Hume was never more explicit than this about the content of true religion. We can presume that Cicero’s discussion of theism, his articulation of the role of the passions, and his description of the development of virtuous character likely influenced Hume’s sense of the proper office of religion. These content areas comport with Hume’s larger philosophical commitments: they are moderately skeptical, they affirm the reflective natural beliefs of common life, they challenge abstruse reason of false philosophy, they moderate the passions, and they extol a public morality that produces a more stable political order.50 They also cohere with the three-part division of Hume’s Treatise (the understanding, the passions, and morality), which I turn to in chapter 2. Hume—like Cicero—did not make hard distinctions between the social, the philosophic, the political, and the religious. For him, religion was natural, linked to the passions, and omnipresent in history. The disposition ‘true religion,’ however, was practically impossible to locate in history. As the discursive ideal that reflected the knowledge inherent in the stable beliefs of common life, it was to contrast vulgar religion, which operated under the illusion that it was in sync with the logical standards of metaphysics. One example of Hume’s explicit narration of this point occurs in an understudied essay, “Of Parties in General,” where he writes,
Most religions of the ancient world arose in the unknown ages of government, when men were as yet barbarous and uninstructed, and the prince, as well as peasant, was disposed to receive, with implicit faith, every pious tale or fiction, which was offered him. The magistrate embraced the religion of the people, and entering cordially into the care of sacred matters, naturally acquired an authority in them, and united the ecclesiastical with the civil power. But the Christian religion arising, while principles directly opposite to it were firmly established in the polite part of the world, who despised the nation that first broached this novelty; no wonder, that, in such circumstances, it was but little countenanced by the civil magistrate, and that the priesthood was allowed to engross all the authority in the new sect. . . . And the same principles of priestly government continuing, after Christianity became the established religion, they have engendered a spirit of persecution, which has ever since been the poison of human society, and the source of the most inveterate factions in every government. Such divisions, therefore, on the part of the people, may justly be esteemed factions of principle; but, on the part of the priests, who are the prime movers, they are really factions of interest. (EMPL, 8.13–14)
The following chapters attempt to support and develop the idea that content for a Humean true religion might be taken from the cumulative results of Hume’s project on the passions, his work on epistemology, and his contribution to moral thought. To some scholars, the rarefied status of true religion in Hume’s project and Hume’s ethical tilt raises questions about its value for religion. Others claim that his choice not to give explicit details to this category suggests irrelevance for his overall project. But David Hume took religious discourse—not just moral discourse—very seriously for intellectual and strategic reasons: he was committed to preventing the abuse of religion for political gain and invested in demonstrating the impossibility of grounding our religious beliefs in abstract thought. He valued religion for what it might do: moderate our passions, assist in the development of moral character, and enable loyalty to the state. He was also invested in preserving the reflexive traditions of common life.
This chapter had a twofold aim: to describe the possible Ciceronian links to Hume’s thinking about religion and to give a brief account of the development of the theme of the true in discourse on religion. I highlighted significant interventions in this discourse and showed Hume’s general response to the conversation he inherited. We now have some broad historical foundations for the argument of this book: that the cumulative achievements of Hume’s mild philosophical theism, the aim of his moral rationalism, and the conclusion of his project on the passions provide the best content for our speculative, Humean influenced notion of true religion.
If my philosophy, therefore, makes no addition to the arguments for religion, I have at least the satisfaction to think it takes nothing from them, but that everything remains precisely as before.
—T, 1.4.5.35
Hume framed his arguments about God within a climate of philosophical discourse on religion that generally reinforced the theism of popular Christianity. His philosophical mission was, in part, to expose the God of popular religion to be an unstable concept masquerading as religious truth. To Hume, the vulgar theism of this brand of false religion was both impractical and dangerous; it relied on a method of reasoning that betrayed the principles of understanding and distorted the natural powers of the mind. On his account the idea of a morally worthy deity was misleading, belief in worship-worthy divinity created factionalism, and the concept of a God with moral attributes was unintelligible. Hume’s devastating critique of popular theism relied on a moral stance (that God was not the source of our moral judgment), a political commitment to stability of the social order, historical awareness (from which he deduced that religion was most often destabilizing), and his approach to understanding the limits of the human mind. The latter interests frame the argument of this chapter.
An important focal point of Hume’s philosophical writings was his description of the process by which we come to hold beliefs and ideas. These foundations were important for his later “religious” writings. In the Natural History of Religion (NHR) what Hume called “vulgar theism” (as in common, general, or customary theistic beliefs) was a distortion that arose from the natural tendency of our imagination to form the idea that “the order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind” (T, app., 18n). In his first philosophical work he explained that the creative powers of the imagination—guided by associative principles—fashioned ideas of necessary connection, causal power, and regularity that were indispensable for experience. Some of these ideas struck the mind with vivacity, found support in conventions of social life (i.e., popular religion), and became beliefs. Hume’s argument, like any observational science, presupposed order and regularity (though he was critical of causal regularity). In fact, modern science—understood as knowledge of prediction—can proceed only if events and objects exist and produce specific effects according to their nature. Perhaps a Humean perspective would add a further stipulation: for science to be possible our minds must function in a way that makes it seem that events and objects exist and produce specific effects according to their very own mysterious natures.
Approaching Hume’s work through the lens of our speculative Humean true religion provides warrant for us to consider the presuppositions of Hume’s philosophy, at least provisionally, as a kind of “basic theism.” Reflecting on his work from this angle allows insight into his underdeveloped notion ‘genuine theism’ and provides grounds to determine if it might be justifiably positioned within religion’s proper office.
The Author of Nature
The order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind; that is, a mind whose will is constantly attended with the obedience of every creature and being.
—T.,