God’s existence (or lack thereof) is something that is a key point in both Berkeley’s and Hume’s philosophies, though both take very different approaches on how they go about proving what they believe. While both philosophers bring up interesting points on the concept of God I would say that Hume’s argument is the one that is right. While Berkeley brings up a interesting idee with this concept of idealism, it seems to me to be an argument that requires a willing subversion of our own reason and of modern day science to be believable. Hume on the other hand gives us an argument that points out the issues with religious philosophers. Through his analysis of the fact that God is a product of our own creation and that religious philosophers rely too heavily on the things they appointed to him themselves to prove his existence it is easy to see how Hume’s argument makes more sense and that the existence of God is something that is not necessary.
In Berkeley’s writings he focuses on idealism, something that he believes is a counter to atheism because of the fact that it shows we could not have a world without God. He says that some ideas are real things but sensations are not. Sensations are involuntary therefore we must not be the cause of them since we can’t control them with our will. Since this is the cause they must be controlled by God instead. He goes on to say that objects only exist because God perceives them and God allows us access to these ideas as sensations. Berkeley goes on to say that there is nothing outside of minds expect for minds themselves and that they only reason we are able to convince of objects is because they are ideas of the mind of God. Therefore things only exist because God has thought them into existence and we are only able to know of them because of the fact that God has allowed us access to them. This Berkeley believes is a counter to atheism because of the fact that if the person has to agree then you also have to accept the idea of God since he controls everything.
This concept though is one that I would not say is correct because of the fact that even if someone does not believe in God they still can perceive things, and while Berkeley would probably argue that is because God still allows them access it seems to just create a circular argument. While Berkeley’s argument is a good counter to atheism it doesn’t explain why an all powerful God would willing let people still go around not believing in him and his higher powers while also still letting them be more than just a mind. Hume’s argument about God on the other hand is one that seems to be a little more realistic. He says that we have no direct knowledge of God and therefore we can not ascribe qualities to him beyond what we have already observed. Therefore we cannot prove his existence because according to Hume, God is an empty hypothesis. Hume says that God’s existence is something that is used as an ordering principle, which I think can be seen in Berkeley’s argument since the existence of God is curix of the entire thing. Religious philosophers, Hume says, infer the existence of God from what they observe and then infer other unobserved effects from that inference, which he believes is not proceeding from a reasonable argument. While he believes sometimes it is acceptable to infer things in this manner it is not something we are able to do with God because of the fact that we have no actual knowledge of God beyond what we have observed. The only times we are able to do this is when we do have knowledge past what we have observed. Hume uses an example of seeing footprints in the sand, we can infer that they were made by a person and that there were other footprints that have since been washed away. This is not something we can do with God because of the fact that we know nothing about God, his divinity is something that is beyond our comprehension therefore we can not reasonably ascribe any motives to him. We especially cannot ascribe any human motives to him because of the fact that God is divine and therefore why would human motives be the same as Gods? Hume says that because of this the idea of God is not one that is believable, while our inference of the world around us is that is because it is something we regularly associate with, God on the other hand is not. While many of the things that happen in the world around us are said to be God’s will there is no way to know if that is actually true. This is because of the fact that we have never actually observed God directly, we only know him as the cause of affects that we have decided.
As stated earlier Hume’s point that religious philosophers use God as an ordering principle is something that can be seen heavily in Berkeley’s idea of idealism. For Berkeley God existence is not something that he has to truly prove because of the fact that for him humans would not even be able to argue about God if it wasn’t for God’s power. This kind of argument seems very circular because of the fact that he’s using God to prove God’s existence and saying that modern day science is wrong. For him it is inconceivable that humans would be able to have sensations through a power of their own because the only being that should have that type of power is God. Therefore we must be apart of him in some way. This also shows Hume’s point of that fact that humans do not have direct knowledge of God, the only things that we know about him are that which we appoint to him. While everything can be appointed to God to show his existence, doing so does not actually prove that he is real, it just helps reaffirm what people already believe. Religion is something that is based in faith, not in reason, and therefore there is no real reasonable way to prove God’s existence because the argument for it always leads to circular reasoning and the assumption that you already believe. While religion is not something that is necessarily bad when faith itself is used as the reasoning behind a argument it then leads to the point that we have no reason to actually believe. This is because of the fact that the arguments seem to come from imagination, like Hume said, instead of coming from reason. Belief in something is something that should be backed by evidence and the only evidence that religious philosophers have for God is his divine powers that they have appointed to him themselves. As Hume says religion is something that should confine itself to matter of faith instead of reason because it seems as if they are trying to prove the unprovable.
Overall I would say that Hume’s concept of God being an empty hypothesis is correct because of the fact that we only know him as the cause of things we have ascribed to him. Religious arguments for God therefore are weak because they take concepts that we experience and decide they come from God’s will just to prove their argument. God’s existence is not something that can be proven (or disproven) because of the fact that humans have no true knowledge of God, all we know of him is what we have decided to appoint to him.