Philo's argument from evil in a much-discussed passage in Part X of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) has been interpreted in three main ways: as a logical argument from evil, as an evidential argument from evil, and as an argument against natural theology's inference of a benevolent and merciful God from the course of the world. I argue that Philo is not offering an argument of any of these sorts, but is arguing that there is a radical disanalogy between (...) the meanings of terms like ‘merciful’ and ‘benevolent’ when applied to God and human beings respectively. Drawing on the new ‘Irreligious Interpretation’ of Hume's philosophy developed by Paul Russell (2002, 2008), I suggest that the underlying aim of Philo's argument appears to be to show, in opposition to Christian teaching, that these terms, when applied to God, are in effect meaningless. (shrink)

David Hume's various writings concerning problems of religion are among the most important and influential contributions on this topic. In these writings Hume advances a systematic, sceptical critique of the philosophical foundations of various theological systems. Whatever interpretation one takes of Hume's philosophy as a whole, it is certainly true that one of his most basic philosophical objectives is to unmask and discredit the doctrines and dogmas of orthodox religious belief. There are, however, some significant points of disagreement about the (...) exact nature and extent of Hume’s irreligious intentions. One of the most important of these is whether Hume's sceptical position leads him to a view that can be properly characterized as “atheism”. Although this was a view that was widely accepted by many of Hume's critics during his own lifetime, contemporary accounts have generally argued that this misrepresents his final position on this subject. The primary aims of this article are: (1) to give an account of Hume's main arguments as they touch on various particular issues relating to religion; and (2) to answer to the question concerning the general character of Hume's commitments on this subject. (shrink)

Scholars have hitherto found little to no place for natural philosophy in the intellectual makeup of the Enlightened historian William Robertson, overlooking his significant contacts with that province and its central relevance to the controversy surrounding David Hume and Lord Kames in the 1750s. Here I reexamine Robertson's Situation of the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance (1755) in light of these contexts. I argue that his foundational sermon drew upon the scientific theism of such thinkers as Joseph Butler, (...) Edmund Law, and Colin Maclaurin to counter the autonomous figurations of the universe associated with Hume and Kames, and to develop a historical account of progress based around Christian progressivism rather than the stadial theory of Adam Smith. Robertson conceived of history neither in secular terms nor in those of traditional religion, but sought instead to update the language of providentialism by naturalizing the sacred within a framework of general laws. (shrink)

. The object is to examine strategies commonly used to heighten a sense of the sacred in nature. It is argued that moves designed to reinforce a concept of Providence have been the very ones to release new opportunities for secular readings. Several case studies reveal this fluidity across a sacred‐secular divide. The irony whereby sacred readings of nature would graduate into the secular is also shown to operate in reverse as anti‐providentialist strategies invited their own refutation. The analysis is (...) used to support the claim that the sciences have put fewer constraints on religious belief than is generally assumed. (shrink)

James Harris’s new Hume biography offers, among other things, ‘a series of conjectures as to what Hume’s intentions were in writing in the particular ways that he did about human nature, politics, economics, history, and religion’. The biography is particularly novel with regard to Hume’s intentions when writing about religion, which, Harris argues, were rather benign. Harris fails to appreciate the full extent of the difficulties attaching to his series of conjectures, however.