David Hume's Argument For The Existence Of God
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who lived in the mid to late 1700’s. He wrote on a variety of topics, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, the self, and more. However, some of his most intriguing and significant work was done on the philosophy of religion. Though he was often very definitive and straight forward in his works, he never made a truly positive statement regarding his religious beliefs. Much evidence exists suggesting that he was an atheist, however he often seems to waver and frequently hints at a belief in the divine, despite his skepticism. In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, for example, he writes: “Our most holy religion” (qtd. Cahn 885); and, “divine existence (which I never questioned)” (qtd. Cahn 887). Though
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he continuously dismantles arguments affirming the existence of God, he often leaves bits and pieces of evidence suggesting his belief in God. This makes it difficult to ascertain Hume’s true stance on religion. In this essay, I will be examining Hume’s writings and philosophies in hopes of getting to the root of his true religious beliefs.
The first important fact to consider when analyzing Hume’s religious beliefs, is the fact that he was a staunch empiricist: that is, he believed there was no such thing as “a priori knowledge” and that all knowledge is gained through experience. This is evident in his work, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, where he writes:
But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find upon a nearer examination that it is really confined within very narrow limits and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience (qtd. Cahn 839).
In this short passage, Hume lays down his most essential, most fundamental claim: knowledge derives from experience. However, if this is true and all knowledge derives from experience, where does the knowledge of God come from? Could God, even exist under this constraint? How could humans have even conceived of Him? No one alive has ever seen Him (or at least no one reputable and reliable enough to take testimony from), and there exists no first-hand evidence of his existence. All that exists as proof of God is what is written in the Bible: second-hand testimony of miracles performed thousands of years ago and, most cases, not recorded until 50 to 100 years after their occurrence. This is troubling to Hume. Second-hand testimony of any kind is less credible than first-hand experience. Add in a 50 to 100-year gap before it is written down, and then add a couple thousand years of interpretations and translations, and the certainty of this testimony comes into question. As it stands, Hume thinks we should be skeptical of any event which we did not personally witness. He also claims that our level of skepticism should change in relation to the source of this knowledge and the nature of the knowledge itself. He claims that we should weigh the probability of the event and compare it the probability of the source being false. For example, if a stranger on the street told you that she had just seen a bird fly overhead, you would likely believe her because the odds that a bird flew overhead are fairly high—birds fly overhead fairly often. The odds that she was lying, therefore, are relatively low. However, if that same person, had instead told you that she saw a bird the size of a car fly overhead before it suddenly vanished into thin air, you likely wouldn’t believe her because that has never, ever happened before and it goes against all that we know about the laws of nature. In this case, your skepticism of that claim goes up significantly due to its absurdity and the likelihood that she is lying, or was at least mistaken, increases. Now, imagine that her claim of the giant disappearing bird wasn’t even written down until 50 to 100 years after she made it, then add a couple thousand years of interpretation and translation and the probability of her claim goes way, way down. At that point, there is sufficient cause to question the source of the knowledge and therefore the knowledge itself. Hume had this exact concern with using the as proof of God. In his work, An Enquiry on Human Understanding, Hume writes: “If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the even which he relates, then, and not until then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion” (qtd. in Cahn 878). For Hume, the testimony of the apostles as recorded in the Bible does not satisfy this condition: the falsehood of the testimony would not be more miraculous than the falsehood of the event itself: therefore, it is not reliable testimony and is not sufficient proof of the existence of God. Hume denying the Bible and the testimony of miracles as proof of the existence of God, would suggest that he is, in fact, an atheist. However, we cannot yet say definitively that this is true. He has only disproved a single argument and has not yet stated, outright, any disbelief. We need more evidence to prove Hume’s denial of the existence of God.
Another compelling piece of evidence suggesting Hume’s atheism comes from Section II of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, titled, Of the Origin of Ideas. In this section, Hume outlines his belief that all knowledge comes from experience and claims that all ideas have some external source. He argues that even the most abstract and convoluted ideas come from our environment in some way, if it is apparent or not. To prove this claim, Hume fearlessly chooses the idea of God as his example. He writes:
First, when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment. Even those ideas which at first view seem the most ide of this origin are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom (qtd. in Cahn 839).
In this passage, Hume claims that the experiences we base our knowledge of God on, are, after all, just the best qualities of ourselves drawn out to infinity. He argues that we take what we see in ourselves—goodness, wisdom, life—and expand it to infinity to get an eternal, omniscient, supremely good deity in the form of a human. Here, Hume blatantly challenges the existence of God, suggesting that he was an atheist after all. More evidence of Hume’s atheism exists in his work, The Natural History of Religion, in which he writes about the origin of religious thought.
However, as Nathan Sasser points out in his essay Hume and the Implanted Knowledge of God, Hume “[would] not take up the [] question, concerning the origin of religious belief in reason – that is, in arguments for the existence or attributes of God” (Sasser 24). Hume refused to make any claim, outright, on the existence of God. However, his arguments regarding the origins of religion which do imply his denial of the divine. For example, he explains in depth the development of modern, monotheistic religion as an evolution of polytheism, which was itself a creation of human beings. He claims that polytheism developed due to a human tendency called the “Propensity to Project”, which Sasser explains as the inclination of humans, “to ascribe human thoughts and passions to the unknown causes of feared or hoped-for events” (Sasser 28). In other words, humans want to explain the world around them and when they encounter something they don’t understand, they assign it a cause and ascribe that cause human traits. For example, in ancient times, if there was a bad harvest, the interpretation was that the sun—who was responsible for life and growth and therefore the harvest—was mad at them. The sun was then deified and assigned human characteristics like the ability to make decisions cast judgements—the sun had feelings and moods and was directly responsible for events on earth. The same process then occurred with the moon and the ocean and the rain, etc. and led to polytheism as deities were further augmented and given more human attributes. Hume then claims that polytheism spawned monotheism after certain sects attributed their favored deity with more and more augmented humanistic quality until they reached infinity—eternal life—and the modern concept of God was born. By tracing the roots of religion and rationalizing the belief in
God, Hume seems to be questioning God’s existence altogether and imply his atheist beliefs. . As Nathan Sasser points out, The Natural History of Religion gives us one final example of Hume’s skepticism towards God when he writes:
There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. . . No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in such an absolute ignorance of causes, and being at the same time so anxious concerning their future fortune, should immediately acknowledge dependence on invisible powers, possessed of sentiment and intelligence. The unknown causes, which continually employ their thought, appearing always in the same respect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought and reason and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures of men, in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with ourselves (qtd. in Sasser 28).
The language of this passage alone reflects an air of condescension and even contempt towards believers in God. With phrases like, “absolute ignorance of causes”, and “invisible powers”, Hume seems to be calling out theists and even poking fun at the construct of religion altogether. He talks about the inventors of religion as an adult would talk about a child mistakenly believing his/her house was haunted because of the noises radiator makes when the heat turns on. He thinks it is silly that they assume the existence of a divine power despite lacking a true understanding of cause and effect. He even seems to think the very existence of such a divine being is silly, calling it an, “invisible power[]”, he seems to mock the concept of God altogether. This passage is very telling, and certainly suggests that Hume was, after all an atheist. With all the evidence compiled here, I feel extremely confident stating that Hume was, in fact, an atheist. Although he never definitively stated his non-belief, the arguments he used to explain the origins of religion all but necessitate his atheism. It would be extremely hypocritical to argue as ardently as Hume did that religion is a human construct and that the testimony of the Bible can’t be taken as proof of God, and then somehow claim a belief in the divine. Furthermore, Hume was a skeptic at heart and empiricist by nature, so it comes as no surprise that he had trouble swallowing the idea of an imperceptible power ruling over the material world. So, why did he waver so often in his stance against religion? My guess is that he was afraid of being labeled a heretic and be ostracized or persecuted by the church and by society. Even in the age of Enlightenment in which he was writing, it was dangerous to speak out against God, and it was even more dangerous to flat-out deny His existence. For this reason, I believe Hume was simply being cautious—covering his tracks, as it were—in an attempt to ruffle as few feathers as possible (though he was quite unsuccessful at this). After my analysis of his work and my consideration of the work of Nathan Sasser who thoroughly explained many of Hume’s arguments against an inherent belief in the divine, it is clear to me that David Hume was, in fact, an atheist.
he continuously dismantles arguments affirming the existence of God, he often leaves bits and pieces of evidence suggesting his belief in God. This makes it difficult to ascertain Hume’s true stance on religion. In this essay, I will be examining Hume’s writings and philosophies in hopes of getting to the root of his true religious beliefs.
The first important fact to consider when analyzing Hume’s religious beliefs, is the fact that he was a staunch empiricist: that is, he believed there was no such thing as “a priori knowledge” and that all knowledge is gained through experience. This is evident in his work, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, where he writes:
But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find upon a nearer examination that it is really confined within very narrow limits and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience (qtd. Cahn 839).
In this short passage, Hume lays down his most essential, most fundamental claim: knowledge derives from experience. However, if this is true and all knowledge derives from experience, where does the knowledge of God come from? Could God, even exist under this constraint? How could humans have even conceived of Him? No one alive has ever seen Him (or at least no one reputable and reliable enough to take testimony from), and there exists no first-hand evidence of his existence. All that exists as proof of God is what is written in the Bible: second-hand testimony of miracles performed thousands of years ago and, most cases, not recorded until 50 to 100 years after their occurrence. This is troubling to Hume. Second-hand testimony of any kind is less credible than first-hand experience. Add in a 50 to 100-year gap before it is written down, and then add a couple thousand years of interpretations and translations, and the certainty of this testimony comes into question. As it stands, Hume thinks we should be skeptical of any event which we did not personally witness. He also claims that our level of skepticism should change in relation to the source of this knowledge and the nature of the knowledge itself. He claims that we should weigh the probability of the event and compare it the probability of the source being false. For example, if a stranger on the street told you that she had just seen a bird fly overhead, you would likely believe her because the odds that a bird flew overhead are fairly high—birds fly overhead fairly often. The odds that she was lying, therefore, are relatively low. However, if that same person, had instead told you that she saw a bird the size of a car fly overhead before it suddenly vanished into thin air, you likely wouldn’t believe her because that has never, ever happened before and it goes against all that we know about the laws of nature. In this case, your skepticism of that claim goes up significantly due to its absurdity and the likelihood that she is lying, or was at least mistaken, increases. Now, imagine that her claim of the giant disappearing bird wasn’t even written down until 50 to 100 years after she made it, then add a couple thousand years of interpretation and translation and the probability of her claim goes way, way down. At that point, there is sufficient cause to question the source of the knowledge and therefore the knowledge itself. Hume had this exact concern with using the as proof of God. In his work, An Enquiry on Human Understanding, Hume writes: “If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the even which he relates, then, and not until then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion” (qtd. in Cahn 878). For Hume, the testimony of the apostles as recorded in the Bible does not satisfy this condition: the falsehood of the testimony would not be more miraculous than the falsehood of the event itself: therefore, it is not reliable testimony and is not sufficient proof of the existence of God. Hume denying the Bible and the testimony of miracles as proof of the existence of God, would suggest that he is, in fact, an atheist. However, we cannot yet say definitively that this is true. He has only disproved a single argument and has not yet stated, outright, any disbelief. We need more evidence to prove Hume’s denial of the existence of God.
Another compelling piece of evidence suggesting Hume’s atheism comes from Section II of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, titled, Of the Origin of Ideas. In this section, Hume outlines his belief that all knowledge comes from experience and claims that all ideas have some external source. He argues that even the most abstract and convoluted ideas come from our environment in some way, if it is apparent or not. To prove this claim, Hume fearlessly chooses the idea of God as his example. He writes:
First, when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment. Even those ideas which at first view seem the most ide of this origin are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom (qtd. in Cahn 839).
In this passage, Hume claims that the experiences we base our knowledge of God on, are, after all, just the best qualities of ourselves drawn out to infinity. He argues that we take what we see in ourselves—goodness, wisdom, life—and expand it to infinity to get an eternal, omniscient, supremely good deity in the form of a human. Here, Hume blatantly challenges the existence of God, suggesting that he was an atheist after all. More evidence of Hume’s atheism exists in his work, The Natural History of Religion, in which he writes about the origin of religious thought.
However, as Nathan Sasser points out in his essay Hume and the Implanted Knowledge of God, Hume “[would] not take up the [] question, concerning the origin of religious belief in reason – that is, in arguments for the existence or attributes of God” (Sasser 24). Hume refused to make any claim, outright, on the existence of God. However, his arguments regarding the origins of religion which do imply his denial of the divine. For example, he explains in depth the development of modern, monotheistic religion as an evolution of polytheism, which was itself a creation of human beings. He claims that polytheism developed due to a human tendency called the “Propensity to Project”, which Sasser explains as the inclination of humans, “to ascribe human thoughts and passions to the unknown causes of feared or hoped-for events” (Sasser 28). In other words, humans want to explain the world around them and when they encounter something they don’t understand, they assign it a cause and ascribe that cause human traits. For example, in ancient times, if there was a bad harvest, the interpretation was that the sun—who was responsible for life and growth and therefore the harvest—was mad at them. The sun was then deified and assigned human characteristics like the ability to make decisions cast judgements—the sun had feelings and moods and was directly responsible for events on earth. The same process then occurred with the moon and the ocean and the rain, etc. and led to polytheism as deities were further augmented and given more human attributes. Hume then claims that polytheism spawned monotheism after certain sects attributed their favored deity with more and more augmented humanistic quality until they reached infinity—eternal life—and the modern concept of God was born. By tracing the roots of religion and rationalizing the belief in
God, Hume seems to be questioning God’s existence altogether and imply his atheist beliefs. . As Nathan Sasser points out, The Natural History of Religion gives us one final example of Hume’s skepticism towards God when he writes:
There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. . . No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in such an absolute ignorance of causes, and being at the same time so anxious concerning their future fortune, should immediately acknowledge dependence on invisible powers, possessed of sentiment and intelligence. The unknown causes, which continually employ their thought, appearing always in the same respect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought and reason and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures of men, in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with ourselves (qtd. in Sasser 28).
The language of this passage alone reflects an air of condescension and even contempt towards believers in God. With phrases like, “absolute ignorance of causes”, and “invisible powers”, Hume seems to be calling out theists and even poking fun at the construct of religion altogether. He talks about the inventors of religion as an adult would talk about a child mistakenly believing his/her house was haunted because of the noises radiator makes when the heat turns on. He thinks it is silly that they assume the existence of a divine power despite lacking a true understanding of cause and effect. He even seems to think the very existence of such a divine being is silly, calling it an, “invisible power[]”, he seems to mock the concept of God altogether. This passage is very telling, and certainly suggests that Hume was, after all an atheist. With all the evidence compiled here, I feel extremely confident stating that Hume was, in fact, an atheist. Although he never definitively stated his non-belief, the arguments he used to explain the origins of religion all but necessitate his atheism. It would be extremely hypocritical to argue as ardently as Hume did that religion is a human construct and that the testimony of the Bible can’t be taken as proof of God, and then somehow claim a belief in the divine. Furthermore, Hume was a skeptic at heart and empiricist by nature, so it comes as no surprise that he had trouble swallowing the idea of an imperceptible power ruling over the material world. So, why did he waver so often in his stance against religion? My guess is that he was afraid of being labeled a heretic and be ostracized or persecuted by the church and by society. Even in the age of Enlightenment in which he was writing, it was dangerous to speak out against God, and it was even more dangerous to flat-out deny His existence. For this reason, I believe Hume was simply being cautious—covering his tracks, as it were—in an attempt to ruffle as few feathers as possible (though he was quite unsuccessful at this). After my analysis of his work and my consideration of the work of Nathan Sasser who thoroughly explained many of Hume’s arguments against an inherent belief in the divine, it is clear to me that David Hume was, in fact, an atheist.