Abstract

Newton and his contemporaries reinterpreted the traditional "design" argument for God's existence to argue from a universe, conceived along mechanistic lines, to the "Supreme Geometrician" who planned the design, started the machine, and continually compensates for its mechanical inadequacies. This position, Hurlbutt contends, was Hume's primary target in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a target which Hume effectively demolished. Hurlbutt attempts to amplify the significance of this thesis by summarizing various classical and medieval arguments for God's existence. Hume, he feels, effectively refuted all of them by undercutting the rational arguments and showing that the mystical arguments rested on subjective needs and cultural conditioning. The present result of Hume's labors is that: "No modern theology is pursuing the path of natural theology or its prized argument—the design argument," a conclusion that Hurlbutt reaches by ignoring those theologians, e.g., many Thomists, who are pursuing the path of natural theology as well as the arguments that they actually employ.—E. M. M.