A third idea of Cicero’s that also appeared in Hume’s work is that attention to the “heavens” or “divine nature” (religio, in the previous argument) both enables moderation and assists in the development of virtuous character, a reflection of classical moral philosophy. Cicero’s self-styled Stoicism concerned itself with the political and (by default) personal benefits of religio. He supported forms of sacred worship and cultic practices that prioritized justice, which he took to be the Stoic form of natural law. If religio led to justice it follows that it assisted the human telos toward happiness because “the moral life is the happy life.”22 On this logic, one can argue that religio supported the development of virtuous behavior and human excellence to encourage stability—a condition for personal happiness. Thus the development of virtuous character, happiness, and proper functioning of the state were moral considerations undergirding Cicero’s use of the supple category religio. When read in the direct light of this Ciceronian emphasis, Hume’s ethics seems to reflect more of a classical approach to morality. Perhaps his 1742 essay “The Stoic” (EMPL, 16.146–54), where he reproduced the style of the Ciceronian “rhetorical dialogue” and argued that “the great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness” (16.148), is most obvious in this regard. In it Hume seems to imbue the sense of happiness with something of a religious flavor, in the sense that it is driven by something greater than our personal motivations and natural dispositions.23 In this sense religion may enhance our moral lives, but the quality of our moral lives does not depend on religion.
These features of Cicero’s style and content in his treatment of religion are present in Hume’s philosophical, religious, and historical writings. Secondary scholarship confirms that Cicero influenced Hume more than any other classical writer. His impact on Hume’s moral thought and theory of the passions has been well documented. Religion was an area that was crucial for both men. Given these facts, we may fairly presume a Ciceronian influence on Hume’s thinking about religion. More details from Hume’s work will emerge in the subsequent discussion, but his Ciceronian stylistic foundations are clear: Hume writes about religion across genres and uses the dialogue form; he takes both a critical and affirmative approach to religion (true and false); and he believes the best of religion is historically grounded in the traditions that serve stability.
Content-wise, the three features of Cicero’s position on religion were also evident in Hume’s. Each chapter of this book offers more details to the categories that tentatively endow our Humean true religion: a basic theism, moderation of the passions, and veneration of character development, respectively. None of these claims regarding style or content are very controversial. The assertion, however, that we might take his general theism, moderation of the passions, and practical morality, cumulatively, as constitutive of the proper office of religion is maybe more so. It challenges the pervasive views that Hume was an atheist, that he was only critical of and hostile to religion, and that his religious interests were subsumed in his moral theory. These views have steered philosophers trained in religious studies away from engaging with the more generative components of Hume’s religious thought and concealed his mild affirmations of religion. Consider this clarification from Hume’s own hand in his response to charges of irreligion in the Treatise: “And must not a Man be ridiculous to assert that our Author denies the Principles of Religion, when he looks upon them as equally certain with the Objects of his Senses?” (LG, 21). Commonly explained away as ironic and insincere and as a “smoke screen” for Hume’s real position, the persistent association of Hume with hostility to religion deadens us to his quiet suggestions for religion and their Ciceronian influences.
Cicero’s approach to religio provides a classical starting point for thinking about Hume’s views of religion and sheds light on what may have been present in Hume’s thought that he did not develop. This allows us to construct our Humean true religion on more solid foundations. Of course, Hume did not explicitly define the features of true religion as genuine theism, moderation of the passions, and practical morality. We extend his thought with our speculative construction as a way of preserving its understated fragments.
Cicero’s political interests largely guided his reflections on religion that, in effect, authorized imperial power by endorsing a particular bundle of ritual practices over others. Hume had less of an explicit political investment, and his analysis of and mild suggestion for religion developed out of a discourse structured by modern logic. His eighteenth-century deference to the Ciceronian view of religion reflected the “classical revival” of his time, which was in part a strategy of resistance. Modern science and logic strove to provide the category ‘religion’ with philosophical legitimacy, for this would make it ‘true.’ Hume resisted the obsession with abstract, normative reason that informed modern discourse by claiming, like Cicero, that the true was best used to connote the most stable, not the most logical.
Philosophical Discourse on Religion: From Religio to True Religion
For with what confidence can I venture upon such bold enterprizes, when beside those numberless infirmities peculiar to myself, I find so many which are common to human nature? Can I be sure that in leaving all establish’d opinions I am following truth; and by what criterion shall I distinguish her, even if fortune shou’d at last guide me on her foot-steps?
—T, 1.4.7.3
My aim in this section is to give a brief account of the theme of the ‘true’ in philosophical discourse on religion in the West to illuminate how Hume may have responded to this discourse. Philosophical discourse on religion has largely been determined by historical developments in science, philosophy, and religion and deeply impacted by a complicated matrix of cultural, economic, political, and psychic challenges. It is difficult to tease out single threads from the complicated can of worms that has informed its arc and decipher their precise impact. A general history of this discourse bears out two facts: the first is that the idea ‘religion’ has proven to be flexible and always in process; the second is that modern philosophical discourse on religion has revolved around the theme of the true.
Cicero’s visionary management of religio highlighted the vast array of political, cultural, and economic considerations he faced. Establishing a particular form of worship as epistemically true was not a primary consideration for him. Religio, in his framing, was not a form of knowledge; it was public worship of the gods that led to the virtue of justice and supported the stability of the Roman Republic. This form of civic religion based on the Greek notion of religion was destabilized by the unpredictable interplay of sociopolitical and cultural factors along with the dynamism of the growing confrontation between Greek and Christian intellectual traditions. In other words, we can read the classical approach to religio as getting swept up in the