david hume

Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ranks among the greatest writings in the history of Western philosophy. The work addresses the sensitive issue of the knowledge we have of God through reason alone, and, in the process, Hume presents arguments which undermine the classic proofs for God's existence. The arguments in the Dialogues assume an important 18th century distinction between natural religion and revealed religion. Natural religion involves knowledge of God drawn from nature, solely by …

…particularly relevant in view of the 20th century commentators, noted above, who take Philo's concessions as sincere. Ogilvie continues that, for Philo, the options for believing in the creation of the universe are between "a blind nature" or "an Omnipotent Tyrant, having neither wisdom, justice, goodness, nor any perfection." Ogilvie argues that it would please us "much better to think that this world was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms... rather than to vie