Dialogues Concerning Natural ReligionDavid Hume

Hume wrote the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion over more than two decades and arranged for their posthumous publication, knowing the arguments were too dangerous for his own lifetime. Three characters debate whether the existence and nature of God can be established by reason alone: Cleanthes defends the design argument, Demea defends the cosmological argument and orthodox mystery, and Philo dismantles both.

The design argument occupies the center. Cleanthes argues that the order of nature resembles the products of human design, so the cause of nature must resemble a mind. Philo replies with devastating patience. The analogy is weak: the universe is not much like a watch. Even granting the analogy, it proves at most a finite, imperfect designer, not the infinite God of theology. The world might equally resemble an organism or arise from some principle we cannot imagine. The argument from design cannot establish unity, infinity, or moral perfection in the deity.

Demea's cosmological argument fares no better. And when Demea raises the problem of evil, expecting Philo to join him in asserting divine mystery, Philo instead presses the point empirically: the sheer quantity of suffering makes benevolent design implausible.

Philo wins the philosophical arguments, though the dialogue's ending is deliberately ambiguous. Hume leaves the reader to judge whether natural theology has any foundation at all, or whether religion rests on something reason cannot supply.