Dialogues Conceringing Natural Religion

Philo first begins his argument by stating that if God is truly dominant than he can control everything. Afterwards he continues on to state that if God was willing to avert evil but not able to than he was inept. If he is able to avert it but not willing to, he is malicious. With that being said, Philo concluded that if God truly believed in the well being of man-kind, than there would be no evil in this world.

Demea responds by stating that we are only a speck in the whole universe limited to only what we can see. What seems evil to us now may not be evil for we cannot see how everything will end. Once we look at everything as a whole, we must make the connections and understand that with God in charge, everything will work out for the best. We cannot say that God is evil when we are only looking at the world from our point of view for we cannot see the ultimate goal which God seems to have in mind. After analyzing what Demea states, one finds that he is unknowingly on the same page as Philo.

Cleanthes retorts by saying that his suppositions should never be acknowledged. He questions how any hypothesis can be proven if there is no way to tell if it is true. If one considers the likelihood of what Demea stated to be true, then we must be able to prove that it can be reality. He explains that the only way to defend divine benevolence is to oppose the evils that are sent upon us humans. Demea attempts to prove that good occurs more than the bad but we tend to focus and put emphasis on the evil more.

Philo comes back saying if he allows what Cleanthes said to be true with their being less bad than good than Cleanthes must also admit that the evils that humans suffer through is still forevermore worse than the good. It is much...

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...no cause to believe that one could. If the character chooses to believe that a God exists than they are only creating an irrational and inconsistent argument. He goes on to continue another argument about a disfigured building. In any normal situation, the architect would be blamed for any complications in the engineering of the building. If God created the universe, than he should blamed for any flaws that are existing in it along with the fact the fact that God was not adequate enough to create a perfect universe. In the end, Philo makes his final point by stating that the world does not exist in a way which would give one reason to believe that there is a God. He believes that no matter how many arguments Cleanthes comes up with, there will still be no proof that a God exists in which he believes to be true based on the fact that there is no observable evidence.