Adjusting Examples to Fit Conclusions

In David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Cleanthes defends the “Design Argument” for God’s existence. He says that the universe resembles a man-made machine and then, by analogy, he says that the Creator of the universe resembles the creator of man-made machines, the human mind. This argument tries to show not only that there is a God but also that something about his or her nature resembles the mind of man.

Cleanthes begins the argument in response to the Cartesian claims by Philo and Demea that reasoning is more important than experience in understanding the existence and nature of God. He intends to defend his idea that experience can lead us to truths about these matters. First, he says that after looking around and thinking hard about the world, one “…will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines…” (15). The idea of machines is the central theme in which he uses to support his argument. “Machine,” here, refers to anything created for a specific purpose. He suggests that the machine of the universe, along with all of the smaller machines, exhibit a property in which he calls “the curio

In addition, it is not even clear that everything in the universe does work like a machine. The only basis we have for saying that the universe is machine-like is what we have observed on Earth. Our universe is enormous. This planet is only one of an infinite number of huge rocks orbiting stars. Thus, it is too small of a sample to support any broad generalization about the universe. Probability is not in our favor on this one. Not only that, but we have no idea how well Earth represents the nature of the rest of the universe. From what little we know it appears that Earth is actually a very poor indicator of what the rest of creation is like (for example, we haven’t observed any other planet which supports life the way Earth does). This creates problems for part of the basis for Cleanthes’ analogy. He means to show that the machines of the universe, such as the solar system, resemble the machines of man, allowing him to infer something about the similarity of their causes. Because Earth is such a poor sample, all he can really show is a partial relationship, between a limited model and the universe. This goes to show the weakness of the metaphor.

Cleanthes’ reply that we only have one Earth to observe seems to justify relying on only this planet for data, but in reality it furthers the point that the analogy is weak. Because we can only observe Earth, we shouldn’t draw any conclusions about the nature of the universe or its Creator. To base conclusions on such a small, and probably atypical sample, would be to make a bad generalization. The reply that he cannot explain why he is so sure of the existence of an intelligent designer using philosophy is a little less simple, however. He has already said that it is his belief that experience, rather than reason is the means to obtaining truth. It is fundamental in his Design Argument. He has essentially said to Philo and Demea, “You cannot use reason to disprove my claim that experience is more valuable than reason when contemplating the nature of things.” This accuses them of making the same argument a second time. If they are repeating themselves, however, so is he. Saying that t

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