Principal writings on religion Book

These two works by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume deal with religion. Hume is known for his radical empiricism, i.e. his rejection of anything but experience as the source of our ideas. This view of knowledge, paired with the observation that all our experience is ultimately finite, leads to the conclusion that all our knowledge is inductive: universal claims based on particular experiences. This cannot lead to absolutely certain knowledge, so scepticism is the logical outcome of such an analysis, which is exactly what Hume is famous for. But his scepticism isn’t as radical as his empiricism, since he does acknowledge human necessities – to function properly in everyday life we need to take things for granted and not reflect too much on the epistemological status of our thoughts. In short, base our decisions and actions on probabilities derived from past experience.

In both the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) and The Natural History of Religion (1757), Hume applies his empirical scepticism to the phenomenon of religion.

In the Dialogues, which he started writing around 1750 and only finished shortly before his death in 1776 – and which had to be published posthumously considering the current political climate at the time – Hume scrutinizes the philosophical arguments for the existence of a God and His nature.
The three people in the dialogue are the sceptic Philo, the empiricist Cleanthes and the theologian and mystic Demea.

1. Demea argues on a priori grounds for the existence of a Deity – the cosmological argument – and claims we cannot know anything about the nature of this God. From the existence of the universe, and our own notion of causality, we can infer that the universe has to have a cause. This cause has to be uncaused itself (or self-causing), else we end up with an infinite regress of causes. And even if this is not a problem, the entire infinite sequence of causes has to have a cause. Anyway, reason tells us the universe is caused, hence there is an uncaused cause, hence God exists. Further, we don’t have any experience of Him and our reason is only able to project our own experiences and characteristics on the Deity, anthropomorphising the infinite Being – at best a sign of devotion, but often a sign of ignorance or worse, blasphemy. All we can know about God is given by Him through revelation, further we don’t know anything (i.e. mysticism).

The main objection to the cosmological argument is the selectivity of the religious believer. The universe wants a cause, yet God does not want a cause. As Richard Dawkins once quipped: “Who designed the Designer?” Another objection is the rejection of the believer of the infinite regress of causes. He claims all causes are caused themselves, leading to an infinite regress of causes. After which he claims, even if the infinite regress is granted, the whole sequence of infinite causes needs a cause. But Hume remarks the anthropomorphism in such reasoning: the whole chain of infinite causes is only a whole in our mind, this has no relation whatsoever to the world itself. Lastly, why should there be a first cause? I can always simply claim the opposite without contradicting myself, and hence not violate the principle of non-contradiction. In short: the cosmological argument does not work.

2. Cleanthes, the empiricist, rejects this rational theology and is himself a proponent of natural theology, the stance that Nature is itself an argument for the existence of God and hence should be an object of study for the theologian. Within the universe we see all kinds of things that are characterized by a specific form and function. If we look at plants or animals, we see all kinds of parts that are perfectly fitted together to make the plant or animal perform its functions. Also, the universe itself, with all its heavenly bodies and motions, seems to be perfectly pieced together – almost like a machine, or a clockwork. In our everyday lives, when we see houses, clocks or roads, we infer the intentions and actions of makers. Some people made plans and created those things – bare matter is not able to organize itself into functioning wholes. When we see such objects, we infer minds. By analogy, when we observe all the functionality and purpose in the universe, we infer a mind. Hence there is a mind, outside our universe, which created this machine-like world.

Such claims, called the teleological argument, are ultimately based on arguments from similarity. We observe similar effects and hence infer equal causes. Also, in some things we observe similar known properties and hence infer the similarity of their unknown parts. This, of course, is human projection of custom (two instances regularly occurring the one after the other) onto the universe as a whole. Either we view the universe as machine, and hence infer a reason or mind as maker, or we view the universe as an organism, and hence infer reproduction as causal mechanism. Why we should prefer one over the other is a problem the religious believer is unable to answer. Lastly, if we suppose a mind as the cause of our universe, how is this mind generated? Experience teaches us that all reason or mind is secondary to organic generation, never the reverse. In short: the teleological argument doesn’t work either.

(3) Philo is the sceptic and represents Hume’s philosophical stance. Philo claims we cannot prove the existence of God, and even if we could, we could never say anything about his nature, since He is – by definition – not experienceable. All our knowledge ultimately derives from experience, even things like causality are nothing but custom, which severely limits what we can know and the status of this knowledge. What we can know has to come through experience; and all of this knowledge is uncertain. Since God is not perceivable through sense experience, we cannot say anything about Him – both his existence and his nature. Philo also is the one who came up with all the counter-arguments against Demea and Cleanthes mentioned above.

One of the more interesting parts of the Dialogue is the chapters on the problem of evil. This is the strongest argument against the existence of God, especially against the teleological argument. If this perfect God designed the universe, how come there’s all these kinds of natural and moral evil? The moral evils can be attributed to free will. Although to be honest, I don’t see how ‘God gave us the ability to do wrong’ settles the debate: why do innocent people have to suffer because of my free will? Anyway, the believer is stuck with the natural evils. Famine, disease, disasters, monstrous births, etc.

There are three answers to this problem. (1) This is the best possible world that God could have created, given the restraints of matter and natural laws. This is a view developed by Gottfried Leibniz in his Theodicy (1719) and ridiculed by Voltaire in his Candide, ou l’optimisme (1759). This view was already made problematic in Ancient Greece, where sceptics argued (rightly) that imperfection of the world would belittle the goodness of a perfect Being (since He could have created a better world, if he wanted). But this would mean that this Being isn’t perfect after all. The other way around isn’t an option either: if he’s good, he obviously isn’t all powerful, since there are many improvements even we mortals can think of.

(2) Another answer is the reward theory. We suffer on purpose so we can find salvation in our future life. This would make God some kind of sadistic Being who makes us suffer in order to reward us. Also, it is predicated on a future life of which there is absolutely no evidence – at all.
(3) The final argument, the one which Demea finally adopts after Philo’s sceptic attacks, is the mystical retreat. God is an unknowable, infinite Being, this was proven a priori, and besides this we can’t know anything else about him. This is the most consistent stance for the believer, since all teleological arguments ultimately hinge on the fact that the believer claims he has access to God’s intentions when he created this universe. And how he or she does this cannot be explained. But the mystical retreat is also the end of conversation, since it’s a blatant admission of ignorance – yes there’s evil, and yes I don’t know how to square this with the perfect God, let’s leave it at that.

Suffice it to say that after being backed into a corner about the problem of evil, Demea walks out and the final chapter sees Philo retreat a little on his earlier scepticism and claim that it is most useful and beneficiary for mankind to believe in God, even though we don’t know much about him. Few people are capable of cultivating their reason to behave morally, so the masses need a God as a foundation of morality. Again we see a parallel between Hume and Voltaire. When discussing with a friend, the latter claimed not to believe in a God, but asked his friend not to speak to loudly, else his servants would hear. So it seems both Voltaire and Hume personally rejected Christian theology, yet deemed it best for the vulgar masses to believe in order to behave morally. (Although elitist, one wonders if there’s a kernel of truth in it?)

It is hard to weigh Hume’s intention with these claims - I personally find it difficult to view Hume as an atheist, since scepticism does not sit well with atheism, and fits rather better with agnosticism. But then again, in those times any rejection or doubt about current dogma would be labelled ‘atheism’, so whether Hume was an atheist or agnostic, I think he wanted to show the public he did believe it best for God to exist, without himself taking any stance in the debate. The whole form of dialogue is a perfect way to cover up your own motives.

In The Natural History of Religion (1757), the second work, Hume sets out to explain the origin and development of religion, in particular the rise of polytheism and its transformation to theism.
He begins the essay with the remark that religion never arose as an explanation of the universe, as a creation myth. Most people are simply accustomed to the world and are only busy with daily business (especially in the past). Basically, in the past, people were surviving and living, not asking questions about who designed this universe. For Hume, the cause of religion, especially since it’s so widespread across cultures, has to be a human desire, and he finds it in human fears and expectations.

People are anxious about the future, afraid of many things, and expecting pleasures and pains. To acquire peace of mind, they start to project their own thoughts onto nature. They suppose the existence of beings which are causing all of the events in human life, especially the ones where we have no control. Also, when elders die, later generations will project onto these ancestors the same traits as they already to their spirits. So we see hero worship and animalistic gods go hand in hand – both of them acquiring traits through allegorical reasoning.
So, now we have gods, and through fear and anxiety, people start to flatter them by praising them and increasing their powers. Also, they start to honour these gods in order to make their own tribal gods mightier than the gods of other tribes. According to Hume, this process of flattery and sacrifice has a logical endpoint: an infinite Being. And here we have the transition from polytheism to monotheism – from believing in many imperfect, sometimes humanoid gods to believing in a unified, endless, all powerful Being.

According to Hume, there is a constant flux between polytheism and monotheism. This is, because people sometimes invent demi-gods and honour them – sometimes as hero worship, sometimes as contingency – and this reduces their monotheism to a polytheism, which then gradually builds up again to monotheism.

A huge chunk of the Natural History deals with a comparison between polytheism and monotheism, on a wide scale of variables. Hume claims monotheism is pious, intolerant and prone to persecution, while polytheism is idolatrous, tolerant and prone to sacrifice. Also, monotheism is submissive (cultivating “monkish virtues”), prone to censure and dogmatic, while polytheism is courageous, prone to philosophy and sceptical. As example of the dogmatism as opposed to the scepticism he mentions the historical example of the Jews starting a war with the Romans for not being allowed to mutilate the genitals of their offspring. He also mentions that the dogmatism of monotheists is fake – these people act as if there is no doubt in their own hearts and to reinforce this scheme turn bigot towards their fellow human beings.

Another major difference between monotheism and polytheism is that monotheism starts out reasonable but turns out – on closer inspection – to be quite absurd; polytheism is characterized by the reverse – we laugh at Egyptians worshipping cats, yet it is interesting to observe there is never an overpopulation of cats in Egypt. But Catholics, during their Mass, eat their own Deity, which is “the most absurd and nonsensical”. Also, where monotheism is based on scripture and hence is strict, polytheism is based on tradition (mostly oral) is much more flexible. A final difference between both theisms is the melancholic nature of monotheism as opposed to the easy-going nature of polytheism, as witnessed by the (respective) emphasis on duties and responsibilities, and festivals.

After this diagnosis, Hume concludes that monotheism leads inherently to internal conflict. It emphasizes the fundamental sinful nature of mankind, while the overarching theme is repentance, charity and love. Power and knowledge are seen as sinful (witness Adam and Eve), leading to increasing fear and anxiety (especially when contrasted with the demands of being good), ending in internal conflict.

Although religion clearly isn’t recommended to persons valuing a healthy mind, Hume sees a more potent evil of religion: corruption of morality. Monotheism, with its sickly submission and melancholy mood, turns human beings into solipsists, only occupied with themselves and their own salvation. In this sense, religion can be seen as a social dissolvent. It incentivizes prudential behaviour and destroys the foundation of social life (i.e. emotion and sympathy). Also, the fear of punishment and the afterlife leads to unhealthy amounts of devotion, which is fertile ground for all kinds of crimes. People do things to their fellow beings under the guise of religion, which they wouldn’t do otherwise (e.g. burning women on a stake). Finally, religion serves as an excuse to not cultivate your reason and lead a moderate life – religion serves as easy replacement for virtuous living.

(Final passages in comments)