The Causes and Corruptions of Religion

Abstract

Hume’s critique of religion includes not only the traditional arguments for rational theism and the supposed authenticating marks of revelation but also the causes of religion in human nature and its effects in society. The effects of religion upon society are the concern of Hume the historian and moralist rather than Hume the philosopher. But an adequate account of the causes of religious belief, though not itself philosophy, is an essential complement to his philosophical thinking about religion. If, as Hume seems to conclude, the arguments of natural religion are bad or establish only a hesitant and highly attenuated conclusion, and if the authenticity of revelation is suspect, then an appeal will almost inevitably be made by the believer to the argument from general consent: why is it that religious belief is and always has been so very prevalent? The argument, as J. S. Mill observes, ‘admonishes us to look out for and weigh the reasons on which this conviction of mankind or of wise men was founded’. The short and conciliatory answer—that belief in god is a natural belief—is, as I have shown, not adopted by Hume and not adopted for the very good reason that belief in god does not satisfy the conditions for a natural belief.

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption, which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

Gibbon, Roman Empire, ch. XV