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have similar effects." [[CiteRef:: Hume (1748) |p. 16]]
Newton supposed that the use of such inductive arguments could be justified by supposing an appeal to the uniformity of nature. [[CiteRef::De Pierris (2006)]] Hume however, found a fundamental problem in rationally justifying inductive arguments. Consider the following argument, which might seem to justify our reliance on induction:
• In the past, the future has been like the past.
==== Hume's skepticism about theological knowledge ====
In the early modern period, theology and natural philosophy were not deemed foreign to one another, but coexisted rather seen as part compatible parts of an integrated [[Scientific Mosaic|mosaic]] of knowledge. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 65]] Isaac Newton, for example, authored a volume on Biblical prophesies. [[CiteRef::Mandelbrote (2004)]] By the eighteenth century ''a priori'' rational arguments for the existence of God,that sought to demonstrate God's existence with mathematical certainty and without appeal to experience, were widely recognized as problematic. Descartes argument, for example, had been exposed as circular. [[CiteRef::Cottingham (1992)]] A dominant progressive strain of theological thought, largely associated with the British Royal Society, instead sought to demonstrate God's existence with probability by showing that the universe possesses the order and purposefulness of a designed artifact of an all-powerful Intelligence. In his ''Dialogues concerning Natural Religion'', published posthumously because of its inflammatory nature, Hume raised devastating objections to this design argument.
The ''Dialogues'' is written as a conversation between three characters; ''Cleanthes'', a proponent of the design argument, ''Demea'', a mystic, and ''Philo'' a religious skeptic generally supposed to be Hume's spokesperson. Philo argues that the analogy between the universe and a designed artifact is weak. For example, we experience only one universe and have nothing to compare it to. We recognize human artifacts by contrast with non-artifacts such as rocks. He also notes that we have no experience of the origin of the universe, and that causal inference requires a basis in experienced constant conjunction between two things. For the origin of the universe we have nothing of the sort. ''Demea'' deems ''Cleanthes'' concept of God as cosmic designer to be anthropomorphic and limiting. In a discussion of the human condition, ''Philo'' asks why an infinitely wise, powerful, and good God would permit human suffering. By the end, Hume's characters arguments lead the reader to the conclude, with ''Philo'', that God's nature seems inconceivable, incomprehensible, and indefinable and therefore the question of God's existence is rendered meaningless. [[CiteRef::Hume (2015)]][[CiteRef::Oppy (1996)]][[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]]
