"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" -- I Peter 3:15
Hume for sure woke me up. I haven't gotten this involved/intrigued by a work for a very long time. I find it hard to write about one thing, because I feel like I can write something for every single page. There are both things I agree with disagree with trapped in every letter of this text. One thing I thought Hume did well was portray each side evenly....at least until the last half. I truly felt each character was real and invested in the dialogue/debate. They were real people in real backgrounds of insanely opposing wordviews.
To note, Hume didn't give Cleanthes much due in the latter half. He basically sat there and took a beating. Maybe he didn't have answer. Maybe he truly was speechless. And at first, I was too. I didn't know how to handle these strong arguments. These arguments were strong, but they weren't strong enough to the point where my worldview was challenged; that is to say, my faith in Christ didn't diminish in reading this book. This got me thinking. Why didn't it? Philo presented good arguments--REALLY good arguments. Hume set up the dialogues in order to do this.
I remember the modern day philosopher and Christian, Ravi Zacharias, and how he approaches questions. He tears the questions apart to find the assumptions behind them. That is what I realized about these arguments Philo presented: they were based on fallacy.
Ding-dong rings the bell of enlightenment. My senses raged, my blood boiled, all of everything hurt to see Philo continue and Cleanthes patiently sit--and I can literally see them there. I can imagine the dialogue going on. I can see Philo ripping the foundation to shreds--but he wasn't!!!
So, I remembered an analogy of my own. If you look at logic proofs and math, you can make a good and valid argument for anything. Look here.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Does 1 + 1 = 3?
Let x=y
x - y + y = y
x - y + y y
---------- = ----
x - y x - y
(I know this doesn't look too pretty, and it didn't format well either. Imagine it's a beautiful equation for me, will you?)
y y
1 + ---- = ---- ( 1 + 1 = 1)
x - y x - y
1 = 0
(And we know that 1 = 1, so add the three equations together.)
1 = 0
1 = 1
+ 1 = 1
--------------
1 + 1 + 1 = 1 + 1
3 = 1 + 1
1 + 1 = 3
Was that a good argument?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Trust me, that took way too long to type. And if you don't agree with that proof, or didn't find it convincing enough, it was the easiest one I remembered and could explain, and the least "bullcrap" of all of them. Besides, my point here is that a good argument doesn't mean that you're right! It may just mean you can sound smart while being wrong! And trust me, I know from personal experience that it is very easy to do indeed!
Cleanthes spoke on page 38 in Part V,
". . . by the utmost indulgence of your imagination, you never get rid of the hypothesis of design in the universe, but are obliged at every turn to have recourse to it."
The argument will never end because of this. If you can't see things in black and white, what difference does it make if it's multicolor? We try to understand the world around us the best we can, but our understanding can't save us. It can only describe from flawed perspective where we are at. You can't understand God, the world in its entirety, or faith. You can only experience these things. We cannot reason what we have not experienced. Such was the result of Philo trying to reason with cause and effect. God is without cause. The flaw in Philo's argument, that the cause had a cause and the cause of the cause had a cause (etc. into eternity), was that he didn't realize that cause has a connotation of time. If something was caused, it wasn't there before. In essence, what was caused, x, had a beginning. God created time. God is not constrained or defined by time. We have only experienced a "cause", or a beginning, so we cannot fathom or comprehend anything else other than that. You cannot tear apart a worldview's foundation unless you accurately consider all that your argument implies.
The Word of God is our chiefest argument in this, and here is my argument. To take it as "revealed religion", or the opposite of "natural religion", is to take that by faith. The Bible isn't made of some "spiritual substance". It is very material and physical--it can be touched, read, studied. It contains language, an information system. Although more directly able to read than nature's, they both can be observed because they are formed (physically speaking) out of the same stuff! The Bible is the most well-preserved document on the face of the planet. It's a history book (it goes across millennia of kingdoms and people-groups), a science book (revealing much about the nature of the world, of properties of light, matter, and air), a book on law and morals (self-government, human condition, etc), and so forth. It should be treated in the same respect as anything else observable in the world.
Besides my tangents, I say Philo can't see the whole picture for the details. Maybe that's what happens when you question everything--you question everything, including (but not limited to) evidence, truth, anything logical, anything that begs of common sense, and literally everything else. What is the purpose of asking these questions and having this dialogue if the last part ends in confusion of the characters' (and subsequently author's) beliefs? Why can't they be laid out in one sentence, not scrawled across 30 pages?
Another thing Ravi Zacharias does in approaching a question--he sees that there is a questioner behind it. One who doubts, wants to seek truth, wants to know. What was the true need of Philo, and of Hume, that they sought their lives after but couldn't find?
I apologize for writing a mini explication and going ham over Hume, but duty calls.
I commented on Caroline's and Jamie's.
Hume for sure woke me up. I haven't gotten this involved/intrigued by a work for a very long time. I find it hard to write about one thing, because I feel like I can write something for every single page. There are both things I agree with disagree with trapped in every letter of this text. One thing I thought Hume did well was portray each side evenly....at least until the last half. I truly felt each character was real and invested in the dialogue/debate. They were real people in real backgrounds of insanely opposing wordviews.
To note, Hume didn't give Cleanthes much due in the latter half. He basically sat there and took a beating. Maybe he didn't have answer. Maybe he truly was speechless. And at first, I was too. I didn't know how to handle these strong arguments. These arguments were strong, but they weren't strong enough to the point where my worldview was challenged; that is to say, my faith in Christ didn't diminish in reading this book. This got me thinking. Why didn't it? Philo presented good arguments--REALLY good arguments. Hume set up the dialogues in order to do this.
I remember the modern day philosopher and Christian, Ravi Zacharias, and how he approaches questions. He tears the questions apart to find the assumptions behind them. That is what I realized about these arguments Philo presented: they were based on fallacy.
Ding-dong rings the bell of enlightenment. My senses raged, my blood boiled, all of everything hurt to see Philo continue and Cleanthes patiently sit--and I can literally see them there. I can imagine the dialogue going on. I can see Philo ripping the foundation to shreds--but he wasn't!!!
So, I remembered an analogy of my own. If you look at logic proofs and math, you can make a good and valid argument for anything. Look here.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Does 1 + 1 = 3?
Let x=y
x - y + y = y
x - y + y y
---------- = ----
x - y x - y
(I know this doesn't look too pretty, and it didn't format well either. Imagine it's a beautiful equation for me, will you?)
y y
1 + ---- = ---- ( 1 + 1 = 1)
x - y x - y
1 = 0
(And we know that 1 = 1, so add the three equations together.)
1 = 0
1 = 1
+ 1 = 1
--------------
1 + 1 + 1 = 1 + 1
3 = 1 + 1
1 + 1 = 3
Was that a good argument?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Trust me, that took way too long to type. And if you don't agree with that proof, or didn't find it convincing enough, it was the easiest one I remembered and could explain, and the least "bullcrap" of all of them. Besides, my point here is that a good argument doesn't mean that you're right! It may just mean you can sound smart while being wrong! And trust me, I know from personal experience that it is very easy to do indeed!
Cleanthes spoke on page 38 in Part V,
". . . by the utmost indulgence of your imagination, you never get rid of the hypothesis of design in the universe, but are obliged at every turn to have recourse to it."
The argument will never end because of this. If you can't see things in black and white, what difference does it make if it's multicolor? We try to understand the world around us the best we can, but our understanding can't save us. It can only describe from flawed perspective where we are at. You can't understand God, the world in its entirety, or faith. You can only experience these things. We cannot reason what we have not experienced. Such was the result of Philo trying to reason with cause and effect. God is without cause. The flaw in Philo's argument, that the cause had a cause and the cause of the cause had a cause (etc. into eternity), was that he didn't realize that cause has a connotation of time. If something was caused, it wasn't there before. In essence, what was caused, x, had a beginning. God created time. God is not constrained or defined by time. We have only experienced a "cause", or a beginning, so we cannot fathom or comprehend anything else other than that. You cannot tear apart a worldview's foundation unless you accurately consider all that your argument implies.
The Word of God is our chiefest argument in this, and here is my argument. To take it as "revealed religion", or the opposite of "natural religion", is to take that by faith. The Bible isn't made of some "spiritual substance". It is very material and physical--it can be touched, read, studied. It contains language, an information system. Although more directly able to read than nature's, they both can be observed because they are formed (physically speaking) out of the same stuff! The Bible is the most well-preserved document on the face of the planet. It's a history book (it goes across millennia of kingdoms and people-groups), a science book (revealing much about the nature of the world, of properties of light, matter, and air), a book on law and morals (self-government, human condition, etc), and so forth. It should be treated in the same respect as anything else observable in the world.
Besides my tangents, I say Philo can't see the whole picture for the details. Maybe that's what happens when you question everything--you question everything, including (but not limited to) evidence, truth, anything logical, anything that begs of common sense, and literally everything else. What is the purpose of asking these questions and having this dialogue if the last part ends in confusion of the characters' (and subsequently author's) beliefs? Why can't they be laid out in one sentence, not scrawled across 30 pages?
Another thing Ravi Zacharias does in approaching a question--he sees that there is a questioner behind it. One who doubts, wants to seek truth, wants to know. What was the true need of Philo, and of Hume, that they sought their lives after but couldn't find?
I apologize for writing a mini explication and going ham over Hume, but duty calls.
I commented on Caroline's and Jamie's.
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