Philosophy

Today, belief in God does not depend on rationality. Indeed, the efficacy of God is assumed to be given  a fact of nature. A distinction is made between the rational and the necessary. God is necessary, as some astute minds argue. No explication is given. The rationality of Gods existence is assumed to be beyond the grasp of human faculty. Examining these arguments, one can imagine a world without a form, an idea without a manifestation. Necessity does not precede rationality. In the case of God, His existence is both rational and necessary. Therefore, Gods existence must be conveyed in the most rational manner  far removed from the vagrancies of human ignorance. To this, Hume argued

Look round the world contemplate the whole and every part of it You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines  Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence. (Hume, 17791998 15)

The rationality of Gods being can only be inferred on the efficacy of creation. The creation provides the logical background to which nature and necessity can be determined. As such, by syllogistic analogy, the efficacy of creation is a direct manifestation of a higher being.

    Rationality is not a sickness of disillusion. It is merely a tool of logic a constructive means of proving that which is beyond empiricism. Belief without rationality is the symptom of malevolent human conduct, of reification  assuming that great ideas necessitates form and function.

According to Locke, information which individuals receive through the senses is subjective and cannot be trusted (secondary qualities), while objective information constitutes reliable knowledge (primary qualities). Substance  the essence of being  cannot be known because experience falls from one of these categories.
Berkeley attacked this theory because of its inability to prove rationality for the necessity of being. According to Berkeley, perception and sensation are part of human experience. Individuals determine the essence of experience, whether the experience is illusory or objective. As such, the essence of the object magnified is separate from the perception of the sense-holder. Hume nominally agrees with Berkeley. He argued
All reasoning concerning matter of fact i.e. contingent propositions seem to be founded on the relation of cause and effect... Knowledge of this relation... arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other... Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the effect which will result from it without consulting past observations, after what manner... must the mind proceed... (Hume, 17791998 16).

To Hume, sensation and experience is separate or distinct from the essence or substance of an object. Cause and effect is a matter of relation, manifested in perceptual knowledge.

    However, Hume argued that knowledge of the material world cannot be established deductively or inductively. Induction rests on the assumption that nature is uniform, following a regular pattern, that the future is identical to the past. Knowledge of the external world gained through either deduction or induction is not absolute, for information about material objects goes beyond what can perceived. Objective knowledge cannot be trusted, as it only pertains to immediate perception.

Kantian criticism rests on the idea of material and ideal constructivism. Man creates his own world. The human essence, through certain a priori forms, organizes the blind information of experience (tabula rasa) and constructs the queen sciences. Man therefore constructs the world of morality  the basis of the material world. All things have the inherent tendency to unite.  Life therefore is an enmeshed deduction of totality  the value of both rationality and necessity. The meaning of life itself is either the world, God, or both, depending on the experience of the individual, depending on his nature.