Comparing Aquinas And Hume's Refutation Of God

Throughout our course we have read and considered many ideas, however for the duration of this paper I will focus on two core ideas. These are the ideas that God is the first efficient cause and whether God is good. For the duration of this paper I will look at Aquinas’s five ways, Hume’s refutation of God being the efficient cause. Also Dostoevsky’s and Hume’s explanation that God is not good because of the abundance of pain. Throughout the class what I have come to learn and was most impacted by is that God is not what we prescribe him to be in our different religions. Also the arguments that always stood out for me were the arguments of Hume and his skepticism. It is my goal through this paper to explain that God is not the entity

This law in that manner could actually be the God that we all think of. Both of these arguments are very convincing in their own way. On the one hand Aquinas logically proves the existence of the efficient cause however this efficient cause is not the God of our religions today. Hume also is very convincing in providing an explanation for the efficient cause however; Hume’s efficient cause is not God and is actually more of a law or a force. Therefore I believe that God is a combination of what Aquinas and Hume determine it to be. This God is indeed an unmoved mover and the first efficient cause, however this God is not the God that is worshipped in religions, it is a force that governs the universe through a mathematical law. This force that determines the natural law through physics and mathematics is the God that I now understand it to be. Now however we must determine whether it is true that God is this force that I have come to the conclusion that it is. If God is the God that is worshipped throughout religions and is a being unlike a force that simply governs

For if a God could not grant justice to those in the life that it happens then that is not a God he wishes to worship. Ivan’s argument is incredibly compelling; Hume further elaborates on this and explains why this abundance of pain and suffering is detrimental to a benevolent God. Hume argues that pain is more abundant in this world than that of pleasure. Hume argues that through our experience we recognize that there is more pain in this world then there is pleasure. For this to be the case he argues that God cannot be determined to be benevolent. Once Hume’s Philo determines that pain is more abundant than pleasure in the world he ultimately says that even if pain wasn’t more abundant than pleasure, to claim that God is entirely benevolent it must be proven that there is absolutely no pain or suffering in this world. As long as there is any pain in this world then God cannot be absolutely benevolent. Hume then determines that this does not mean that there is not something that is still considered to be God. By this he determines that there is still something that is known to be God however it is entirely contrary to beliefs religions hold. Once this claim is proven it thus follows that God is