God, Design, and Critiques When discussing the arguments from design for God’s existence a few names transcend into our thoughts higher than the others. St. Thomas Aquinas, William Paley, and David Hume are these people. Aquinas was born in the year 1225 and was a Dominican monk. Paley was born in 1743 and worked as the archdeacon of Carlisle. Hume was a skeptical empiricist born in Scotland in 1711. They have used their brain power to write various literature discussing whether the design we perceive points towards God or not. Aquinas and Paley take the side of there being design, while Hume sees flaws in the argument, and brings them to attention. Aquinas, the Dominican monk, believed in God. At first, Aquinas talks about two different
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As the dialogue goes on, these characters begin to represent people’s actual viewpoints. Cleanthes is trying to argue for religion. He says that the world is obviously a machine and that from this we can show that a God like our human characteristics exists. Then Demea disputes this claim by Cleanthes because there is no proof a priori. However, Philo thinks that just because two things are similar that the analogy created by this is very weak. Another problem that Philo sees is that going off experience to replace proof for a Deity is dangerous because people experience very different things. These experiences can be so dissimilar that they directly contradict each other. Therefore, not proving anything. However, this does not mean that Cleanthes is entirely wrong. Experience does provide us with an idea of how things are created. So, when we see something that has similar properties our mind compares them, and then ties them together if they are similar enough. Also, when the two systems are being compared, if one is infinitely bigger than the other system, then the analogy between them is quite weak. Philo also talks about how Cleanthes had implied human characteristics onto this Deity figure. Philo says, “What pretensions have we, upon your suppositions to ascribe that attribute to the Divine Being” (Hume 89). It doesn’t make sense to declare what a divine being can and cannot do. Cleanthes is only human and doesn’t have the capacity to determine the abilities of something that he cannot even fully comprehend. If he could do this, then he would be stating the boundaries for something that is boundless. Cleanthes’s last remark brings up that Philo kept the design argument instead of discounting it completely. Cleanthes now thinks that there is enough evidence for religion. He thinks this because even Philo, the skeptical empiricist, couldn’t remove the design portion of his
As the dialogue goes on, these characters begin to represent people’s actual viewpoints. Cleanthes is trying to argue for religion. He says that the world is obviously a machine and that from this we can show that a God like our human characteristics exists. Then Demea disputes this claim by Cleanthes because there is no proof a priori. However, Philo thinks that just because two things are similar that the analogy created by this is very weak. Another problem that Philo sees is that going off experience to replace proof for a Deity is dangerous because people experience very different things. These experiences can be so dissimilar that they directly contradict each other. Therefore, not proving anything. However, this does not mean that Cleanthes is entirely wrong. Experience does provide us with an idea of how things are created. So, when we see something that has similar properties our mind compares them, and then ties them together if they are similar enough. Also, when the two systems are being compared, if one is infinitely bigger than the other system, then the analogy between them is quite weak. Philo also talks about how Cleanthes had implied human characteristics onto this Deity figure. Philo says, “What pretensions have we, upon your suppositions to ascribe that attribute to the Divine Being” (Hume 89). It doesn’t make sense to declare what a divine being can and cannot do. Cleanthes is only human and doesn’t have the capacity to determine the abilities of something that he cannot even fully comprehend. If he could do this, then he would be stating the boundaries for something that is boundless. Cleanthes’s last remark brings up that Philo kept the design argument instead of discounting it completely. Cleanthes now thinks that there is enough evidence for religion. He thinks this because even Philo, the skeptical empiricist, couldn’t remove the design portion of his