Preview

David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1326 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
David Hume argues in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, “ A very good, wise, and powerful being, even if not infinite, would not produce a world so full of vice, misery, and disorder as our own”. Hume explains the four main reasons of human and nature. The first one being striving for survival and self-preservation; the limited powers of all creatures to confront their problem; the laws of nature, whos results in general bring about these miseries, and finally, the aberrant, bizarre events in nature itself that result in disorder. If God existed then there would be no evil and everyone would live a perfect life.
In the eyes of David Hume, God can not be all good, all powerful and all knowing at the same time. This trinity could not exist in the same world that evil exists in. The reason being that there is evil in this world causing misery and suffering. An all powerful God would be able to stop all the misery and
…show more content…
God may know everything that we are doing on our lives but we do not know or even understand what He does in our lives or others. Evil happens so we will be drawn closer to God. Sometimes we can be pushed to our limits but it takes something evil to happen for us to realize that “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Without evil happening in your lives how will we truly know that God is as wonderful and awesome that he is. We could not be able to see that he forgives us for all the little mistakes we make in life. If we are not tested with evil then there would not be a purpose for Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me”. God can know something and not be tempted to do anything about it. Humans can know something will happen but we will do whatever we can to make sure it happens, but that is just our nature. God knows everything from the beginning to the end so he already knows if it will happen or

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    3) How does Augustine attempt to reconcile the fact that an all-powerful, all loving God could allow these things to happen? Be sure to provide an account for both human generated evils and natural evils. Given Hume’s account of ideas, how would he likely respond to Augustine’s account? Who do you think provides the more compelling response? Augustine is a well-known philosopher who is known for describing what a “free will” is and that it is something that every single one of us has.…

    • 1453 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    David Hume's changed the idea of skepticism in a very different way. While Descartes used doubt and skepticism as a way to find out the foundations and roots of knowledge,Hume used sleo contrast with what we saw as the ordinary claims of knowledge. Hume explains two types of skepticism: antecedent and consequent. Both of these come in a very moderate and extreme form. He explains antecedent skepticism by using the Descartes theory of universal doubt. He explains that there is no principle that is more self evident than doubt and even if there was we would not be able to advance ahead of it because we our still able to doubt and reason deductively. This would mean Antecedent skepticism is incurable.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hume’s version of empiricism begins with his distinction between analytic propositions “relationship of ideas,” which he considers to be a priori and true by definition, and synthetic propositions, which he considers to be a posteriori (“matters of fact”), and which are opposite of analytic propositions because they’re derived from our senses.…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Summary: James Rachels addresses the conflicts of evil in his book “Problems from Philosophy” by providing various forms of logical problems. The author points out the different possible explanations to why evil would exist. The first major idea Rachels makes is that perhaps pain is essential to caution people of danger. He goes on to suggest that this would not account for why some people are born with deadly diseases. Another idea he makes is that evil helps people appreciate the good in life. One would not be able to distinguish the good in life if evil did not exist. However, this does not explain why the world needs so much evil to exist, instead of letting a few bad things happen occasionally. The third idea the author makes questions why bad things happen to good people. Rachels suggests maybe those bad things that occur in life are…

    • 998 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If God knows what we are going to do, he has no right to reward the good and punish the wicked. Discuss…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Teleological Essay Philos

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages

    John Stuart Mill reacted in counter to Aquinas, stating that it seems inhumane that we have a world which supposedly achieves a ‘purpose’ yet features so much evil. Mill is raising the popular point of the problem of evil within our world, leading us to question how some ‘ultimate being’ could have strived to design a world where the amount of suffering far outweighs the amount of goodness. Paley explained that just as a watch with its intricate design must have a designer, then nature with its far superior design must have a grand designer this being God. In response to Mills criticisms about the purpose of God, it may be that Paley and Aquinas’ theories are concerned with features of design in our world to prove the existence of God and were not yet concerned with the problems and flaws within nature.…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    If God is omnipotent, how can God let evil happen while he has the power to stop it? A proper definition of the omnipotent God is given by Thiessen: “God is all-powerful and able to do whatever he wills. Since his will is limited by his nature, God can do everything that is in harmony with his perfections.” I believe that the 3 beliefs of God limit him because they contradict each other.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Chapter 13 Essay

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages

    As my second part of the final essay I chose the questions from chapter 13. I will discuss the following questions in this essay: Is it possible that what one feels about the problem of evil depends largely on one’s prior beliefs on the existence of God? Isn’t it likely that a theist will find a solution to the problem? Isn’t it likely that an atheist will see it as disproving God’s existence? What side of the fence are you on concerning the question of God’s existence, and what difference does it make in your own view of the problem of evil? First I want to quote Hume and the most famous way the problem of evil is stated: “Is he willing to prevent evil,…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    the paperrr

    • 584 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Philo then begins to tell us about the four types of evil in the world that we live in. With each evil Philo explains to us why each one was not needed to be created by god. The first evil is the existence of physical pain. The reason why pain is present is for us to realize that we shouldn’t do something that causes pain or to help us avoid certain situations. Philo suggests that instead of feeling pain why not just have decreases in pleasure when we do something that we shouldn’t. He uses an example of “All animals might be constantly in a state of enjoyment; but when urged by any of the necessities of nature…….;instead of pain they might feel a diminution of pleasure” (Hume,pg87). The second is the fact that the world is conducted by general laws. Philo states that instead of God should be able to run the world however he likes and that he should be able to decide what happens with everything. With this being true, god would be able to stop people from getting hit by a car or stop people from getting shot by a gun. He would be able to change physics whenever he pleased. The third example of evil is the limited abilities that we are given. Philo explains how god only granted us with the…

    • 584 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Our world is filled with corruption; this proves that there is no God if he cannot help us by preventing evil. The argument of evil basically states that God and evil cannot coincide. There are two types of evil; moral, which is carried out by humans through immoral actions that cause pain and suffering such as murder, rape and so forth. Natural evil is the second type which occurs through inevitable phenomenon’s such as natural disasters; hurricanes, tsunamis and diseases are a few (Sober, 120).…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In Appendix I., Concerning Moral Sentiment, David Hume looks to find a place in morality for reason, and sentiment. Through, five principles he ultimately concludes that reason has no place within the concept of morality, but rather is something that can only assist sentiment in matters concerning morality. And while reason can be true or false, those truths or falsities apply to facts, not to morality. He then argues morals are the direct result of sentiment, or the inner feeling within a human being. These sentiments are what intrinsically drive and thus create morality within a being. Sentiments such as beauty, revenge, pleasure, pain, create moral motivation, and action, and are immune to falsity and truth. They are the foundation for which morals are built, and exist themselves apart from any reasoning. Thesis: In moral motivation, the role of sentiment is to drive an intrinsically instilled presence within us to examine what we would deem a moral act or an immoral act, and act accordingly, and accurately upon the sentiments that apply. These sentiments may be assisted by reasons, but the reason alone does not drive us to do what we would feel necessary. They can only guide us towards the final result of moral motivation which (by now it's painfully clear) is sentiment.…

    • 1567 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Others say that free will is not the cause for evil because God has foreknowledge. However, even if God does know everything before it happens, this does not mean he forces us to take those actions and takes away our free will. First, the problem of evil is the attempt to understand why…

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Descartes and Hume

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hume on the other hand, took a different approach to the idea of self. He believed that there in fact was no such thing as selfhood.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    David Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711. Hume went to school to study law but fell in love with philosophy. He eventually lost his faith and leaned towards skepticism. He was a larger man and was very popular in the social scene, he never married and died of cancer of the bowel in the year of the signing of the declaration of independence.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The purpose of education is to make sure learning is occurring within our educational institution that emphasizes the lifelong skills and knowledge necessary to continue learning, communicate clearly, solve problems, use information effectively, and become productive citizens in their community for future endeavors. We must adequately develop the student’s motivational structures in a way they can relate to, so they can communicate their responses for a proper education (Snauwaert, 2012) David Hume, the man credited as the first to question the method of induction, hypothesized that the main problem of induction was assuming that all events in the future will happen as they did in the past. Hume rejected the idea that experience can be used as “proof” of future outcomes. Hume expressed that the “problem of induction” cannot claim that a past result predicts the future. Teachers must be able to research curriculum ideas, technology, resources, hands-on materials, and other connections for the student to stimulate a social interaction…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays