My Priest’s appreciation of David Hume
I thought some here might enjoy this:
In honor of the 300th Anniversary of the Birth of David Hume
By djgrieserThe 300th anniversary of David Hume’s birth was yesterday.An appreciation by Morgan Meis that concludes with this paragraph:
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a discussion between an all-around skeptic, Philo; a religious dogmatist and believer in abstract reason named Demea; and a moderate empiricist, Cleanthes. The three characters debate the existence of God and other light topics. Scholars have long debated the question as to which of the interlocutors represents Hume’s true position. The answer is that none of them do, and all of them do. Hume was fully reconciled to being bifurcated, trifurcated even, if we can put it that way. He tried to love the war that was always raging inside. In this, he was an honest philosopher, and an honest man.
More here: gracerector.wordpress.com
It’s especially pleasing to remember how thoroughly Hume shredded the argument from design. Very useful when dealing with creationists.
Note: The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion can be found at gutenberg.org