Dialogues about natural religion

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Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ( Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ) is a religious-philosophical work by the Scottish philosopher David Hume . In it, the three characters Cleanthes , Demea and Philo argue about the nature of God's existence. Hume began working on the dialogues in 1750 at the latest, but did not publish them posthumously until 1779 .

content

Framework story

In a letter that precedes the work, the narrator Pamphilus explains himself to the addressee Hermippus . He wanted to deal with the subject of God's nature in the form of the dialogue between his foster father Cleanthes and the two other interlocutors Demea and Philo , at which he was present. This form suits the topic because it takes away its banality. Pamphilus himself never has a say during the actual dialogues and limits himself to very few, brief comments on the situation in his minutes. In the last paragraph of the work he judges that he thinks Philo's point of view is more likely than Demea's position, but that his foster father Cleanthes is closer to the truth.

Design argument

First of all, Part I discusses the skepticism that Philo makes strong. Cleanthes , however, rejects global skepticism, since it cannot be represented for pragmatic reasons. One will see whether Philo leaves the room through the door or through the window because a global skeptic cannot believe in the law of gravity.

Part II through VIII discusses the design argument put forward by Cleanthes . Cleanthes takes the view that the world is similar to the products of human activity and that it can be seen as one great machine. Since similar effects also suggest similar causes, it is permissible to conclude by analogy that God is similar to man. So God is a kind of exaggerated human being, who is, however, better and is probably also characterized by the usual attributes of immortality, omnipotence, omniscience and goodness.

The Sun of Cleanthes represented anthropomorphism is heavily criticized and extensively by the two others. Demea argues for the incomprehensibility of God, referring to the weak nature of the human spirit, which is wavering and composite. Philo also drafts a long series of alternative conclusions and descriptions of the world that Cleanthes could not rule out: his argument continues to allow many gods instead of one, and the world could just as well be understood as an animal, which enables a completely different description of God. Furthermore, he brings forward a variant of the Epicurean theory of nature , according to which a series of finite worlds pass on the impulse of change to one another. In this theory he approaches the Hume still unknown theory of evolution . Cleanthes lets himself be provoked by Philo's representations and interjects that the world does not necessarily emerge from any of his theories exactly as it is. However, Philo turns this against the design argument, for which this does not apply either. At the end of Part VIII, he claims that withholding all judgment is the only tenable position.

Cosmological proof of God and theodicy

In the ninth part Demea begins to present his position by first briefly presenting the cosmological proof of God . In contrast to the design argument, this is not an a posteriori argument , but a priori . There must be a first cause which, unlike the usual chains of effects, does not need a cause. This can only apply to God, therefore God necessarily exists, and the assumption of his nonexistence results in a contradiction. This is disputed by Cleanthes , since a universe assumed to be infinite does not need a cause.

In parts X and XI, Demea and Philo initially put forward a worldview that, in contrast to Cleanthes' position, is very gloomy. To illustrate the great amount of suffering in the world, Demea quotes John Milton's poem Paradise Lost . This runs counter to Cleanthe's position, whereupon Cleanthe is ready to restrict God's omnipotence. However, Demea and Philo have very different intentions: Demea wants to justify the benefit of faith in God out of the need for hope and relies on Leibniz's position of theodicy that this world is the best possible world. Philo argues that an almighty God could have made fundamental changes to the world so that pain, for example, no longer serves as the mainspring of living beings. Most likely, the world was not created out of goodness or malice.

After the departure of Demea, who was last indignant about Philo , Cleanthes and Philo talk in Part XII about the benefits of religion. Cleanthes is of the opinion that religion and the prospect of a just reward or punishment after death promote morality. Philo counters that natural righteousness can work better here and that the world without religion is a better one. He is of the opinion that there must be a God as the first cause, but nothing else can be said about him.

literature

  • Hume, David: Dialogues and Natural History of Religion , Oxford World's Classics, Oxford 1993.
  • Hume, David: Dialogues about natural religion (translated by Norbert Hoerster), Reclam, Stuttgart 1981.

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