David Hume Cleanthes Analysis

In monotheistic faith God is defined with a triad of attributes as being all good, all powerful and all knowing. This triad is what is empirically derived from God being the prime mover. The fact of evil, or theodicy, possess that there exists evil in this world and that this triad cannot exist through that evil conflicts with all three existing at once. The presence of evil means that God lacks one of these attributes because if he had them all, he would not allow evil to exist. If God and evil are to coexist then God must be: all knowing, all powerful, but good enough to want to stop it, lacking the knowledge to know how to stop it, or lacking the power to be able to stop it. In discussing this problem, David Hume uses his three characters:

Cleanthes observed that the world had an order to it, and that it must be attributed to a purposeful backing. Cleanthes stressed the importance of the anthropomorphizing of God through that it was the only way we could become closer to him and celebrate his greatness. He argued that Demea’s God was too un-relatable to humanity and that nobody would worship him. Cleanthes solved for the problem of evil by pointing out that there is much more good than evil in the world. Cleanthes said that Philo and Demea were overexaggerating on the amount of evil, and that goodness heavily outweighed evil, proving that God does exist with his triad of

While Philo agreed with Demea that it is apparent that there is evil in the world, he disagreed in that Gods nature is impossible to know. Like Cleanthes, he agreed that God’s attributes can be derived empirically, however he disagreed in that he said that God cannot have his triad of attributes while evil is existent. Philo said that while there may be more good than evil, the fact that there is any evil in the world indicates that God is contradicting his triad. So, Philo concluded that while it is evident God exists through his necessity of being the prime mover, and while his attributes can be derived empirically through observations of nature, it is evident that he is lacking one of the supposed attributes. Philo says that for God to exist he must not be anthropomorphized; God is blind to good and evil, he is an indifferent prime mover. God is all powerful, all knowing, but not all good. The dialogue provided by Demea, Cleanthes and Philo all conflict on the nature of God, but none of them conflict on the presence of a God. Thus, the fact of evil, to me, does not provide grounds for not believing in God, but instead provides grounds for reinterpreting Gods nature. I agree with Philo in that in order for God to coexist with evil, he must be lacking goodness. While this distances us from God, it does not call into question his