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Could prove the existence of God ? Hume's objections

Clue : Philo talks to Cleanthes. Cleanthes believes he could deduce the existence of God when he saw what God did in the Universe. Philo strongly disagrees:

If we see a house, CLEANTHES, we conclude, with the greatest certainty,
that it had an architect or builder; because this is precisely that
species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species
of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a
resemblance to a house, that we can with the same certainty infer a
similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The
dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is
a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause; and how
that pretension will be received in the world, I leave you to consider.

Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other
animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the
universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred
others, which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause, by
which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on
other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred
from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all
comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we
learn any thing concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a
leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction
concerning the vegetation of a tree?

From David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779)

 

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