This paper will demonstrate why Hume thinks accepting testimony about a miracle is unreasonable and

In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we are introduced to three characters that serve the purpose to debate God and his nature, more specifically, what can mankind infer about God and his nature. The three characters; Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes all engage in a debate concerning this question and they all serve the purpose of supporting their views on the subject. It is the “argument from design” put forth by Cleanthes that is the focal point of the discussion, and it is Demea and Philo who attempt to discredit it.

He says that miracles are further disproved by the fact that most of them are reported by ignorant, barbarous people of past generations. Some of the things that these people have reported as marvelous are common among later generations, so their mysteriousness has been lost and they are no longer miracles. If you are wondering why stories like these do not originate today, Hume says they do, but we rule them out as lies. According to him, people have always had tendencies to stretch the truth and

Hume argues that we cannot prove that there is a real world outside our experience, much less that our experience is an accurate representation of that world. He says we need to get outside our experience to see whether it does fairly represent the world, however, its near impossible to do that.

In David Hume’s essay, Why Does God Let People Suffer, he allows the reader to question if God exists in the world we live in with all the pain and suffering that goes on. Hume suggests that an all powerful God, such as the one most believe in, would not allow a world to exist with this much pain and suffering that goes on daily. Moreover, Hume basically argues that the existence of God is something that cannot be proven in the way in which scientists look for and gather proof about other scientific issues. In the following essay, I will demonstrate how David Hume feels that there is a God despite all the suffering and pain that exists in our world. “Is the World, considered in general, and as it

One of the most known philosophers who challenged religion, and the occurrence of miracles. Hume argues in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, that miracles do not exist. To explain this, he states that in order to judge a claim one must weigh the evidence for both sides of the argument, and the side with more evidence can then be seen as fact. Therefore because the evidence against miracles is always going to be outweighed by the evidence against it (Hume 1909). Miracles are single events, occurring to specific people, at specific items and specific places, by nature there is limited evidence to prove their existence, in accordance with Hume’s reasoning. Hume continues to state even if the evidence of a miracle happening were greater than the evidence against it, it can not be true due to people being too accepting of wondrous events (Hume 1909). However his argument has received a lot of criticism, from the time it originally was published to now. For example one of the earliest criticisms it received was his argument in its entirety asserts that miracles are highly unusual, even though those who believe in miracles already accept this claim (Fieser n.d.). Another criticism against Hume was that the experience of natural laws is not as concrete as Hume assumed due to the ability to overturn these laws with the

While Hume would disagree with Descartes’ proof for God’s existence as well as what influence God has on our thoughts, they would both agree that our knowledge and imagination do not come from within ourselves. Furthermore, both provide skeptical analyses of our experiences as humans that question reality, such as when Descartes’ recognizes the uncertainty of the existence of anything beyond his own mind, or when Hume questions whether we can conceive of anything we have yet to experience externally. Therefore, while the philosophers have marked differences, they share a fundamentally skeptical inquiry of the

David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion provide conflicting arguments about the nature of the universe, what humans can know about it, and how their knowledge can affect their religious beliefs. The most compelling situation relates to philosophical skepticism and religion; the empiricist character, Cleanthes, strongly defends his position that skepticism is beneficial to religious belief. Under fire from an agnostic skeptic and a rationalist, the empiricist view on skepticism and religion is strongest in it’s defense. This debate is a fundamental part of the study of philosophy: readers must choose their basic understanding of the universe and it’s creator, upon which all other assumptions about the universe will be made.

William James (1897), on the other hand, attempts to define the permissible cases in which it is intellectually respectable to believe without sufficient evidence. James (1897) begins by providing three criterion for judging beliefs: either beliefs are 1) living or dead; 2) forced or avoidable; or 3) momentous or trivial.

Because it is so prominent, everyone notices that a central concern of Hume's Dialogues is empirical natural theology—how one can discern from Nature, using empirical facts and "experimental" forms of inference available to anyone, the existence and nature of an Author of Nature. But few connect this concern to the simple fact that the Dialogues is itself authored. It is a text with an author, David Hume. At the very least, then, on Cleanthes's approach, (3) there should be some resemblances between the world and this text, insofar as they both imply an intelligent "author;" at the most, this analogy of authorship might prove even more fruitful for theological understanding than the mechanical and biological analogies mentioned by the characters in Hume's text. By this, I do not mean that we can prove God's

Hume’s other two arguments entail the human attraction to miracle stories because of their wonder and entertainment, as well as the tendency for miracle stories to occur chiefly amongst “ignorant and barbarous” people, with those who are civilized only believing in miracles because they have been passed down from “ignorant and barbarous” ancestors. Hume explains that miracle stories only survive the test of time not because of their truth, but rather because of they are sensational, and that an enlightened individual would never truly believe in a miracle because, according to Hume,

In this paper I will contrast the ways that Blaise Pascal and Saint Anselm of Canterbury attempted to convince people to believe in God. Before getting into the two arguments I should first clarify a few key terms. Firstly, the difference between ordinary and religious beliefs. An ordinary belief is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a typical belief based on adequate evidence. An example would be “I believe the sky is blue because I’ve observed it as blue countless times”. Religious beliefs on the other hand, are not based on reasoning, but instead “Sola Fide”, or faith alone suffices, meaning that these beliefs are based only on trust that the proposition is true. A basic example of a religious belief would be “God exists” despite a lack of evidence for the claim. The major conflict between the two different types of beliefs is that in ordinary belief its considered shame worthy to belief something without have reasons to support it while belief without evidence is the core of religious belief. Another key term that must be understood to understand the arguments is “faith seeking understanding”. This idea was championed by Anselm and is crucial to understanding his argument. In short, he means that if someone begins with just faith in God then through that God will help them attain understanding.

     Now Hume proposed that all inferences come from custom, not reasoning. Through custom or habits, we have become accustomed to expect an effect to follow a cause. This is not a rational argument. This argument centers on the theory of constant conjunction, which does not fall under either fork of reason. “All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not reasoning.”(57)

Hume’s second reason in contradicting the validity of a miracle is that he views all of our beliefs, or what we choose to accept, or not accept through past experience and what history dictates to us. Furthermore, he tends to discredit an individual by playing on a human beings consciousness or sense of reality. An example is; using words such as, the individuals need for “excitement” and “wonder” arising from miracles. Even the individual who can not enjoy the pleasure immediately will still believe in a miracle, regardless of the possible validity of the miracle. With this, it leads the individual to feel a sense of belonging and a sense of pride. These individuals tend to be the followers within society. These individuals will tend to believe faster than the leaders in the society. With no regard to the miracles validity, whether it is true or false, or second hand information. Miracles lead to such strong temptations, that we as individuals tend to lose sense of our own belief of fantasy and reality. As individuals we tend to believe to find attention, and to gossip of the unknown. Through emotions and behavior Hume tends to believe there has been many forged miracles, regardless if the information is somewhat valid or not. His third reason in discrediting the belief in a miracle is testimony versus reality. Hume states, “It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous

David Hume was a British empiricist, meaning he believed all knowledge comes through the senses. He argued against the existence of innate ideas, stating that humans have knowledge only of things which they directly experience. These claims have a major impact on his argument against the existence of miracles, and in this essay I will explain and critically evaluate this argument.

He feels like they are more likely to be false than contrary to the natural course of nature. Hume tells us about miracles and how they defy the laws of Nature. However, it can only be a miracle when there is sufficient evidential proof. He tells us no testimony sufficiently establishes proof of a miracle unless its falsehood is more believable that the testimony itself. For example: Becky saw pigs fly. We must ask the question “is the false hood of this testimony, greater than actual event that was previously?” Hume identifies, that there has never been a situation, in all of history, where there were sufficient men to provide testimony for a miracle, and all were so full of integrity, that when they gave the account of the miracle, there was no suspicion of deception. Furthermore, when it comes to reasoning, our natural proclivity is to lean toward that which is most usual as being probable. The last presumption is that miracles were observed chiefly by barbaric and ignorant nations. Therefore, the admission of a miracle by a civilized nation is due to it being passed down authoritatively by a barbaric