Essay Berkeley's and Hume's Philosophy About God

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Berkeley's and Hume's Philosophy about God

When people think about empiricists, they usually discuss views of great philosophers such as George Berkeley and David Hume. Empiricists believe that all knowledge comes from the senses. Rationalists, on the other hand, believe that we can gain knowledge through the inspection of innate ideas. Although Berkeley and Hume are both empiricists, they still have different opinions about the existence of God. Berkeley's philosophy uses God as the central figure in his metaphysical system. However, Hume uses scientific observation to postulate his theories and he does not rely on God to support his arguments. I will argue that Hume's Philosophy is stronger then Berkeley's
George Berkeley was an
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He thought that by using a scientific method approach, he could discover principles that construct our reasoning, with the purpose of steering us away from flawed logic and lead us towards a more accurate path of reasoning. Hume feels that scientific observation should be used in empirical philosophy because he thinks that we can discover a system that will be able to test a theory and determine whether it is correct or incorrect. Hume begins his enquiry by distinguishing the differences between impressions and ideas. Impressions are clear and vivid, and ideas are created from our memory or imagination. Ideas are not lively or vivid and they derive from our impressions. Our imagination is constructed from complex ideas that break down into simple ideas and Hume gives a great example by using our idea of God. When we think of God, we usually give him the following qualities: all knowing, all powerful, almighty, etc, however, these qualities do not come innately. Hume states that we have created this idea of God by using simple ideas which have derived from simple impressions. "Our idea of God as supremely good and intelligent comes from taking our simple ideas of human goodness and intelligence and augmenting them without limit" (Egan). Later in the text, Hume faces two objections about the view that God is the lone creator of the universe.
The first objection is that there