Philo and Cleanthes debate God's existence in Hume's Dialogues

¶ … Dialogues are discussions covering the sagacity of spiritual belief between the fictitious characters of Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo. For the purposes of this essay, focus will be placed on Philo and Cleanthes. Philo takes the position of the philosophical doubter and agrees with what Demea said in that God is unfathomable but maintains that he may be ethically immoral. Cleanthes contends that one can know of God and about God by the reasoning found within nature, the evidence that exists within nature. Philo holds the belief, much like Demea that although there is a clear belief in the existence of God, there is no way of knowing his nature. God's nature, in the eyes of Philo is beyond the threshold of human understanding. Cleanthes asserts God's existence can be learned through observing nature. Cleanthes positions that the only sensible argument for God's presence is one founded on experience. The plan and direction of nature expose that there has to be an intellectual creator/designer, whose acumen look a lot like one's own. Cleanthes also declares that familiar and present things to the individual does not require any reason to demonstrate their truth, such as the awareness that food nurtures the body and the sun comes up from the sky.

When going into further exploration of Cleanthes argument and position, he takes on the side of empirical theism, or that human can come to recognize the existence of God as evidenced through the existence of nature. The basis of his belief within the realm of empirical theism comes from the concept of complex beauty and order existent within the universe that can only be rationalized through the existence of an intelligent creator. In his words, the world is similar to a finely tuned instrument. Machines of this nature are constructed by intelligent beings, humans. Therefore the world and nature itself, if it similar to a finely tuned machine, must then be created like humans create machines, by an intelligent creator, something he labels as divine intelligence.

Observation of nature, presents prodigious evidence that divine intelligence, similar to human intelligence exists, but in a more perfect form. This in itself is a flawed belief because religious belief thus is based not on reason but on "observation of nature." Cleanthes argues that not one individual can continually live the life of a skeptic. Meaning, people have to trust their senses at some point and use reason to make sense of the world. He uses the example of the door and seeing the door as a reasonable means of existence because of the convenience of going through a door instead of going through a window. He explains it is simply exhausting assuming the role of the skeptic because the attitude of a skeptic is unsustainable and unnatural.

Philo argues that Cleanthes' viewpoint is false because existence does not all have to be caused by intelligence, but rather, by vegetation and generation. Order then is not caused by intelligence, but by other factors, negating Cleanthes stance that all order is generated from intelligent design. He uses an inductive argument, an argument contending for a result based on prior evidence, in which the cause, being God, and the effect, being the universe, cannot be repeated and thus cannot be proven because the experience is entirely unique. No other experience has resembled it before or thereafter.

In section IV, Philo takes another stance and contends that the explanation of God being an intelligent creator does not explain the order of nature and the world. The order within nature could come from nature itself rather than the intelligence of a creator. Part V Phil adds that even if an individual can draw inference from the design argument, it still holds no grounds to be able to conclude. Evidence from nature provides no solid conclusion that God exists, much less is infinite and perfect. Other things like God having a physical body and there only being one God cannot be derived from simply observing nature. Nature does not yield enough evidence to describe the nature of God. He also states in parts VI through VII that the comparison of God and machine is random and any comparison can be made of God from animal being nature and soul being God.

My position leans towards Philo's side of thinking. This is because the way nature is can easily be compared to that of a self-running program. Although it took intelligence to make that program, it does not necessarily need that intelligence to continue existing. Things happen sometimes on their own without the influence of something or someone and perhaps the act of creation itself is what sparked the existence of nature but does not need or require the will of a God to continue. What that force that sparked the creation is doesn't have to assume any kind of characteristics or perfections. It simply is.

I think Cleanthes' weakness in his argument is his willingness to try to label something that cannot be labeled. For him to compare God to something that is perfect, to something that clearly exists, like humans, and then adding conditions to its existence does not justify his position. At that point he is merely guessing and pulling at straws. Sure there is such thing as trusting in one's instincts and reasonable actions, but that doesn't have to exist all the time in nature. Sometimes nature has no clear reasons for existing aside from just performing automatic actions.

These actions are then causing the actions of other actions and so forth. A continual chain of effects does not necessarily breed a cognitive and intelligent being. It's hard to truly explain the existence of God in every sense of the word much like it is to explain why nature itself exists and why humans exist and invent things. But to put a clear label to it, to explain it away as merely "intelligence" is wrong. Cleanthes' other point of skepticism being tiresome makes no sense as well.

Skepticism is about questioning things and humans, intelligent humans, questions things all the time. So by his reasoning being skeptical, being intelligent, is thus God like because God is an intelligent creator. This breaks apart his argument and generates a conundrum of sorts in his reasoning because it fails to provide any clarity to his position nor support it. Observing things in nature does not lead to conclusion of things that have yet to be proven or explained. Just because for instance, I observe the sun rise, does not mean I believe it is rising due to the influence of something with intelligence.