Hume's criticisms

• The problems of the design argument

  • Doesn't require or allow for religious faith (believing without seeing)
  • Doesn't require religious experience
  • Anthropomorphic argument
  • Analogical Argument
• David Hume

  • scottish philosopher
  • Empiricist, sceptic, probably an atheist
  • Criticised the Design Argument

  
• Hume's Criticisms

  1. No evidence the designer is God
  2. Imperfection and Evil
  3. Analogies between the way the universe works and the way machines work are unsound
  4. Anthropomorphism
  5. The universe could have developed by chance
• No evidence the designer is God

  • Hume thought intelligent minds were attached to physical bodies
  • Rejects idea of metaphysical designer
  • Designer may have died
  • Could be a group of designers
  • "A wise man proportions his beliefs to his evidence"
  • Balanced scale metaphor
• Imperfection and Evil

  • Epicurus: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?
  • The Inconsistent Triad - J.L. Mackie

  
• Weaknesses of Imperfection and Evil argument

  • Free Will Defence
  • Process Theology
• Free Will Defence

  Freedom to choose between the highest goods and the highest evils means that there must be such good and evils in the world
• Process Theology

  Maintains that God is omnibenevolent, but not omnipotent. Theodicy is that of Irenaeus and Hick. Hick argued that evil is 'soul-making', without evil we would have to learn to be good.
• Anthropic Principle

  • Modern form of the design argument
  • Cosmological constants have to be exactly what they are for human life to develop
  • We aren't here by chance
  • God 'finetuned' the conditions
• The Universe could have developed by chance

  • Hume's 'Epicurean Hypothesis'
• Epicurean Hypothesis


  • world is made of atoms
  • Given indefinite time, world became ordered
  • Backed up by multi-universe theory
  • Epicurus was wayyyyyy ahead of his time
  • Supported by modern atomic physics/ Big Bang Theory

  
• Richard Swinburne

  • Very on the fence
  • Favours the simple answer
• STRENGTHS of Hume's Epicurean hypothesis

  • multi-verse theory
• Analogies between the way the universe works and the way machines work is unsound

  • Hume saw the universe as a vegetable
  • no designer
  • However, a vegetable is not as complex and needs a base for growth (soil)
• Analogies between the way the universe works and the way machines work is unsound- STRENGTHS

  • Evolution, nature designs itself
  • "the heavens are utterly and blindly indifferent to humanity and everything else"- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986
• Analogies between the way the universe works and the way machines work is unsound- WEAKNESSES

  • Evolution is compatible with a belief in God
  • Swinburn: Evolution is regulated by laws of nature, where do these laws come from?