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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
The argument adduced for the existence of God arrives by a chain of reasoning at the affirmation of a being that is self-explanatory, an uncaused cause, at what is sometimes also called a ‘necessary being’. The notion of a necessary being is one that Hume, in arguments not so far outlined, finds incoherent, and he has been followed in this by a good many other philosophers. The argument for a necessary being is presented by Demea:
Whatever exists must have a cause or reason for its existence, it being absolutely impossible for anything to produce itself or to be the cause of its own existence.
1 See Hick, op. cit. p 170
2 T. Penelhum, op. cit. p 170
3 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Selby‐Bigge, , Oxford. 1902, P125Google Scholar
4 Ibid. p 128
5 Ibid. p25
6 David Hume and the Miraculous, Taylor, A. E., Cambridge, 1927, p 44Google Scholar
7 Hume's Philosophy of Belief, Flew, Antony. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1961, p 186Google Scholar
8 Hume's Philosophy of Religion, Gaskin, J.C. A.. Macmillan, 1978, p 114Google Scholar
9 In philosophers and Religious Truth. London. 1964, p 35Google Scholar
10 See Penelhum, op. cit. p 177, Gaskin. op. cit. pp 122 & 123. Flew, op. cit. p 204
11 Grammar of Assent, Newman, J. H., Image Books, Doubleday & Co, New York, 1955. p243Google Scholar.
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