Friday, October 18, 2019

Are human conceptions of God overly anthropomorphic (in the same way Essay

Are human conceptions of God overly anthropomorphic (in the same way that those of the spiders are overly arachnimorphic) - Essay Example This therefore confirms the truth that human conceptions or the true idea of God must be anthropomorphic in nature meaning that the Deity possesses man-like character and norm. Even though it is difficult to prove that man was made in the image of God, it is not in doubt that all men are made in the image of God. All experiences therefore come from God including the human experience, and in that sense anthropomorphic. The substance of the philosophical and theological theories is that man has the conception of God as anthropomorphic as it is embedded in almost all the scriptures of the different religions like Christianity and Judaism amongst others. Hume’ Dialogues brings about different conceptions of God as anthropomorphic through the ranking of four causal principles namely reason, instinct, generation, and vegetation (O’Connor 127; Hume and Richard 46). For instance, Philo argues that the universe resembles an organism and is likely to have originated by generation from matter by stating, â€Å"The universe bears a greater likeness to an animal or vegetable than human works. The cause must therefore be similar. The cause of order in animals and vegetables is reproduction. The universe therefore originated by reproduction rather than design.† (Hume 131). Cleanthes supports the anthropomorphic conception of God along the lines of the Design Argument as he feels it is the only philosophical argument that gives an insight about the true nature and existence of God (Hume and Dorothy 22). Both Demea and Philo feel that it is difficult to understand the real God but Cleanthes uses the Argument Design to describe how humans view God as anthropomorphic. Cleanthes states, â€Å"The existence and nature of God is known by the Argument from design: 1. Premise: The world is adjusted and fine-tuned, 2. Premise: The adjustment of the world resembles exactly, though it

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