Answer to Question #83363 in Philosophy for Caitlyn Marsh

Question

Herbert argued that five common notions of morality and religion are instinctively known to everyone. Examine those five principles and discuss whether any of them are as instinctive as he believes.

Answer 1

The five common notions of religion and morality are the following:

1) there is a supreme Deity (not as instinctive as he believes);

2) the Deity ought to be worshipped (not as instinctive as he believes);

3) virtue combined with piety is the chief part of divine worship (not as instinctive as he believes);

4) men should repent of their sins and turn from them (not as instinctive as he believes);

5) reward and punishment follow from the goodness and justice of God, both in this life and after it (not as instinctive as he believes).

However, Herbert notions are not as instinctive as he believes, because, these are not separate powers. Although Herbert has sometimes declaimed of them as such, he also stated that all mental faculty is regarded as informed in less or greater measure by the intellect. As a result, our mind is the highest image and type of the divinity. As for me, he really had no idea of the historical development of the belief, therefore, he looked upon all actual religions in the way they went beyond his five common notions of religion as simply corruptions of the pure and primitive rational worship.