologia - Revista de Teologia & Cultura - Ano VI, n

3 Scholarly discussions of this work have often centred on finding whom the characters represent, and which of them represents Hume himself. For the majority of commentators, Hume would be represented by Philo. Although Philo may represent Hume, he is not the only one. Both Cleanthes and Demea, in some passages, represent the author. The central theme in the Dialogues has to do with the nature of God and not with His existence. It is a question of knowing if as the Theists state the cause of the universe is an extremely kind, powerful and wise being. That is, if this being is really - such as described by the Theist theology a personal being, to who is assigned wisdom, thought, design and knowledge. It is a question of knowing if our discourse about God corresponds or not to His nature. For, Philo warns us, Our ideas reach no further than our experience. We have no experience of divine attributes and operations. So, Philo continues, we must beware of not thinking that our ideas correspond somewhat to the divine attributes or perfections for God is infinitely superior to our understanding. Examining, in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion the main arguments confirming the existence of God - beginning with the argument of the design, that is, by the a posteriori argument - Hume asserts that this proof is not valid even if it is one of the oldest and most important arguments the roots of which are found in the philosophical speculations of the earliest Greek philosophers with regard to nature. The design argument is based on the physical world and it tries to prove the existence of God from the order and design that the world reveals. By design we understand: 1) the choice of an end to be reached, and for this reason it is also known as teleological argument, that is, the world would have been made with a given purpose; 2) the choice of the means for its execution; and 3) the real application of these means for the concretization of the purported end. If this is the nature of the design, it is an indication of intelligence, will and power. That is, the world is the work of an intelligent, resolute and powerful Craftsman. Cleanthes expresses, in part two of the Dialogues, the argument of the design: Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated Ciberteologia - Revista de Teologia & Cultura - Ano VI, n

4 them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. Thus, from the similarity between the artifacts produced by human beings and the natural objects, Cleanthes attempts to establish the similarity of the cause of the universe with the human beings. We see, then that the argument of design is firmly based on the argument by analogy. For Hume, this argument based on the analogy with human behaviour, even if seemingly plausible, is very weak. In his view, the strength of an argument by analogy is proportional to the similarity between the objects that have been compared. The greatest the similarity, the strongest is the argument. However, the weakest the similarity between the compared objects, the weakest is the argument. By verifying that a house exists, we conclude that an architect or a builder exists. According to Hume this is so because of the habit we form when we observe several times a house being built; when we go by a house that has already been built, we infer immediately that it is the work of an artisan. But from this to assert the similarity between a house and the universe is a very different thing. For we have never seen the creation of the universe. If this is so, Philo tells Cleanthes: The dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause. According to Hume, we can only infer a cause-effect relationship when we verify this association several times, as in the case, for instance, of a stone that falls and of the fire that burns, because we have observed these phenomena many times. Our reason, says the philosopher, without the help of experience, is unable to infer whatever may be in questions of fact and of real existence. In the Humean conception, therefore, the order and adjustment of the final causes do not constitute by themselves a proof of the divine design of the universe without the mediation of the sensitive experience. Ciberteologia - Revista de Teologia & Cultura - Ano VI, n

5 According to Mondin (1997, p. 87 (*) ) the Humean criticism to the proofs of God s existence can only be sustained if the principle of causality is, as Hume intends, a mere subjective connection between events that occur regularly. According to Hume, causality is nothing but belief based on the action of habit upon the imagination. The fact that a phenomenon is always followed by another in time, leads to our relating them as if there was actually a causal connection between them. The fundament of this principle is found in the sentiment of belief and not in a logical inference. According to Mondin: The knowledge of this relation is not, in any case, reached through a priori reasoning: it originates entirely from experience (p.87) Thus, the fundament of causality becomes emotive-irrational instead of ontological-rational. For Hume, says Mondin (p.84) Both God and religion are the works of feeling and imagination, and therefore are irrational and arbitrary expressions of human consciousness, that is, are devoid of any rationality. However, Hume was not a total atheist. He did not deny the existence of God but affirmed that we cannot have a true knowledge of Him. For this reason he was called the father of modern agnosticism. As the philosopher of the Dialogues remarks through his character Demea, No man, no man at least of common sense, I am persuaded, ever entertained a serious doubt with regard [to the existence of God or of the deity] a truth so certain and self-evident. It is the nature of this Being, says Hume, that is altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us. However, the theologian Louis Berkhof ( ) in his Systematic Theology (1932) says that it was especially Kant, however, who stimulated agnostic thought by his searching inquiry into the limits of human understanding and reason (1990, p.33). Bibliography BERKHOF, Louis. Teologia sistemática. Campinas: Luz para o Caminho Publicações, HUME, David. Diálogos sobre a religião natural. Lisboa: Edições 70, 2005a.. História natural da religião. São Paulo: Editora Unesp, 2005b. (*) TN Page numbers refer to the Portuguese text. Ciberteologia - Revista de Teologia & Cultura - Ano VI, n

6 . Investigação sobre o entendimento humano. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, (Coleção Os pensadores.) MONDIN, Battista. Quem é Deus? Elementos de teologia filosófica. São Paulo: Paulus, Translated by Vera Lúcia Mello Joscelyne Ciberteologia - Revista de Teologia & Cultura - Ano VI, n

Critique of Cosmological Argument

David Hume: Critique of Cosmological Argument Critique of Cosmological Argument DAVID HUME (1711-1776) David Hume is one of the most important philosophers in the history of philosophy. Born in Edinburgh,