Smith scholars have become interested of late in his thoughts on religion, and particularly the question of the degree to which Smith's understanding of religion was indebted to the influence of his close friend Hume. Until now this debate has largely focused on three elements of Smith's religious thought: his personal beliefs, his conception of natural religion, and his treatment of revealed religion. Yet largely unexplored has been one of the most important elements of Smith's thinking about religion: namely his (...) treatment of ‘the natural principles of religion’ in TMS 3.5. What follows aims to reconstruct this treatment and thereby shed light on what Smith might have meant by ‘the natural principles of religion’, and how he understood the relationship of religion and morality more generally – an understanding, it is argued, that significantly differs from Hume's, and reveals Smith to have been a critic of Hume's vision of the relationship of religion to morality, for all their agreements on other fronts. (shrink)

What darkness was the ‘Enlightenment’ supposed to have removed? The answer is irrational forms of religion. Most of the ‘enlightened’ took the view that revealed religion was irrational and that natural religion could be rational; but some were sceptical about natural religion too. Hume was the most honest and the most penetrating thinker of the latter group. His biographer, Professor E. C. Mossner, is not alone in believing that the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion is ‘his philosophical testament’.