LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION General Editor: John Hick, Danforth Professor Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California 91711 This series of books explores contemporary religious understandings of humanity and the universe. The books contribute to various aspects of the continuing dialogues between religion and philosophy, between scepticism and faith, and between the different religions and ideologies. The authors represent a correspondingly wide range of viewpoints. Some of the books in the series are written for the general educated public and others for a more specialised philosophical or theological readership. ZEN AND WESTERN THOUGHT Masao Abe THE RELEVANCE OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO THEOLOGY William H. Austin CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH Paul Badham IMMORTALITY OR EXTINCTION? Paul and Linda Badham INCARNATION IN HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY Daniel E. Bassuk THE FRAGILE UNIVERSE Patrick Burke GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Margaret Chatterjee THE KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FROM PLATO TO LEIBNIZ William Lane Craig LOGIC AND THE NATURE OF GOD Stephen T. Davis THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF IN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY Lynn A. de Silva AN INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY Padmasiri de Silva THE AVAILABILITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS Pamchandra Gandhi HUME'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION J. C. A. Gaskin THE CONCEPT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD Brian Haymes THREE FAITHS-ONE GOD John Hick & Edmund 5. Meltzer (editors) GOD BEYOND KNOWLEDGE H. A. Hodges THE COGNITIVITY OF RELIGION J. Kellenberger THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ALL-KNOWING GOD Jonathan L. Kvanvig PERSONS AND LIFE AFTER DEATH Hywell D. Lewis THE FACE OF TRUTH Julius f. Lipner VEDANTIC APPROACHES TO GOD Eric Lott REINCARNATION AS A CHRISTIAN HOPE Geddes MacGregor AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERNARD LONERCAN Hugo A. Meynell THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF MORALITY F. C. T. Moore THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE Dennis Nineham RELIGION AND ULTIMATE WELL-BEING Martin Prozesky BELIEF, CHANGE AND FORMS OF LIFE D. Z. Phillips HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION KANT AS PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN Bernard M. G. Reardon REASON, RELATIVISM AND GOD Joseph Runzo EXPERIENCE, INFERENCE AND GOD John f. Shepherd RELIGION, TRUTH AND LANGUAGE GAMES SPIRIT, SAINTS AND IMMORTALITY Patrick Sherry CONCEPT AND EMPATHY RELIGION AND THE WESTERN MIND Ninian Smart TOWARDS A WORLD THEOLOGY Wilfred Cantwell Smith RELIGION AND RATIONAL CHOICE Shivesh Chandra Thakur FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND GOD Robert Young Further titles in preparation Series Standlna Order If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they are published, you can make use of our standing order facility. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address and the name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your standing order. (If you live outside the UK we may not have the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your order to the publisher concerned.) Standing Order Service, Macmillan Distribution Ud, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG212XS, England. Hullle' s Philosophy of Religion J. C. A. Gaskin Fellow of Trinity College Dublin Second Edition © J. C. A. Gaskin 1978, 1988 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1978 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LT O Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-39346-8 ISBN 978-1-349-18936-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18936-6 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Transferred to digital printing 2002 To To a' the men, and women too, That dine wi' me and have no view Of how the world should be put right, Or pulled to bits with virtuous spite; To a' the friends that walked wi' me O'er heather hills where men are free, And turning hame, when comes the night, Would talk by fires we kindled bright; To a' who formed this book for print And gave me thoughtful help or hint; To a' on whom I've long relied- These arguments are new inscribed. J.C.A.G. Contents Preface ix List of Abbreviations xii 1 Introduction: Hume on Religion 1 Publications and Controversy 1 The Object of the Revised Exercise 5 PART ONE NATURAL RELIGION AND NATURAL BELIEF 2 Order and Design 11 The Structure of the Argument 12 Restrictions on the Conclusion 17 The Unique Cause Objection 24 Weakness in the Analogy 27 Possible Sources of Order 41 'Principles of Order' and 'Irregular Arguments' 47 3 Evil, Freedom and the Religious Hypothesis 52 The Inference Problem of Evil 53 The Consistency Problem of Evil 58 The Free Will Problem 69 4 Being and Necessity 74 Necessary Beings 76 The Infinite Chain of Insufficient Reasons 84 Existence and the Conception of a Thing 90 5 Meaning, School Metaphysics and Divinity 94 Words and Ideas 94 A Meaning Which Confounds Everything 101 The Immense Abyss 104 6 Scepticism and Natural Belief 108 Varieties of Scepticism 110 Reasonable Belief 113 Natural Belief 116 vii viii Contents 7 God and Natural Order 120 Belief in God as a Natural Belief 120 The Feeling of Design 126 PART TWO REVEALED, HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL RELIGION 8 Miracles and Revelation 135 The Significance of Miracles and Contrary Miracles 136 The Eighteenth-Century Controversy 143 The Reliability of Witnesses 152 Laws of Nature 159 9 The Revelation of Immortality 166 Species of Immortality 166 Hume' s Arguments 169 10 The Causes and Corruptions of Religion 183 An Origin in Human Nature 184 True and Corrupt Religion 187 11 The Corruptions Caused by Religion 192 Sick Men's Dreams 193 Frivolous Species of Merit 194 If Suicide be Criminal 203 12 The Dispassionate Sceptic 209 Hume's Beliefs and Philo's Arguments 209 The Attenuated Deist 219 The Citizen of the World 229 Notes 232 Index 247 Preface Whether this edition of Hume's Philosophy of Religion is closer to a new book or to a rewrite of the 1978 text others will judge.lt follows the same overall purpose but restructured, extended, much revised in detail and, at one point, significantly modified. The purpose is to gather Hume's thought about religion from its diversity of sources, published and unpublished by him, and to display it as the coherent and systematic critique of all religious belief and activity which it undoubtedly is. In this way the book is intended to be read as a whole. But it is not primarily or exclusively intended as a contribution to the history of ideas, and I trust it retains the characteristic noted by critics of the first edition: namely that of being useful on particular topics as an introduction to critical issues inHume's philosophy. The detailed amendments are in points of style and to achieve additional accuracy. Wherever practicable they also take note of relevant publications which have appeared since the original manuscript was completed in 1976. The text has been made longer by additional material concerning the design argument. This is in Chapter 2 and in the largely new Chapter 7. New sections have been added to Chapters 8 and 11, and the notes to Chapter 12 develop further my thesis that Hume was an 'attenuated deist'. A section on personal identity originally in Chapter 9 has been omitted, and there are a number of other minor abbreviations. The modification in the argument has been brought about by my reading (or re-reading) of publications by Nelson Pike, P. S. Wadia, Stanley Tweyman, D. F. Norton and others, but particularly of those by Terence Penelhum. This has resulted in refinement and restatement of my original position that belief in god is not a natural belief. Partly to facilitate this restatement, partly because I now think a better presentation of the material results, the work is now divided into two (originally three) parts: I trust their titles explain the division. ix Preface X CONVENTIONS On first mention I give Hume's major works their full titles. I subsequently refer to them by the abbreviated titles and in the editions specified on page xii. In order to minimise the irritation of end notes, references are given in brackets after quotations. In all quotations the punctuation and spelling of the originals have been retained. Quotations from the Bible are from the Authorised Version of King James. Apart from a personal aversion to the dated modernity of some recent translations, for Hume, as for almost all who have written in the English language since the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Authorised Version is the Bible. One other convention needs to be noted. When I refer to God in the normal theistic sense I shall use a capital 'G' or speak of 'the theistic God'. When this God is given any of the specific characteristics which assoCiate the deity with a particular theistic religion, I shall use a qualifying phrase such as 'the Christian God'. When a god (or gods) are referred to in any other sense, or indeterminately (as will usually be the case) I shall write 'god' without the capital letter. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Earlier versions of parts of certain chapters in this book have appeared in article form. I am indebted to the editors of the following journals and publications for their permission to adapt the material for use in the present publication (the date of original appearance is given in brackets): Hermathena (1964 and 1978); Philosophy (1974); Journal of the History of Philosophy (1976); Religious Studies (1976); McGill Hume Studies (1979); Archiv for Geschichte der Philosophie (1983); Hume Studies (1985). I remain indebted to Antony Flew for his critical reading of the original manuscript of this work: a salutary experience which delivered me from many errors. My thanks are also due to Pheroze Wadia for his detailed comments on the first edition.