Demea is a fictional interlocutor in David Hume's posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), representing orthodox theological rationalism. He defends a priori arguments for God's existence—particularly a version of the cosmological argument—while insisting on the absolute incomprehensibility of the divine nature. As a dramatic character, he serves as a foil to the empirical theist Cleanthes and the skeptic Philo, articulating a position close to Calvinist or Cartesian rationalist theology.
Defends a priori cosmological argument for a necessarily existing first cause
Argues that God's nature is wholly incomprehensible and beyond human rational inquiry
Represents orthodox theistic rationalism as a dialectical position within Hume's critique of natural religion
Advances the claim that demonstrative reasoning is insufficient to ground empirical and causal conclusions