An Empiricist’s Take on God’s Existence
There is a perpetual debate about God’s existence among philosophers. Descartes, in his Meditations, argues that God exists through an ontological argument. He finds within himself the idea of God as a perfect being, and because existence is an implied property of God’s perfection, God must exist. On the other hand, David Hume’s empiricist philosophy seems to suggest that God’s existence is improbable. Based on his Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, Hume would argue that God’s existence is not self-evident and true because our idea of God originates from an inner impression of ourselves, meaning that it is subject to doubt. Hume would also argue that the claim is not one that we can reasonably arrive at through either of the two ways of reasoning that he thinks to describe all human thought. Thus, asserting anything about God’s existence would surpass the limit of our cognitive ability, and Descartes would be mistaken in thinking that this is an arguable claim. Ultimately, Hume’s argument against Descartes is much more convincing because it is grounded on observable evidence that eliminates the slightest possibility of doubt.
Descartes’ Ontological argument attempts to prove God’s existence by employing the concept of innate ideas. Since he can clearly and distinctly perceive God’s existence just as any mathematical problem or geometric shape, its existence must be true and indubitable. Descartes first uses the example of a triangle to demonstrate what an innate idea is. A triangle has three sides and three angles that equal two right angles. Even if they did not exist, their characteristics are still “immutable and eternal, and not invented by me or dependent on my mind” (65). In other words, any property of a concept that we know entirely through reasoning is considered innate. These types of inborn ideas cannot be doubted because they do not depend on external observation. And as long as we can think clearly about their properties, they must be true. Applying this concept to God, God’s existence is something that Descartes can think of as “clear and distinct” as the angles of a triangle. He employs the idea of inseparability to the properties of innate ideas. A triangle is a triangle because it has three sides and two ninety-degree angles, just as a mountain is a mountain because it has valleys. A triangle with four sides, for instance, or a mountain with no valleys, cannot be called such. Thus, innate ideas and their properties are “mutually inseparable” (67). Descartes similarly cannot think of God as imperfect because perfection is a property that is inseparable from God’s essence (67). And with the supposition that existence is a perfection, God must exist.
To Descartes’ “innate idea” argument of God’s existence, Hume would refute by claiming that all of our ideas are derived from some vivid experience called impressions. Descartes’ idea of God’s existence, then, is not derived from thought itself but from inner impressions that he has of himself. Therefore, God’s existence is not self-evident and true. Hume first makes a distinction between experiences and ideas. When someone feels pain, the feeling is most lively during the moment. Once the event passes and we recall a memory of it, the memory is always fainter than the sensation (11). Hume calls those former sensations “impressions” and the latter memories “thoughts or ideas” (12). Hume suggests that we can have both outer and inner impressions. For instance, when you see a car on the street, you not only have an outer impression of the car you see but also an inner impression of the fact that you are seeing. Further, ideas that are seeming of our creation always derive from impressions. We may randomly think of a golden mountain and call it our invention. However, a closer examination will reveal that the golden mountain derives from our ideas of gold and mountain, which are themselves derived from a sensory experience we have from seeing a mountain and the color gold (13). Using the impression and idea argument, Hume would point out that God’s existence is not born out of himself. Instead, it derives from Descartes’ inner impression of himself, a being, and the ideas of goodness and wisdom that he has, conjoined and augmented to the maximum. Even before Descartes’ argument that God’s perfection implies his existence, his idea of the perfect being is precarious. Hume, therefore, would argue that God’s existence cannot be certain as the idea itself is baseless.
Even if we assume God’s existence is true, it still fails against Hume’s criteria for what human knowledge can be. Since we cannot prove it abstractly through quantity or experimentally through observation and custom, reasoning God’s existence is beyond our rational capacity. To start, Hume puts forth the notion that all human knowledge can be distinguished by being either a relation of ideas or matters of fact (20–21). We will focus on how it is not a relation of ideas in this paragraph. For something to be a relation of ideas, all of the ideas that are part of the claim or proposition must imply each other (20). Each part of the mathematical problem “1+1=2”, for example, is so well understood and clear that when we put them together the statement is necessarily true. We understand the concepts of the quantity “1”, addition, and equality completely and without doubt. So when this mathematical operation is carried out, we cannot accept it as anything but true. If you deny this claim, it can only reveal that you do not understand the relevant concepts or that the concepts themselves are not clearly defined. Perfection and existence, on the other hand, imply each other less strongly than numbers. Hume would use his idea of relations to say that existence is not necessarily a perfection because nowhere in the concept of existence does it strongly indicate that it should be a necessary property of a perfect thing. As an empiricist, Hume would surely point out the fact that many things exist but are imperfect in our world. There are many athletes and musicians whom we may consider “perfect” in their skills but are deficient in other areas. A beautiful vase or any work of art may look “perfect” visually but it is easily shattered or damaged. Therefore, they are not perfect in the term’s strictest sense. Ultimately, the likely fact that existence and perfection do not relate strongly proves that God’s existence is not a relation of ideas.
God’s existence is not a matter of fact either because we cannot directly observe its evidence in our world to form a cause-and-effect relationship that is the foundation of all knowledge of this type. According to Hume, matters of fact knowledge are sourced from cause-and-effect relations (22). For instance, when a game of billiards is played for the first time, we have no idea if the balls will stay at rest, jump up, or have some other effect when another one moves toward them (25). Unless we directly observe the effects of one ball hitting another, we will not be able to know that they move via theoretical deduction (a priori). Hume concludes that matters of fact need “observation and experience” (25). Using Hume’s example, Descartes might raise the argument that there are observations that one can make to discover the existence of God, meaning there is in fact a cause-and-effect relation for God’s existence. In an earlier example, Hume discusses the evidence of a watch on a desert island which we can use to deduce that a man was once on that island (22). Similarly, we can draw from archaeology that from the existence of city ruins, we can deduce the existence of an ancient civilization. While this argument has its merits, Hume would counter it with the idea of customs and habits that he discusses in Section V. In this section, Hume claims that the underlying cause for cause-and-effect relations is custom (36). In other words, we gain certain knowledge through the conditioning of custom. In the desert island example, we only know that a man was once on the island because we are accustomed to thinking that watches are made and worn by men. Similarly, we can deduce that an ancient civilization once existed because only men can build cities. Naturally, for the things that we know we did not build in the world, like the intricate balance of ecosystems or the complex structure of organisms which Descartes might point to, we are inclined to theorize the existence of a creator. But since there is no evidence that we can use to condition ourselves to know that God is the creator of all natural things, we cannot establish God’s existence as a matter of fact. So then what should we conclude about it? At the end of his Enquiries, Hume says that we should “commit it to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion” (132). For Hume, inquiries into such detached ideas are pointless because it is beyond our rational capacity to do so.
In a rhetorical question, Hume asks if we cannot even find the reason why stones fall and fires burn after a thousand trials, how can we ever discover the reason for the origin of worlds and natural phenomena (130)? Ultimately, Hume thinks that Descartes’ otherworldly inquiries are simply impossible and thus pointless. If we cannot prove something abstractly through mathematics or experimentally through observation, we should not even bother thinking about it, like God’s existence. Yet Descartes’ skepticism is useful in that it places limitations on our reason and makes us doubt what we might otherwise take for granted. However, this life is ultimately unlivable. I can doubt all I please in the comfort of my study, but to get by in the world I must at least assume that there is an external world and that my judgments and actions in that world make some sort of difference. Therefore, it is better to live as an empiricist than a rationalist.
