Hume on the Problem of Evil Madeline Burleson College

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume successfully proposes three plausible responses any human may generate when considering the nature and existence of God, and personifies these responses through three characters. Subsequently, each character provides a response to the problem of evil presented in the universe respective to his argument for the nature of God. These three characters, Philo, Cleanthes, and Demea, are all unique and maintain different motivations for their reasoning. Hume’s intention is to present three arguments concerning God, allow these arguments to respond to the problem of evil, and ultimately discern which argument is most rational. The problem of evil is one of the most important problems faced by theologians and philosophers alike. Generally, the problem of evil arises when one tries to reconcile God’s existence with the presence of evil on earth. In Hume’s Dialoguesspecifically the problem of evil is presented as a clash between God and the suffering humans endure.

It is important to first present Cleanthes for he represents the empirical theist. Cleanthes has a unique response to the problem of evil in the world. He argues the problem of evil, specifically concerning human suffering,...