Philo Represent to David Hume?

¶ … Philo represent to David Hume? Well, the word itself is a complex one and its meaning has often shifted throughout the years since it was first used in Greek society. In Hume's essay, Philo comes to represent a character whose viewpoint on God is incredibly humanistic, believing that although God may very well exist, our limited reasoning as humans make it impossible for us to try to describe Him in any sort of realistic terms.

Philo is the Greek root for love, and has come to represent out modern understanding of philosophy. You can see the roots of this meaning behind the character of Philo in the writings of David Hume. In his essay, David Hume is careful to construct the character of Philo to represent some of the more human aspects of philosophy. Each one of the characters involved in the argument about God seems to represent a different theological viewpoint. The others present much different viewpoints. For example, Cleanthes presents a view of God in the form of a human. This is a more traditional view of God, who is often pictured as the man with the white beard in modern contexts.

However, Philo represents a much different viewpoint, and can be seen as representing the closest argument to Hume's opinion himself. According to Philo, we cannot picture God as a human like being. Rather, Philo looks at God as a being that we humans cannot understand with our limited reasoning. God is a supernatural creature, and we only have senses to understand the concepts of physical dimensions. The fact that we cannot see or witness God shows that He should remain a topic of religion, but not be pushed into a path of scientific inquiry. Hume writes "He is infinitely superior to our limited view and comprehension; and is more the object of worship in the temple, than of disputation in schools." As such, Philo represents the ideology that God should remain important within the religious sphere, and that it is perfectly ok for people to love and admire Him from a religious standpoint. Yet, science is based on collecting evidence from actual observations. Because we cannot directly observe God, there is no room for Him in the genre of science. We cannot observe His behavior or record what he looks like in any sort of detail. Neither can we ask Him fundamental questions about the nature of our existence in order to help us on our quest to understand why we are here. He simply won't answer. Due to that, there is no way to rely on Him for anyone to base any sort of scientific or empirical assumptions of God's word or teachings as seen from the Bible, which was written by a mere human being.