Reference no: EM13658367

Rewrite and condense part XI of Hume's Dialogues Natural Religion, from the starting through the paragraphs that begin with exactly these words: "there may four hypotheses be framed concerning the first reason of the universe:" Write it as a argument carried on in contemporary, i.e., 21st century English.

Prepare a paper in the form of a dramatic script, as follows, with the blanks filled in with your vision of what the different speakers say:

Cleanthes:___________________
Demea:______________________
Philo:______________________
etc.
There might four hypotheses be framed concerning the first causes of the universe: that they are endowed with ideal goodness; that they have ideal malice; that they are opposite, and have both malice and goodness; that they have neither malice nor goodness. Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles; and the steadiness and uniformity of general laws seem to resist the third. The fourth, thus, seems by far the most probable.

Concerning natural evil can apply to moral, with little or no variation; and we have no more reason to suppose, that the rectitude of the Supreme Being resembles human rectitude, than that his benevolence resembles the human. Nay, it will be reflection, that we have still better cause to exclude from him moral sentiments, such as we feel them; since moral evil, in the opinion of several, is much more predominant above moral good than natural evil above natural good.

How to account for it. You must allot a cause for it, without having recourse to the first cause. But as each effect must have a cause, and that cause another, you must either carry on the progression in infinitum, or rest on that original rules, who is the final cause of all things .