David Hume's Arguments against Design
Ideas come from our experiences.
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher in the 1700s. He is against Aquinas' arguments of design because he does not believes on one perfect creator/designer to create or design something perfect in the first time.
Thomas Aquinas' arguments of Design: The Five Ways
Theodicy
God has to face Evil
The Third Way: The Argument From Contingency
The Fourth Way: The Argument From Degrees Of Excellence
The Second Way: The Argument From Causation
The Fifth Way: The Argument From Harmony
The First Way: The Argument From Change
Anthropomorphism
Analogy
Similar causes has similar effects
Empiricist
Comparing the creation of the universe with a human creation of an object is a bad analogy.
Laws of nature are confirmed by uniform experience
Laws of nature are proofs
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature
Experience does not prove the existence of a creator as it is envisioned in the Christian tradition
"Our ideas reach no father than our experience: We have no experience of divine attributes and operations." - David Hume Page 15
Moral
Different things do not have the same cause and effects. Example: The universe does not have the same cause and effect similar to the growth and development of a human or the creation of a car.
"But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty." - David Hume Page 16
"But as all perfection is entirely relative, we ought never to imagine that we comprehend the attributes of this divine Being, or to suppose that his perfections have any analogy or likeness to the perfections of a human creature." - David Hume Page 14
Hume does not argues God's existence. He argues that we do not know God's nature.
"The question is not concerning the being but the nature of God. This affirm, from the infirmities of human understanding, to be altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us..." David Hume Page 13
To posit a similar architect for the universe as for a house is to fall into the trap of anthropomorphism.
The example of a house does not work because it is not a similar effect
The three character in Dialogues Concerning Religion
Demea: Between Philo and Cleanthes
Cleanthes: Like Thomas Aquinas
Philo: Most skeptical
Defense of God
Men create or build things with intention, desire, and wisdom. Thus, God also creates with intention, desire, and wisdom.
"The spirits evaporat, the nerves relax, the fabric is disordered, and the the enjoyment quickly degenerates into fatigue and uneasiness. But often, good God, how often! rises to torture and agony; and the longer it continues, it becomes still more genuine agony and torture." David Hume Page 65