Abstract
David Hume is usually understood as an early modern champion of atheism, having exposed the absence of rational arguments for the existence of God and the presence of irrational factors in the formation of all religious belief. In this essay I intend to develop a more complex picture of Hume. At the beginning of the Natural History of Religion, Hume makes a distinction between genuine theism and vulgar religion. I will argue that Hume rejects the latter, but endorsees the former. To each of these two forms of religion Hume associates a certain model of the deity: one ascertained by the faculty of empirical reason, the other generated by passions deeply rooted in the anxieties of finitude. The model to which one is inclined will depend largely upon one’s ethical profile.
“How is the deity disfigured in our representation of him!”
David Hume, The Natural History of Religion
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In some of the Hume quotes I have slightly, and silently, modernized the spelling and orthography.
- 2.
At the time, the General Assembly of the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk considered deism to be a form of atheism, as evidenced by its 1696 statement against Thomas Aikenhead in an “Act against the Atheistical Opinions of the Deists” (Stewart 2003, 34).
References
Epictetus. 1983. Encheiridion. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Hume, David. 1993a. An enquiry concerning human understanding. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Hume, David. 1993b. In Principle writings on religion including dialogues concerning natural religion and the natural history of religion, ed. J.C.A. Gaskin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Seneca. 2007. Dialogues and essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stewart, M.A. 2003. Religion and rational theology. In The Cambridge companion to the Scottish enlightenment, ed. Alexander Broadie, 31–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hardy, L. (2013). The Deity, Figured and Disfigured: Hume on Philosophical Theism and Vulgar Religion. In: Diller, J., Kasher, A. (eds) Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5219-1_57
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5219-1_57
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5218-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5219-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)