Introduction

Hume writes that the question of religion’s “origin in human nature” is exposed to some difficulty. For Hume scholars today, the interpretation of this question is also exposed to some difficultly. While it’s clear that the first question — concerning religion’s “foundation in reason” — is an epistemological one, it’s less clear to what extent the second question is either historical or psychological. Commentators have also differed on whether Hume’s answer to this second question, though not overtly epistemological, has any epistemological implications; and if so, just what those implications are.

1. History

When... we compare our intellectual acquirements, our opinions, manners, and institutions, with those which prevail among rude tribes, it cannot fail to occur to us an interesting question, by what gradual steps the transition has been made from the first simple efforts of uncultivated nature, to a state of things so wonderfully artificial and complicated… On most of these subjects very little information is to be expected from history... In this want of direct evidence, we are under a necessity of supplying the place of fact by conjecture… In examining the history of mankind, when we cannot trace the process by which an event has been produced, it is often of importance to be able to show how it may have been produced by natural causes... To this species of philosophical investigation, which has no appropriated name in our language, I shall take the liberty of giving the title of Theoretical or Conjectural History; an expression which coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History, as employed by Mr Hume [note: See his Natural History of Religion.]

Dugald Stewart 1793, pp. 292-3

1. History

Although religion features very prominently in Hume’s historial narrative, he appears on inspection to be surprisingly uninterested in anything that could reasonably called the history of religion. Religion is a motivational force (invariably for bad), but it is never itself the subject of historical investigation. Why did particular religious practices and controversies arise when and where they did? What were the motivations of the key figures in any disputes? Hume has nothing to say about questions like these. His interest in religion itself appears to have remained purely philosophical (i.e. abstract and general), even in his historical work.

1. History

It ought to be no matter of Offence, that in this Volume, as well as in the foregoing, the Mischiefs which arise from the Abuses of Religion, are so often mentioned, while so little in comparison is said of the salutary Consequences which result from true & genuine Piety. The proper Office of Religion is to reform Men’s Lives, to purify their Hearts, to inforce all moral Duties, & to secure Obedience to the Laws & civil Magistrate. While it pursues these useful Purposes, its Operations, tho’ infinitely valuable, are secret & silent; and seldom come under the Cognizance of History.

2. Natural History

The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History. Whereof there be two sorts: one called Natural History; which is the History of such Facts, or Effects of Nature, as have no Dependance on Mans Will; Such as are the Histories of Metalls, Plants, Animals, Regions, and the like. The other, is Civill History; which is the History of the Voluntary Actions of men in Common-wealths.

Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651, p. 60

If any person can in earnest doubt, whether there be such a thing as good-will in one man towards another, (for the question is not concerning either the degree or extensiveness of it, but concerning the affection itself,) let it be observed, that whether man be thus or otherwise constituted, what is the inward frame in this particular, is a mere question of fact or natural history, not proveable immediately by reason.

Butler, Sermons, 1726, p. 53

You ask, why he chuses to give it this title. Would not the Moral history of Meteors be full as sensible as the Natural history of Religion? Without doubt... But this great Philosopher is never without his Reasons. It is to insinuate, that what the world calls Religion, of which he undertakes to give the history, is not founded in the Judgment, but in the Passions only.

Hurd, Remarks on Hume’s NHR, 1757, p. 9

3. Natural Religion: The Argument from Common Consent

It is altogether unimaginable, but that the Reason of so Universal a consent in all places and ages of the world, and among all differences of persons, should be one and constant; But no one and constant reason of this can be given, but from the nature of Mans mind and understanding, which hath this Notion of a Deity born with it, and stamped upon it; or, which is all one, is of such a frame, that in the free use and exercise of it self, it will find out God; And what more reasonable then to think, that if we be Gods Workmanship, he should set this mark of himself upon all reasonable Creatures, that they may know to whom they belong, and may acknowledg the Author of their Beings?

Tillotson, The Wisdom of Being Religious, 1664, p. 17

3. Natural Religion: The Argument from Common Consent

[T]he proper object of fear is something that is dreadful, that is, something that threatens Men with harm, or danger, and that in God must either be Power, or Justice; and such an object as this, fear indeed may create: But Goodness and Mercy are essential to the Notion of a God, as well as Power and Justice; Now how should fear put men upon fancying a Being that is infinitely good and merciful? No man hath reason to be afraid of such a Being as such. So that the Atheist must joyn another cause to Fear, viz. Hope, to enable men to create this imagination of a God. And what would the Product of these two contrary Passions be? The imagination of a Being, which we should fear would do us as much harm, as we could hope it would do us good; which would be Quid pro Quo, and which our Reason would oblige us to lay aside so soon as we had fancied it, because it would signifie just nothing.

Tillotson, The Wisdom of Being Religious, 1664, pp. 18-9

3. Natural Religion: The Argument from Common Consent

The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the divine workman has set upon his work; and nothing surely can more dignify mankind, than to be thus selected from all other parts of the creation, and to bear the image or impression of the universal Creator.

NHR 15.5

3. Natural Religion: Superstition and Genuine Theism

If your goal is simply to argue that the universality of the belief in invisible, intelligent power gives us no reason to think that belief is true, it suffices to come up with an explanation of the widespread nature of the belief that is independent of its truth. The belief may or may not be true, but the argument from its universality is undermined by the existence of an explanation that doesn’t require it to be so. Thus Bailey and O’Brien: “Hume’s causal story could be seen as neutral with respect to the question of whether God exists; his history could be true whether such a being exists or not” (2013, p. 189).

But how do we square this with his pronounements in support of the design argument?

3. Natural Religion: Superstition and Genuine Theism

How do we square this with his negative pronouncements about the irrationality and absurdity of religious belief, and of the psychological mechanisms that give rise to it?

• ignorance of the true causes of events (NHR 3.1)
• our propensity to project human sentiment onto everything is a “natural frailty” (NHR 3.2)
• “religionists, in all ages, have involved themselves in the greatest absurdities and contradictions” (NHR 6.10)
• religious belief arises from “irrational and superstitious principles” (NHR 6.4)

It’s not just that these principles can’t be trusted, and that the beliefs they give rise to therefore have no presumption of truth; it is that they are actively to be distrusted, with the beliefs they give rise to having an outright presumption of falsehood.

3. Natural Religion: Superstition and Genuine Theism

Superstition vs True Religion

The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; “and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.

NHR Intro.1

Many theists, even the most zealous and refined, have denied a particular providence, and have asserted, that the Sovereign mind or first principle of all things, having fixed general laws, by which nature is governed, gives free and uninterrupted course to these laws, and disturbs not, at every turn, the settled order of events by particular volitions. From the beautiful connexion, say they, and rigid observance of established rules, we draw the chief argument for theism; and from the same principles are enabled to answer the principal objections against it.

NHR 6.2

The psychological story Hume tells in the Natural History is of a kind that could only explain belief in an interventionist God. It is a path that begins in ignorance and anxiety concerning the immediate causes of events, and settles on a divine personification of those very causes.

By Origin in human Nature he [Hume] meant, Origin in the fancy or the Passions. For that Religion, which has the origin, here designed, is what the world calls RELIGION; and this he resolves into fanaticism or superstition: As that Religion which has its foundation in reason is what the world calls NATURALISM [“the belief of a God, the Creator and Physical Preserver, but not moral Governor of the world”; p. 9], the Religion of Philosophers like himself, and which he endeavours in this Essay to establish.

Hurd 1757, p. 11

It is not so much that Hume’s endorsements of genuine theism and the design argument were insincere. And those who suspected him of irreligion at the time didn’t suppose that they were. Rather, they took Hume to be perfectly sincere, and that was precisely the problem. It was clear from everything of substance that Hume said about superstition on the one side, and genuine theism on the other, that what he meant by “genuine theism” was very far from what any Christian apologist might have meant.

Hume wasn’t thought to be pursuing an irreligious agenda in spite of his professions of belief, but in large part because of them.