Natural religion involves knowledge of God drawn from nature,
solely by the use of reasoning. Often this involves drawing
conclusions about the natural design we see in the universe.
Revealed religion, on the other hand, involves religious
knowledge derived from revelation, specifically divinely inspired
texts such as the Bible. From his earliest writings, Hume
attacked both of these alleged avenues of religious truth. In the
Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), published when he was 27,
Hume attacks natural religion arguing that our ideas reach no
farther than our experience; since we have no experience of
divine attributes and operations, then we can have no conception
of divine attributes. In his infamous essay on miracles from An
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume goes a step
further and attacks revealed religion. He argues that it is never
reasonable to believe in violations of natural laws, such as
reports of miracles and prophecies, which in turn are the
foundations of revealed religion. Given the rational bankruptcy
of both natural and revealed religion, what remains, for Hume, is
what he calls vulgar religion. Vulgar religion is the religious
belief of the masses, and we understand this by uncovering the
true psychological causes of these beliefs, such as emotions and
instincts. He examines vulgar religion in his Natural History of
Religion (1757), a work he composed simultaneously with the
Dialogues.
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