Some of the seeming gaps in the Treatise are filled by pointing out the basic theism that was fundamental to its logic. The Treatise reasoned that the functions of the mind were based on passions and that its ideas depended on associations. Both passions and associations were unstable categories to the rationalists. On the Humean standard, however, passions and associations were stabilized by the assumption of hidden causes, also known as “original qualities of human nature” (T, introd., 8) and “powers of nature” (1.4.4.5). The “ultimate principles” and “general rules” of human nature consistently guided the mind to form and associate ideas. Idea formation requires the mind to relate a collection of distinct perceptions, that is, to do something that goes well beyond the scope of immediate experience. Given this, we might say that the formation of ideas and their subsequent association was partially an act of transcending what was given in experience. Another way to state this is to say that ideas were formed by the mind’s immediate collation of what experience provided. For the Humean, this act of collating perceptions depended on principles of collation itself that were mysteriously given by hidden powers of nature. This means that the principles of human nature that guided the mind transcended the mind (and possibly nature). Gilles Deleuze, in his fascinating study of Hume, Empiricism and Subjectivity, remarked that Hume’s empiricism was defined by just this kind of dualism. He contended that in the Treatise “an empirical dualism exists between terms and relations, or more exactly between the causes of perceptions and the causes of relations, between the hidden powers of nature and the principles of human nature.” Deleuze’s idea of a “transcendental empiricism” expands our ability to keep track of the basic theism at the core of Hume’s philosophy. He reminds us that our subjectivity, for example, is constituted by, but not reducible to, what is given to us in experience. This means that there is something beyond experience, that Hume is not a strict empiricist, and that—for Deleuze—Hume embraces a form of transcendence. I label the disposition for this sort of transcendence “basic theism.” Deleuze explains it as follows: “We cannot make use of the principles of association in order to know the world as an effect of divine activity, and even less to know God as the cause of the world; but we can always think of God negatively as the cause of the principles [of human nature]. It is in this sense that theism is valid.”9
My claim that Hume’s early philosophy has a basic theism—a sense of order and regularity—can be articulated in both strong and weak forms. The stronger statement is that basic theism is a presupposition of Hume’s philosophy; the weaker one is that Hume’s early philosophy does not foreclose the possibility of basic theism. Neither position demands religious expression nor requires Christian deity. Both rely very minimally if at all on traditional metaphysical arguments for theism, or make any claims about the nature of this “Author.” The disposition I want to direct our attention to is a simple and basic belief, a foundational assumption from which Hume launched into his philosophical work. This belief in basic theism makes experience comprehensible due to the fact that it gives the mind mysterious principles to form an identity by associating ideas of the imagination. If the mind is, as Deleuze argues it is for Hume, a mere “assemblage” of “things as they appear,” then there must be something beyond it, something that is not given in this assemblage but required by it.10 Basic theism is the acceptance of this background for the mind: it meets the Humean standard of reasonability and allows the mind to hold fictions of identity, constancy, and uniformity as it composes ideas. This basic belief and the fictions it both relies on and produces have merit for true and false forms of religion. From the perspective of my speculative project for true religion, the value of documenting this assumption in Hume’s early philosophy is that it allows us to discuss how basic theism might morph into more of a genuine theism.
The evolution of basic theism to genuine theism mirrors the logic of the evolution of basic theism to vulgar theism. NHR explains the latter: the direct passions, fear and hope, modify the disposition basic theism into the vulgar theism of false religion. Thus, it follows that calm passions can modify belief in basic theism into the genuine theism of true religion. Following the path of basic theism to false religion exposes “sick men’s dreams” (15.6), yet conjecturing on how basic theism might lead to true religion makes Hume’s ideal for religion less opaque. The rare, true religion could, under very exceptional conditions, help to “reform Men’s Lives, to purify their Hearts, to inforce all moral Duties, & to secure Obedience to the Laws & civil Magistrate.”11 Note Hume’s use of the infinitive form of verbs: “to reform,” “to purify,” “to inforce,” and “to secure.” Cumulatively and in significant part, we might say that these are the functions of a Humean true religion.
It is important not to overstep: the fact that Hume “warmly endorses what he calls ‘true religion’” and “sometimes speaks approvingly of ‘true religion’” does not dismantle his powerful conviction that most of the time our unmediated fears and hopes shape the natural propensity for basic theism into belief in a particular providence or a personal god, the vulgar theistic attitude of false religion.12 He writes, “Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men’s dreams: or perhaps will regard them more as the playsome whimsies of monkeys in human shape” (NHR, 15.6). He seems to at least allow, however, for a less vulgar alternative, a basic or general “universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature” (15.5).
POTENTIAL RESPONSES TO MY ARGUMENT FOR BASIC THEISM
My emphasis on basic theism in Hume’s early philosophy is likely to generate four responses. I name them the standard, fideist, moderate, and skeptical readings. The standard interpretation vehemently rejects the designation ‘theism’ when it is applied to Hume’s work. This position begins by reducing the idea of religion to a system of beliefs about God, an error generally made by those who hold conventional conceptions of both theism and religion. Theism, on this view, is conceived as veneration of a worship-worthy, omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent deity and taken as the substance of religion. From this perspective Hume is considered irreligious due to his frontal assault on popular religion and his trenchant criticisms of traditional metaphysics.13 It follows that if religion is purely reducible to theism, then Hume’s irreligion must be the equivalent of antitheism. This way of reading Hume completely ignores the basic theism in his philosophy and leaves us with a nontheistic and irreligious David Hume.14
The standard interpretation is useful: it reaffirms Hume’s seminal criticisms of religion and reminds us of the close connections between religion and theism. To completely reduce religion to theism, however, delimits our capacity to consider nontheistic traditions as religious and restricts the possibility that our beliefs in “universal principles” (T, 1.1.4.1), “elements and powers of nature” (T, 1.4.4.5), and order in the universe (e.g., T, app., 18n) might mark a nonconventional, basic theism. Additionally, from this view Hume’s claim that the “whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author” (NHR, 1.1) is comprehensible only as ironic, deceitful, or cunning. Finally, the standard interpretation diminishes our ability to think creatively about the proper office for religion and truncates the conversation about the role nontraditional theism might play in a speculative, Humean-inspired true religion. In short, the standard position gives us no traction in our quest to use Hume as a generative resource in religious studies.
A second response to the idea that Hume’s work contains a basic theism is the fideist view. This position claims that Hume’s skepticism concerning reason along with his refusal to explicitly discard