The Lisbon Earthquake - Essay Example

The appalling disaster brought by Lisbon Earthquake, however, further trembled intellectual notions of men, challenging the philosophical content of the prevailing science and religion to be taken into a much higher level of consciousness. In a quest for a resolution that would identify grounds and satisfy curiosity regarding this dramatic 18th-century catastrophic incident, the intellectuals were confronted with the ordeal to explore on abysmal depths of knowledge and wisdom to figure whether reason and faith could be made to settle disputing theories on the real cause of Lisbon’s tragedy.

         Through his empirical assumptions, David Hume argues that: “A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence … and regards his experience as a full proof of the future existence of that event” (71). Though Hume makes no direct reference to any possibility that could draw a link between God and philosophy in his statement, he claims that man’s discovery of evidence to affirm something with causality is guided by ‘experience’ or the training of the senses to become accustomed to what transpires regularly or occasionally to be able to conclude, by such frequency, what an event is, out of its traditionally observed nature. To Hume, human senses are not ‘infallible’ yet conscientious observations are indispensable for proving or nullifying one’s hypothesis as the empiricist states “because it [experience] commonly informs us beforehand of the uncertainty, by that contrariety of events which we may learn from a diligent observation” (71). Since his use of sense perception may extend to sensibility toward the Unseen, thereby encouraging belief in divine intervention, Hume’s argument would not go futile for bearing consideration for faith in that manner as well as reason via empirical means of obtaining proof.

         On the other hand, a proponent of religion John Wesley expresses his sharp distaste on account of the indifference with which science appears to treat God, owing to the absence of concrete support behind God’s involvement in the Lisbon Earthquake.