hume and kant on knowing the deity

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion43: 133–148, 1998. 133c 1998Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Hume and Kant on knowing the deity

BERYL LOGANUniversity of Toronto, Canada

‘I have found it necessary to deny knowledge inorder to make room for faith’

(Immanuel Kant)1

In the opening paragraphs of Section 57 of theProlegomena to Any FutureMetaphysics‘On the determination of the bounds of pure reason’, Kant makesreference to Hume’sDialogues Concerning Natural Religionas an illustra-tion of what might result if ‘we conceded no things in themselves or set up ourexperience for the only possible mode of knowing things: : : [which would]have the principles of the possibility of experience considered universal con-ditions of things in themselves’,2 Regarding the way possible experience isconditioned as the way things in themselves are conditioned (making theprinciples of possible experience transcendent) results in skepticism: every-thing that transcends experience is worthless as it is unknowable. Just as hesought to relieve the skepticism that he saw resulting from Hume’s analysisof causality, so too inx57 ff. Kant seeks to relieve the skepticism with respectto the knowability of the Supreme Being that he perceives in Hume’s work.

Kant suggests thatnoumena,as that which are presupposed in all possibleexperience and through which reason achieves the satisfaction and complete-ness not available in phenomena, are found in the void, beyond all experience.He then asks ‘What is the attitude of our reason in this connection of whatwe know with what we do not, and never shall, know?’ (P:x57, 113) Howdoes reason approach the unknown and unknowable world ofnoumenawhenreason is applicable only to the known and knowable world of phenomena?In this and the following sections, Kant intends to show how a connection ispossible between these two worlds, ‘by means of such concepts as expresstheir relation to the world of sense’, and he will use the notion of the SupremeBeing as an example, as a concept that may be thought, if not known.

In this paper I will address the arguments that Kant uses to show the wayin which we can think but not know the Deity, and how Kant thinks his

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arguments combat the skepticism that he finds in Hume’s arguments in theDialogues.Kant’s reading of theDialoguesas negative and skeptical is inaccord with that generally adopted in the Hume literature, but by offeringmy own account of the belief that is expressed in theDialoguesI show thatfor Hume as well, the Deity is ultimately unknowable as it is not an itemof knowledge. However, Kant’s means of relieving this ignorance is quiteunHumean, as Hume’s means is quite unKantian.

Kant would appear to have had a more substantial acquaintance withHume’sDialoguesthan with Hume’s other texts. A German edition of theDialogueswas published in 1781, two years after the initial publication oftheDialoguesin English. In addition to referring to Hume’s arguments in theProlegomena, Kant’s knowledge of this text is clearly evident in hisLectureson Philosophical Theology.3 He refers there to objections raised by Humeagainst inferring that an intelligence is responsible for purposiveness in nature(what Kant calls the ‘physicotheological proof’, ‘which makes use of expe-rience of the present world in general and infers from this to the existence ofan author of the world and to the attributes which would belong to its authoras such’).4

I

Kant begins Section 57 of theProlegomena,‘On the determination of thebounds of pure reason’, by opposing two absurdities, or contradictions. Thefirst has two parts: first, it would be contradictory to think that we can knowanything more about an object than belongs to the possible experience ofit. That is, we can only have experience of objects through the forms ofintuition of space and time, and we can only know them asphenomena,asthey appear to us as objects of sensory experience. We can never know anyobject independent of or outside of space and time, or as something otherthan a sensory experience. Then, of course, we can have no knowledge ofhow any object that is outside of space and time and sensory experience canbe – or whether or not it is – determined by its own nature in the way thatthe objects of sensory experience are determined by thea priori principles.This sets the boundaries ofour knowledge, but objects are not limited by theways in which we are able to know them. ‘Bounds: : : always presuppose aspace existing outside a certain definite place and enclosing it; limits do notrequire this, but are mere negations, which affect a quantity, so far as it is notabsolutely complete’ (P:x57, 111). Completeness, things in themselves, liebeyond the boundary.

The second contradiction occurs when reason regardsour way of knowingthings as being theonlyway of knowing. The objects of possible experience

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must be intuited in space and time; as conditioned, they are limited to beingexperienced in these ways. This is a contradiction, because things in them-selves ornoumena, which must exist for it to be possible to have experienceof phenomena, would no longer be things in themselves but would be objectsof possible experience. It would be contradictory to regard things in them-selves as objects of reason (the role of reason being to apply the ‘synthesis ofrepresentation’ to its objects). And, it would be presumptuous of us to declarethat the means by which empirical objects are known – intuited in space andtime conditioned by the principles of possible experience – is the only wayany things, including things in themselves, can be known. Unless reason isthe object of ‘a careful critique’ (P: 110) (an examination of the objects andlimits of reason), it may transcend the empirical use of the concepts – gobeyond that to which they are by nature applicable - and attempt to similarlylimit things in themselves, i.e., ‘know’ them as objects of experience.5

The principles or conditioning concepts are valid only as they are appliedto the undistinguished manifold of perceptions, and the limits of reason liein its application of just these principles to just this manifold of perceptions.The limits inherent in the principles and our reason (valid only as appliedto possible experience) must not be taken to indicate the limits of thingsin themselves, which would make them unknowable because they cannotbe known by our way of knowing. Things in themselves are not objects ofpossible experience, and thus are not knowable by the means that such objectsare known. If this means is regarded as the only way of ‘knowing’ then theseobjects are unknowable. It is the claim that there is only one way of knowingwhich Kant is concerned with. And Kant regards Hume’sDialoguesto be anexample or illustration of this contradiction: ‘Our principles, which limit theuse of reason to possible experience, might in this way become transcendent,and the limits of our reason be set up as limits of the possibility of things inthemselves (as Hume’sDialoguesmay illustrate): : : .’ (P: x57, 110)

I will now show why Kant regards the arguments of theDialoguesto bean illustration of his point, and how he combats the perceived skepticism oftheDialogues.In this section I will adopt Kant’s view of theDialogues,thatHume takes only a critical position, and draws only a skeptical conclusion.

II

In the Dialogues, Cleanthes presents the anthropomorphic Argument fromDesign that draws analogical inferences regarding the nature of the Deity fromwhat is found in experience. He argues that the intelligence and benevolenceof the Deity, the cause, can be inferred from what we find in the world,the effect. This position assumes that reason can achieve results in natural

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theology by using the same methods that it would apply to an empiricalinvestigation. For example, I can infer by an analogical argument that if I buya new car that is similar to my old car, and if I know from experience that myold car uses x litres to drive y kilometers, then my new car will do the same.In the same way, Cleanthes says, I can infer by an analogical argument thatas we know from experience that a machine or human artifact that has certainfeatures was designed by a being with intelligence, that the world, whichhas similar features, was also designed by a being with intelligence. As theeffects resemble, the causes also resemble, in proportion to the complexity,or ‘grandeur’, of their effects: as the universe, the effect, is vastly greaterand more complex than a computer or a sewing machine, their designers,or causes, are proportionately different only in greatness – a difference ofdegree, not kind.

The thrust of Philo’s (Hume’s) criticisms of the Design Argument is thatnothing can be inferred about the nature of the cause, the Deity, by examiningthe effect, the world. Philo shows Cleanthes that the methods he is using areapplicableonly to empirical investigation, and not to objects that lie beyondthe limits of human experience.6

So long as we confine our speculations to trade, or morals, or politics, orcriticism, we make appeals, every moment to common sense and experi-ence, which strengthen our philosophical conclusions and remove (at leastin part) the suspicion, which we so justly entertain with regard to everyreasoning, that is very subtile and refine. But in theological reasonings,we have not this advantage; while at the same time we are employed uponobjects which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp: : : . Weare like foreigners in a strange country to whom everything must seemsuspicious, and who are in danger every moment of transgressing againstthe laws and customs of the people with whom they live and converse.We know not how far we ought to trust our vulgar methods of reasoningin such a subject: : : . (D: 101)

As a result of the inability of the experimental, or empirical, method ofreasoning, i.e., making general inferences drawn from the data of experience,to ‘know’ anything about what is not an object of sense experience, nodeterminate conclusion with respect to the Deity’s intelligence, benevolence,or mode of existence may be drawn. This position is an illustration of Kant’spoint in the following way. Kant had stated that a contradiction results ifreason, the means by which we know sensible objects, applies itself to objectsbeyond its proper application (i.e., to sensible objects only) to objects thatare not sensible, and proceeds to claim that as such means cannot knowthese objects, the objects cannot be known. This regards the way of knowing


sensible objects to be the only way of knowing at all. So, if Hume concludesthat the experimental method fails with respect to the Deity because the Deityis not part of the data of experience, this leaves him with only one position innatural theology – that of skepticism. No other way of knowing, in any sense,is available.

As the appropriate way of applying the experimental method to the Deityis by analogy from what is known, and since what is known is the humanworld of sense and experience, then any claims about the Deity must beanthropomorphic. Kant argues that for Hume theism and anthropomorphismare inseparable, such that if anthropomorphism falls so does theism. AsHume’s arguments in theDialoguesdevastate anthropomorphism, theismvanishes.

Kant thus proposes a third way, one that preserves theism and combatsHume’s skepticism by proposing a non-anthropomorphic analogical argumentthrough which we may think the Deity. The series of arguments in sections57, 58 and 59 leads to this proposal.

Kant brings the contradictions from earlier paragraphs ofx57 to bear on‘the concept of the highest being’. Natural theology leads reason to the ‘objec-tive boundary of experience’ – on our side of the boundary is the world ofphenomena, of appearances, of experience. At that boundary, reason connectsexperience with that which lies beyond that boundary, in the world of thingsin themselves, which are not objects of experience but which are the groundsor conditions of experience. Hume is left on our side of the boundary, limitedto experience alone, unable to make the connections with what would giveperceptions an objective ground. He is thus left with skepticism with respectto anything beyond perceptions.

Natural theology is: : : a concept on the boundary of human reason, beingconstrained to look beyond this boundary to the idea of a Supreme Being(and, for practical purposes, to that of an intelligible world also), notin order to determine anything relatively to this pure creation of theunderstanding, which lies beyond the world of sense, but in order toguide the use of reason within it according to principles of the greatestpossible (theoretical as well as practical) unity. For this purpose we makeuse of the reference of the world of sense to an independent reason, asthe cause of all its connections. Thereby we do not purely invent a being,but, as beyond the sensible world there must be something that can onlybe thought by the pure understanding, we determine that something inthis particular way, though only of course according to analogy. (P:x59,118–119)

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This quote alludes to a distinction drawn by Kant in the ‘Preface to the SecondEdition’ of theCPRbetweenthinkingan object andknowingan object.7 Hestates there that while ‘we cannot know these objects as things in themselves,we must yet be in a position at least tothink them as things in themselves’.Without being able to think of things in themselves as things in themselves,i.e., that there are things in themselves, ‘we should be landed in the absurdconclusion that there can be appearances [phenomena] without anything thatappears [noumena]’. In a footnote, Kant explicates this distinction: ‘Toknowan object I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its actualityas attested by experience, ora priori by means of reason. But I canthinkwhatever I please, provided: : : my concept is a possible thought’. (That is,it contains no contradictions.) Thinking an object ‘does not answer for therebeing : : : an object corresponding to it’(CPR B xxvii). To knowan objectis to determine or condition it, i.e., to know the conditions under which itis an object of possible experience, or to know the concepts under whichit is subsumed. (As the contradictions discussed earlier show, though, suchknowledge of things in themselves is not possible as they are not able to beeither determined or conditioned.) While wethink the possibility of such aBeing, we are not ‘merely inventing’ it,8 as it would be absurd to claim thatthere are connections in the world of the senses without there being a cause ofthose connections. So we look ‘beyond the boundary’ of what wecanknow(the objects of possible experience), tothink the idea of a Supreme Being, butanything we may say about that Being can only be accomplished by analogy.

According to Philo’s critical arguments, neither reason nor experience canachieve anything that is useful for religion. According to Kant, though, whilereason is limited to objects of possible experience, its limits are only bound-aries beyond which lie things in themselves. Kant thinks he can save theismby pushing possible experience to the boundary and making a ‘connection’between possible experience and the Deity as a thing in itself. The analogy thathe proposes does not depend upon the similarities of objects being compared.Rather, Kant employs what he calls ‘symbolicanthropomorphism’, which‘concerns language only and not the object itself’ (P:x57, 115). It is a way ofthinking and talking about the Deity that reflects the relationship between thesensible world and the Deity without purporting to describe the Deity. As athing-in-itself, the Deity is unknowable. It is the point of connection betweenthe worlds of phenomena and noumena.

This symbolic anthropomorphism is established by an analogical argumentthat is relational rather than descriptive, i.e., it intends to establish similarrelations between items, not to describe the items. It does not allow us to haveknowledge of a thing-in-itself, something which Kant believes we are unableto do, but it does allow us to think and talk about the Deity through terms and


relations that are within the scope of our knowledge; we are describing whatour experience is like for us and speaking about God in those terms that areknowable by us. When we speak of, and reason about, God in these terms,we are not describing what God is like nor are we drawing any conclusionsabout God as God as a thing-in-itself. God as a thing-in-itself is unknowableas athing in itself.

Further, this analogy does not mean, as is commonly understood, ‘an imper-fect similarity of two things, but a perfect similarity of relations between twoquite dissimilar things’ (P:x58, 115). ‘Dogmaticanthropomorphism’, such asthat employed by Cleanthes in theDialogues, attributes to the highest beingin itself those properties through which we think objects of experience.

A standard analogical argument infers a missing feature on the basis ofthe similarity of the items being compared. Car X has features (a) standardtransmission, (b) V-6 engine, and (c) for every litre of gasoline, it travels 20kilometers. If Car Y has features (a) and (b),then we can infer that it willalso have feature (c). The two cars being compared exhibit relevantly similarfeatures, and on the basis of this relevant similarity a conclusion may bedrawn with respect to the missing feature. The two items being compared areplaced in that comparison on the basis of their similarity, and the conclusiondraws its strength from the degree (and relevance) of that similarity. There is ajustification, based on similarity, for placing these two items in the relationshipand inferring the presence of the missing feature. This is the form of argumentutilized by Cleanthes.

Kant’s analogical argument, on the other hand, is not based on similarityof features of the items compared, but on their relationships: ‘: : : I can obtaina relational concept of things which are absolutely unknown to me. Forinstance, as the promotion of the welfare of children (= a) is to the love ofparents (= b), so the welfare of the human species (= c) is to that unknown inGod (= x), which we call love: : : ’ (P: x58, 115–116).

Making this relational claim does not infer that the Deity is or is notintelligent, or if it is intelligent that the Deity’s intelligence is anything likehuman intelligence. It only ‘determine[s] it as regards the [sensible] worldand therefore as regards ourselves’. When we speak of the world as beingintelligently ordered, we say much about ourselves in the world of phenomenawhenwe speakof God being in a relation (one we can understand) to us likethe relation of parent and child, but we say nothingof God. The ‘predicates’that we attribute to God in this way are thus determined subjectively – for usand by us. They are not determined objectively – this is what God is like – asis the case in the ‘standard’ argument.

If I say that we are compelled to consider the world as if it were the work ofa Supreme Understanding and Will, I really say nothing more than that as

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a watch, a ship, a regiment bears the same relation to the watchmaker, theshipbuilder, the commanding officer as the world of sense (or whateverconstitutes the substratum of this complex of appearances) does to theUnknown, which I do not hereby cognize as it is in itself, but as it is forme or in relation to the world of which I am a part. (P:x57, 115)

This, according to Kant, saves theism by freeing it from its dependence uponanthropomorphism, as it is not an anthropomorphic analogy. It makes noclaim, as Cleanthes’ argument does, as to what are the nature or features ofthe Deity, and whether they in any way resemble those of humans.

This kind of ‘reasoning’ about God, in the face of our inability to knowthings-in-themselves is confined to the reasoning we are entitled to undertake:the Deity’s features and existence is not directly knowable as ‘our conscious-ness of all existence: : : belongs exclusively to the unity of experience: : : anyexistence outside this field, while not indeed such as we can declare to beabsolutely impossible, is of the nature of an assumption which we can neverbe in a position to justify’ (CPR: 506). Any reasoning about religious matterscan and must take place only within the realm of sensous experience. Theanalogy that we are entitled to employ – i.e. one that makes reference onlyto our experience and what humans are like and not what God is like – can,however, make no anthropomorphic claims, ‘as the concept of God must becarefully purified and freed of all such human ideas; from a practical pointof view, though, we may momentarily represent God using such predicateswhenever by this means the thought of God affords more power and strength: : : ’.9 Thus our reasoning about God (and religious matters) is confined to ourreasoning about any other matter: it can only refer to the world of experience.Through the ‘symbolic anthropomorphism’ we indulge in this practical rep-resentation to speak of God as we speak of humans, that God loves humans inthe way that a parent loves her child. But this reasoning is not knowing Godas a thing-in-itself – something we cannot do – it is rather reasoning aboutour world and experience, and when we speak about God we (can only) speakin these terms. The unknowability of things-in-themselves precludes us fromsupposing, or reasoning, that how we speak and think about God is sayingsomething about what God is like.

Religion (as ‘the recognition of all duties as divine commands’10) is still,however, within the limits of reason. Reason’s recourse to the objects of senseestablishes the relation in the analogy as it applies to sensible objects, i.e.parental love for children. But this analogy only serves to make perceptual, inthe interests of practicality, what is ‘invisible’: ‘But we cannot know anythingat all about supernatural aid – whether a certain moral power, perceptible tous, really comes from above or, indeed, on what occasions and under whatconditions it may be expected’.12


Religion must remain within the limits of reason, as applicable to andreferring to, only the objects of experience. We approach the limits of thisreasoning when we refer to God, as a concept lying beyond the boundarybetween phenomena (benevolence, intelligence, etc. as they apply to humans)and noumena (God as thing-in-itself) through the symbolic anthropomorphicanalogy. But reason would be going beyond its limits if it thought it couldapply these phenomena to God to say whatGod is like.God is not directlyknowable, and is not related to the world or its inhabitants in any vital way;the anthropomorphic representation of God and God’s being, is ‘harmlessenough (so long as it does not influence concepts of duty)’.12 But what canbe known, and what is within reason’s limits, is the recognition of our dutiesand the laws. The representation of God through the relational, symbolicallyanthropomorphic analogy, plays a practical role in making ‘visible’ what isinvisible.

In the next part of this paper, I return to Philo’s claims in theDialoguestoshow that he too expresses a non-anthropomorphic belief in a Deity, and thathis role is more than just that of critic.

III

The purpose of theDialogues, as stated by Pamphilus in the Introduction,is not to establish the Deity’s existence, which is self-evident, but only toaddress the issue of the Deity’s nature. Cleanthes claims to ‘know’ the Deityby inference from the data in the world, while Demea (and Philo) maintainthat the Deity is ‘mystedously adorable’.

According to Cleanthes’ arguments, the orderliness and purposiveness ofthe world allow us to infer that the Designer of the world has an intelligencethat is like the intelligence of the designers of orderly and purposive objects(machines or human artifacts) in the world. In Parts 4 to 8, Philo shows that theclaim that the designer of the world is intelligent like humans are intelligentis only one of a number of hypotheses that are possible when inferring fromthe data in the world, including the conjecture that there is more than onedesigner, and that an anthropomorphic Deity is not like a Deity at all.13 InPart 9, Cleanthes shows, in answering Demea’sa priori argument, that thenecessity of the Deity’s existence cannot be established. In Parts 10 and 11,he shows that the data or evidence in the world permit only the inference thatthe Deity is not benevolent and/or malevolent, but is indifferent.

In Part 12, Philo sums up these claims by stating that while there is someanalogy between the effects (human artifacts and the world) and the causes(humans and the Deity) it is very remote one. All that results from an argumentlike Cleanthes’ is the claim that ‘the cause or causes of order in the universe

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probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence’, but alleges thatthe argument is too weak to provide any basis for religious belief. It warrantsonly ‘philosophical assent’ to its ‘legitimate’ conclusion, as the argumentoutweighs the objections. While earlier in Part 12 Philo had stated ‘That theworks of nature bear a great analogy to the productions of art is evident: : : .No man can deny the analogies between the effects: To restrain ourselvesfrom enquiring concerning the causes is scarcely possible: From this enquiry,the legitimate conclusion is, that the causes also have an analogy: : : ’, thisis, I submit, Philo admitting simply that there is some analogy, and that it isreasonable to draw the conclusion. The weakest analogy is still a legitimateinference: if I infer from the fact that one pair of size 81

2 shoes fits that allother size 812 shoes will fit, I am drawing an analogical inference, even thoughit may be a very weak one because I am inferring from one case to manycases. The issue is whether or not this constitutes Philo’s expression of belief,and I would urge that it does not.14 It is merely what Philo refers to in thepenultimate paragraph of Part 12 as the ‘plain philosophical assent’ that theinquisitive person would give to the proposition ‘as often as it occurs’ andthe only belief that arises from this assent is the belief ‘that the arguments, onwhich it is established, exceed the objections, which lie against it: : : ’.

In Part 5, Philo tells Cleanthes that one ‘who follows your hypothesis, isable, perhaps, to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, some time, arosefrom something like design: But beyond that position he cannot ascertain onesingle circumstance: : : ’ (D: 131). Philo claims in Part 2 of theDialoguesthat while we can use words to describe the Deity, such as intelligent, wise,benevolent, we should not think that the words we use actually do refer to oraccurately describe the characteristics or features of the Deity:

: : : we ought never to image that we comprehend the attributes of thisdivine Being, or to suppose that his perfections have any analogy or like-ness to the perfections of a human creature. Wisdom, thought, design,knowledge – these we justly ascribe to him because these words are hon-ourable among men, and we have no other language or other conceptionsby which we can express our adoration of him. But let us beware lestwe think that our ideas anywise correspond to his perfections, or that hisattributes have any resemblance to these qualities among men. (D: 108)

In sum, in spite of arguments to establish the Deity’s nature, reason cannotin the end determine anything about the Deity’s nature. We cannot say that ahuman-like intelligence is the cause of the world, that this cause is benevolent,or that its existence is necessary. It is not possible to establish conclusivelyanything about a God ‘who [does] not discover himself immediately to oursenses’. We may use the words ‘intelligent’, ‘benevolent’, ‘necessary’, but


we cannot claim that they accurately describe the Deity. Hume’s positionis, then, that we cannot ‘know’ the Deity, i.e., grasp the Deity’s nature, byutilizing the experimental method.

This critical stance is not, however, Hume’s final word in theDialogues. Itmay, though, be the final suspense of judgement one faces when one appliesreason to issues of natural theology. It is my position that Philo (and Hume)presents a positive statement of belief, and for this belief the Deity is likewiseunknowable.

Throughout theDialogues, Philo has taken a consistent position: whileCleanthes had maintained that the Design Argument constituted ‘proof’ ofthe Deity’s existence and the Deity’s similarity to humans (thus allowingthe Deity to be comprehensible), Philo shows Cleanthes that in fact the onlyposition tenable in natural theology is a suspense of judgement.15

This is hardly satisfactory to be religious belief, as Philo further notes:the contemplative person feels some contempt of human reason if all it canproduce is such a weak argument, and ‘the most natural sentiment whicha well disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing desire andexpectation’ for some resolution of this position of profound ignorance. Thefailure of the Design Argument to produce any definitive conclusion leads theinquisitive thinker to seek a further revelation in nature. Early in Part 12 Philostates that the ‘striking appearances’ in nature prevent one from doubting asupreme intelligence; that all a divine Being need do is ‘copy the presenteconomy of things; render many of his artifices so plain, that no stupiditycould mistake them’; ‘A purpose, an intention, a design strikes every wherethe most careless, the most stupid thinker; and no man can be so hardened inabsurd systems, as at all times to reject it’ (D:172). That is, Philo would say:‘Look’ round the world, look at the wonderful variety and exact propriety,look at the whole face of nature, how can one be so obstinate as to deny thatthere is a supreme intelligence’.

I would argue that these claims of Philo’s are the result of an irregularargument like the one that Cleanthes utilizes in Part 3: such arguments appealto the sentiments, to the imagination and emotions rather than to reason; theycontravene accepted rules. The model for such arguments in literature is someforms of poetry. Rather than conform to accepted or established patterns ofrhyme and metre, many poems in fact lack both these features. Their con-struction is meant to evoke vivid imagery and incite passions. Likewise, theirregular ‘argument’ in natural theology does not make a reasoned inferencefrom the evidence (the effect) to the Deity (the cause), as does the DesignArgument. (In fact, in Part 2, Philo’s initial criticisms of this argument focuson its lack of adherence to the requirements for analogical arguments, rel-evant similarity and repeated experience, and that it commits the fallacy of

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composition16). Philo’s irregular argument, expressed in the above passagesas well as at the conclusion of the penultimate, and crucial, paragraph of Part12,17 give rise to a belief in an intelligent designer that is not based on anyinference from the evidence or effect to the cause: it is drawn, quite simplyand quite irresistibly, when one is confronted with the very numerous (somany that ‘no human nature can compute their number’) and forcible (so that‘no understanding [can] estimate their cogency’) facts in nature.

The force of this argument is not drawn from the inference from effect tocause by analogy. One is struck or impressed with great force by the facts ofnature, and ‘cannot hesitate a moment’ concerning the cause of it all.18 Whatis important to note for our purposes is that it makes no claim as to thenatureof the Deity, that the Deity has this or that feature that is comprehensible tous because it is similar to us. We are by nature irresistibly and inextricablydrawn towards the belief in a Supreme Being to which we pay “profoundadoration” whenever we contemplate the complexities of nature.

I will now focus the interesting similarity that has emerged from our dis-cussions of Hume and Kant on the Deity.

IV

We saw in a previous section that for Kant we cannot know the Deity, asknowledge requires both a concept and a sensuous intuition, and as the Deityis part of the noumenal world, such intuition is not possible. We may thinkabout the Deity, by drawing analogies to relationships that are knowablein the phenomena world, and represent the invisible through the visible inthe interests of practicality. So when we talk about certain features of theDeity, we are really only talking about what holds in the sensible world ofexperience, and we are not truly describing the Deity. Further, for Hume,the experimental method fails in its attempt to establish that the Deity hasthe features of intelligence, necessary existence, and benevolence. The Deityremains mysteriously adorable, and while we can use words such as wisdomor benevolence when we speak about the Deity, we cannot presume thatthese words actually describe the Deity. We may be irresistibly drawn toacknowledge a designer of the world, but we can say nothing that wouldclaim to describe that Deity.19

Now that we have shown the arguments presented by Hume and Kant thatare concerned with the knowability of the Deity, we can see the similarity intheir positions. And this similarity is that, ultimately, the Deity is unknowableby reason, and that any way we may come to speak about the Deity says muchabout us and nothing about the Deity. For both Hume and Kant, this lack ofknowledge derives from the fact that the Deity is not an object of (possible)


experience, and the only way we have to refer to or speak about the Deity isby our words that are applicable only to the objects of experience. Hume’scriticisms of what Kant calls ‘dogmatic’ anthropomorphism, and its claims asto what the Deity is indeedlike, show the failure of this position. The evidencedoes not allow for the conclusion Cleanthes seeks, given that any number ofclaims as to the nature of the cause are possible, and that an anthropomorphicDeity is like no Deity at all. While the empirical method is applicable tothe objects of sense experience, it is not applicable to objects beyond senseexperience. As a Kantian ‘thing in itself’, a concept beyond the phenomenalworld, the Deity is not knowable for Kant either. Any religious reasoningmust remain within the limits of reason alone, so any religious reasoningmust be confined to the objects of the senses. The religious reasoning thatdirects us to the recognition of our duties must occur absent of knowledge ofGod. We carry out what we know to be our duty independent of our knowingthe influence of God on our morality, or whether God approves. Knowledgerequires both concept and sensible intuition, and the latter is lacking in thiscase.

So for both Kant and Hume, given the means by which knowledge is gainedfor each, we are left eager to seek some other way to approach the Deity. Butthe way that they each relieve this lack of knowledge is quite dissimilar,reflecting their substantially divergent epistemological commitments.

Kant seeks to alleviate the lack of knowledge by use of a symbolic anthro-pomorphic analogy. As an object that lies beyond possible experience, nomethod or faculty or principle that is appropriate for inferring, grasping, orordering sensory experience is useable. We cannot know the Deity as a thingin itself, but we can think the Deity through what we can know in the sensi-ble world, and this is done via symbolic anthropomorphism. (‘I can obtain arelational concept of things which are absolutely known to me: : : ’) Withoutknowledge of the Deity, we cannot say that the Deity is intelligent, benev-olent, loving, but we can think about the Deity as caring for us or as beingintelligent through a relational analogy with what we can know about whatcaring and intelligence mean for us. And through the representation of Godmade visible through this analogy, we picture ‘to ourselves our duty in theservice of God, a means which, although really indispensable, is extremelyliable to the danger of misconstruction; for, through anillusion that stealsover us, it is easily held to be theservice of Goditself : : : ’.20 Any reasoningrefers only to the world of experience, for us and by us, and not to the worldof the Deity.21

Hume alleviates the lack by claiming we have an irresistible urge, or senti-ment, to acknowledge a Deity whenever we contemplate the complexity andorder in nature. It is impossible, in the face of nature, to maintain a position

146 BERYL LOGAN

of skepticism with respect to the Deity. Science regards nature as being pur-posive and intentional; scientists always seek a use or purpose for a newlyidentified organ or canal, and they are faced with the ‘wonderful variety’and ‘exact propriety, suited to the different intentions of nature, in framingeach species’. If even Galen ‘could not withstand such striking appearances;to what pitch of pertinacious obstinacy must a philosopher in this age haveattained, who can now doubt of a supreme intelligence?’ (D: 173). No anthro-pomorphic claims, no analogical arguments, no inferences from experience –we are simply struck with the force of the appearance of nature: a Deity whodoes not present itself to the senses could do no more than ‘render many ofhis artifices so plain, that no stupidity could mistake them’.22

Kant claims that Hume’s criticisms of Cleanthes’ analogical argument pre-sented in Parts 2 and 4–8 in theDialoguesdo not ‘touch us’. Not only do somearguments not affect Kant’s claims, but this relational analogical argumentprovides an answer to one of the requirements for analogical arguments: thatof similarity between items compared. A strong (or indeed any) analogicalargument must compare similar items and any dissimilarity weakens the argu-ment. Philo claims that the world (universe) and machines are too dissimilarto permit an analogical inference of any strength. Kant’s ‘symbolic anthro-pomorphism’ is immune to this criticism, as lack of similarity ofobjectsisirrelevant, only similarity of relationship is relevant.

Conclusion

According to Kant’s understanding of Hume’sDialogues, which regards it tobe a critical work that devastates theism by devastating anthropomorphism,skepticism is the only position possible given Hume’s arguments in theDia-logues. Hume has substituted skepticism for dogmatism. But Kant thinkstheism can be preserved bysymbolicanthropomorphism which does notoblige one to attribute any particular properties to the Deity. He has replacedobjectiveanthropomorphism (which makes claims about the nature of theDeity), with symbolicanthropomorphism (which does not). By focusing onPhilo’s positive expressions of belief in theDialogues, I would urge thata similarity exists between Kant’s symbolic anthropomorphism and Philo’sirresistible belief in that, for both, we do not describe what the Deity is reallylike, we only talk about the Deity in words that are familiar to and meaningfulfor us, that serve a practical purpose, and talk about whatour world is like. Itis about our language and our world, not about the object.


Notes

1. Kant,Critique of Pure Reason,trans. N.K. Smith (Macmillan, 1929), B xxx.2. Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics in Focus,ed. Beryl Logan

(Routledge, 1996), p.109. Further references to theProlegomenawill be given in the textby ‘P’ followed by section and/or page number.

3. SeeLectures on Philosophical Theology,trans. Allen W. Wood and Gertrude M. Clark(Cornell University Press, 1978). Kant also refers, approvingly, to Hume’sNatural Historyof Religionin these lectures.

4. Ibid., pp. 31–32.5. ‘For in order to arrive at [transcendent] insight [reason] must make use of principles which,

in fact, extend only to objects of possible experience, and which, if also applied to whatcannot be an object of experience, always really change this into an appearance, thusrendering allpractical extensionof pure reason impossible’ (Critique of Pure Reason,Preface to Second Edition, B xxx).

6. ‘Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits ofhuman reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even insubjects of common life and practice: : : ’, David Hume,Dialogues Concerning NaturalReligion, ed. Tweyman (Routledge, 1991), p. 98. Further references to this text will begiven in the body, by ‘D’, followed by page number.

7. See also the following references in the CPR: ‘Tothink an object and toknowan objectare thus by no means the same thing. Knowledge involves two factors: first, the concept,through which an object in general is thought (the category); and secondly, the intuition,through which it is given’ (B 146); ‘If I remove from empirical knowledge all thought(through categories), no knowledge of any object remains’ (A254/B310).

8. While elaboration on this point is beyond the scope of this paper, some Hume commentatorsargue that the belief in an intelligent designer is a ‘natural belief’, like the beliefs incausality, the external world, and the self. In all four cases, there is no sense perception ofthe objects of any of these beliefs, and so they are regarded as ‘fictions’, although we aredetermined by nature to hold these beliefs. So, we are not ‘merely inventing’ the objects ofthese beliefs, as we do with some truly fictitious ideas (like civilizations on other planetsor my dream house), but they are necessary to make our perceptual experiences connectedand coherent. In myA Religion Without Talking: Religious Belief and Natural Beliefin Hume’s Philosophy of Religion(Lang, 1993), I argue that the belief in an intelligentdesigner is indeed a natural belief.

9. Kant,Lectures on Philosophical Theology,p. 128–129.10. Kant,Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone,Greene & Hudson edition (trans and

intro. T.M. Greene and H.H. Hudson, Harper Torchbooks, 1960).11. Ibid., p. 179.12. Ibid., p. 156.13. See Philo’s arguments in Parts 4 and 5 of theDialogueson the ‘inconveniences of anthro-

pomorphism’. An anthropomorphic Deity, and a Deity with human-like qualities, wouldbe finite, faulty, multiple, etc.

14. In general, commentators regard this paragraph to constitute Philo’s confession of belief,that it constitutes an ‘about face’ for Philo, that in spite of his criticisms the Argument fromDesign is all we have to ground religious belief and/or that the weakness of the analogyis an expression of Hume’s atheism. See for example, T. Penelhum, ‘Natural belief andreligious belief in Hume’s philosophy’,Philosophical Quarterly33 (1983): 166–181;Nelson Pike’s edition of theDialogues;G. Priest, ‘Hume’s final argument’,History ofPhilosophy Quarterly2 (l985): 349–351; W. Austin, ‘Philo’s reversal’,PhilosophicalTopics13 (1985): 103–112.

148 BERYL LOGAN

15. With respect to the Deity’s intelligence, this position is achieved at the end of Part 8; withrespect to the modality of the Deity’s existence, in Part 9; and with respect to the Deity’sbenevolence in Part 11. The final statement of this position is found in the ambiguous,undefined proposition, ‘that the cause or causes of the universe may bear some remoteanalogy to human intelligence’.

16. ‘Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no morethan one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction orrepulsion, and a hundred others, which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause,by which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts.Butcan a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole’ (Dialogues,p. 113, italics added).

17. ‘But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment, which a well disposed mind willfeel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation, that heaven would be pleasedto dissipate, at least alleviate this profound ignorance [the final suspense of judgement],by affording some more particular revelation to mankind: : : person, seasoned with a justsense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatestavidity : : : ’ That is, a suspense of judgement is not a possible position to maintain innatural theology, as Cleanthes and Philo agree early in Part 12; the ‘well-disposed mind’(one that recognizes the order and design in nature and seeks original rather than immediatecauses) seeks to alleviate this ignorance that results from the failure of reason to provideclear arguments and looks to nature (heaven) for guidance. This ‘well-disposed mind’will be drawn irresistibly to acknowledge an intelligent designer in the same way that onecannot hesitate to ascribe an intelligent cause to the Articulate voice or to the living books(Part 3).

18. See Hume’sDialogues, Part 3.19. For the full arguments on which these points rely, see my ‘The irregular argument in

Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion’, Hume Studies, November 1992, pp.483–500; and myA Religion Without Talking.

20. Kant,Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, p. 180.21. In the Introduction toReligion Within the Limits, Greene writes as follows regarding

Kant’s ‘sense of cosmic mystery’. “The starry heavens in their incalculable immensity, theinescapable finitude of all human cognition, the paradox of artistic genius, the sublimity ofthe moral law, the baffling complexity of life and human consciousness – all this awakensin Kant a spirit of reference: : : It is perhaps significant that his friend and biographer,Jachmann, was able to testify that, during all Kant’s destruction and construction of proofsof God’s existence, and in the presence of every intellectual doubt, he was ever ‘convincedin his heart that the world is in the hands of a wise Providence’; that, in private conversationwith his friends, ‘the philosopher and the man spoke out in undeniable testimony to aninner feeling and genuine conviction [of God’s existence]’: : : ”, pp. xxvii–viii.

22. This is, I argue in myA Religion Without Talking, the belief in an intelligent designerexpressed as a natural belief. See note 8, this paper.

Address for correspondence:Professor Beryl Logan, Department of Philosophy, Universityof Toronto at Scarborough, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1C 1A4Phone: (416) 287-7167; Fax: (416) 512-9426; E-mail: [email protected]

hume and kant on knowing the deity

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