Hume's Criticisms

Hume’s Argument

1. Inductive reasoning only leads to probable conclusions.

2. We can gather evidence from previous experiences, but never be certain.

3. There is a small possibility that things like the sun rising, won’t happen for whatever reason.

4. Thus, Hume argues that although we have observed cause and effect in some part of nature, we can’t apply this principle to the whole universe.

5. When we apply this to anything outside our actual experience, we are making an inductive leap/assumption.

6. What we point out as cause and effect could simply be correlation.

7. Hume argues that although every husband must have a wife, not every man must be married.

Examples of Twenty Particles

1. Just because part of the universe has a cause, doesn’t mean the whole universe does - fallacy of composition.

2. The example is that we explain the reason for each of the twenty particles, but we don’t ask what the cause for the whole is.

Hume’s Assumptions/Questions

1. Is G-d a special case/transcendent being?

2. What is the cause of G-d?

3. Instead of the universe being contingent, could it be necessary.

4. Why not accept infinite regress?

5. Is it possible that the chain of causes has no beginning.

6. If we accept the universe has a cause, does it have to be the G-d of classical theism?

Responses to Hume’s Assumptions/Questions

1. What is the cause of G-d → G-d doesn’t have a cause, He is by definition, the first being to exist. It would be like asking, what the colour green smells like, an invalid question.

2. Why not accept infinite regress → Something has to push over a set of dominos, they don’t fall down by themselves.

3. Does it have to be the G-d of classical theism → The cosmological argument doesn’t claim to answer it, this can be proved by other means, such as the Kuzari Principle.

Supports Hume’s Criticisms

1. We don’t need to assume everything has a cause - the universe just exist.

2. Infinite regress does not have to be impossible as Aquinas claims.

3. Hume suggests that Aquinas is too reliant on inductive reasoning and the links between cause and effect are not certain. This challenges Aquinas’ Second Way because if there is no chain of cause and effect, there is no need to argue for a first cause.

Against Hume’s Criticisms

1. We collect observations from the past to make predictions about the future.

2. Anscombe argues that as humans, we always ask ‘why?’ or ‘what caused it?’ - it is a valid question.

3. Huma assumes infinite regress is possible, but you cannot verify it.

Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell Debate 1947

1. Copleston makes the argument from contingency.

He says G-d is necessary to ‘make sense of man’s moral experience’

2. Russell argues that there is no value in calling things contingent because ‘there isn’t anything else they could be’. He is essentially saying that nothing is contingent and everything’s existence is necessary.

He says that he cannot attribute ‘a Divine origin to this sense of moral obligation’, as it is ‘easily accounted for in other ways’.