The Potential Use-Value of Hume's ‘True Religion’

Abstract

Many hold that Hume was an atheist, that he despised the church, and that he was a devastating critic of religion. One cannot deny, however, the references to ‘true religion’ in his work, his sometimes seemingly favorable references to Deity, his call for religion in ‘every civilized community’, and his sense of (what has come to be known as) ‘natural belief’. The following essay describes a speculative Humean ‘true religion’ and discusses its potential use-value for contemporary philosophy of religion. It begins, anecdotally, with a description of Hume's happiness in France, which I attribute to the fact that Hume was not taken to be an atheist by the French reading public. The main argument is that while Hume was critical of ‘vulgar’ and ‘popular’ religion, his philosophical position did not deny our habit to accept a genuine theism that could, if informed by the calm passions, serve to ‘purify our hearts’ and bond us more closely together. Reconceiving Hume's ‘true religion’ in this way allows his insights to be used to support constructive efforts in the philosophy of religion. I conclude with a description of how this might work in light of three debates in religious studies and the philosophy of religion.