Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing but sick men’s dreams.
David Hume[1]
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls Hume “the most important philosopher ever to write in English.”[2] He was also bad news for religion.
Hume was born in 1711, and his life -- he was a college dropout who became a teacher, writer, government official, and librarian -- wasn’t terribly startling. Neither was his personality; he was a fairly mild-mannered gentleman.
But his ideas were explosive.
Take his 1748 essay, “Of Miracles,” which said that miracles don’t happen and that anyone who believes in them is fooling himself. As a result, “Of Miracles” says that Christianity doesn’t hold up: “The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.”[3] The essay is so dangerous that Christians still attack it.[4]
Hume wanted a job as a college professor, but his opinions angered (or scared) university administrators into turning him down. He might have played safe and stayed away from controversy -- but every now and then, he turned out a book like The Natural History of Religion (1757) that infuriated theists all over again by saying that religion has no connection to rational thought or verifiable facts.
Some of his works carried ideas so hot that he didn’t dare let them out. His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) might have angered religious people into killing him if he hadn’t died three years earlier. It’s in that book that Hume wrote an opinion that could be his epitaph:
“If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.”[5]
[1] David Hume, The Natural History of Religion, Section 15 (1757), http://www.davidhume.org/texts/?text=nhr
[2] Uncredited, “David Hume,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website (May 15, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
[3] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 10 (“Of Miracles”) (1748), http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/15.html
[4] Michael Gleghorn, “Hume’s Critique of Miracles,” Probe Ministries website, 2010, http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.5924027/k.8661/Humes_Critique_of_Miracles.htm; Daniel Schrock, “Hume’s Argument Against Belief in Miracles,” Reformed Forum website (2009), http://reformedforum.org/files/2010/08/schrock_humes_article_against_miracles.docx; Arnie Gentile, “Miracles, Part 2: Defeating David Hume,” My Christian Apologetics website (November 8, 2009), http://mychristianapologetics.com/2009/11/08/miracle-part-2-defeating-david-hume.aspx
[5] David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm and http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/5/8/4583/4583.txt
No comments:
Post a Comment